Holiday Dispatches

Dispatch A: I write to you through a haze of exhaustion. I appear to be unable to do any legal writing for the moment, so I thought I'd turn to something more free form. I worked on my Reply Brief #2 until 2 a.m. Friday night/Saturday morning, but didn't get nearly as far as I'd hoped, particularly with my unusually full weekend up ahead. On Saturday JP coached a swim lesson, I did some work, and we left at 5:30 for a very rare and much anticipated date night that I was almost too tired and too stressed out to enjoy. A glass of champagne over a dinner purchased with a long unused gift card to our favorite Austin restaurant helped, but as we headed over to the new Austin City Limits music venue in the W Hotel I did fantasize a bit about just going home and curling up in bed with my kindle. Luckily, Robert Earl Keene is a fabulous live show and JP's floor tickets had us standing six feet away from him. Less luckily, JP didn't tell me we had floor seats (or, "seats"), so I ended up standing for 4 hours in 3 inch heeled boots which is less than ideal, especially when you're running on less than 5 hours of sleep and have a back that gets very angry when you stand up for long periods of time. It's a testament to how entertaining my new friend Robert is when I say that I wasn't looking at my watch or hoping to leave early. And JP was so happy and excited to see his favorite country singer, he was grinning from ear to ear the whole show (while holding my too heavy leather purse that I totally would have left in the car had I known we had floor seats).

On Sunday I woke up much earlier than I wanted to continue researching and writing my brief. My parents, brother, sister, sister's boyfriend, and one set of grandparents were all coming to my house around noon to celebrate my sister's birthday, so I left JP a to-do list and headed out to Starbucks to read a giant stack of Federal Circuit cases. I got home in time to drink champagne and eat pizza and red velvet cake (it all went together better than it sounds) and generally enjoy being with my family, though I couldn't help but think about how much I needed to do for work. At 7 p.m. I was able to get back to my laptop and I sent my draft to the partners at 4:30 this morning.

I was up at 8 to get the kids off to daycare and get myself off to work to start Reply Brief #2 that is due tomorrow. I have reorganized stacks of papers for the last few hours, trying to blink through my exhaustion enough to actually start writing, but it's not working. My one highlight has been the chai tea latte my dad picked up for me this morning from Starbucks. He forgot to add the "nonfat" to the order, so I ended up with full fat deliciousness (or maybe 2% deliciousness? whatever their default is) and oh man, it is SO MUCH better. I had no idea. I'm not sure I can go back. Unfortunately, the caffeine content was not high enough to kick my brain into the fully awake and functioning mode. I'm starting to think my time would be better spent curling up under my desk and taking a nap, but I've never been a very successful napper and I think I'd just be haunted by how much I need to do.

But somehow, some way I'll send out another brief by 4 a.m. tomorrow morning. Then I'll sleep, and then I'll come back and incorporate comments and turn new drafts. And again, somehow, both of these suckers will be filed by midnight on the 22nd and then I'm not billing a single other hour until 2012. I know I'll be glad for these crazy deadlines when it's Christmas Day and I can just sit back and enjoy my family, but right now, all I really want to do is sleep. (As a side note, this is exactly why I do everything Christmas related as early as possible. If I still had to shop or decorate or address cards right now, on top of all this work, I think I'd have some sort of breakdown. At the very least, I'd find the impending arrival of Christmas Eve a source of stress instead of happiness. Instead, one of the only things getting me through this brief is knowing that soon I get back to my warm, happy, already-prepared, low-key, love and laughter filled family Christmas holiday. I really can't wait.)

Dispatch B: On a related note, I offer you a slightly modified version of this year's Lag Liv family Christmas card:

Happy Holidays from our home to yours!