UPDATED — FOUR TIMES
The awesome Steve Jobs
“Real artists ship.”
– Steve Jobs
While I was in the UK last summer, I bought two books. One of them was V IS FOR VENGEANCE. I can’t begin to thank Sue Grafton enough for writing this book.
The other book was INSANELY SIMPLE by Ken Segall, which I’ve just started reading. Well, as you can read, I’ve been a disciple of Steve Jobs for a long time. In fact, his name came up again here.
So far, I’ve read the intro, and almost the first two chapters, which consist of the following: The Simple Stick, Think Brutal, and Think Small.
Now, let’s get down to brass tacks. Here’s the first real life law office story I partially pecked out Wednesday night, while my husband was watching hockey. And when I came downstairs, we watched TV as we always do, and nothing seemed wrong. Then, as I was getting ready to go back upstairs, he said something about feeling unhappy. And I said, well, at least you’re not me. Clearly, I didn’t mean to dismiss his pain, but when you’re tortured constantly. Well, after all, I’m just a human being. But I won’t bore you with the details, because that would just be trotting out more of my dirty neurological laundry complaining.
Anyway, I finished the law office story after I did the teaser on Paul’s blog, even though it kept me up later than I’d planned. Voila!
Tuesday, 9/19/95
All my life, on and off, I’ve been a journal writer, but I think this is the first time I’ve kept a journal knowing that someone else would look at it. Not only look at it, but critique it no less! So well. A journal, huh? Well, here we go.
My day started out even more wonderous than usual – with me standing at the copier making copy after copy after copy. There’s nothing like starting your day with a document production. Particularly if you’re a solo practitioner like me with no secretary, no paralegal … in short, nothing but myself and my wits (such as they are).
On days like this, I truly wonder why I left my job with the federal government to open my own law office almost two years ago. I have serious doubts about my sanity when I think about the fact that I was making almost 50 grand a year and had benefits up the wazoo. Now – no benefits, no salary – not even a consistent profit. If I had a dime for every snide reference to “rich lawyers” I’ve heard, I might actually break even!
Anyway, I must have spent about two hours or more at the copier this morning, making copies until I’m cross-eyed, and not easy things to copy either, like pages you can just feed through, but checks. Yes, checks, those things you write to pay your bills. I copied checks. Numerous checks. About 50 million checks. Front and back. I must have looked really pathetic, because two other lawyers I share office space with offered me the use of their interns to assist with the copying. One comes in Tuesdays, the other on Thursdays. So Tuesday Girl got the thankless task of taking over for me at the copier and copying zillions more checks, interspersed with bank statements which can be fed, but a helluva lot more checks than bank statements, believe you me (whatever that means).
We tried to get through all those checks and bank statements. We never did do it. But it’s late, and the explanation on that will have to wait until tomorrow.
Wednesday 9/20/95
To finish yesterday’s story, I have been relieved of the copying problem.
Normally, in a document production, the attorney on the other side would either provide copies or leave the documents with me to be copied. In this case, the opposing party was apparently so paranoid that she refused to let her attorney just leave me the documents. So the other attorney had to wait around at my office while I spent several hours copying. After two days (actually, a total of six hours) of lingering around my office, glancing at her files, while the intern and I slaved away, the attorney suggested it might be better for both of us if we just sent the stuff to a copy center. On the whole, I had to agree. I think it’s ironic that her client would have no problem with leaving original documents at some copy center, but wouldn’t trust them to my care. But then I’ve come to expect irrational behavior from spouses on the other side in divorce cases (did I mention this was a divorce case? and an ugly one, at that?)
Today was the first Women’s Bar Association (Howard County Chapter) lunch meeting for the 95-96 year. (Who came up with the idea of starting the fiscal year smack in the middle of the calendar year? Probably some tax person …) We’ve switched from Bare Bones to Olive Branch. I had the Caesar Salad, which I will probably never have again, because it is salty. Our guest was the new part-time Master. She was scheduled to speak for 15 or 20 minutes, and she actually spoke for 5 minutes, which was fine by me.
Afterward, I met with three others who make up (along with me) the PR Committee for our chapter. The chair of the committee spent a good deal of time speculating on various things we could be doing as a committee, except that it was really the jurisdiction of another committee and really had nothing to do with PR at all. The rest of us nodded sagely and spoke of all the good work we could be doing, if in fact it was our job to do it. I thought that if I really wanted to do all that work, I could have joined all those other committees. I mean, why the hell do you guys think I picked PR? It seemed like an easy one, that’s why! Call the damn papers and run the damn ads! Why are we trying to complicate our lives by dreaming up more work that someone else is supposed to do anyway?
Madness, madness. My apologies for the occasional outburst. Also, my handwriting. To put it in a nut, it sucks. I’ll do my best to write as clearly as my overworked writing hand will allow.
I finished my day at the office by spending a total of an hour on the phone with my hapless client in the aforementioned ugly divorce case, during which most of the time was spent criticizing his therapist or his wife. The details on this one would fill ten more pages and, believe me, you don’t want to know.
Tomorrow will be another day at the office. Friday, I’m supposed to be used as an extra on “Homicide.” That’s right, the TV show. More on this later.
******
This is a true story, straight from my journal. Here’s the PDF of the original: My Law Office Journal, Pt. 1
More to come.
Anyway, who knew that anyone was paying so much attention to this little old blog. I certainly didn’t.
And if I had the hands, the time and the inclination, I’d tell you all about the pathological liars, clever manipulators, and morons who sat on the other side of this desk, looked me in the eye, and underestimated me. 
Me, in my law office before the neurological shit hit the fan.
So … clearly if I owe anyone an apology, it’s M.J. Rose. I sure as shit didn’t know what I was doing.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry … how many times can I say it?
I was very un-Dude. I was like a child who wanders into a movie …
There really do need to be rules of social media. Take it from one who’s suffered depression.
But this isn’t a Hollywood movie, and I’m not Holly Golightly.
Depression is like a black hole of despair.
Such a black hole that when I went to Portland in 2011, I felt so crappy and I was having trouble walking, which really bummed me out even more.
And there were things I didn’t blog, because I didn’t want to air dirty neurological laundry whine and complain (God forbid!) sound ungrateful or whatever. After all, hadn’t I said there’s no crying in publishing?
I told my funny sister at one point that I felt like crap, but everyone said I looked fine, which was frustrating. And then she said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t look fine.”
And I said, “No! Thank you! I’m so glad you said that. It’s an acknowledgment.”
The thing is that her acknowledgment was honest.
So … here’s to adventures in depression! 
There, I said it!
Right, Cassie? Are you there?
All it took was a trip to England to find my real friends.
So … Stephen Leather. Think I’ve reached my 10,000 hours yet? Am I a real writer? LOL …
Sorry, Stephen. I laughed so hard, I just fell out of my chair. Let me pull myself up with one good hand. LMAO …
This is me waving, Stephen! *waving* Again! Remember? Hahahaha …
Thank you to The Bloggess for these awesome things I’ve pinned!
Finally, from Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar, this awesome quotation and song.
“I have no axe to grind, but if these maggots in this so-called Mafia want to come after me, I’m over here by the Celtic Club. I’m not hard to find.”
– Bugsy Siegel
Real friends are awesome!
Dystonia be damned!
Oh, and from The Bloggess, this is why we can’t have nice things on the internet.
PS: Spike Milligan was awesome!
Paul, you’re a saint!
Thanks, Paul! You saved my life.
And, thank you, Canada for Kobo!
Oh, the irony! Ha!
UPDATE: Oh, the irony! Thanks, Chris Brogan.
UPDATE 2: There are no words.
UPDATE 3: I would like to thank Howard Bashman for this blog, where I found this blog, on which I found this post. Sound familiar?
Semper fi! Ha!
For those of you know exactly what I mean, surprise!
For those of you who either don’t know or know better, thank you for reading this!
Here … have a cookie!
Bonus links: Baseball Crank!
Flirting longer and harder! I hear ya, Blonde Justice.
UPDATE 4: This probably explains everything. Thank you, Paul, for believing in me. I’m so glad to have you as a real friend.
BTW, I don’t believe in miracles, Internet or otherwise. Ha!
Finally, from Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar, a song that’s way too awesome not to be shared!
Happy Saint David’s Day!
