nagi_schwarz | Day 1274: Defy

This past week and a half has been about defying.

Sanity, by pulling several days in a row where I worked at least eleven hours.

The judge, listening to a lawyer persist in a line of questioning after the judge after said to move on. One time he used the phrase "beating a dead horse", which I think was a sign.

The trial was rough. Three days of unnecessary aggression and persistence from one lawyer, brilliance from another, and me, teetering on the edge of insanity the whole while. And right before Christmas, too.

There were those Ally McBeal moments when the one lawyer and I objected to a question at the same time, or the third lawyer launched an objection and the other lawyer shot it down with such a perfect recitation of the law that it was almost choreographed.

We defied logic, Cody and I, by driving through six hours of an epic winter storm to spend the weekend with my mom. Visiting my mom is always fun, though. Warm. Relaxing. And amazing food.

Cody and I made it through two choose-your-own-adventure stories on that drive. It was tense the whole way down.

One of my kids is still on the lam, but given the regularity with which she updates her Facebook profile photo and looks perfectly coiffed and made-up when she does so lets me know that she's warm and safe, wherever she is. One of my other kids went on the lam for all of seven hours because it was bloody cold where she was. And one of my kids has so thoroughly pissed off her judge that he wants to keep her in baby jail over Christmas.

I managed to finish some gift stories for fandom gift exchanges, so I am pretty pleased with that, and they were received well, so I am glad.

I am in court every day this week while I scramble to do laundry and send out Christmas cards and finish gifts and wrap gifts. It's going to be insane. But I will survive, because it's what I do, what we always do.

I feel like a high school kid who's checked out mentally, knowing the holiday looms near. Two days to go. Four days off. Then back to the grindstone without breaking stride. We got this!