All in All in Book Six: Trying to Hold On 2019

When things go according to expectations… and that isn’t great.

Got home. Tired and exhausted. Went to the gym. Tired and exhausted and still the same weight. Came home… nothing much of anything. Had trouble falling asleep. Kind of same old, same old for last evening.

But my dream? Man, I must have been picking up TV Signals or something.
Some background: (1) I am aware of Brooklyn Nine Nine and know who is on the show, but I have never seen an episode; (2) Ames is where Iowa State University is located… while I worked there as a Private Attorney, that is not the County where I am currently employed; (3) Thompson is an ex-g/f… the ex g/f immediately prior to Wife. What is most interesting here is that.... of any woman I’ve ever known… Thompson was in more future dreams. Allow me to explain..... after Aoife left, I have dreamt about her a lot. So past tense dreams. While I was dating Thompson, I had a lot of dreams about our future… even about our towheaded little son. So that is future dreams. I don’t often have many dreams these days about Thompson at all.

The Dream

It was morning and I had fallen asleep in front of a black and white television in an older, small looking Victorian house. The tv, though black and white, was connected to a VCR playing an old Muppet Movie. I paused the movie and ran to my car in a hurry so I could make it to work. I wound up in a weird combination of Chicago and Des Moines. I got out of my car and was greeted by Terry Crews who offered to show me the secret entrance to the Head Police Quarters. I followed him and we were walking through businesses, restaurants, and finally found ourselves in a dinghy back alley with what looked to be a disease ridden public restroom. Terry put his thumb on the Restroom Sign and the panel slide to the left. An Iris Reader scanned his eye and then the Janitor Door let out a sound of a heavy lock being disengaged. Terry opened the door and I was greeted to an impressive sight. Extremely clean, high tech, fully manned stations reviewing CCTV from around the city. We entered and the door swung heavy behind us; shutting and locking instantly. Terry gave me a brief tour of the first level; showing me where officers checked in for the day, where documents were stored, the basics. Then a puppy police dog in training showed up and I stopped to pet it and play with it and discovered that Terry had left. So I kind of… went exploring. Found my way to the upper floors of administration and heard an Upper Management Type yelling at Terry for “losing” an attorney in the station. Terry made the excuse that I was an attorney for the State so I was on their side… Upper Management Man told him that wasn’t important, all attorneys are the bad guy. I kind of slinked (slunk?) away and continued exploring until I find the public stairs back down. I walked down those stairs and found myself in a large open room with a glass wall facing the street. The sign outside that I could read said “Criminal Bar Association”. I could hear attorneys cussing out their clients. One of my favorite was: Attorney- I don’t care how well you know him, you call for me first.
Client- Yeah, but he’s my dawg. I didn’t think there was gonna be no problem there, y’know.
Attorney- He’s. a. cop! You don’t brag about your drug deals to a cop. EVER!

At this point, I knew I needed to leave. But I didn’t want to go back up through the stairs and try to navigate all that with Upper Management already being mad. But the glass wall didn’t have any doors. Until I realized… CCTV! I walked over to a small stationary desk, grabbed a notecard and wrote “May I please be let out through the glass doors in the Criminal Bar Association?” I held the notecard up to a camera and heard a click in a door nearby. I walked over, pushed it open slightly and closed it quickly behind me. At this point, I knew I was late for meeting up with friends and raced to a bar.

At the bar, I met up with Thompson who looked like she did when we were dating. Athletic, tan, fit, super cute. We talked a bit, and I was feeling close to her again, when she started crying. Apparently, she had received some very official looking documents telling her that she owed thousands of dollars to the government and that she would be barred from receiving student loans, home loans, or other financial assistance until she sent at least a good faith amount to protect against these penalties. I wasn’t buying it. I had her show me the documents. She produced a large mailing envelop and dumped all the paperwork on the table. I could instantly recognize the smell due to my time working at the Chinese Firm. I quickly told her that they were fakes. Half of the pages came from Jakarta, and the other half were of a Cambodian paper that I wasn’t as familiar with. I assured her that this was a scam, albeit a high quality one, and she needn’t worry. She was still panicking and asked what she should do. I asked where she was living these days and she gave me an address in Ames. I said, “Take these papers to the County Attorney in Ames to verify that these are not official. Wait… I’m the County Attorney in Ames. And I do now verify that these are not official. But you’ll still want to swing by our police station to ask the Chief about protection against creditors if this scam starts calling you or harassing you over the phone.” She smiled big, gave me a giant hug and in that moment, I didn’t want to let go. But I squeezed her tight once and released her, happy to have helped. At that, I looked at my watch and realized I had to leave to catch Toonami! I thanked her for the evening and she gave me her number and address in Ames telling me not to be a stranger. I bolted out of the bar and ran as hard as I could. As I ran I had an idea for a story to write, but realized it was ripping off way too many elements of Shingeki No Kyojin and I abandoned the idea entirely. Then I got to a wooden door of an older, smaller Victorian looking house. My phone was showing the anime that was starting and I kicked the door down to find myself in the room where the dream had started. Black and White Television still on, paused exactly where I had left it on the old Muppet Movie. I could hear my parents having cocktails in the backyard. But I just settled onto the couch and changed the station to Cartoon Network.

Dream End, That’s When I Woke Up

Interesting enough, eh.

But… perhaps not as interesting, or certainly not as stressful as real life. Got in to work… Boss asked if I was going to have any trouble submitting evidence next week. I told him that all the officers gave me was testimony. He said.... that isn’t right. There should be drugs and pictures and things. I told him that the police have not given me any of that. SO.... shit need to find that stuff. Need to work through Jury Instructions. Need to submit Proposed Exhibit List. Need to return e-mails on 50 other cases. So much stress trying to deal with this ONE asshat who keeps saying, “I shouldn’t have to plead guilty because the cops violated my civil liberties!” They had a warrant, you were busted IN POSSESSION and after reviewing the photos? You had meth smoking paraphernalia in literally every room in your house. EVERY ROOM. Even the fucking bathroom! I’m encouraging you to take an Aggravated Misdemeanor with no jail time. You’re facing a C Felony with 10 year maximum. DO. THE FUCKING. MATH.