divine angst

I ran a really great Westlaw search this afternoon–the kind that produces just a handful of results, even in the biggest database of cases, most of which are actually on point.

As I paged through the cases, one looked weirdly familiar. The name of the appellee sounded familiar, the facts sounded familiar. Something about the case just struck me. I looked at it and wondered if I’d read it before, when running a similar search. I couldn’t figure it out.

And then it hit me.

I scrolled up to the list of appellants. I realized I recognized the “name” appellant’s name, though the spelling wasn’t what I expected. But the next two names confirmed it.

Third and fourth on the list were two of my relatives. A married couple. Who I grew up with. Who, along with several neighbors, sued a neighboring company for violating an easement on their property. Their property which I visited several times a year before we moved to the tundra. Their property where I had my engagement party, during which my relatives discussed how they’d just finished the last of the litigation over the easement. Which, today, I read all about. That last bit of litigation, that is.

Millions of cases on Westlaw. My very narrow search. A case involving people I know and grew up with and property I’ve spent countless hours enjoying. Westlaw voodoo. Pretty cool.

I fully intended to spend all of today working on finishing up my comment. I hoped to have all my pages written by the end of the day so I could spend tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday editing, finding those last few sources for my “citation?” footnotes, and generally getting the thing ready for submission.

Didn’t quite happen that way. See, what I was going to do was go, early, to Best Buy or somewhere and buy an external keyboard, something I’ve been wanting to do for some time and have put off for forever. With the flare-up of my RSI this week, though, I figured I needed to do something, and do it fast.

But I didn’t get up early enough and I wasn’t feeling very motivated and by noon, I hadn’t gone anywhere–nor had I done any work. And then something amazing happened. Mr. Angst suggested that instead of sitting around, letting the guilt grow because neither of us was being productive, we go run some errands–he needed to print something long at his campus and we both needed to do some very quick shopping. Along the way, he suggested, let’s pick up your new keyboard and then we’ll set you up a workspace with the extra monitor.

So off we went. We printed his stuff downtown, we stopped and bought him some t-shirts, we exchanged a sweater I bought last week, and we picked up that new keyboard. (White! Slim! Shiny! Oh, wait, no…Matte!) While we were out, we ate lunch and enjoyed being with each other, talked about our schedules for next semester, complained about all the tourists out shopping before the day after Thanksgiving, and generally relaxed some. By the time we got home, the mail had come, bringing me new in-ear headphones. And I was ready to work.

I am now comfortably set up at our dining room table with the extra monitor (so, OK, it’s the small monitor–it’s MINE, at least), a new keyboard, and new headphones. I have more resolution and more space. The dog is curled up next to me, and I’m Getting Shit Done.

New workspace. New motivation. Is it sad that that’s all it takes?

I bought Himself a Kong toy today, with some peanut-butter-flavored paste. He is completely enthralled. What is this red rubber thing that bounces and has food inside??? He works at it for a while, then sits back and stares at it. If he stares too long, I ask him, “[Himself], where’s your toy?” and he’s back at it.

Amazing how a teaspoon of peanut butter paste and a little bit of rubber can occupy a dog for hours.