Everything at once

So I quit my job and put my house on the market. I couldn't be happier about it. I told my assistant this morning that I was leaving, and she said I looked really happy. I never was a poker face. The insane craziness of this job will not get any better while I try to resolve cases, get them ready to be assumed by another attorney, or refer them out of the office, in addition to all the preexisting work that still has to get done.

I bought my house three years ago today - it seems strangely appropriate to be putting it back on the market on the anniversary of my purchase. At my closing on Halloween three years ago, my realtor met me outside the title company office dressed as a tropical explorer, complete with pith helmet. He met me outside my house today dressed as the Monopoly man, and even handed me a Monopoly $100 bill with his picture on it. Why must I always do business with the crazy?

I am excited about the next stage - even though I am (of course) a little apprehensive. I'm trying not to do the what-if game as far as selling the house. It will take as long as it takes, and me lying awake at night stewing about it won't make it sell any faster.

One other strange thing - I went home for lunch and I knew that people had been in my house. A very weird feeling when you've lived alone for five years.

Happy Halloween everybody!

Department of Revenue

So I went to a hearing this morning at the Motor Vehicle Division of the Department of Revenue, aka the DMV (for the East Coasters). My client never showed, so I had plenty of time to laff it up with the hearings officer (sample dialogue: "I make the sign of the cross to ward off all lawyers, not just you!" "Yeah, right. No one loves us, we never get invited to dinner parties." "You have your own dinner parties with your own kind." "Because no one else will socialize with us!").

I also had time to poke around the lottery office, located in the same office suite. That's when I discovered I was days away from immense personal wealth. I just thought I'd let you know now, so you won't have to wait for the E! True Hollywood Story. The Powerball jackpot is up to $290 million. I will win on Saturday. One of the girls at work adorably said that she thought that was too much money for her. She won't need to worry about that, because I'm going to win. I haven't gone so far as to purchase tickets, but I have devoted nearly thirty minutes to elaborate daydreams about how I intend to spend the money.

Step one: celebrate, parties, travels, gifts, excitement, extravagant purchases, hiring of individuals to perform such functions as reminding passer-by not to make eye contact with me

Step two: tragic downfall as in Behind the Music, including stay in hospital for exhaustion, and public denial that exhaustion is a synonym for cocaine problem

Step three: redemption, cover of People, realization that traveling staff of 45 may have been excessive, reluctantly fire personal banana peeler

Hmmm....maybe my new found imaginary wealth is causing more trouble than it's worth.

Yeah right! Catch you on Saturday, bitches!

Bar-stalgia

This weekend was gray and rainy and cold and most unlike Colorado. It was, in fact, a close personal friend of upstate New York, which I very cleverly failed to realize until I was in my office moping and staring out the window on Monday. "Some holiday," I grumped, "stupid work." I tried to think about what I would like to be doing instead of working (always a terrible idea), and realized that I wanted to be in a dark wooden bar, drinking beer and playing a board game with my friends. In other words, I wanted to pretend I was still in law school. It makes perfect sense to me now that I've realized it was the evil weather at work, but honestly, yesterday I was in a full sulk.

I was mad that no good bar exists in Fort Fun (that I know of), I was dramatically sighing about not having any friends to go to the bar with even if there was such a place (where you at Coop and Batista?), I was extra super crabby that even if I had a bar or friends, I had to work anyway, and on and on and on. Is it possible to have Seasonal Affective Disorder after two days?

No time for whiny baby moodiness today - I have been really busy (again, some more), and therefore have no time to miss the Chapter House. Or Micawber's. Or Stella's. Damn, I loved Ithaca.

Love on Ice

Hockey and I have been together a long time. I remember cohosting "Hockey Night from Canada" parties in the basement of ZBT with my homie Mike as far back as 1992. I remember banging on the glass with my pal Jack at the Cornell hockey games, while the crowd encouraged our boys to make the other team bleed Harvard Crimson.

Last year was the topper of my hockey life, when the Eagles won their minor league trophy and not one person at the Ranch missed the NHL. Unfortunately for the future of hockey, no one in America missed the NHL. Mary and I were at the Steakout Saloon on Wednesday, watching the Colorado Avs lose to the Edmonton Oilers, and the crowd was pretty into it. I was encouraged, as a hockey fan, but I'm not sure the damage from the strike will be repaired so easily. Even prior to the strike, hockey wasn't the most popular sport, and I get it. French dudes, bad hair, Canadians, unpronounceable Russian names - it looks a lot different than any other major sport. The rules are strange, they don't score that often, and unlike basketball, which virtually everyone has played at some point, most Americans have no firsthand experience playing hockey.

A week from today, Mary and I will make our triumphant return to the Ranch to watch the defending champion Eagles, and we couldn't be more excited. Mullets and teeth will be flying through the air, Homer will be dancing, and the cowbells will be clanging. Mary and I will pick out our new 19 year old boyfriends from the roster and wave our pretzels in the air, very much as though we just don't care.

Go hockey season!! I don't care that there are six hockey fans left on earth - I'm all fired up. If there's minor league hockey in your neighborhood, do yourself a favor and go check it out. As for the big boys in the NHL, we'll see. I haven't written them off entirely, but for now I'll stick with my local boys.

PS - When I ran spellcheck on this entry, NHL wasn't on the list of recognized abbreviations. That can't be a good sign.

Victory?

Sorry about the ridiculous amount of time between postings. Some of you are aware that there's a lot going on right now, and that personal stuff combined with a comically excessive work schedule has kept me off the internet. I just got back from court, where we got a ruling on the most gut-wrenching case I've ever been involved with. I "won", in the sense that I got the relief I requested from the court, but I am most definitely not in a celebratory mood.

As a litigator, it sometimes happens that you get involved with a case that makes you uneasy. There are different ways to justify your involvement, like that you're an advocate, that the system is designed to be adversarial, that it's a test of logic, wit and skill. But during the course of this trial, I was conscious of how I might have handled things if I were opposing counsel, and I would have been pretty vicious, and I might have been successful on that side against my client. That realization made me feel really horrible, as though maybe I've lost sight of why I personally do this for a living. Other attorneys I've met view litigation as a game like any other, and are motivated by the competition alone. I've always found that attitude disgusting, and yet I'm worried that I've adopted it to some extent.

Ugh. The comedy will return, I swear, but for tonight I could really use a vat of wine and an early bedtime.