Jury Dutyfree

Up and out of the house even earlier than usual to be punctual for jury duty. Major traffic heading north creates major stress as I drive up Route 1 on the auto mile. This is the 3rd time I’ve been to the Courthouse, but I’ve never actually sat on a jury. Always dismissed.

After handing in the paperwork, I sit down in the large courtroom to wait. A judge comes in and gives our group of 24 or so a little pep talk, then we watch a movie about the jury system with do’s and don’ts. By now the woman a few seats down from me has applied a very odiferous hand cream at least three times. She had an old face and a young body which look wildly inappropriate for each other, and she is reading a cheapy looking magazine called Lifestyle.

The woman on the other side is reading a John Grisham novel. Very appropriate. I start reading something called “Bloody Mary” that is about a female cop with a smart mouth and an extremely creepy serial killer. The book takes place in Chicago, which I like and has the usual mystery minor characters like the side kick (on a diet) the weird mother and her even weirder boyfriend, a manic cat, the current boyfriend, the ex-husband, well, you know the drill. A nice little cookie-cutter book that is a suitable read while waiting to be empanelled. By now I even know the lingo.

Around 11:00, we are still sitting there and a) my neighbor applies another smelly load of hand cream and goes out for a smoke, and b) I am chugging through the lightweight novel at a fast clip and have already read two technical magazines and have a horrible fear of sitting there with nothing to read and c) my stomach is rumbling although I had a little piece of Stollen at 9:30. At the front of the room there’s a TV set with one channel and I have watched part of Ellen to keep from turning the pages so fast.

At 12:00, a man comes in and announces that we are all dismissed. 4th time called, yet to serve. I have a brief debate with my better self, and decide what the hell, I’ll just go back to work for a half-day. At work, there’s little to do and I clean out a file cabinet. There’s always that to do. I wonder if I could sneak a peak at my almost finished book which is getting exciting again. Better self wins this argument, too, and the book stays in the bag. What is with this better-self triumphing all day? Dunno.

Yesterday I got another rejection letter for Promiscuous Mode, and am happy that I already sent out new queries to all the agents I met at the writer’s conference earlier this month, because that rejection was the last of the prior set of queries. I have lots of ideas for the book I’m planning to rewrite, and hope I can finish Festival Madness before the enthusiasm for the rewrite dies. What I am mostly hoping is to publish something else before I drop dead. Even the short story would be a start. Still thinking about the ending. Thought of cute ending but don’t know if that will cut it. Hopeless judge of own writing, like most of us.

I am going to go home and cook the pork chops from Epicurious with the cranberry sauce. Sounded tasty. I couldn’t find pork (porc?) on any of the menus in France. Being autumn, one would expect to. Maybe they have some word for it not part of my vocabulary. That would not be the first time. Wonder what the French is for "Suck it up."

Alors,


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