Pricks

There are days when I really miss the good ole days of the King James Version. A conversion the apostle Paul had in his conversion experience is set forth in the book of Acts (in the New Testament) like so:

"And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks."

Yes, I know. They didn't mean the same thing we mean when we use the word today. The same word is translated "goads" in the New King James version, and the entire comment is left out of the New American Standard and the New International version - apparently, some of the early manuscripts did not contain that comment.

Anyway, it was one of the fun things to do during the morning service when I was a kid: go through the Bible and find all the naughty bits. I read Genesis and Deuteronomy gleefully, looking for the cool stories, the prohibitions, the stuff proper people didn't discuss in the late 60s.

But I digress.

It took this morning's message to help make the connection about what I've been struggling with in terms of People I Don't Like, whether they're family or cow-orkers (oooo. sorry. "Co-workers"), and the connection had absolutely nothing to do with the message. However, the message did serve as a goad to a part of my brain that, thankfully, I wasn't using at the time, thereby allowing one of the pricks or goads to prod it to realize something it wouldn't have realized on its own.

The message this morning was about faith and works, and the connection I got out of it instead was that no matter what insanity is going on around me, I am not responsible for anyone but myself. Gotta hand it to my mom - whenever I would whine about how my sister (or brothers) got away with stuff, or how I shouldn't get in trouble because "she did [whatever]," my mom's response was always: "I don't care what she did. You just take care of you." [Completely unfair, but y'know, right on the money in terms of preparing me for real life!!]

I spent most of yesterday (beautiful day though it was) and this whole afternoon (also a beautiful day) getting my decks cleared at work for more stuff, and as I was whining and feeling quite sorry for myself and grousing about how so-and-so got this or that, I also sent emails to people from whom I have gotten good billable work before, because I really do like my job.

This morning, two of the three people I emailed sent replies telling me that they have work - one said to come see him on Monday. How cool is that! Here I was blubbering like a little kid about how somebody got my office and somebody is getting all the work I used to do and everybody else is going on these things and I'm not, when I only had to ask to be put back in the rotation. My favorite response was "perfect. let me see what is available."

"Ye have not because ye ask not." That's another one from the King James.

Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay.....

I like it that the rest of that line is "....wastin' time."

This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town
And beats high mountain down.

Yes, it's from "The Hobbit."

My whole life I've felt that I'm either trying to catch up or moving too fast. If I can ever retire, I hope that I will not feel so out of sync with time.

I wrote earlier about the whole lawyer/time/billable hours thing. I realize now why I felt so stressed: I have done (almost) everything on my plate to do, and the work won't add up to enough time to meet the goals set for me by myself and others. I don't have enough work to do to justify my existence.

I'm a little ticked off, because on one hand, they (the powers that be) have hired not one but two new associates just in the last 8 months, one of which is worming her way into the environment like a fungus. Fortunately, the other one is studying for the bar exam, so I have a little time to change the landscape there, but I can't seem to do anything about the other one.

Remember when I wondered if the reason she was here was that I needed to witness to her? I've figured out that that isn't the reason. The reason is because she's like my sister in this one respect. She seems to believe that her own advent onto the scene means that anyone else who won't further her position is dispensible and irrelevant. She is here to replace anyone who a) isn't male, and b) doesn't have the connections she's looking for to advance her own career - for which she is going to ride on her father's coattails for as long as possible.

My sister's attitude was the same from the time we were children. She was the youngest - the baby, for about 5 years - so everything revolved around her, regardless of anyone else's needs. Notice, I didn't say "wants" but "needs." It was never a question of whether something she wanted should trump anyone else's wants - it never entered her mind (and still doesn't) that anyone else's needs were important to the extent that they interfered with her getting her own way (even over things that were not "needs").

This new one is just like her. I never learned to fight that in my own family and that's why this biatch is here now - so that I will learn.

What am I here for?

After all of the yammering about this or that event, the really troublesome issue comes out to this: If all of the things I thought my life was going to be and involve turn out to be wrong turns or detours, what really is my purpose?

Catechism's answer: The chief end of man is to glorify God and to serve Him forever.

That's a fine answer, but what is the practical outworking of that? How do I do that? I mean, it's a generic, ivory-tower concept - does that mean eschewing everything connected with the material world and devoting myself to good deeds like Mother Theresa or going to a mission field someplace far away, or what? I don't think so. Not that those aren't good things, but I haven't felt that call on my life.

Does it mean working day in and day out to achieve debt-free living? Still a good idea, but then what? What do you do when (OK, for me that is still an "if") you get all of your bills paid off, even the student loans and the mortgages? Then what?

I don't have children - which is probably a good thing in my case - and I'm of about the same mind about children as I am about missions: good idea, but not for me. There was a time I felt differently, but honestly, at 43 (and a half) years old, I'm too tired for children!

What is there about making a life worthwhile? 'Cuz here's the thing: other people may be content to just go through their lives working and paying bills and doing whatever they do, but I'm not used to that. There always has to be more, for me anyway.

When I moved here, in the back of my head, there was this thought that maybe living here on my own was the set of circumstances and attitude changes that would bring the One I'm Supposed To Spend The Rest Of My Life With into my life, and I'd meet him, get married, settle down, and live the life I was really supposed to be living. I would never have admitted that - not even at gunpoint - but that's what is supposed to happen, right? Single, getting to that age, find someone, etc. That's the script.

That was one part of the reasons behind my purchase of a residence - because, after all, who takes a 30-something (at that time) year old woman seriously unless she owns real estate? If she's just renting, she's either a gold-digger or she's hopelessly inept, financially, and not a good prospect. These days, we women have to be not only attractive, slender, and modest-but-with-sensual-potential, but we also have to have our financial s*** together. (The other part was that I needed to move due to Neighbors From Hell living upstairs, renting was as expensive as buying, and I only wanted to move once).

Except it didn't happen. None of it. The one I thought might be either the One or someone through whom I might meet the One not only turned out to be neither, he turned out to be nothing like I'd thought he would be (and now he's marrying someone else - who is divorced and has two kids already: the instant family concept).

None of the choices I've made to get where I ended up seem at all in line with what I wanted my life to be like in the four years it's been since I made this move in the first place. All things being equal, my life is at least half over, and I'm still not sure what I'm doing with it.

As of right now, I'm pretty well into screwing up my job - I have a certain amount of billable hours I need to put in to justify my continued existence. As of today, I'm far enough behind that I don't even know how far behind I am - except, I'm pretty sure I would have to bill (not work, bill) 200 hours a month to get caught up by the end of the year. If that isn't self-destruction in action, I don't know what is.

The struggle there, though, is why am I doing this anyway? I'm doing the same thing - at which I do not completely suck, which is always good to know - for more money than I've ever made in my life. The money I make pays my bills (or it would if I didn't keep spending more than I can afford). I joined the church I was talking about and started with choir practice on Wednesday night.

So why do I feel like chucking it all in the can and starting over?

Happy Administrative Professionals' Day!!

This is one Hallmark holiday that I do not mind celebrating, especially since one of the world's best secretaries works with me. I started to say, "I have one of the world's greatest secretaries....," but it sounded weird - weird and condescending.

Anyway, our office did a catered lunch in the office for everyone that turned out very, very well. The food was delicious (chicken marsala, pasta palomino, green beans and carrots, salad, rolls and dessert), and people seemed to enjoy just sitting down and eating together - we don't get to do that very often at all.

Having just concluded my second week with Dr. Atkins, however, I did not participate.... I did have a piece of chicken afterwards - I had to make sure it tasted good! - but I just didn't trust myself to only eat what was on my diet plan in the face of all of that temptation. Especially not the pasta palomino - which was a penne pasta with what looked like a tomato-cream sauce.... (droolllllllllll). The desserts looked .... OK. Nothing smashing to write home about, but then again, I wasn't really looking at the desserts.

Instead, I went home and took my dog outside to go potty and made scrambled eggs with cream cheese and sat with him for a little while before heading back to work.

He has been doing this drooling thing for a while now that just cracks me up. The rule is, when I eat, he gets a bite, but only after I'm finished. This has worked very well to keep him from jumping on other people who may come over for a meal while we're eating, as well as when we are at someone else's house.

So instead of physically begging (sitting up, putting his paw on me, etc.), he just sits there and drools. We're talking BIG drops of dog drool that make wet spots on the floor!! I feel so bad for him when he does that because I know he wants whatever it is I'm eating, but he sits there like a drooling rock until it's his turn!! If I can, I will get a picture of this, because I want it for his doggie book anyway. (Doggie book = baby book for those of us with four-legged children).

By the time I came back to work, everyone had finished eating, but people totally loved it. With about 60 people in our office (25 attorneys and the rest support and administrative/paraprofessional staff), it worked out to about $25/attorney, but we didn't have to do much of the clean-up, and we did NONE of the cooking this year. Caterers rock!!