I’m sitting in lawyer ethics class and within an hour I will be at work for my first full work week, minus the 6 hours of class each week that are scheduled to cut into my time, since I started working a little over 3 weeks ago. Every week up until now has had some sort of break or off day either because I was on a family vacation or because of the 4th of July holiday. So Monday through Friday this week I will be toiling away at the old brickyard. Lifting one brick at a time, splashing mortar onto the bricks below, trying to build this small wall of experience into the foundation of a career.
I woke up this morning early so that I would be in class on time. I hate this routine of flopping out of bed before you are fully rested and then stretched and then satisfied that you are as done sleeping as artichokes should be when they come out of the steamer and are laid out for presentation on a table. No, when you get up for work on Monday morning, even if you went to bed by midnight, you are never fully prepared to tackle the day properly when you are awake before 8. I know I’ll get used to it eventually: the shower where the water seems to be doing more work than you are, the morning news where nothing the anchors say seems to matter and you get tired listening because they seem to be working so hard to make it big and move to a bigger market, the english muffin that makes you feel comfortable, but at the same time is deceptive as to how easy the rest of your day will be.
And I like my job and I don’t mind going to class.
I can’t imagine what people do who hate their jobs. The All-Star game is tomorrow night. Sure, I’d love to watch baseball all day and then maybe blog about it or write a daily column on baseball and just live in baseball utopia forever. But even that would have drawbacks because I’d have to either move to Connecticut to work for ESPN or else write for our smaller newspaper and have to write about other sports as well. For instance, about the great Italian football team and the great French team and then their captain who is good at giving head. But, other than the small, sadistic, and paradoxical love I have for the mechanical nature of toiling at work everyday, there is no way getting up on a Monday morning to go to work for 5 days just to get to the reward of a lightning-quick 2 days is ever going to be something I look forward to. I’d like to write a book about it instead.
Anyway, since I’m in class, I guess I’ll try to pay attention. Even if it is the beginning of the week.
-jd
