I hate to admit it, but I'm actually kind of bored with myself.

One of my cases is on trial this week, and it's progressing -- gasp! -- smoothly. I've drafted the jury instructions and the verdict form, and they look to be -- gasp! -- acceptable on the first try. I gasp not because my work is normally sub-par -- most of the time, I manage to be nominally competent. It's just nice when things chug along at an acceptably stable pace.

Reading: Front Row at the White House: My Life and Times, by Helen Thomas

Listening to: Elaborate Lives, the universal sappy love song, from the AIDA soundtrack, currently on repeat on my car stereo . . .

We all lead such elaborate lives
Wild ambitions in our sights
How an affair of the heart survives
Days apart and hurried nights

Seems quite unbelievable to me
I don't want to live like that
Seems quite unbelievable to me
I don't want to love like that
I just want our time to be
Slower and gentler
Wiser
Free

We all live in extravagant times
Playing games we can't all win
Unintended emotional crimes
Take some out, take others in

Too many choices tear us apart
I don't want to live like that
Too many choices tear us apart
I don't want to love like that
I just want to keep your heart
May this confession be the start

I know you'll give me courage
To face what I must face
With all these complications
In another time and place

We all lead such elaborate lives
We don't know whose words are true
An affair of the heart survives
All the pain the world can do

I'm so tired of all we're going through
I don't want to live like that
I'm so tired of all we're going through
I don't want to love like that
I just want to be with you
Now and forever
Peaceful
True