Almost an hour before I have to jet to UTMB and teach cold from materials I haven't looked at in maybe three years.  Lovely.  Last night was INSANE.  I talked to Lance on the phone for more than an hour, found out that Rick is blaming ME for everything that's going wrong at the firm; they were my decisions, my recommendations, my inaction.. blah, blah, blah.

In talking to Lance, I realized last night that I've spent the last nearly seven years working for people for whom I had great responsibility, but no real authority.  John Frels, Judy, Valentine and now this.  Everyone expected me to produce everything, manage everything, handle everything, but they held the decision making power to themselves.

I was thinking last night (as I lay awake rolling things over in my mind) whether this was the big black hairy beast that my sister was hosing down in my dream the other night.  Certainly, Lance's presence in my life has made this pattern less tolerable.

Anyway, yesterday, I asked Scott Hardie if I could process loans for him (which I can do from home) and then, E suggested that I could handle his contract to process HUD records for public housing authorities.  It pays $1.85 a record, there are 50,000 records to input.  Or something like that.  Details at 11:00.

Not a peep out of R&R yesterday after the end of our unproductive conversation.  I had a mind to overnight my keys and my access card to them for Monday morning delivery.  I'm having lunch with Lance tomorrow to discuss our next moves.  Rick was glued to his side after the telephone convo, and was trying to paint me and Lance as the bad characters in this drama.  Lance (from his conversation with me) didn't give an inch, and kept tossing the scenarios back into Rick's lap.  However, Lance is pretty subtle, and I doubt that Rick would have taken in that he was having things put back on him, given his ability to blame others and never look at his own input.

So, I have a pattern, not yet fully identified (but I have until tomorrow morning to synthesize it and be able to do something with it) with lots of clues buzzing around.

Yesterday afternoon, Valentine was telling me that he couldn't believe that they would take advantage of me that way, at least HE treated me fairly.  I nearly spit out teeth.  In the conversation, he finally admitted that he had gone more than a year with me being on a fungible, undocumented pay promise, and that maybe I hadn't been treated properly.  I have written him an email, but haven't sent it yet.

I need to create a plan for myself, I guess.  I am so good at creating plans, and yet haven't done that for myself.

More later.