On Work in Book Seven: Reconstruction 2020

Yes, sue me. I’m doing a second entry today. Why? Well, in part because I have the time and opportunity to do so. You see, as busy as next week promises to be… I’m somewhat counting on a bit of an “Assist” from my boss. Because honestly? Next week wouldn’t actually be that bad for me. BUT FOR covering his Tuesday. My busy Monday, my busy Thursday, and prep for the next few weeks? NOT as schedule crippling as it could be. But you add in the fact that I’m probably covering 12 additional hearings on Tuesday (additional to the 6 hearings I already had scheduled for Tuesday)… and next week looks downright bloody painful. THAT BEING SAID… the painful bits… those 12 extra hearings… I imagine my boss will prepare some materials for me. Because, as I should highlight more often, that is a SIGNIFICANT difference between Chinese Firm and Current Job. If I need to cover for my boss; there is appreciation, preparation, and communication here!! Much better! :) That being said… I have already prepared my Monday work. And my Friday work? Well… that will be resolved after meeting with some attorneys this afternoon.

Saturday, I plan on coming back to the office to have a really good cleaning session. Not just the papers from my desk as I’ve been doing; but a full clean. There are still boxes, drawers, and closets that I haven’t looked into since I started the job. It’s high time that I whipped this physical space into shape and started personalizing a bit. I mean, that’s where I am in life. I’m turning 36 this year and I’ve never done more to personalize a work space than “Hang a calendar”. So… whatever personal touches are “me”… this is the office to start working on that. And as I work through that, I’ll hopefully get a bit better grip on some of the cases I’ve lost track of.
You see, I think one of the things people don’t get most about the Law is that… we aren’t sitting up at night thinking about YOUR specific case. You do. That makes sense. It is your case. It is interrupting YOUR life. It might be the only thing you can think about for days on end. But attorneys can’t be like that or they’d be even more mind-fucked than we already are! There are a few important examples of this out there right now.
ITEM 1: Domestic Violence Victim continues to demand from us why her case hasn’t been resolved. For the last many weeks, I’ve told her that it is because I’ve sent a plea offer to the Defense Attorney and have not heard back yet. I can’t do anything without hearing back from the Defense Attorney. The Defense Attorney can wait until January 23rd before telling me anything, if they want to. Now, there are a few legal options left to me if I wanted to completely fail this office… but I’m not exactly inclined to sacrifice my career because of this case. I understand that it started in October but I’m not the attorney that is holding things up.
ITEM 2: There is a limited amount of time in a judge’s day. As the state of Iowa had a 7 year run of slashing judicial budgets, we have fewer judges trying to cover more counties with less time. When we have schedules written down and plea deals set to go… changing your mind, while it is your right, creates significant delays. If you were supposed to plead guilty on January 3rd and during your guilty plea say, “Nah, I ain’t doing that. Not Guilty. I didn’t do nothing!” Well… enjoy going back to jail. Your trial will probably be sometime between March and May. That isn’t the State trying to screw you for not taking the plea… that isn’t “The system cleverly fucking you for demanding a trial, which is your right”… that is a reality of our industry! If you’ve agreed to a plea deal to be given on January 3rd… the chances are better than good that we’ve already got trials scheduled through March by the time January 3rd happens.

And this doesn’t even cover the traffic ticket bullshit. Ugh. It has always been bad. It has always been ridiculous. But it is even getting worse. Now instead of calling me up to say, “The cop pulled me over, said I was going 89 in a 65, wrote the ticket for 79 in a 65. What can you do for me so that this doesn’t go on my record?” which… I mean, I still get that phone call every day but a new call has been added to the daily bullshit. “I missed my hearing and I didn’t pay the ticket but I want to plead not guilty because I want to know what you can do for me so that this doesn’t go on my record.” Which… from a legal and logical standpoint… is such a worse call. You are given a speeding ticket. You have four options.
(1) Pay the ticket
(2) Hire an attorney to fight the ticket
(3) Send a Written Plea of Not Guilty; or
(4) Appear at Court on the date specified on your ticket.

Any of those four options are acceptable. Just… not showing up… and then expecting the prosecutor to make it all go away… who the fuck are these people?

Also.... quick thing because I realize people may not realize.... the woman that I once referred to as “Wife” in these pages is now referred to as “Martha”. They are the same person… but as we are getting separated and beginning the process of no longer being a monogamous married unit, it felt appropriate to give her a proper pseudonym regardless of relationship title. That being said… memes about being single I’m relating to :p :)

Ironically… Martha just texted me the following:
“Omg. Tinder is worse that playing two dots for me. Glad I have therapy today. Need to talk about will power.”

And… I don’t know how to respond. I mean… technically… yeah. I want to shout GET OUT OF MY HOUSE BEFORE SEARCHING FOR A NEW MAN! But I also feel like that would be hypocritical of me. I’m on dating apps… she’s allowed to be on them as well. But still? Just this… huge… almost… frustrated anger about it. YOU COULDN’T WALK THE DOG, TAKE CARE OF THE HOUSE, OR ACT LIKE YOU GAVE A DAMN ABOUT ME; BUT YOU CAN SPEND HOURS CRUISING THROUGH TINDER? And a lot of that is my past pain coming out. Being angry that after we got married, our marriage got hardcore fucked up to a seriously damaged place. But there is another layer there, too, that I should own. My wife is a short, not too heavy, young looking almost forty year old woman. When I compare her to the majority of women I have been seeing on Tinder… she is easily in the top 30%. Granted she is in a wedding dress in some of her photos. But I honestly believe that her primary challenge on Tinder is going to be sorting through the men. She’s “there”, men will swipe right, she’ll swipe right, and then she’ll have to decide if she wants to try to chat with any of them. I… have significantly not had that problem. My problem is that I swipe right… on a variety of different women… and do not get swiped right in return. There is no “sorting out” there is merely… the existing.

Bah, fuck it. I’m going to steal a survey and then add bizarre crazy questions of my own:

First job
I got my first acting job at five or six doing a parody of The Music Man. I was paid in pizza and experience.
I got my first paying job at about 12 or 13. I helped my brother in his “Official” part time job with the family business. I wasn’t exactly on the books, but I got a few extra bucks for helping set up displays.
I got my first W-2 job when I was 15. Bag Boy at Dahl’s trying to earn money for the Europe trip.

Dream job
Considering how hard I worked for it, I should say the one I have now. But obviously that isn’t it. Ultimately, I’d like to be “An Idea Man” for some video game or movie/tv studio. I have lots of ideas that could help create or improve on entertainment. But I have a hard time communicating them well. Like… I could be an author… but I’m at least 20% too poor a writer to actually make a living with it. I’d like to do that. Get paid to bring my ideas into the world.

Favorite foot attire
I typically like black shoes. Boots, sandals, tennis shoes, skate shoes, loafers.

Favorite candy
Three Musketeers Bar

Favorite ice cream
Mint Chocolate Chip, for the nostalgia and sentimentality

What are you currently doing?
Focusing on what I want to do tonight so I can pretend that I won’t be back at this desk tomorrow

Favorite Pizza
I love crazy specialty pizzas. Give me BBQ sauce and chicken and hamburger and onions and pepperoni and jalapenos and ham and… yeah. I like to throw everything on that bitch.

Favorite movie
An Impossible Question to answer! It was once Top Gun, then Back to the Future, then Secret of my Success, then Presumed Innocent… Primer… yeah, the list is unending. Typically, ask me if I’ve seen a movie. If I’ve seen the one you’re talking about, I’ll tell you if I liked it. If it is, was, or could be a favorite… I’ll definitely tell you.

Favorite TV Show
NOT including Anime… it would have to be either Spin City, Scrubs, Brooklyn 99, or The Good Place

Favorite day of the week
Friday. For lots of reasons. But one of my favorite things to say as a reason.... it is the day that most closely resembles the ideal of God’s intent for humanity. Work, Play, struggle, joy. Friday is what being human was intended to be. For many, Friday is no different than any other day… which is what we’ve turned being human into.

Favorite flower
White Roses

Tattoos
None yet. I’ve always wanted to get some but I always felt my design choices would be too nerdy.

Piercings
None. At the moment. We’ll see, I suppose.

Like to cook?
I’m tragic. I enjoy cooking and baking as a social thing; but by myself, I often just feel like “why bother”?

Favorite color
Green, Red, Purple, Black

Gold or silver
Always silver.

Do you like vegetables?
Most of them in at least some form

Do you wear glasses?
Yes. I’m pretty much going blind really.

Favorite season
Autumn. When you can still go outside but it isn’t so hot as to be Uber-Sweat weather

Dream travel destination
Japan and Ireland

Favorite Spice Girl
Posh, I feel bad for that but at the time… it was obvious

Forty Years Ago was 1980. In those forty years have we seen more Utopia or Dystopia?
I think we’ve seen more technological advancement and have done more to produce more food for the hungry and more resources for those who need them. BUT I’d say that our society has pushed back by being more greedy, more divided, and less advanced. So I think we’re in a Materialistic Utopia but a Civilization Dystopia

If you could start a secret society; what would you base it on?
Sadly, I’m not even clever. I’d base it on a mutual enjoyment of anime, video games, tabletop games, alcohol, and sex. The Hentai Animated Interests Game Group (THAI GG) or something.

If you could bring one mythical creature into the world, what would it be?
I don’t know if I would say mermaids or Atlanteans but one of them. A sentient species that was able to help clean the ocean and also was capable of absolutely wrecking our SHIT if we didn’t stop fucking up their oceans.

Pretend you are a mad scientist; if money and ethics were no longer constraints; what experiment would you perform?
This is tricky due to different technologies. I’ve always wanted to do some intense brain work to see things like “What happens if your eye is removed while the ability to see is intact, and your eyes look at each other?” Or how does the brain react to the differing sensations of blunt trauma and sharp trauma… is that processed in the brain differently or why do the sensations send different types of pain signals to the brain? But then… I’ve also always wanted to test endless thought exercises on an unwilling person to determine if intelligence, compassion, and wittiness can either be stimulated where it is not found or obliterated where it is.