Having 12,457th thoughts

Ugh. I STILL have yet to put the nail in the ugly-ass coffin that is this appellate brief. I just hate it SO MUCH. I don't find legal writing all that difficult, besides my inherent inability to remember all the damn citation rules and my lack of desire to look them up constantly because OMG TEDIOUS. It's just so freaking boring. I seriously cannot imagine myself doing this on a more consistent basis. I cannot imagine a more soul-sucking activity. And I'm not necessarily talking about all the standard motions, decrees and other forms that I can easily generate by plugging info into a computer program. It's things like briefs that make me hate life. Yet I volunteered for this. Oh boy.

I'm in the home stretch though. The home stretch of the most stressful month of the year so far. The Lilith fundraiser was Thursday and it went off stunningly well. We had a tremendous turnout, way more than anticipated, and we brought in plenty of moolah. I co-emceed the event and despite my being really sick that day, it went pretty well. I decided to take the low-key approach to public speaking and I didn't even write out remarks, just jotted down notes. And I did pretty well. I wasn't even very nervous, which was nice. I guess by that point I was just too exhausted to be freaked out standing in front of a room full of people, including politicians and directors of sister organizations.

However, all night long, as I ran into acquaintances I haven't seen in weeks, months or years, I had to answer the questions, "What's going on with you? What are you doing now? How's your job?" And I really just wanted to gloss over my life updates quickly and move on to them. It's better than saying, "I work for a great organization and I do fulfilling work, but it's not at all what I want to be doing anymore and I have no idea what my next move will be." Then I have to think about how I'm in all this debt to become a lawyer and I really don't like doing boring lawyer shit. And how I feel like I'm back at square one, except for the letters after my name. I know it's not quite that bleak, but I really need to take charge of the situation and figure some stuff out.

In the meantime, I need to get back to slogging through all this crap and crank out this crappy brief. After I turn it in tomorrow, I need to send off some subpoenas, respond to a bitchy discovery request and draft a letter to a client that I'll then have to translate into Spanish. And after all that is done, I'll just be coasting until my much-needed short California vacation. Wee!