Things, Stuff, Entertaining Title in BookThree: Flight Log 2016

Another day… hooray. Last night was interesting enough. Went from work to the Liquor Store to home. As soon as I got home, I said to Wife… “I need your help. I had fully intended to work out today; but now I’m tired and I don’t wanna.” She did help by letting me know that if I put in at least 20 minutes, I’d be done by X time so I could have Y amount of time to enjoy the rest of the day. If I put it off, Y would decrease and I’d enjoy my day less. So, I shuffled into the workout room, hit play on the Blu Ray Player and started my Run/Kettleball routine. What I’ve been working out to (in the Blu Ray Player) is HOTD. I’m rewatching it as my best friend gave me the OVA (that I didn’t even know existed) and I want to remind myself of the plot nuances before I watch the OVA. As I told Wife… Wife was good enough to get me to work out, Saeko Busujima was good enough to keep me going.

After the workout, watched some DS9 with Wife. Ate food. Drank too much. Talked with Wife about creating a Pathfinder Character for her… just for fun but also so she could get even more enjoyment out of watching HarmonQuest. We tried to start that up but it was getting late and I needed to shower before bed. After my shower, I did my normal “after shower” stuff of teeth, hair, davidoff etcetera. Apparently, the Davidoff was a good (or bad) idea… depending on how you look at it. Made Wife jump my bones. Cool.

So now work! Here is what it is to be in this county… come in to work, know what I have to do today… know that it shouldn’t be that big of an issue (provided I can just motivate myself to freaking do it)… and my e-mail just explodes… has been all day. Why? Because of collections. Yup. That’s where we are. Since nobody has any money… and since we don’t have a jail big enough to hold anyone… resulting in fines being levied in almost every criminal case… the collections department is always very super busy. Because nobody pays (because they can’t). So… my e-mail alert is going off twice per second, and the Cleaning Crew just arrived. Apparently, one of the workers is having a bad day… they have to keep reminding her it is a work day and that she can’t just sit in the hallway playing with her hair. As I’ve mentioned previously… I’m happy we’re helping the mentally disabled with their independence… but it really is like hiring a cleaning crew of children.

Not surprisingly, I’m super tired. I get that Wife considers going to bed before midnight is “ridiculously early” but… I’ve got to stand my ground on that. I mean… I need more sleep than most people to begin with… add the fact that I have work in the mornings and… I really should be in bed by 11 at the latest. Being super tired sucks to begin with but when you add it my body pain? Bah.
I started my morning off thinking “I know I’ll get my work done today… partly because I have to, partly because doing work (even apathetically) is better than being bored.” But when it came down to it? Several hours of watching Sexual Assault on a Child Interviews. A few hours updating the damned Non-Computerized Case Management system. A few hours working on a scant few case files. And that’s the day. I don’t get it. How come there is always something to do; but I’m always bored… I’m never motivated to get the work done; but I always want to do it. Best I can figure? That’s what happens here… it is no wonder why my predecessor offered BS deals to people… either you offer a deal and they accept it… or you don’t offer a deal and nothing happens with it. As I’ve said before… I’d be a lot more upset and freaked out about not getting any guidance, assistance, or direction… but I’m starting to understand why it isn’t really underscored. Why teach someone how to do the job when the job… startlingly… doesn’t do much!

(On that note… here’s how I ended my day. After everything, I still haven’t sent in the response for Motion to Produce. Because I’m waiting for my officer to get me things. But I don’t even know what to ask him to produce. The law suggests that I turn over everything I have (which I already have) and everything I could reasonably find that would impact the determination of trial. What? So… giving the defense attorney everything I have isn’t sufficient. I have to discover what I don’t have, collect it, and give it to the defense. Bah. So… I’m trying to figure out how to word the Request to Police but.... not only do I realize I have to specifically request all things by name (or they won’t be given to me) but I also find the whole thing… just… boring. The Law, as I studied it, was about formal writing, boilerplate filing, and the odd court appearance. But here “in ol’ Up North County, we do things a diff’rent way.” Grumph.

So… even though there’s work to do that could keep me at the office all night… it’s all very boring. SO with that in mind… I plan on boring all of YOU. I’ve been seeing a lot of interesting writing prompts from people so… here’s me doing a writing prompt… should be long, needless, and boring… because I tend to go on and on and on about certain topics! :D :p

Write an “About Me” about yourself.

Who I am now is very different from who I was then is very different from who I will be. So while, reluctantly, I am beginning to accept that I cannot go back and change things… that, sadly, I will never be able to go back and change things… I am also trying to determine how I might make a future where, at the end of my days, I can think “I don’t need to go back and change things.” I’m not sure exactly how to do that, though. Because… I’ve been trying to lead that kind of lifestyle. After a lifetime of bad choices (it seems), I figured… take a job that gets you money and experience so you can become better at what it is that you want to do. I am presently on Day 123 of that bad decision. So while I started this originally, many years ago, in an attempt to understand/vent about/decide about my extremely weak marriage… this place has now become a much needed outlet and connection to the wider world. A world where lawyers receive training instead of apathy. A world where, even if justice can be bought… at least it exists in some form.

Okay, that may be a bit morose for an about me. How about this one:

Growing up, I was a Theater Kid. I fell in love with acting when I was 5 years old and I always wanted to be an actor. I did every show, every play, everything I could to follow that dream of being an actor. I learned to dance, I learned to memorize entire scripts, I dedicated my life to that. Along the way, I realized I loved gaming and comic books… but I didn’t really have time for that. I was in every sport I could try for to attempt to keep my body in good shape (as an actor would need to). High School was certainly rough for me in a lot of ways. LOT of ways, which reading this (past, present, future) will surely become obvious. But it gave me the opportunity to act in a few independent Iowa based films, I learned improvisational theater and mime, made a little (very little) money for acting… all while playing the Cello in the school orchestra and competitively swimming for the High School team. Even with all my focus on acting and all of my other extra curricular activities… I still managed a solid B average in High School.
Got to college and.... fell flat on my face. Even though I had received a scholarship for Theater; every teacher told me I had no talent. Resolved, I knew I would show them that I could perform. But no students would cast me. Because I was unwilling to get high with them… I was unwilling to drink underage with them… I was unwilling to have sex casually… I was unwilling to openly mock conservatives or religious people. And keep in mind… this wasn’t me refusing to play characters… I could do all of that if it was for a show… this was them saying “I wasn’t one of them” because I wouldn’t do that kind of thing in real life. So, I spent hundreds of hours in the costume shop doing laundry and repairing costumes. The school had given me an acting scholarship… but I couldn’t get any acting roles. Ultimately, I did a few plays for the Communications Department… a branch of the English Department not the Drama Department… and on the complete opposite side of campus from the Theater. So that was a NO on the acting thing. I tried to do some business classes… but I got a D- for the final grade. Business was simply not something I could wrap my head around. I tried psychology… because the Human Condition fascinates me… but the teacher had just been left by her husband… and she was 6 months pregnant. So a class on general psychology became a class on Gender Studies became a very hostile environment to a male student. Along the same time, I began experiencing debilitating pain on a regular basis. I withdrew for a semester in a desperate attempt to figure out what was wrong. Despite being in my early twenties (and a man) the diagnosis was Fibromyalgia. A diagnosis of exclusion that had no cure, but lets try lots of fun drug cocktails to see if we can reduce that pain any. I still wanted to finish college, though. And I still wanted to do something with my life. Resigned to follow my father’s dreams for me as he had always wanted me to be a minister… I received my bachelor’s degree in Religion and considered going into seminary. But at the beginning of my last year of college, I remembered one of the oldest things I’d ever written. “When I grow up I want to be an actor or an atrney.” So, while finishing my Religion degree, I started looking into what it meant to be a lawyer. I didn’t want to go into something blind.

I graduated from college with a solid B average but did not go directly to law school. I had been QUITE thrown when Acting didn’t work out and I wasn’t going to simply rush into something else. So I tried to be a telemarketer for a few months… the job was miserable and I said NO MORE. Then I went to work for Best Buy in a retail store while I studied for the LSAT (law school entrance exam, essentially). I took the test twice in an attempt to be as marketable as possible. The best law school in Iowa, however, did not want me. And the other law school in Iowa… I did not want. But a law school in Omaha that was reputed to have a good criminal program did offer me a spot in their 2011 class. So, after marrying my girlfriend of 6 years, we went to Omaha!

THERE… I discovered myself. I really discovered who I was as a person. No more chasing the “what ifs” or the “but maybes”… I connected with myself (and with others) and learned to embrace that I am a person that loves to write, loves to read, loves to debate… a person that loves comic books, star wars, star trek, anime, cosplay, tabletop games… I finally knew and accepted myself. Unfortunately, my new wife’s life was not nearly as positive and it placed significant strain on the marriage. So much strain that, after graduating from Law School with a solid B average, I was seriously considering divorce. That consideration haunted me as I studied for the Iowa Bar Exam. And may be a reason why I failed it. I redoubled my efforts, studied hard, and took the Bar Exam again in February 2015 and passed. Hooray. But… not an end in itself. I had no job prospects, no job opportunities. I began to search. And search. And search. I went on interview after interview; filled out application after application. Nothing. No jobs. No jobs as a prosecutor, no jobs as a public defender (I applied), no jobs as a private attorney… no jobs. Our lease was about to come up at the end of May 2016 and so we decided that we’d move back to Iowa… back to Des Moines (where my family was). Wife would work full time and I would try to beg or con my way into some kind of relationship with a lawyer or law firm where I could work for them for free… just so long as they taught me and gave me the experience I (apparently) so desperately needed. We were fairly set on that plan when I received a phone call… nobody else had applied for a job in a TINY part of NW Iowa. I’d interviewed for it and (honestly) had told my wife and my parents that I HOPED I wouldn’t get the job… but here they were offering it to me.

Regrettably, I had to say yes. I needed work, I needed money, I needed experience. They needed me in less than 2 weeks. !! So, I lived in a temporary shitty place in this tiny shitty town while my wife packed up the Apartment in Omaha. I’d visit her every weekend… a painful process of a three hour drive to rejoin my wife and experience a city FAR more my speed… then a three hour drive away from my wife and the city FAR more to my needs. All the while, discovering that my boss (who was supposed to train me) did not even work in the same city… nor did she have any plans on training me. And I began to learn about the town’s deep corruption and poverty. And I realized that I did not know enough about the procedures of the state to actively do my job.

It has been like that pretty much since April 4th. Oh, my wife has actually joined me in this shitty town… and I’m out of the shitty temporary place and moved into a rental house that might actually have all of the construction work finished by next year. But very little has changed. The town is still deeply corrupt. My boss has actually started to lose her mental faculties; so even if she HAD wanted to train me, it is doubtful she now could. So I have case work piling up that I’ve no idea how to do. What’s more… the county is so small and backwards, that court is rare. There are cases I may very well have to dismiss because I couldn’t get them into a court room within a full year of being filed.

So… I suppose… this version ended a bit morose as well. Damn.