January is the heart of winter, when the vegetation has died back during the cold and the frost takes over car windshields every morning.
January is supposed to be when law firms identify their hiring needs. Based on the reports I’ve seen — including the online service I subscribe to and the leads I’ve been pursuing — everyone is doing pretty good for now. What I’m going to do for income after the end of the month is an excellent question, which frustrates and upsets me greatly. An attorney of my experience has a lot to offer any firm (or company) and I can’t understand why there isn’t anything happening on that front. My anxiety level is rising as I contemplate the issue and everything that’s at stake with how that issue is resolved. Right now I have two options — pursue my appellate boutique idea or sell La Casita Knoxvilla and move my family back to California.
Tonight, I learned that a friend finds himself in a similar circumstance. He has a significant step he needs to take for his career, an up-or-out kind of decision is being made and it looks like a key person in that decision has decided to get in the way, for a reason that seems very arbitrary to my friend. I have a very good understanding of how he feels; I’m in a similar situation as he. If either of us can’t fix the situation, that will leave a spotty resume and make finding future work quite difficult. Like me, my friend is quite upset about his situation; he’s contemplating consulting an attorney. I hope his employment situation clears up, too; 
he’s a little older than I and therefore has a shorter time track to make things right.
He and a lawyer friend and some others in his circle are going to see Brokeback Mountain on Saturday; that would be a good networking opportunity for me (and I’m very interested to see the movie besides) but I’ve already committed to going out to dinner with my mother that evening to celebrate her birthday. So that’s what I’m going to do, even as the world turns to a wasteland around me.
