cindy's world

Today marks the end of life as I know it. Transitional life. The time bomb was put in place in the first week of the Past, already pre-set to go off May 2, 2005. The Past ended May 2, 2005; the Present began on the same date. Yesterday, June 16, 2005, makes it six weeks to the day. In those six weeks, I had struggled to find myself and to set up my Future life, altho I didn’t know it at the time. Now I have these plans and activities in motion, just waiting for me to be ready.

I drove to work today in silence, surrounded by only my thoughts. I brought my digital camera with me to document the day. I wanted to wear all black and be in comfort clothes, then at the last minute opted for an outfit that was better for my self-esteem. Black and white. Yin and yang. Hope and despair. The death of the phoenix in flames, and from the ashes, a new bird shall rise.

I looked into the jury room and paused in confusion. Cake laid out. Presents. “Your birthday! You didn’t forget, did you?” my court reporter asked. I did indeed forget that they had planned to celebrate my birthday early because of everyone’s vacation plans. The way things fall into place, the symbolism, the precision of it all. Me with my camera, wanting to document my rebirth, dressing for the part.

Chin up, Cindy. Turn those puffy eyes forward. I’m finally done with this phase. Finally.

Are pissy moods contagious? Cuz I just caught a HUGE bug.
Maybe I didn’t get enough sleep to begin with. (I’m slightly febrile now having had an hour of sleep last nite. For the past few weeks I’ve been getting about 4-5 hours and that seemed to be sufficient.) Maybe it’s being caught in a family law pass-the-buck case this morning. Maybe it’s all the family law phone calls and the random phone calls using us as a switchboard, asking for #s to different departments, different offices, different government buildings. Maybe it’s the fact that the ex parte Arizona family law case we got last Friday STILL hasn’t been input in the system so I STILL can’t update the record as to our hearing and it’s coming back in a few days and I probably still won’t be able to update the system then, either, which puts me farther behind on just that particular case. (I’d called the supervisor last Friday and he’d said he’d make sure the case is set up in the system THAT DAY.)
Aside: I just got a call from the attorney involved in the pass-the-buck family law case this morning. She said the pass-the-buck department misunderstood the situation and it IS indeed supposed to be their hearing so I’m just going to set it back in their department for a future hearing date. At least that takes care of that, and the small vindication feels good.
And then I get an email from someone I’m fed up to HERE with who made an offensive statement that totally pushed a button with me and I swung the axe. Cyber blood all over the place. Flesh fragments oozing down cyber walls.

I guess what I learned about myself in this is that people should do as I say, not as I do, considering the placating advice I gave a pissy cranky friend yesterday.

Today, I hate everybody and everything.

I had about an hour of sleep 2 nites ago, and the following nite, I had spotty sleep, so yesterday after my lunchtime workout, I could not seem to keep my eyes open. I constantly got out of my seat to wander around the back hallway and talk to my court reporter in her office or to the personnel in the courtroom next door, because I feared getting to the point where I would fall asleep for a few seconds every time I blinked had I stayed at my desk. (This is the point where a friend would’ve said, “THIS is where my tax dollars are going?! I’m gonna complain.”)

At 4:45pm, the day was coming to a close, and I realized I would not survive the 7-mile drive back home unless I took a little cat nap. We have an old-fashioned pleather couch-like piece of furniture in a small lounge room between the women’s restroom and the jury room, and I laid down on the couch in the darkened room to rest my eyes for 15 minutes or so. At what I thought was 5:20pm, I woke up and thought, “Oh wow, that was longer than I wanted…but what a restful nap!” and wandered into the restroom. I looked at my face, washed my hands, looked down at my watch again, and WHOA, it was 6:22pm! I hurried out of the restroom, glancing at the wall clock in the jury room and in the courtroom and sure enough, I was down for over an hour and a half!! It briefly crossed my mind that as I go into the Clerk’s Office to do my distribution, I should feign to my supervisors “Whew, what a tough day!” but I knew no one would be down there anymore. I grimly drove out of the parking structure at 6:45pm, shaking my head at myself. I can’t believe I left work this late when I didn’t have to. I should get a T-shirt that says “I Heart Work.”