Monday, Monday, can´t trust that day Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way Oh Monday mornin´ you gave me no warnin´ of what was to be Oh Monday, Monday, how could you leave and not take me Every other day, every other day Every other day of the week is fine, yeah But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes A-you can find me cryin´ all of the time
-John Phillips
There's been sort of a pall hanging over this otherwise beautiful day, following an equally lovely weekend.
I sort of like the image, even if it wasn't intentional. A spectacular late spring day, but through a glass darkly, stuck inside a world that feels a little gloomy right now.
I know the cause, which is more situational than chemical. Tomorrow at 2:38 a Delta regional jet with me ten rows back will leave ELM, bound for Detroit. By eleven or so I'll be dropping my bags at 407, on the bay, alone. And there's little or no chance I'll be gone less than roughly fifteen days, with in-person work commitments, a doctor's appointment, a trip to Texas to drop off the Columbia for its annual and to see Dad and Johnnie, then back to Florida for more hearings and trying to figure out what in the hell is going on at the farm, where progress has again turned glacial. A source of great happiness not so long ago has become a financial albatross. It's getting to be time to move on.
Mostly---well, almost entirely, to be honest---I just hate the idea of being away from P for such a long time. We're approaching the late innings of life, with who knows how many healthy, good days ahead. It seems a waste to blow half of month slogging through the detritus of other peoples' mistakes for lucre.
Plus, I have a tendency to fall into something less than my best self on these extended periods apart. I never really learned how to live alone, and it shows in the way I run a household when I'm solo. For that reason I usually end up working almost every waking hour, or exercising, trying to keep my marbles.
But while I'm here I feel the constant tug from folks back there, mostly at the firm, who seem pretty displeased with my decision to stay away for half the year. Why am I not in the office, when they show up every day? My numbers are better than most, and I get more work done here than there, but the country's in the midst of this great herding of our workforce back to their cubicles where they can be monitored and accounted for. The practice of law is no exception. Judges are doing away with remote hearings in some circumstances. Clients, particularly the older ones, want to come to your office and drink your coffee across the conference table. Unsupervised staff often act like unsupervised staff when the boss is a thousand miles to the north.
So I'm heading back, back to the heat and the crowds and the traffic, back to the Trump flags and bugs and not a single damned thing to do but bill and work out. It's a TDY in hell.
But hey, it's only a couple weeks, right? And I get to fly for the first time since 26 April, assuming the plane starts after such a long time baking in Perry. I'll get up very, very early for that one, because another wonderful feature of the Gulf coast in the summer is the wall of massive thunderstorms that pop up along the I-10 corridor every afternoon. This is the time of year that a wise pilot reserves an extra day for a long trip, knowing the chances of getting stuck somewhere between Perry and Dallas to wait out a line of thundering doom are pretty good.
Today I'll finish a complete first draft of this all-consuming appellate brief, submit a witness and exhibit list in a truly silly case coming up for hearing in a couple weeks, then maybe go hit golf balls with the lovely P one last time before my furlough ends and I find myself back at the front.
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