Pull Me Out Of The Aircrash

Back when I had the malignant hypertension, I couldn't unwind. I'd lay in bed, trying to sleep, but my mind and my heart were pulling a techno beat. I was so tense that I'd wake up with pulled calves and sucking my breath in pain. I chalked all this up to work stress instead of blood pressure so high that the emergency room put me on drip within five minutes, just seconds before a gunshot victim.

Well, two weeks into work, and that inability to unwind is creeping back. The blood pressure isn't back up to 250/180, but it is higher than it's supposed to be.

Tuesday is the attorney lunch day at GatewayGig. We sit around eating a catered lunch and discuss what we're working on--a way for the firm to figure out who's busy and who's not. It's kinda weird being a contract attorney and attending those meetings, because technically I'm a temp. I'm not supposed to be busy as hell on a regular basis given that I'm being paid on an hourly basis. Yet I feel somewhat guilty when it's my turn to give an update on my work and it's on one or two projects, while everyone else spends five to ten minutes going over what they're doing.

Anyway, so there I was today, eating a chicken that was way too salty, and half-paying attention to what the other attorneys were saying. Then the dread hit me bigtime. Listening to words like "demurrer" and "discovery" and "summary judgment," I was bored. Then I realized that I couldn't imagine hearing these words 520, 1040 more times while eating salty chicken in a white sterile room overlooking suburbs. This was just another version of pulling out staples for eight hours a day (a summer job I had in high school)--rote repetitive mind-numbing tasks with no meaning with no end in sight. I began craving shots of Jack Daniels. I still crave shots of JD.

It doesn't matter that I happened to be dead right on a point of law and the partner who slammed my analysis at lunch was dead wrong. It doesn't matter that Morally Flexible Parther who blew off one of my tactical suggestions in the morning came around to my thinking in the afternoon. I just don't take pleasure in being right anymore.

And now I'm home, still keyed up, still hypertense.

"Pull Me Out Of The Aircrash
Pull me Out Of The Lake"
-"Lucky" by Radiohead