28 May 2017, 13:25 CDT

Today is one of those “shiny spot” days. You know, the day where I’d rather be doing anything other than whatever I have on my to-do list to accomplish. I have a lot of those, it seems.

Shiny spot days were born of law school days, when my friends and I would often comment that we would rather be doing anything other than reading for whatever boring subject matter we had to do that day, say constitutional law or mystery hour (aka Civ Pro). Even if we hated doing laundry, we’d find every excuse known to man to do laundry, just to get out of reading whatever the boring material of the day might be. It did seem then, though, that I had more time to do whatever I wanted to do than it does now. Even without children at home, it seems like there is always something to do that is taking up my cherished free time, even if there isn’t really nearly as much to do as there used to be.

I think it’s partly to blame on social media – meaning Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram – all of which I can spend hours upon hours scrolling through various stories about someone’s pet or the latest scourge brought upon our country from someone on the left or the right – your choice. I find myself spending those hours, idling them away, not even noticing that three hours have passed since I looked up and did something or anything even remotely productive.

I need to do laundry, which I’m doing. I need to balance my checkbook, which I’ve put off until the last possible moment. I need to do billing, but I’d rather not. There are just so many other things that seem more important and fun to me at the moment, that I just cannot wrap my head around anything productive. It’s sad, really, that my mind has gotten to this state.

I think that, most certainly, when I worked at a 9-5 job and had no billing or other responsibilities that I had more free time. Of course I did – but I also didn’t have free time during the week to go take a rare long lunch or drop off at Penney’s to buy something for the next day. There are checks and balances to every career. I just wish mine was working from home 24/7, as that’s where I’d really like to be. Not a housewife, per se, but doing that for a month or so would really do my mind a lot of good.

I look for days to take off, then I remember that I cannot escape the phone, the email, the faxes, the apparent emergency issues that seemingly arise out of nowhere on a Wednesday afternoon. I need to finish my mom’s mother’s day gift. I want to read instead. I hate sewing, and I am well aware of my hatred for my sewing machine. Every single time I use it, I end up cussing it incessantly because I hate it so much. I love working by hand, but I hate sewing by machine. I’ve hemmed dresses and pants totally by hand before to avoid dragging out old Stewey the Stupid Sewing Machine. I don’t have any valium, I don’t smoke weed, and I don’t really think that either would help get me through this sewing experience. I’ve dreamed about taking it to someone and just having them finish it for me, but that would cost more than I would want to spend and I am just simply too lazy to find someone to do it. Alas, my current situation is dreadful in that respect.

I find myself coming home many a day lately and just crashing. I hear so many sad, scary, or heartbreaking stories every day that some days it’s hard not to bring that home in my head. Since I have that attorney-client super secret handshake rule, I can’t even tell the stories to just get them out of my head. There should be a website where attorneys can just dish on what is going on in their cases, without fear of aprisal or the ethics board coming after you. But, alas, that’s a big part of the job. Carrying the weight of so many others on your shoulders does get tiresome from time to time.

Either way, I have to get some stuff done today, so it’s off of social media for me. I’ve deleted Facebook on my phone about twelve times in the past month, but I keep adding it back. I guess I’m addicted, and frankly that’s probably the first thing I’ve ever truly been addicted to in my life. It’s really sad, honestly. Do I really care if someone’s cat is missing? Or if their kid, who I’ve never met, makes all As this semester? Not really. But, I scroll anyway, in the hopes that I wll find some nugget of wisdom. Instead, I should be gaining those nuggets by reading, learning French, and maybe even balancing my checkbook.