I tell people that it’s all right if they don’t have time to talk or to read my updates or to meet up. I suppose it is, in a sense, all right, in that I intellectually accept that there are many genuinely good reasons for anyone not to be able to do these things, and that these legitimately significant reasons don’t mean that people don’t care. But the implication that I’m therefore open to either answer, yes or no, is entirely a lie. I need yes. I lie to Bill. I tell him that I would completely understand if he’s unable to get away from work for trial week. I ask him to be there for my testimony and for the verdict, and by the way it would be great if he can be there for all of it but of course it makes perfect sense if he can’t. It was one thing for him to be with me at the hearing in January; that was only one day. The trial will be at least three. October is right in the middle of the fall semester. He has to teach, after all. He has to help run his department at the business school.
