PMS

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.”

― Mark Twain

A lovely fall morning out there in the Lower East Side.

One more night here, then back to Corning tomorrow so P can work in the OR Wednesday through Friday. I thought I'd need to fly back to Florida for in-person hearings, but those were converted by the judge to Zoom, presumably because he had scheduling conflicts of his own. Still, I'm getting constant pressure to fly down anyway, by clients who insistent they need to meet, and can only effectively do that in-person.

For thirty years now, I'm spent most Sunday nights with a sinking sense of dread, awakened several times a week at 2 or 3 a.m. to make notes to myself about next moves in my cases, deadlines looming ahead, files in need of review. It's not a great way to live, but short of retirement or getting a scrip for Xanax I don't see a way for it to end.

Today looks like a light one, with only a pretrial stipulation and checklist that have already been completed that need to be submitted by noon. I also need to get an extension of time on a deadline I can't meet because the client is crawfishing, to respond to emails that arrived over the weekend but were ignored so work wouldn't suck the joy out of my leisure time, to draft a nasty demand letter and finish editing another, to send out bills for October and cross my fingers that some will be paid.

And, of course, a rather monumental election is tomorrow, maybe the first step toward ending the nightmare that descended the escalator eleven years ago. But unfortunately those eleven politcal years happened, and whoever's in charge inherits a mess unlike any in American political history, with the mad king still in place and becoming increasingly deranged and dangerous. We'll probably watch the returns anyway, the same way one rubbernecks at a bad car crash.