TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: I had Thai food last night and my stomach is killing me. I've got to stop doing that.
THERAPIST: When you're stressed, that's usually not a good thing.
CLIENT: (chuckles) I was a little stressed yesterday. Luckily the vomiting took my mind off of it. My cousin is getting a divorce and his wife has serious mental issues. She's always had night terrors and sleeping issues. She's got problems. [00:01:18]
THERAPIST: Where do they live?
CLIENT: They live in Oregon, and they own a business together. They have an adopted daughter from Russia who now wants to go back to Russia. He just mentioned it to me when we were chatting with friends that he's joining me in batchelordom or whatever. It will be better one day. If you want to talk, give me a call. Then my mom calls me Sunday night while I'm on my marathon date, so I didn't get the message until late. I called her back and she texted me in the morning that Bruce is getting a divorce and I need to call him. I said I'd already talked to him. I thought about it. [00:02:22] They're like, "Barbara is crazy." I'm like, "Barbara has always been crazy." I kind of just wrote him a note that the most important thing, and I'm not telling him anything he doesn't know, but it's Jen; and that he's forever intertwined with this woman. It's going to be messy just because of the business and the house and she's crazy. But I said that being the one in my relationship who was crazy, I have a little perspective on it. The way I look at it, especially when dealing with crazy adversaries with my clients, is don't poke the bear. I said try, it may be hard, but show her some compassion. She's sick and she can't help it. I don't know how you do this, but you need to get her help. It could be the best thing for you and for your daughter. He was appreciative. [00:03:41]
So my mom calls and was like, "You've got to call Bruce." She wants me to give him all this legal advice and she brings up how one of my little cousins – I don't know if she was joking or something – said to my mom that she was a bad parent because both Curtis and I have fucked-up marriages. I told her that's what my therapist says, too. (chuckles) So I kind of started that line with a joke and said I'm not going to give him legal advice. First of all, I'm getting ticked off because it's like why is she having me call him? Who was she having call me? Where was the help for me? Her brother is very smart. He's been living in Portland for like 40-50 years in the most expensive city in the country. This kid is going to have a good lawyer. (laughs) She's in trouble. She's going to lose the kid. She's probably going to get the business, but she's going to pay for it. [00:04:52] I'm not going to give unsolicited advice, especially when his dad is perfectly capable of doing all of that. She's like, "Well, you know Bruce is not like you and your brother. He's not as young as you guys were." He's three or four years older than me, like that makes a difference in your forties. He's got medical problems. He does have his own intestinal-type... [00:05:30]
THERAPIST: Does he have like Crohn's or something?
CLIENT: Yeah, but something a little more – yeah. It's a lot worse. He's had hip problems and all sorts of stuff from it.
THERAPIST: I was sort of hitting on the line that you don't have...
CLIENT: Right. And that he's fragile. And I got pissed off. I was like, "Mom, I don't know if you noticed, but I had some serious medical issues and a couple of stays in the hospital that might suggest that I was fragile." And she totally dismissed it. I'm like, "You know, you are a bad parent." And she took it as a joke. (laughs) I was dead serious. So I'm just all pissed off and I texted Paige. She kind of said that my mom was probably in denial from guilt about being a bad parent. Probably the whole thing somewhat caused her to put her head in the sand. [00:06:33]
THERAPIST: Do you think that's true? Do you think she feels really guilty and is just putting her head in the sand? Maybe she just doesn't get it.
CLIENT: She doesn't get it. She doesn't know what's going on. I think she truly doesn't want to believe, but it's because she doesn't get it.
THERAPIST: That's a really big deal.
CLIENT: It's not a shock to you, is it?
THERAPIST: No. We hardly ever talk about your mom.
CLIENT: She's a pain in the ass. This is my relationship with my mom. She calls me up, asks my advice, she'll ask 20 other people their advice – let's say it's legal advice, like selling her house or doing a mortgage – she'll take the advice from the landscaper. "Well, I talked to the landscaper at 11:00 last night and he said I should go with this unit." So it's like she asks my advice and then she never takes it. She's a poller, I call her. She polls everything. [00:07:32] And then she tells these stories about people you don't know and the stories are just like – "You wouldn't believe so-and-so..." Yeah, she's just a gabber, Southern Jewish American princess. She used to lay outside by the pool with a big window fan blowing on her. So I was really pissed and then the bombings happened and I kind of forgot all about it. Then I got bummed about that. Then they canceled Frisbee. Frisbee is in JP. It's like completely unaffected by the bombings. I understand there's this – I don't want to be insensitive – pointless sentiment of scaling back to honor the victims or whatever. That's exactly what the terrorists want to happen, the whole idea of terrorism is to scare people and to change their lives. It's like hook, line and sinker. It's like if anything, we all needed to get out there and run and have some fun last night. [00:08:43]
I knew I shouldn't post it to the Facebook page. I already got into trouble bitching about the website. I don't know if I ever told you about that. Today I was like I'll just post it on my own page. There are just so many people and it does seem kind of selfish. I'll just fucking keep it to myself. Some people react so well in these situations and other people just – I mean Curtis (sp?) is the president and I'm good friends with him. His wife, Mallory, is like the general manager of our Frisbee team. But they're so incompetent. (sniggers) It's an entirely volunteer-run organization that, basically, puts on Frisbee games and Frisbee tournaments. It's all this recreational stuff. They have close to $140,000 in cash doing nothing. [00:10:03]
THERAPIST: Wow. You mean from people paying dues to play?
CLIENT: Donations. They still ask for donations. There's been an ongoing problem over the years with the website. When I first started playing 18 years ago you got a tri-fold piece of paper in the mail, you filled it out, you waited a couple of weeks, you mailed it back in – no problem. Well it got so popular, then they switched to online and you still had to wait a week. Then it got so popular that everybody was registering because if you didn't do it – I mean one time I didn't register the first day, and I didn't get in the league. So every time since, I've made sure at 5:00 Monday, whenever registration starts, I'm online. Now there are about 400 people doing it all at once and these piece of shit computers they have can't handle it. It's like, "Oh, we'll fix it. We'll fix it." Still, every time. Okay, I'm going to forgive that because I'm used to it. [00:11:01] But you know, there are other times – first of all, the layout sucks. There are so many problems with it. You show it to a web designer and you can't even talk to them because they're laughing so hard. Even someone who's not a web designer can tell you how dysfunctional this website is. It just looks like shit. They use this technology, Jumla, which no one has ever heard of. The reason that they go with these shitty technologies is that they want it to be open source because they want to be able to do it all themselves. None of them are professional web designers. They're all tech guys or whatever. This one guy, Mike, is really nice but they take too much on themselves. There's volunteering and then there's killing your organization. It's about playing Frisbee, so it doesn't affect the larger scheme of things. [00:12:06]
First of all, they sent an e-mail out that they made a mistake in the registration and, if you registered a certain way – you had multiple choices in case you don't get your first choice for the league – but you need to go back and change something. I got the e-mail. I go online. The website is down. A couple of days later I was able to do it. The first day of the season I wanted to see what time my landlord was playing and I'd give him a ride. The server – there was a server error. I'm like, "This is it. This is fucking ridiculous." There's a guy who is one of the captains of the indoor league and they have a lot of interaction with the website. In fact, one of the reasons that they have it open source and they chose this thing was so the captains could go in and do editing and have a lot of functionality which, fuck, you can do that with any technology. [00:13:11] He was talking to me about online waivers because they do fax waivers and then the captains have to deal with this fax waiver bullshit – the commissioners do. He wanted me to look into it, so I did. Looking into it, I'm like, "What a great opportunity this is to get a new website, have it professionally done, put in the online waivers." The online waiver thing has been going on for like two or three years. How did they have online waivers? Do you think it's okay? Do you think it might be legal? And the first thing that pissed me off is that Curtis, the president, asked some other lawyer about this and Benji, the commissioner, forwarded me the e-mail, and this guy is not giving him a legal opinion. He's taking him through the steps of how you would submit the waiver into evidence. [00:14:17] That's not how we should be looking at this. We should be looking at it – are we going to be insured? How we can submit it into evidence is the insurance company's problem. We're going to be covered. If we get sued and we lose, we're covered. We've got insurance.
THERAPIST: That's the point of insurance.
CLIENT: The whole idea is to comply with what the insurance company wants. If we're going to get sued, whether we have an online waiver or paper waiver, we're going to get sued. I was kind of miffed that I wasn't even brought into the conversation because Curtis very often asks me about stuff. We go to Harry's games and we drink a lot. His girlfriend of like 13 years sent me some stuff and I actually started talking to the people at the insurance company trying to get – there's this one software that we use in real estate, Docusign, for electronic signatures. I'm trying to get them to say that Docusign is okay, just get it in writing from them, but they wouldn't do it. So I go and I post on the Facebook page that the website sucks and that the league owes it to the players to have a functional website. This is just ridiculous. And that I think the community would be willing to donate – and I didn't even bring up... I know how much money is in there. I think the people in the community would be willing to make this happen. Everybody hates the fucking website. [00:15:49]
So this guy, Tommy Feld, who I know by sight and he kind of runs the Facebook page and he and Mike are working on the new website. He's kind of the commissioner of commissioners. He fired back that I crossed a line because a lot of it didn't make sense. He said, "The league is the players, so how can the league owe the players if it is the players?" It's like you just made my argument for me. If the league is the players, then they owe it to the players. If it is the players, then it is the players who should be the ones that matter here, not some power-hungry volunteer. Then he was like, "Well, why don't you write the website. We want it done tomorrow," or next week, or some cocky thing like that. I responded on Facebook and I said, "Listen, slow down. I appreciate what the volunteers do. All I'm saying is that the league has a lot of fucking money and we can raise some money as well and we can have this thing professionally done." Blah, blah, blah. That's in a personal e-mail to this guy. I was like, "I know you do a lot for the league. I'm sorry that I offended you." I didn't do the "sorry if"; I said, "I'm sorry that I offended you. If you're playing tonight I want to shake your hand and apologize and buy you a beer." He didn't even e-mail me back. He goes back to the Facebook page and, in response to mine, he's like, "Are you going to step up and do the website?" And my response was, "Yes, I'll be more than happy to do it." [00:17:30]
I mean I've got a buy in my B&I group that's fucking unbelievable. I called his references when he joined the group and I couldn't get the references off the phone. I didn't have to ask them questions, they just went on and on and on about this guy – because he's not just a website guy, he does the whole package. That's what we need is a systems guy to come in and integrate it all together. Convert the old shit to the new shit and make it functional. I never heard back from this guy, Tommy. I sent an e-mail to Curtis. I sent him the Facebook thing. I told him whatever. Curtis said I kind of went over the line and I told him I was working on the online registration and said this is a perfect opportunity to integrate a lot of the things that people want to do. Of course, the things that people want to do, these people are not the people in power, at the top. So Curtis is kind of like, "Tommy was out of line, especially with somebody that doesn't know." [00:18:33] But he defended him that they're looking at two options. It's the same way they dismiss everything by just dismissing it and saying they're working on it and nothing ever gets done. That's the big problem. We have people who don't know what they're doing working on it. They know enough to maybe do a website for a preschool or something, but this organization needs a better website. If you're going to use it for registration and waivers and rosters and schedules, it's got to be functional. You have to be able to handle 200 people logging in at once. This is fucking 2013. So he blew me off. He said, "It's not a question of money." [00:19:23]
I get ticked off. There's no reason this organization of its size and type should have $140,000 in the bank. I'm surprised the attorney general hasn't said something to him. We file all these documents. You go online and see how much they have. But he said I should have come to him first about the online waivers because he's got a bunch of stuff. He'd like me to look into that. He also had some legal issue he wants to talk to me about. I said, "Well, if someone wants me to look into the online waivers, they can present it to the board. By the way, your wife did send me some information on it, so I thought you knew." They're already pissed off at me about that so I decided not to blast him for canceling... I'm sure there were a lot of people – probably most people agree with that decision, but I just think the terrorists win. Stupid. So, yeah, I was a little bit stressed out and went and got some Thai food. [00:20:31]
THERAPIST: Stressed out following the...? Right, this is last night. Okay, it's after the bombing.
CLIENT: So it's mom, the bombing was stressful. People are calling and texting; and I know they're trying to be concerned. I stayed at work really late doing work because I couldn't even leave the office. I went and got Chinese food. Someone e-mailed my fraternity list, a group of us, and he's like, "Do you have any information on the bombings?" My old roommate, who had been riding his bike and didn't know the news, was like, "What, did J have two Mountain Dews and Taco Bell?" He apologized later. At first I was going to say something like... He apologized later and said he didn't know what was going on, and then it was funny. [00:21:42] Yeah, what was I talking about? So Friday I went out with Rory and (sighs) as I was walking away from the date I thought it didn't go well, more because it was kind of hard to gauge her. First of all, she looks and is younger than her pictures appear, so that was a little bit of a surprise to me. I kind of took it as more of a maturity thing, which I probably shouldn't have done. But when we first met, we shook hands. It was like, "Oh, this is going downhill fast." There was no room at the bar so we ended up getting a table. At first she said, "I have to go to the bathroom and wash my hands." I'm like, "Oh, boy." Then she came back and I'm like, "Now you've got me feeling guilty." She was like, "I was on the ‘T'". Whatever. [00:22:41] Looking back, it was fun. We had a good conversation. In fact, the waitress was trying to shoo us away to get someone else on her table. She didn't pick it up, but I picked up that that's what the waitress was trying to do. She's a law student. She's taking extra classes because she calculated her credits wrong. She's working for Legal Aid. She's got a two-year fellowship coming out of law school, so she's smart. Like Paige would say, she has the body of a 12-year-old boy. She's not that bad. She's thin. I was kidding her, "Well what's wrong with 12-year-old boys?" (chuckles) When we were walking out and I'm like, "I parked this way," so I started to turn the corner and she kept going a little bit; so now we're far apart. There's not even room for a handshake or whatever. [00:23:39] I'm like, "Do you want a ride?" and she's like – whatever. I understand that completely. Walking away I had a bad feeling just because that last weird awkward moment, the beginning awkward moment. I'd only been on one other date with a woman I kind of already knew, so I thought I should be walking away knowing her last name, having a phone number; and I didn't know how to bring up any of that stuff. Then it kind of sunk into me that maybe I shouldn't have her last name. Maybe I shouldn't have a phone number. We still have a means of communication. I ended up going on the date on Sunday with Trish. We met at 6:00 and before I knew it, it was like 10:30. [00:24:20]
THERAPIST: Remind me?
CLIENT: Trish is the Jewish chick from the farm. She's in marketing and she did a really good job because she has a few extra pounds than her pictures; but nothing bad. She leaned up against the table most of the time and every once in awhile she'd put her arms up like that and she's got this gut. She looked like she was pregnant. That was the only problem with it. We got along great, winking at me, which is a little disturbing. When we walked and I had to make my turn, she was really close to me. She was short and she's got this puppy-dog look on her face. I can't blow this one off because she belongs to the farm. I'm going to run into her. As Paige says, the gut means she enjoys life. (both laugh) She goes, "It could be worse. She could have a body like a 12-year-old boy." [00:25:23] It's affecting me, but I'm not going to totally let it affect me. That was when I realized I didn't get her last name. I didn't get her phone number. She totally liked me. Rory said she had fun, so Monday morning I sent a message to Rory seeing if she wanted to go out again. She was like, "Well, I've got finals coming up." We'll see when she resurfaces or whatever, which is how she is. I take her at her word that she probably wants to go out on a second date. I don't know. Whatever. Then someone tried to connect with me on LinkedIn and I went to LinkedIn and – you know. You go in there and it flags when people look at your profile so I go and click on who has been checking my profile and it's the director at Bosch (sp?) Brothers. Well where does Trish work? Bosch Brothers. And I knew when I told her I was on the board that she was going to be able to find out everything about me because there's only one J on the board, it's on the website. [00:26:20] All my shit comes up. Apparently she's not that sophisticated because she did find me on LinkedIn and so I was able to find her last name and I told her, "You've got online information, just give me a call when you want." Apparently she couldn't find my phone number. Just google my name, attorney – whatever. You go right to my website from the LinkedIn page. So she gave me her phone number and I texted her. I was going to blow her off for a while anyways because – I don't know. I have a date with Marcia tonight. (chuckles) I don't know to think of Marcia. She said, "What are we doing tomorrow?" I'm like, "Dinner?" She was like, "That's fine. Where?" I'm like, ""Italian?" She's like "I'm more the McDonalds kind of gal." [00:27:20] Then I went on the web trying to figure out if I should make her schlep to Andover? Should we meet halfway? I said, "You still live in Watertown? I see all these restaurants driving down Route One. There seems to be a lot of good restaurants down there, Westwood, Dedham." Trying to get something out of her to suggest a place. Finally I was like, "McDonalds isn't good for you. Taco Bell, clearly you don't appreciate Mexican wrap meat. Do you want to get something in Watertown? In between? Near me? All I know are restaurants near me. What's your preference?" She's like, "Well, let's do something in the middle. She used to work in Dedham so she picked a restaurant in Dedham, which is kind of in between. I don't even know how to traverse those waters of figuring out what to do on a date, where to go on a date, what time do we meet for the date. She was pushing all the decision making on me and she ended up making all of the decisions.
THERAPIST: (laughs) [00:28:41]
CLIENT: I'm in trouble. It's clear. (pause) And when I went to message Trish last night, I noticed she had checked out my profile around 2:00 or so, which means she saw that I was online that morning. Oop – from a date with her to online. I wonder what she was thinking. She was really nice, though, if she didn't have a fucking medicine ball on her gut. Am I being shallow? (pause) (sniggers) [00:29:46] You know like Jess kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I always thought that it was just my growing dislike for her was affecting how I felt about her physically, but I was really... So. I don't think that was why I was liking her less and less and less. She would drive me fucking crazy. That's what I said about the whole compassion thing. If Jess had shown me some compassion somewhere along the line, we'd probably still be getting a divorce, but maybe things would have been easier for me. Maybe things would have been easier for her. Maybe I'd have a relationship with my daughter. Maybe I wouldn't have gone through a period of time where I couldn't tolerate my kids. [00:30:41] There are a lot of "what if's". That's was part of the problem. Everything I did that happened to me felt like I was somehow blaming her. She was like, "You need help." It wasn't like, "Maybe we should get you some help." (chuckles)
THERAPIST: Yeah it was certainly a lot – but not all – of the way that you felt at the time.
CLIENT: I don't remember. (pause) [00:31:41] I won the Masters pool, so I won $400. I already spent that. I sent that to the IRS yesterday. I think I may have to have lunch in Pembroke just to collect the money on Friday. I kind of do need to get that money in my account before the IRS cashes the check. There is some money in my operating account to cover it, but I've got the tax bullshit coming through and the health insurance, rent for Jess. I asked the bookkeeper at the camp if I could go on a payment plan for the $1,210 I owe. [00:32:45] She e-mailed me back and said she had forwarded my e-mail to the finance director and that she thinks she'd be able to put me on a payment plan. So that was a huge relief. I was short anyways, but throw in another $1,400... If I do have to borrow money from my dad, it's a lot easier to borrow $500 or $1,000, as opposed to $4,000. I e-mailed my tenant a few days ago about where is February, March and April? I haven't heard back yet, so I've got to follow up with him again. I'm starting to get some title examination orders, which had kind of dropped off. I actually got a couple of checks yesterday. One of my old files that had died has been revived. There is a lag time in seeing orders. [00:33:49]
It could be worse, I guess. I don't know what to do tonight when the bill comes and Marcia just sits there. Rory offered to pay. I was like, "No, I've got it." I was going to joke and say that I was going to write it off as a business expense. She would have laughed. Then she wanted to pay the tip and I told her I had it. I just feel obligated on the first date that I should be the one paying. Paige is like, "You've got to let them know that. They think that you're a lawyer and that you make a lot of money." I worked in a text with Marcia that I'm a shitty lawyer and I don't make any money. Her name is Marcia Dunne and the initial joke we had when we met was that I said, ‘I have a conundrum." And she said, "Well, I am. I'm Marcia Dunne-undrum." Whatever. That's what she said about that. [00:34:57] Then I go, "I'm on this conference call for B&I. The vice-president couldn't do it so I sat in and I've got it on autoview and this woman keeps talking about conundrums. I'm like, "It's a Marcia dunne-undrum." (both laugh) so there it is. I did laundry yesterday. I filled up the 80-pound machine. I did my workout in the morning and I went and did laundry. I had so many clothes to fold that my shoulders and my arms were burning. They were burning. I had to take a break from folding laundry, which is good because my workout is effective and I'm definitely seeing improvements. Except for the Thai food last night, I'm already in a belt buckle. [00:35:57]
THERAPIST: Great.
CLIENT: That's another expense I really shouldn't take on. I wasn't going to take it on until May, but I really felt I needed to get my act together. This is something I can mix up enough that it will keep it a little more interesting. When I was just doing the Hindu push-ups and the Hindu squats, I think I just kind of got bored with it.
THERAPIST: Kind of like the variation in the structure.
CLIENT: And the fact that the exercises will change. I'm not going to plateau. I feel a rapid up-tick in my push-ups. Like the first time when I tried to max out, I did four, and then I did like 16 yesterday. You start getting to a point that the exercise is too easy for you. There are two more exercises above me. Like for the squats, there's the one-legged squat. God. [00:37:14] Les's doing a thing where he's going to do it before the Toad's practice with a bunch of Toads and make it cheap for them, like $10 or $15. I'm paying $55. Number one, it means I've got to get there early before practice, which I don't know that I can always do. I prefer the individualized attention because he's looking at me, he's correcting what I'm doing. It's like in a yoga class. If I feel I'm not doing the pose right, the instructor is off helping someone else. By the time she's over on me we're already on the next pose. Maybe I can get money back from my insurance company. $150 or something. I've got to call them. (pause) [00:38:15] I was going to ride my bike to Frisbee last night. I was all motivated. (pause) I have to go to Brockton to pick up copies, but it's for a title so I get paid. I don't know what it will cost me in gas, but I still get paid. I really should start keeping track of my mileage as I go because now that I'm doing titles, I'm doing a lot more traveling that I'm not keeping track of. Where for the closings, I know that I've gone to the closing. [00:39:16]
THERAPIST: You would go anywhere?
CLIENT: I go to B&I, but I would forget about this Walpole trip. (yawns) Yeah, so I hate my mom and...
THERAPIST: Yeah, you hate your mom, the bombings, and not going to Frisbee stressed you out. You strained yourself at Frisbee, partly because of the whole flap around suggesting they redo the website. The date went pretty well.
CLIENT: Except for the medicine ball.
THERAPIST: Right. [00:40:11]
CLIENT: But I'm moving forward with that. She talks about it. She works out. She has keys and does all this stuff and I'm like, "Well, you've got all of these pictures where there's no medicine ball. Where did the medicine ball come from?" She said she has colitis, so maybe she has some sort of temporary thing going on. Scary, nonetheless. (pause) She likes these rosemary truffle French fries. Once I saw the big gut I said, "Maybe we shouldn't get the French fries." I didn't say that, but I was thinking it. It's a small amount of fries, but still. There's no good fry. It's a fry. [00:41:09] Rory got sweet potato fries and had to share them. I thought, "Good. Now I don't have to order fries." I do so good. I eat well and then I fucking blow it all on one. At least I'm in a better position to blow it, where it's not going to knock me off. I mean today I have stomach pains and diarrhea, but I'll be back up. I'll be fine. I'm going to work out with Eddie tomorrow.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Real solid.
CLIENT: Paige said I shouldn't have sex until the sixth date. I said, "The sixth date?" She was like, "Yeah. If they sleep with you on the second or third date, they do that with every guy." I'm thinking to myself, "And..." (both laugh) She was like, "Well, you better double-bag it."
THERAPIST: We should stop for now.
CLIENT: He said to not do anything in a car in the parking lot, either. See you Friday.
THERAPIST: See you Friday.
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