TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: …scheduling issues.

THERAPIST: Yes, thank you for your message about this coming Tuesday, right?

CLIENT: Yes. Ian (sp?) and I are going to Grandma's 90th birthday party.

THERAPIST: Right, (inaudible at 00:12) trip.

CLIENT: So that's also going to be next Friday and the Tuesday after that we'll be gone.

THERAPIST: OK, let me stop.

(silence)

CLIENT: So.

THERAPIST: So.

CLIENT: Something like Tuesday, which (pause) I'm not stressed about it. I'm thinking about it a lot, you know, but it's not giving me anxiety. I don't want to say I'm I mean, it's a normal stress level I think for anything that, you know. And (pause) I want to say I have a little more confidence about doing my work, you know, because I think that's part of it, is that I've been productive, you know. I guess the Adderall's helping and just getting me up and out of the house and to the office and then once I get there, that's the big thing, is, you know it wasn't always getting to the office that was the problem. I ultimately got there. It may have been 11:00, it may have been 12:00, but I got there. But then I was leaving at 1:00 and 2:00, you know.

THERAPIST: Right. (inaudible at 01:51)

CLIENT: Yeah. So really just going to check the mail, you know, (laughter) and blowing things off. "I'll do that at home, [I'll do that at home] (ph)." And, you know, before E&G and instead of you know, a little bit of Words with Friends but, you know, not like I usually do and was [kind of] (ph) productive. I can't remember exactly what I did but I just remember getting stuff done. Oh, I was disbursing a loan and I started the process, knowing I wasn't going to finish it when normally I would have, "I'll wait till I get back from E&G." So I was using my time effectively, which was probably the first day that that's happened in, you know, six years. (laughter) It hadn't been that long but it's been a long time since I really felt like, you know, I was a little organized in my time and getting things done. And (pause) I was given a special pen at E&G and a little ribbon that says that I've been a member for nine years.

THERAPIST: Congratulations.

CLIENT: Yeah. The closest in my group I think was six years. Though there's a woman in the group who her father was an original member and she took over his spot, but they kind of consider it a new membership to put it all in her name. (pause) But other than that, I'm [a grandfather] (ph) right now. [00:03:38]

THERAPIST: Well that's great that (pause) you'd (ph) be getting more done at work. (inaudible at 04:02) follow through on things and are starting to feel more confident about it.

CLIENT: Yeah, there's definitely less anxiety. I think there was less anxiety before I started. I can't remember but I think, you know, I was in a pattern of feeling better. Still haven't done laundry. I'm wearing my snowboarding long underwear right now. And today was supposed to be laundry day and then late yesterday a couple of things I have to do on the North Shore came up and so. I'm seeing Micah at 12:30 today. For some reason I thought it was 11:00, so that's going to cut things kind of tight. I had to go to the Probate Court and pull out, like, six files, which I've been putting off because it's, like, six files. And I got an email late yesterday, "How are those probate (inaudible at 05:00) coming?" You know, [I go] (ph), "Actually, I've already looked at them. It's been a couple weeks." So I definitely have to go do those today but I've also got some recordings at the Registry. So (pause) the court closes at 3:00, the clerk's office closes at 3:00, so I have to go there first and then go do the recording, so hopefully they don't freak out that I haven't gotten on record yet.

But it's kind of one of those days where I would be a little nervous or just, you know, but I kind of woke up and I was like, you know, I've such a non (ph), you know, mind. *00:05:44) doing stuff kind of day. And my sleep patterns are better. I'm falling asleep, like, at 11:00. I'm just tired and go to sleep.

THERAPIST: Good.

CLIENT: And, you know, sleep through till about 5:00, till I have to take a pee (ph). I go back and I'll lay down for a little bit. It'd be nice if I could stay up, hop in the shower, you know, get a routine going.

THERAPIST: That would only be, like, six hours of sleep, which…

CLIENT: Is that short?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Oh (ph). But still, I mean, it's like, I went back and I laid down for maybe a half hour because I had to get up and…

THERAPIST: I see. [00:06:34]

CLIENT: I think I may be having some diarrhea from the Adderall. It's hard to say because I ate like crap yesterday. But (pause) (inaudible at 07:12).

So there's this women in my E&G group. She's been there three years (inaudible at 07:28). Counselor, probably in her late 30s. She's attractive, you know, but sometimes you know how sometimes people they did a thing on Seinfeld once about it, how the woman would look hot and then in certain lighting she didn't. It's kind of one of those things. I mean, her nose is a little big so kind of…

(phone rings)

CLIENT: And (pause) I don't know. There's always just been a couple times where I, like, caught eyes with her during the meeting or whatever, you know, and just, you know. And she's offered help to me, you know, as far as, like, motivational group she's been going to and stuff like that. I don't know why all of sudden I've got this increased interest.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 08:30)

CLIENT: Yeah. She lives in the suburbs, which makes it pretty (pause) inconvenient.

THERAPIST: That's, like, not near?

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, even from the office it's a half hour. And it's funny because she's a Counselor and runs, like, a full wellness she does nutrition and she does (inaudible at 09:04). And I was going to a Counselor and the reason I stopped was, you know, all the copays I'm shipping to you. Well, not shipping to you but, you know, all of my prescriptions and, you know, whatever. But I'm thinking that I really need to get healthy again, you know. I've been really just, you know but I don't want to number one, going to a Counselor in the suburbs is out of the way. I used to go after my E&G meetings but it was close, you know, right there. And then I thought about something last night. I said, well, if I become her patient then I don't know if I can sleep with her.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I know how it works for psychotherapy. I don't know how it works with a Counselor. [00:10:12]

CLIENT: Yeah, I don't know either. Technically she's a former client as well. I helped her with her lease. But just something that's been preoccupying my mind. I stalked her a little bit on Facebook and I friended her yesterday.

THERAPIST: What's her name? (inaudible at 10:36)

CLIENT: Dr. Grace.

THERAPIST: Grace?

CLIENT: So, I don't know. Just one of the, you know, typical figure out the most impossible, you know, difficult situation, you know, and…

THERAPIST: Go for it.

CLIENT: (laughter) I mean…

THERAPIST: That doesn't sound like the most impossible difficult situation. I mean, (pause) you see her regularly. It doesn't sound, at least not so far, like she's a terrible person.

CLIENT: Not that I'm aware of.

THERAPIST: The problem is she's far away.

CLIENT: Yeah. And she might find my lifestyle a bit (pause) what's the word? Vice-ridden.

THERAPIST: (laughter) Vice-ridden? How is your lifestyle vice-ridden?

CLIENT: Well, you know, I drink. I smoke pot. I'm on speed. [00:11:45]

THERAPIST: That's being prescribed (inaudible at 11:48)

CLIENT: (laughter) I'm on downers, I'm on uppers.

THERAPIST: (laughter) Are those vices anymore? I mean, (inaudible at 12:02)

CLIENT: She's just, like, this holistic lifestyle, you know? Like I always give her crap during the meetings because one of the big no-nos is sugar, you know, which is probably true, you know. It's causes inflammation and all kinds of problems, you know. And someone goes every week to get Dunkin Donuts and sometimes they get donuts. So I'm always like, "Dr. Grace, you want a donut?" Or something unhealthy comes up, you know. "Don't tell Dr. Grace but…" So, I do pick on her a little bit.

But yeah, that's kind of preoccupied me the last couple days. Not sure kind of how I think it came about last week. Wow. Was I there last week? No, it was the week before. We just caught eyes and, I don't know, it was one of those, you know, weird moments.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 13:09) moment, yeah.

CLIENT: I'm really bad with judging those things, you know. And then there's the fat balding old guy with two kids, you know, thing. Young swinger. Maybe swinger's the wrong, you know, term. I'm talking myself out of it if that's not apparent to you.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I don't even really need you anymore. I could talk to the mayor and diagnose myself.

THERAPIST: (laughter) That's part of what we work towards. (inaudible at 14:05) what they're doing. So (pause) what are your thoughts about talking yourself out of it?

CLIENT: Well, I have to kind of talk myself into it, really. I've already talked myself out of it, you know. There's always been some level of interest, just because she's an attractive woman, you know. And now that I'm, you know she always mentions, you know, her dating status when she goes up. You give your little biography before you give speeches and you do, like, a ten minute speech. I don't know. I guess I have to talk myself into it. She's having a get-together at her office for the group. Get a couple drinks in me and then we'll see what happens.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 15:20)

CLIENT: It's also one of things that, you know, we're in a networking group. So if anything bad happens, you know, it's kind of like, eh, you know. Not that people haven't hooked up in E&G before but, you know, the reality is, you know, I wouldn't want to put E&G in any kind of peril for me or for her, you know. We're both I mean, she's very successful at E&G. I can find all of kinds of excuses. She's not (inaudible at 16:05). Like that's ever stopped me before. (laughter) I don't know. She's, like, overly positive and, you know, she went to some group. She tried to get me to go and she said she'd even go with me.

THERAPIST: Sort of support, positivity (inaudible at 16:37)

CLIENT: I'm not exactly sure, you know, but she said it really has helped her personally and in her business. And I just blew it off. This was back, you know, at the time I really didn't want to do anything. And (sighs) I really wasn't interested in her at the time. Where if she asked me today to do that I'd be like, "Yeah, sign me up. Yeah, I'll come with you. Want to stop and help me clean my apartment?"

I usually get a little stressed out about leaving town, you know, and that's kind of been in the back of my mind, just all the logistics of the plane, airport (ph) in (inaudible at 17:49) County and getting picked up by my uncle and just that kind of, you know, logistic stuff. That kind of, you know.

THERAPIST: Yeah, (inaudible at 17:58) at work. You know that you get anxious or occupied about something.

CLIENT: Yeah. And I've been occupied with it. I don't want to say I'm anxious about it but because really I have I mean, after Tuesday, there's really not much going on for me, which is kind of nice. They wanted to do a closing on Friday but there's no rate lock, so we can be flexible. The borrower's supposedly a pain in the ass and difficult to schedule with. So it's been, like, three days and we still haven't scheduled or picked a day. But (pause) there's a couple missing discharges I need to be working on. Two I was paid to do and one I've got a client, they're holding money till I get the discharge. I should take the steps to get that ball rolling. But who knows? Maybe I'll kind of get that going. For the first time in a long time I have no titles in the pipeline (ph), other than this one I'm going to do today, you know, the probates.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 19:37) yesterday.

CLIENT: And I did send the open invoices.

THERAPIST: You mean for the titles to the title company?

CLIENT: For the attorney I do titles for. And I think overall, you know, they're in for a little over three grand but some of that's going back to, you know, December, so it's like a you know, you have to wait for these things to close. So I just did anything over 60 days. And he says the bookkeeper will be in Monday, have her look at it. So I'm going to get paid on some of that (inaudible at 20:20) all of it, you know. But that was a thing I'd been putting off and putting off and putting off.

THERAPIST: Is your being pretty well caught up on the titles because you've been able to get to them more easily?

CLIENT: Deadlines.

THERAPIST: More so than (inaudible at 20:42) title. That's great. (inaudible at 20:44)

CLIENT: That's the only really thing that kept me going on those, was the deadlines. You know, I (inaudible at 20:55) that's kind of why I get in trouble a little bit because there's a probate or something gets messed up. I can't do it in a day or two sometimes. Like there's one I've been waiting over a week for the probate to come back. It's in storage. They told me it would be there early in the week. I went there on Wednesday and the woman told me that they'll call me when it gets in. So, kind of a pain in the ass.

(sighs) So really I don't, you know, I'm going to see Micah. It's hard for me to gauge the effects of things like focus. You know, I really haven't. I think it's been improved. I think I've been able to say in conversations a little better and stay focused on a task.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 22:18) clearest to me is that it's probably kind of motivation, initiation, follow through, stuff like that. But, yeah, (inaudible at 22:30).

CLIENT: It's just something hard for me that, you know, I really haven't had any intensive moments where just, you know. I don't know. I just have no judgment for that.

THERAPIST: You really seem a little more, like, kind of confident and put together, even talking in here.

(silence)

CLIENT: I feel a little buzzed every so often.

(silence)

CLIENT: Jess hit me with February 1st in the first day to sign up for summer camp and she wants to sign him up for the outback camp. He went a couple weeks last year but he was shut out of a couple of them and she wants him to go for the full eight weeks. It's like 2500 bucks and she asked me how much I was going to contribute to that. I said, "I don't have the money but I'll pay half." (laughter) So maybe when that title money comes in, you know. Probably have a couple closings in February. You know, I'm…

THERAPIST: You're kind of getting through this slower season all right.

CLIENT: Yeah. And, you know, they just came out with a report that the housing market in Mass has turned the corner.

THERAPIST: Oh good.

CLIENT: And it's a seller's market now. There's very little inventory out there, multiple offers. You know, it's January -there's going to be low inventory.

THERAPIST: Things usually pick up in kind of March and April?

CLIENT: Yeah. It'll be interesting to see, you know, if it continues to be a seller's market. That at least stabilizes prices, you know. But (pause), you know, there's a email list for Ian's (sp?) cub scouts and a Yahoo! group. And one of the moms is this woman, which I'm like, "Hmm. She's familiar. I see real estate signs all over and whatnot for her surname." And then I looked at her email address and she worked for this mortgage company. So I have to figure out a way to hunt this woman down. Her kid's not the same age as mine, but there's, like, sleepovers and she seemed to be very involved. So I'm kind of there's something this weekend, a sleepover at one of these rock-climbing places that I didn't realize was indoors -I thought it was outdoors. Jess's like, "No, that's an indoor place." Really? [00:26:40]

But at the time, you know, had I known at the signup, you know, what I know now. But in May we're sleeping on a battleship.

THERAPIST: I think you mentioned that. Pretty exciting (ph).

CLIENT: So I'm sure she's going to go and it'll be an opportunity at least to trying to find some way to at least make some comment on the list that has my signature that I'm a real estate attorney, you know. But who knows, so….

THERAPIST: This may be a pretty naïve question but (pause) why can't you just email her or call her and say that, you know, you're trying to do more business in this area, you've mostly been in this and she [needs to] (ph) sit down and talk to you [and might] (ph) have ideas for the way you could go about (inaudible at 27:40).

CLIENT: If I did that, I'd be retired. I have several associates working for me. The interesting thing now is real estate law firms are hiring now. Not that I want to go work for someone else but I see that as a positive sign, you know.

THERAPIST: I see, that it's sort of more on the seller's market for what you do.

CLIENT: Well, there's been a lot of refis, so that's part of it, but I think, you know, firms are anticipating. They've been busy with purchases over the (inaudible at 28:33), you know.

THERAPIST: That's great.

CLIENT: So, that's the one thing I don't like about my business, is I can't see more than a month or two out. So it's a little unsettling, you know, but…

(silence)

CLIENT: I thought I had my appointment with Micah at 11:00 did I bring this up earlier? (inaudible at 29:09)

THERAPIST: You mentioned that you were seeing Micah today.

CLIENT: At first I thought it was 11:00 but that was the last time I met her. It's 12:30. Not that it doesn't give me enough time to get up there and look at those probates.

THERAPIST: So wait, backing up. So I had just thought about a way you could connect with this woman. Is that, like, not what people do or is it a confidence thing?

CLIENT: It's confidence.

THERAPIST: OK. I couldn't tell.

CLIENT: I mean, I've got a good lead in. I don't have a based mortgage source and the one that I've tried to build up, she's in a E&G group in some other place like that. She's also been a little unreliable, you know. Like, I sent her a client, big loan amount, real easy.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 30:34)

CLIENT: He has a lot of investment properties and what not. She did something wrong with that and they killed the loan. Where, you know, I think someone with a little more experience or at least someone with more investors would have had a better opportunity. This place, I know has a lot of investors [in it] (ph). They're one of the top companies. So I'm really not comfortable sending her business. It'd be nice to have a local bank or someone. I'm sure with her husband being a real estate broker she's probably got some good, you know, people already, you know that's the hard part, is that they've already got…

THERAPIST: An established network.

CLIENT: ...established networks. And breaking through into those networks is difficult.

THERAPIST: Is that the part where you're talking yourself out of it? Or, I mean, I believe… [00:31:52]

CLIENT: I've just done it so many times and it's never worked.

THERAPIST: Oh, OK.

CLIENT: And it's not like, I mean it works for other attorneys, you know. I just don't know why. I mean, a lot of it's been just, you know, lack of confidence and just really not pushing it and not following through and not, you know, not being strategic about it. Just, you know, my old unmotivated, low confident, you know. It's easy to see now, you know. And I'm still not past that.

THERAPIST: OK, well, (inaudible at 32:49).

CLIENT: I looked her up on Facebook and my buddy Phil who does real estate and he (inaudible at 33:00), he's friends with her on Facebook, which (pause) he's a real estate attorney. So I can't say, "Hey, how do you know this woman?" He may have done a mortgage, I mean, but it's Facebook, you know. It's not like you would Facebook someone that you just did a mortgage or two with. OR maybe he did, I don't know. He's not a big Facebook user.

(silence)

CLIENT: It's a little frustrating. [I think] (ph) the camp thing really (pause) you know, I didn't get as angry, you know, or just flustered as I had in the past but just, like, you know, I can't seem to get ahead. I mean, not even a little bit. There's always some expense, you know, whether it's the taxes or summer camp. You know, it's like every time I had a good amount of money come in it's out the door before (inaudible at 34:38). You know, I'm behind on my car insurance again. I'm behind on my student loans again. I'm just, you know. The office, I'm behind on, you know, telephone and all that. And (pause), you know, before having to come up with 1250 dollars none of that seemed like a big you know, it's going to be an opportunity to catch up. I was catching up on the payments for my Web site but now I've fallen behind again.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 35:23) you're really not out of the woods.

CLIENT: Yeah, that's why it's a little, you know, [kind of] (ph) having the vision beyond a month or two. You know, I'd feel much more comfortable if I knew that I was going to be busy this summer. And then there's just the point where rates tick (ph) up and the ballgame's over. Not that business is going to go away but it's going to drop off.

(silence)

THERAPIST: We're (ph) going to stop for now. So we're on for Wednesday next week. I'll let you know if anything opens up Monday or Thursday, then I think we're all set for the following week.

CLIENT: (sighs) I don't know. Is the flu (ph) gone away? It seems like there's less about it in the news. Have a good weekend.

THERAPIST: Thanks, you too.

[00:37:07]

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