All Things Profane and Sacred

I feel really guilty putting down time I spent reading stuff (not friggen cases or hornbooks, but real, honest to goodness books) as work time. I mean, sure, the material is work related, but I'm certainly enjoying it waay to much to be getting paid for (or, I should say, accruing comp time for) it. I supposed I need to remember that work doesn't have to be unpleasant, grueling or taxing.

A difficult month, with lots of ups and downs so far. The work sent me to somewhere sunny and warm for a conference, but I missed my flight (long story, but the short version is: I've never gotten the hang of air travel) and had a lot of waiting, running, and then more waiting to do. It was a sort of swank place they put us up in and the conference was nice. All and all, I wonder if it was really worth the time away from work, but whatever. J got a job while I was gone, and then promptly broke his toe. When I got home, the weather was sucky and got suckier. We were completely snowed in for what should have been J's first day of work.

Then we discovered that our little home's brand new water pump and filter combo had just been put on a concrete pad without any sort of insulation. J had gone out to find out why we didn't have any water, and the whole shebang was frozen solid. The housing was cracked due to the expanding ice, and the filter was shattered. That was 4 days without water. Oh yeah, did I mention that I was on the rag at the time?

Anyhow, as we're coming into the last stretch, I'm trying to hold things together. It's clear that we'll be doing a whole lot better as a two income household, but finances are pretty strained right now. I had a bit of a breakdown this morning when NPR was running a story about new lawyers in public interest jobs and how fucked we are. Joe Biden has a bill that would provide debt relief to public interest attorneys who spend more than half their time representing victims of domestice violence. Since I spend about 90% of my time with DV victims, have a staggering amount of debt and am at the bottom of the payscale, this bill would be a godsend. We're talking 40-80k of debt relief.

It'll never happen, or I should say, it is extremely unlikely to happen, but the thought is awfully nice. I love my job and I love handling stuff for my clients. I can't imagine doing private sector stuff and having to deal with billing and cost/benefit analysis and a lot of the other bullshit that goes with being an associate or a solo. I like setting my own hours, and deciding how much work needs to go into a case. Also, I like my clients (mostly), and I like cutting the balls off of someone who thinks they can continue to abuse them through the court process while no one does a damn thing to help out because they are too fucken broke. Okay, I'm getting sort of tired and irrational here, but the damn point was, I am willing to sacrifice the salary to do what I enjoy doing. I never expected to be rich (and havn't been disappointed yet), but the financial pressure I'm dealing with are too much and I'm on the verge of a complete emotional breakdown. Not that that's anything new, i guess. This too will pass.