Blabber

English Renaissance dress is highly complex to construct. I thought I'd have my Halloween costume done in plenty of time with no problem. But, boy was I wrong. There's still so much to do on it - and that I want to do that's not even necessary to ensure I'm not naked. But first, I have to make sure I'm not naked when I wear it. This means - get the bodice finished by trimming the seams and then hand tacking the piping seam around the edges, fitting on the hooks and eyes, and attaching the sleeves. I have to finish the cuffs of the sleeves, make the ruffs for the neck and the writsts, make the partlet by sewing on twill tape and snaps, and gathering it at the neck. Well, there's probably something that I forgot to write about that I still have to do - but I'm excited to get it done.

Last night, Mom and I pinned it onto my dress form and, with very little imagination, got a first look at what it will eventually be. And we kept telling each other that we should go to bed, but we standing there looking at it and thinking about what other gewgaws we could put on it that would make it look even better.

I am excited for it to be finished, but I don't know when I'm going to get it finished. There's tonight and tomorrow night and then it has to be done because I'm having a party Friday night and I'll have to spend the evening getting ready for that, not working on the costume--the cosutme which is the reason I'm having the party because this one is just too cool and expensive to only go to one party in it. So I'm throwing my own.

Last night I went to my ward Halloween party - with just the skirt. Of course, I wore a shirt - but it was just a white linen shirt. I walked in with this huge farthingale and a gorgeous skirt peeping out from under my blue cloak. Oh yeah, people were impressed. But then there's this boring, non-matching shirt on top. The best was that people kept asking where I got the skirt, like they never suspected that I made it! That's cool. It also gave me an opportunity to explain that the bodice isn't finished, which is why I'm just wearing a skirt. A really big, impressive, fancy skirt.

And now I'm developing a cold sore!

Been staying up far too late at night making the skirt.

Mom's been helping soooooooo much. She's spent so much of her time hemming the never-ending end and then the waist band. This is the coolest thing - the over skirt attaches to the waist band in a very unique and time consuming way. There's about 3 or 4 yards of fabric that is to be gathered onto the waist band. It's done by doing three running stiches along the endges in a precise way and then gathering the fabric along the stiching threads. You end up with fathers about .5 inches thick. Each gather is individually attached to the outside of the waistband. The result is that the gathers (cartridge pleats is what they're called I think) stand out from the waistband - straight out. Until of course the weight of the skirt pulls them down.

I'm so blabbering because I'm so tire. I'm having a hard time concentrating at work.

And here's the strangest stress I've ever dealt with. I hate charging people for what I do for them. It just seems ridiculous to me to charge people for me to think for them. Also, I know that I'm not the fastest at researching and so I feel so guilty charging anyone for the amount of time I spend researching. I'm pretty sure that I come up with useful stuff, but I feel that I should charge for only half of what I do because..... because ..... I just don't like people paying that much money for what I feel is work that is almost common sense. Like the other night, a fellow calls with a question about a custody issue. He's a young guy, fathered a child and is worried about the child's saftey. He calls (the attorney at my firm who works for him wasn't there, so I took the call). He calls with these nebulous concerns and I get this feeling that basically he just wants to take the child from the mom's home. But his conscience knows that that's no solution - at least not a permanent one. All I can tell him is don't do anything stupid. In fact, with most of my clients (which granted is just a handful and I've been an attorney for a whopping two weeks now), when they call asking for advice, mostly I tell them in a few more words "Don't be stupid." Don't do things that are going to get you into trouble. Duh. Now, pay me $60 bucks for that 2 cents worth of advice. Can you see why I have a hard time charging people? I guess, if I want to be cynical, if people need the advice of "don't be stupid" or "don't panic" or "be nice" then they deserve to be charged that much. But I don't believe that. I frequently get the feeling that they're mostly looking for assurance that they are right. Man, this is just weird trying to figure out what it means to be an attorney. To make it clear, I should say that my practice (and it is practice - another reason I don't like charging) is mostly family law and probate - that means I deal with the people who are at a very gut level having a hard time with something in their family. It is a lot of touchy feely type stuff - not a whole lot of intellectual gamesmanship like MA or IP.

Blabber, blabber, blabber - I've got work to do. Clients who depend on me! I suppose it's ok to charge them. The difficulty I'm having right now comes from the fact that I just input a bunch of hours into the practice management software and saw what the clients are paying. My gut just clenched and my head hung in shame. It's just hard. And I just have to get over it because this is the way the world works. My desire for people to just be kind to each other is idealistic - our relationships and understandings of self are still so bound up in property that if I don't charge people for my work, I'll starve - because that's the way the world works. I wish the world was different - but it won't change for my wishing and I just hope that I can keep my ideals and gentleness - that I can be supple enough that I'll always bounce back to my original way of seeing things, even when I do things that are contrary to the way I wish things were.

Blabber blabber blabber. Bye.

Cream Cheese

That's what I'm eating right now. Can't eat the bagels because the wheat makes me sick. But I'll eat the cream cheese straight. Pumpkin is surprisingly good - but maybe it's the nutmeg that I like. Strawberry, and now, I'll give maple raisin a try.

Not bad. Strawberry and Pumpkin are better.

So, now I'm a real attorney. Mom brought in Diet Lime Coke yesterday because now I'm the "real thing." I actually felt a tingle in my body when I stood and took the oath. There is a real responsibility that comes with being authorized to represent other people. It's an odd sort of principal-agent relationship, where the agent's knowledge and experience are (supposed) to be beyond the principal's and the principal is in such a vulnerable position. If the agent doesn't truly work for the good of the principal, the principal could be harmed and may not even know it. Anyway - I'm excited to be able to sign my own letters and file motions with the court and everything. Crazy!

Fast Break

My new favorite candy bar. Mom would hate it because there's no crunchies. Smooth, creamy, chocolate and peanut butter with a bit of chewey thrown in for substance. What could be better?

Red Bull. That's a great little item of grass tasting liquid. I'm sleep deprived right now and really feeling it because I've been getting 8 hours of sleep each night for the past few months. Used to down a couple of Red Bulls a day this time of year. October in a costume shop is ragingly, crazily wonderful. Except for some customers that, if it weren't for Red Bull, would be severly punished for their bad behavior.

Last night was my first long night lawyer thing getting ready for a status conference. But I think I got some good stuff together.

My halloween costume is coming along swimmingly, but I'll be putting in late nights on that too.

Tomorrow, I get sworn in. I become a real attorney!

Prejudices

The other day when I met with some clients for the first time, I ran into my prejudices.
The clients came in for some basic estate planning. I'm thinking this will be a snap. The first question that the more experienced attorney asks of them is, "What are your goals in coming in here today?" They answer that they want a trust. I immediately think, maybe they don't.
See, a trust is not for everyone, even though in the west the trust and pour over will combo is quite popular. It's just that probate isn't all that hard and when a couple owns everything jointly with rights of survivorship, you hardly have to go through probate when the first spouse dies. So if you're not worried about asset protection or estate tax issues or the like, then there's just no reason to have a trust.
I look at these people and I think - they don't need a trust. They don't have the assets that would put them in the group of people that need trusts. See, I was judging them by their clothing and demeanor, that they were not that rich or that sophisticated.
I was wrong.
They own a business that is likely worth several million. A trust - in fact an AB trust that utilizes the marital deduction - may be just the thing they need. So, inside my mind a slap myself and remind myself never to assume anything, because that just makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me."

Which is a good reminder because tomorrow I have two more client interviews!

Being Productive

Because I'm being productive, there is no link to any other place in cyberspace. The internet is a great black hole to my time. I just need to avoid it. So here I am writing now about how I'm being productive, and the very act is unproductive. Nevertheless - I feel much happier when I am productive and and I've been productive today and will continue to be so, as long as I post this and then leave it and don't do anything else on the internet.

But I have to say thank you. This morning when I came into work I knew that my thoughts were spiraling down into a depressive cycle. And I knew that part of the reason for that is that I slept too much this morning and because I haven't yet finished this one blasted motion I've been working on for two weeks. So I said a prayer asking Heavenly Father to help me not go further into the depressive mode and acknowledging that my recent behavior is what started me into it in the first place. (I take my meds regularly, so it wasn't my body, but my thoughts and actions that was causing it.) And today has been productive and happy and varied and I feel like I'm accomplishing things and like I'm actually becoming a lawyer. I actually had a meeting with clients today. I should write about that later - because it was something of a lesson in prejudgment. OkILuvYaBye!