The Second Day in Book Six: Trying to Hold On 2019

The second day of 2019 dawns. It has not yet been Chinese New Year (that happens on February 5th), but when that dawns it will be the Year of the Pig. 2018 was the Year of the Dog. So, arguably… a blend of Gregorian Calendar and Chinese Calendar would suggest that January 2019 is The Month where The Dog transitions into The Pig?

After an absolutely brilliant December 30th, December 31 found itself… lacking. I greeted the New Year wrapped in a blanket in the basement. An old familiar nightmare came to me. Every element of it, now, familiar and well known. I’m back in High School. It is Final’s Week. I have a project due that I’m trying to will myself to complete… but no matter how much I want to finish it, I can’t even get started. Every time I try, I remind myself that I already missed “so many classes” that I can’t possibly pass the class, so trying so hard to finish the project only to fail anyway seems like a futile waste of time. I have that nightmare at least once a year, if not more. From my hindsight perspective? It is like taking the worst parts of IRL 2002 and adding them to the worst parts of IRL 2004. Upon waking, I again can’t help but think… if only a D-Wave could send me back.

I woke up on New Year’s Day at 6 a.m. having only gotten two hours sleep. I played Video Games for 2 hours, then went back to “bed”… the quotation marks indicating that it was not bed but the futon in the basement. I slept again until 2 p.m. I woke up and returned to video games. I was… I don’t know. Hurt? Angry? Depressed? And thought to myself, “I wonder if Wife will even come down here to see about me today?” I played video games for a bit and heard the tell-tale sounds of Magnus Archive and knew she’d be lost to her podcast for a few hours. She did come down around 4:30 to see if I wanted to eat anything. I figured… sure?

Went up stairs and the kitchen was totally clean. The laundry had been started. The dishes had been cycled, emptied, and a new batch had been put in the machine. I’ll admit, I felt a little shitty. I mean… what does every woman say? “My husband doesn’t do enough around the house!” And here I am… not having cleaned a single thing and Wife having taken care of everything.

We watched Dr. Who’s New Year’s Special and ate dinner. I think I finally figured out what Dr. Who Complainers are saying… maybe. The Doctor isn’t The Main Character anymore, not really. It is either the Monster of the Week or the Companions. It just… it struck me like False-Superman Syndrome. The reason it is so rare to see a well done Superman in media is that too many people have this false idea that Superman is “too alien, too powerful, too unrelatable” so they either make him dark thinking that will solve it (it invariably does not) or they’ll almost entirely ignore him to create side-drama that doesn’t work (one of many problems with Superman Returns). AND YET if you want to see excellent Superman Content on Media… the DC Animated Universe has done extremely well. So, Chinball… perhaps something to consider, eh?

When I went to bed last night, I went to bed early. And tried really very hard to go to sleep. I lay in bed, awake, from 9:30 p.m. all the way through until after midnight. Shortly after midnight, Wife came to bed. I know she thinks I’m insane and I can promise you that if I were getting it regularly, I may not agree but.... there was just something there. When she came to bed, I told her she was beautiful. Which had its usual reaction. An over exaggerated eye roll, a dismissive remark, and the feeling that I was back in grade school having said something foolish. She disrobed down to her knickers, a sight that has become rare for me, and I told her “If I didn’t smell so bad,” as I had not showered since Sunday, “I would take you in a manly fashion.” To which she responded, “And your hair is so greasy.” The passion with which we greet the new year.

Wife fell asleep shortly after hitting the mattress. After struggling to sleep for three hours, I threw in the towel. I went downstairs and played video games and worked myself to orgasm for the first time in many days. I returned to the bedroom at 3:30 a.m. where I slept until 6:20 a.m.

Of course, second night of the new year… second night difficulty sleeping… second night of nightmares. In this nightmare, I was exactly as I am now. Assistant County Attorney of a smallish county in Iowa. Over the police blotter, I heard that Wife was wanted in suspicion of murdering an old woman. I called my mom to let her know, only to hear that my mom and brother were fleeing from someone or something… I was instructed that something much larger was at foot and that, guilty or not, I needed to protect Wife. The nightmare became an ever grander series of chases… first me chasing to find Wife, then Wife and I fleeing my own officers, then Wife breaking away for me to chase after her and start the cycle anew. The nightmare ended after we got trapped in a bank. I used everything I had in me… charm, money, technical expertise… I even shorted a few of the security doors to create a bit of a maze for the FBI… but in the end… I had learned my brother was missing, mother dead, Wife had left me to get arrested.

After a shower, I checked the mail to discover that my godfather had sent us a belated Christmas Check. That check alone would have purchased the original estimate of the Home Theater set up. Again and as always, I am reminded that by no special skills other than my family, I am far more fortunate than far too many. That may be the largest difference between the current American President and myself. I never received a “loan” from my father, I’ve never been given a massive inheritance, I’ve never been a “wealthy person from birth.” But I don’t think of myself as a “self-made man” the way he does. I’ve been truly supported throughout my life in ways others could not be. My education and health issues? Someone in a different family, with different resources, would have struggled infinitely more. My law school? I was able to pay off law school well within 5 years. I will have law school colleagues paying off law school well into 2030. So, while I’ve never asked for money… while I’ve never received a massive six figure inheritance… while every career choice has been my own and every monetary decision has been my own… I don’t consider myself a “self-made” person the way our President does. And maybe… beyond policy, beyond class, beyond intelligence, beyond ethics… when you strip away all of his huge flaws that Trumpists can ignore… perhaps this is something they may be able to relate to. In truth, I am more self-made than Donald Trump… and yet, I have more gratitude, understanding, and appreciation for the many benefits and un-earned rewards I have received.

I then made a salad to bring with me to lunch. I’ll be honest.. between January and April, I do not have a great deal of hope that I will lose the 5 pounds per month I am hoping. But as long as I’m losing, I’ll chalk it up as positive. If I’m not, however? That will cause concern.

Arrived at work having not stepped foot in my office since last Friday aaaaand… literally nothing of value that I missed. In fact, I even found out that a hearing I have next week, the burden of proof is actually on the defense so that I have even less to do/worry about than I thought. This means that my week?
(1) Finish Suppression Resistance, if you want
(2) Pretrial Conference on a DUS
(3) Pretrial Conference on a Facebook Harassment
(4) WITH an Abuse Counselor, try to convince a Domestic Abuse Victim that she shouldn’t return to her boyfriend after he revealed his carefully planned out and detailed plan to murder her, the kids, and the extended family
(5) A bench trial that, honestly, doesn’t matter if I win or not as both of these kids are just going to continue the rotating cycle of using their shared child against each other.

That’s my week. Well, that and going to the gym… working on the basement and other such things.

Oh, and for those who have asked this before…

Wife and I were watching ‘Old Game Shows That Couldn’t Be Made Today’ thing… and, kid you not, there was a Newly Wed Game style Game Show where it was Husband/Wife and Husband’s secretary… asking such salacious things as “What feature on his secretary does your husband wish you had?” and “After you reject him for a night of passion, where can your husband be found?” That last one wound up with answers from “The bar” to “Under his secretary” and more. One wife specifically said, “I tell him to go to the bar and find a girl who’ll take care of it for him.” I semi-jokingly told Wife that, but for my need to have a good reputation in this community, I would like to go to the local bar to pick up a girl when I’m rejected. Wife said sternly and seriously, “Only if that means you are literally picking her up, as though to reach a tall shelf, setting her down, and coming back home.” SO… that is certainly something to dig into at Counseling. Wife feels a strong need for monogamy and faithfulness… despite perpetuating an environment that would most assuredly only end in either divorce or affair. So… there’s a disconnect to work through.