15-03.13.62 in Book Two: The Fifteenth Year of the Third Millennium of the Common Era

Alternate Title: When The Darkness Falls…

There is an interesting bit, perhaps a touch more personal tangent I’ll get to towards the end. Of course, it is inspired by something that started at the beginning of the day but… all things in time.

Woke up this morning from a terrible nightmare. I had failed the bar again and we needed to move back to my Home City or I was going to get divorced. The only job I could get was my old job at Best Buy which had been terrible and soul crushing even before I had a legal degree. WITH the legal degree, it was even more terrible. And all of the managers were extremely condescending and harsh as they were Associate Degree Holders enjoying exerting power over someone with an advanced degree. Seriously, brutal stuff, too. Like… scheduling me at 5 in the morning to make me personally responsible for cleaning, repairing, setting up and opening every department. Then they would have me come back at 5 in the evening to make me unload truck shipments by myself every night. So, I would be working Ten to Twelve hour days and the only “time off” I had was between 11 pm and 5 am; and 11 am and 5 pm. It was difficult, exhausting, humiliating, and painful.

I woke up with a start. The dream had been fairly close to what I’d endured before law school but… about nine times worse. I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water and my phone got a text message. Work was asking me to take PM court today… another six hours? Sure. After the dream I just had, a six hour shift would seem like mental vacation!! Went back to bed and didn’t actively dream for the rest of the morning. But when I woke up again? Something had changed. Repeated dreams of failing the bar exam? Nightmares coming at me where my world supports collapse because of those failures? The darkness that would certainly come if I were to have failed was already beginning to grow within me. As, come to think of it, could be evidenced by my wardrobe choices over the last three days.

My wife was eating some of the leftovers from the chicken thing I made last night. She actually said it tasted extremely good. So… hopefully, it was worth the mess (followed by the extreme cleaning to make the kitchen wife-acceptable again). I suppose, as I am always one to see the problems and the issues in our marriage… what sticks with me isn’t the compliments of the food but the fact that when I was leaving for work I said my usual “Love you, have a good day today!” her only response was “Okay!” Even a “You, too” would be nice to hear sometimes.

Got to work and… that’s why they called me in!! Nobody had bothered to show up for the morning shift. Wait… nobody had bothered to show up for the morning shift?! That means none of the paperwork for PM Court had been dealt with! Crap crap crap crap. No wonder they called me in to take the heat. Ask the most experienced person to tell the judge “We have nothing for you, we done fucked up.” Well… at least they made the right call there because I am the guy to trade honor right now. Simply told the judge (on the record, of course) that our office had not had the opportunity to interview inmates this morning due to a scheduling error on our part and that we were sorry to the court for this oversight. The judge, who I’ve known since I started at this job, merely said (again, on the record, mind) “It’s no problem, Chris. A minor blemish in an otherwise exemplary career. ‘Course I am gonna tease you about it for the rest of the day.” So… good call on my office’s part to throw me under the bus since they know I can handle it. But again makes me grit my teeth for whatever the results of the bar exam are. The bar exam does not test court room.... anything. The whole test is on theory and memorization with a little transactional practice part thrown in to appease Commercial Interest Lawyers. Meanwhile, I have a certificate of specialization in litigation and have already spent more time in court than most lawyers do in their entire careers and I have no place to demonstrate any of that on the bar. Clearly, I am in no way concerned or worried.... for those who can’t intuit it, that was sarcasm.

After work, ran some errands and reloaded the laundry card. At some point tonight, I’ve got about 4 loads of laundry to do and a dishwasher to unload. HOPEFULLY, I’ll keep working on catching up with bookmarks. I have an idea that may or may not help me in that area. Anyway, folks… have a good FRIDAY the THIRTEENTH! and a great weekend.

Oh yeah… I did promise an interesting bit of something a bit personal. Well… as the darkness is already starting to collect....... let me start over. My darker side used to be my primary side. It was what I showed the world, it is who I was, it is how I acted. Now, to say “Darker” side does not by any means translate to “darkest” side. As with anything, there are degrees that define activity. I’ve really only hit Rock Bottom Darkness maybe three times in my entire life and… I can’t even really say with confidence that those really were “rock bottom”… more like… got-so-close to knowing the worst I was capable of that I ran away before I could really understand. Anyway… with a lot of things changing (friends, family, medication, etc) I became more the person my family saw commonly. My public face became less the darker side and more the “regular” side. And that was what I held out to the world… but feeling the darker bits edging in a little bit… I am now able to make convenient pop-reference analogies to best represent both sides.
So, my “regular” side that my family has always seen and has been my public face for several years now:

I am Chandler Bing. I’m a good friend, sensitive and a little weird, professional but a little immature, and I do the talking thing a lot more than I do the doing-stuff thing. Also, I love being the funny one and if I can’t be the funny one, I damned well better be the clever one!

But… when I start feeling the darkness… I go from Chandler… to depressed Chandler… to brooding Chandler… to.... this guy:

Angel… AND Angelus… depending on how far down the darkness ladder I go. So… really… I’d say the best way to get to know me… I mean.... Best version of me through to the Worst version of me.... watch all ten seasons of Friends.... then watch the first 3 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer… then watch all five seasons of Angel. You’ll have seen me in my Hollywood Approved best to worst. And I have to admit… many more of these nightmares… much more of this gripping certainty that my dragons aren’t getting dealt with… the Angel will become more apparent. The brooding, the obsessing, the lashing out… should be interesting.

Speaking of interesting.... to end on an interesting note… some funny if dark moments from movies or shows I enjoy:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Two: Episode “School Hard”
Big Ugly: When I kill her, it’ll be the greatest event since the crucifixion. And I should know, I was there.
Spike: You were there? Oh, please. If every vampire who said he was at the crucifixion was actually there, it would’ve been like Woodstock.
Big Ugly: I oughta rip your throat out.
Spike: I was actually at Woodstock. That was a weird gig. I fed off a flower person and I spent the next six hours watchin’ my hand move.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Two: Episode “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”
(Xander and Cordelia run to an upstairs bedroom to hide from a mob of women chasing them. Xander stands by the open window to see if the coast is clear.)
Xander: Okay, we should be safe here.
(Angelus reaches through the window pulling Xander out of the house)
Angelus: Works in theory!

The Crow, 1994
Funboy: Jesus Christ!
Eric Draven: Jesus Christ? Stop me if you heard this one: Jesus Christ walks into a hotel.
[Fun Boy shoots him]
Eric Draven: Ow! He hands the innkeeper three nails, and he asks…
[Fun Boy shoots him again]
Funboy: Don’t you ever fuckin’ die?
Eric Draven: Can you put me up for the night?