Standard of Living

That is a term of art in law. Its definition during a marrage sets the amount of alimony in a divorce action. I just finished preparing for trial on the issue, and so that must be why the term was so on my mind this morning--when I was immediately aware of my humm as I am every night before sleeping and every moring when I awake. The humm in my room is insideous. I do not know who to pay to do something about it and moving seems extreme. I am apparently the only person who can hear it, but since I only hear it in that room--I'm fairly confident that I'm not crazy. Yet. What if that humm is the drop of water, dripping and dripping day in and day out that evetually erodes my sanity. Now moving doesn't sound so crazy--ok, it still sounds crazy. Maybe the erosion is already farther along than I thought.


A little later I found a cricket in my tub. This is a common event--I find a cricket in my tub, I kill it, clean up the corpse and the next day he's back. Sometimes he brings a friend. I kill them both and the routine continues. I was reminded of that commercial with the Budist who blows his nose and the commentator says he's killed millions of germs--the Budist is horrified. If I had a nickle for every cricket I've killed, well, I'd be one rich mass cricket murderer.

I try to tell myself that it could be much worse--I could be homeless (unlikely), I could live in a noisy building (I have before--the horror), there could be lots worse critters than crickets (I don't what to think about the spiders that I know reside with me), but that humm and those smushy crickets make me question my standard of living. Law school was really hard work--preparing for trial is no walk in the park--what's the payoff if I live with insideous noise and crickets in the tub?

Caitlyn's laugh. If you haven't gone to Caitlyn's blog and heard her laugh, well I don't know how you get up every morning.