It has been a thoroughly disorienting toe-tipping-wade in 2012 (the year, not the disaster movie) so far. January has yet to be the business-as-usual return from the Holiday insanity of December that I ordinarily expect. I'm not sure I recall the last full week I've worked, but I do think there was one squished in there somewhere. No, actually not in 2012. The first week of January we had Monday off in observance of New Year's. Since I am now on the board of the Whatcom Collaborative Professionals - and this happens to meet on the first Monday - this necessitated a rescheduling to Friday, after which I took off to meet my financial planner (oh my god, I have a lawyer and a financial planner and an ad in the Weekly: barring the fact that I have fewer clients than fingers, I have so totally made it!). The week after that, of course was my delightful deposition (see previous post). And that brings us to this week.
This Monday was MLK day, after which Washington got what has regrettably been called Snowpocalyse (regrettable because the term is tired and I think it played out last year already) and its companion ICESTASTROPHE (or ok, I just made that up - you'll have to look on the polls to figure out our official storm title).
I'll get to weathercondition+disastersuffix in a second, but more about my work weeks that weren't weeks. I have actually been into work many of the days of this week. On Monday, I dropped in to check on messages and get client numbers in case things took a turn for the wintry. I actually did work on Tuesday. And on Thursday of this week. And today! That's three outta five. I even took work "home" (decided to stake out at my mom's house in anticipation of some form of end-of-the-world-Day-After-Tomorrow-with-wolves-and-stuff disaster, so that I could fight wolves and die with loved ones) with me for Wednesday. I didn't really do it, I have to say. I tried many times, but it was ultimately a snow day and we'll not be billing any one for the repeated hours of "oh yeah I should get to Client X... huh oh look snow!"
On Tuesday I even met with a prospective client and everything. It was mildly terrifying, particularly because she had brought her father, and I still feel like I may be a child in disguise. I figure people around my age may be fooled, but doting parents will inevitably out me. Also, given all the snow and wet, I was sporting a rather spiffy pair of leather pants instead of my usual enormous suit pants. I did, however, resist the urge to snap my gum or swear and/or otherwise emulate My Cousin Vinny despite looking appropriate for a female update on the role.
Thursday, I also had a consultation for what could be my first official COLLABORATIVE CASE (yay, hurrah, wheeeee, pleeeeaaase). The great thing about collaborative law for consultations is that CL operates on the level of personal interests, options, opportunities and relationships. The law's still there, but there aren't the abstruse forests of timelines and arcane details over which to quibble while questioning whether the font size of your current pleading meets the local standards. Massaging egos, addressing cognitive biases, rebalancing power differentials, identifying interests etc. is *exhausting* but it's something that I am (1) intuitively inclined towards and (2) well trained to handle. So I feel a lot less like I'm perpetually screwing everything up and committing malpractice because there's a case about what the world "substantial" means in RCW 1034.401.304214 that I haven't read but which is utterly controlling.
Epic struggles with being-a-grown-up aside, it hasn't been a particularly ordinary week. I think next week will be my first full week since mid-December. And, you know, if I could be independently wealthy, I wouldn't mind working part time, I've gotta say. I hope I don't go into some form of shock at the prospect of five whole days in a row!
Honestly, though, I'm looking forward to it. I feel like being so out of any kind of routine leaves me perpetually unsure what day it is and the uncertainty actually makes each individual day seem longer and less like it has a natural rhythm. It doesn't help that my regular excercise/social events have also been on the back burner since some time in December due to a conglomeration of simular circumstances to those already outlined.
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| Because honestly at the moment, every day is feeling like this! |
Oh yeah, weathercondition+disastersuffix: it happened. It was rather a lot like other winter storms that we get. Cities shut down, people were cold, the weather suddenly became the most interestsing topic of conversation and internet obsession ever. I seriously spent a large portion of Wednesday watching the weather coverage on King 5, while reloading my radar map on The Weather Channel, and checking that against wunderground... while staring out the window. It was oddly riveting. This is what my life has been reduced to! I am so disoriented by the lack of time frame reference that all I want to do right now is go home, bundle up in my ugliest sweats and overload myself on the hour to hour details of the weather. No, I don't want to read a book, watch movies, hang out with my loved ones. Loved ones can talk to me about the weather. They can even add their input from their smartphone widgets. But they are mere accessories in my current weather-fantasia. Even right now, I'm dolefully staring out the window wondering "where is my freezing rain? Will there be floods? I wonder what King5 would say about the projected dew point for two hours from now!"
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