razzle dazzle

i went to court today. and i'm back from court now. i survived!!! barely. well, kind of. i'll take you back to last night....

so, after i left you, i finished up getting ready and got into bed just about 2am. i'm exhausted. i can barely keep my eyes awake.

and then it's 3am and i'm still not asleep.

and then it's 4am and i'm still not asleep.

and then it's 4:45am.....wow! i must have slept for 45 minutes.

and then it's 5am. still awake.

alarm goes off at 5:23. still awake. now i'm really awake for the day. great. nice and rested for court.

i feed kitty. get dressed. drink some iced tea. do my make-up. and then comes the hair. now, it didn't go so well during my practice run last night. but! i was in a good mood, calm and relaxed with nice clean hair this morning. ready to try it again.

so, i begin with the very bottom section of hair. straighten it. curl it with the straightener. um, comes out awesome. "alright!" i think. middle section of hair. straighten it. curl it with the straightener. awesome, again! top section of hair. straighten it. curl it with the straighter. HAIR IS ROCK STAR.

i totally conquered the curling with the straightener this morning. i WAS SO PROUD of myself. omg, my hair looked awesome. and then i put it my black headband and i was ready.

OH - i looked awesome. my whole outfit just rocked.

go downstairs. make sure the girls are ready for school. give out some meds.

and we leave the house right at 7am. i drove on the way there so that my boss could do her makeup in the car.

it was a good ride down. really foggy in parts.

manchester, nh is just about 70 miles away from here.

we parked in the parking garage right next to the court house. yikes a bee i'm totally scared out of my mind. my boss is freaking out too. she says she hates testifying more than anything.

highlight of my day = passing the security people. yay! go julie! i didn't have to take off my toe rings. and i was worried i would have to take out my new earring. and then i was DREADING it because i don't know how to take it out. but, all was well because i didn't set off any alarms today.

(oh, except the looking totally glam alarm. duh!)

so, we go up to the court waiting area and wait. our time was for 8:30. so, we get there at 8:15. wait wait wait wait wait wait.

a few people come over and talk to us. mainly Caroline, from DCYF, Division for Children, Youth and Families. she's the woman who interviewed me a few weeks ago. and then we think it's getting closer to our time and we're really freaking out.

and then Bonnie, the DCYF attorney, comes over to us and we start talking. we have to give "mini-testifies" to her so she'll know what we'll say if we have to testify. she's really nice.

but then she starts saying all these scary lawyer things like,

BONNIE: Now, you have to really listen to the question they are asking you because lawyers are tricky and they'll play with their words. Let's try an example, (points to me) ok, 'do you know what time it is?"
JULIE: Um, 9:05?
BONNIE: (points to my boss) Do you know what time it is?
CHARLENE: 9:06?
BONNIE: No. I asked you if you knew what time it was, not what the time actually was.

and me and Charlene are both like, ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!??!?! that's what this is going to be like!?!? a bunch of tricksy mind games!?!!?!?!?

so that was horrible. and after we both got the question wrong our nerves shot waaaaay up. and then Bonnie was like,

BONNIE: Ok, so I'll call you up to the stand. You'll walk up, you'll be sworn in, I'll ask you to identify yourself, spell your last name for the record, and then I'll ask you some simple questions, 'how long have you worked at Hannah House', (etc, etc, etc....)

she went on and on for a while. hearing her speak was terrifying. i was so nervous. nay, scared. i could not believe i was there being prepared for this.

so, Bonnie tells us she'll go talk with the other people and that's when she'll find out if we actually have to testify.

and so me and Charlene are waiting still, in this room. and omg, it's like a torture room. i'm going out of my mind. everytime the door to the court room opens, my stomach drops and my heart stops beating. it's the worst feeling in the world.

and now it's ten o'clock. the court room door opens.

everyone walks out.

CHARLENE: Oh, this is a very good sign.

and we meet again with Caroline and Bonnie and they tell us it's over.

BONNIE: Thank you so much for coming.

and that's it, folks! my day at court. the worst hour and a half spent in a waiting room ever. turns out i didn't have to testify. TODAY.

i WILL probably have to at some point reguarding this case. right now we're still in the "hearing" phase. eventually it will go to trial. and there are a list of other court dates that i might need to attend.

so, this definitely isn't over. it just is for today.

and the major part in this case, is the part that happened overnight when i was working. and i had to make all the "in the moment" decisions that led to a trip to the ER.

and so, that night, i decided to call them a taxi to bring them to the hospital rather than call 911. and i really wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do. so, in the van afterwards, i asked Charlene.

JULIE: So, do you think I should have called 911?
CHARLENE: No. I think you did everything absolutely right.
JULIE: Really? Because that's the one part I keep going back to...
CHARLENE: You did exactly what I would have done in that situation.

aanndd.....basically i am a rock star. boy was i happy to hear her say those things.

so, afterwards, we dropped off the resident at her house, because it was almost 11 and she was going home this weekend.

and then! me and Charlene had a lovely lunch out at this sushi restaurant in Bow, NH. Courtney has been telling us it's the best place for sushi ever. so, we tried it. AND IT WAS. omg, delish everywhere, everything.

and we had some 'grown up girl bonding time' over japanese. it was great.

back to the house by 1:15.

i can't believe we did so much so early in the day! and i can't believe i did it all on 45 minutes of sleep!!!!! and i'm still awake!!!!

i've actually been doing research on sleep disorders. and i've been self-diagnosing myself left and right! so much fun.

i think i almost definitely have a circadian rhythm sleep disorder. i have no internal clock. i don't get tired in the dark and awake in the light. all that stuff.

so then i was thinking i have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. where, you can't fall asleep before a certain time of night. the most common is 4am. and then sleeping until noon. which, is generally my "nighttime." so, i thought it was definite that i had this one. until i read that no matter how little sleep the person got the night before, they still won't be able to fall asleep before their set time.

which, is untrue for me. because like, the other night, i hadn't gotten very much sleep, so i went to bed at 12:30. slept until 6:30. back to bed by 9. slept until 1:30.

actually, that was yesterday. when i woke up at 1:30. and now's it's 3pm and since then i've only had 45 minutes of shut eye.

SO THEN. i diagnosed myself with Non-24-hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome. which, is much more rare. but, kind of sounds like me?

that one is where you can really sleep at anytime day or night. you can be awake for very long periods of time with no problem. and you normally sleep for 9-10 hours, when you do. your body can't adjust to the external "light/dark" cycle.

but like, that one occurs in fewer than 1 in 2000 people. it's classified a "rare disease." so, i doubt i have that one. but, it does sound like me.

and also it developes in late teens, early twenties.

and also, all of these sleep disorders can create other problems in your body. one of which is cardiac arrhythmia. WHICH, hello!, I HAVE. and started for no reason in my late teens. during my junior year, when i can frequently recall multiple times staying up until 3am.

so there. who needs doctors when you've got Wikipedia and lots of medical dramas on tv? obvi, not me.

i'm just so thrilled and happy that i found a job where i do not have to try and force myself to sleep within the socially normal constraints of time.


and tonight i have to go to the post office and to the grocery store. actually, i have to do that like, soon.

and then tomorrow madre and kara are visiting. and i'll have a baby all day. a 3-month old. i'm excited because i like cuddling with him.

did i tell you i'm super excited about Hair being back on broadway??? because i am. and i've been listening to the music non-stop. i have to see a good performance of Hair to make up for the last one.

ok. i should probably get going. then i can come back here. and maybe take a bath or a nap.

hope you're having a great friday. thanks for bearing with me during my recent time of court related fear and stress.


loveya.