Day 1 of Jury Duty

started out with a trek through sleet & frozen rain (whee!) downtown to Centre Street (which by the way, could use some more STREET SIGNS). Got there in plenty of time to get a decent seat and wait. and wait. And then we got to watch a film all about our Justice System and how awful it was before the English invented juries (I thought it was the Welsh - silly me!). They even had a re-enactment of "trial by ordeal" which at first I thought was going to be about the Salem Witch Trials but then it turned out to be about those bad Medieval Europeans and their bad justice system. Oh & it was narrated by Diane Sawyer. And her hair. Which is magical and does not move. ever. Anyway, after the film was over, the clerk (who seemed to think she was appearing on television) gave us yet more information and then, since no one was paying attention except for maybe 5 of us, she had to repeat them often to lots of people. And then we sat and sat some more. They called a bunch of names and since mine wasn't among them, I went back to reading "Solar" which is Ian what's-its latest thinly veiled middle-aged white guy fantasy novel wherein all the women are teeny tiny and blonde and (mostly) naked and never speak or are just invisible. Oh & it's also about global warming. Perhaps an answer to that idiot who wrote all those dinosaur books bestseller that apparently refutes global warming but which I have read and likely never will because, well really, who wants to read a book written by an idiot? Anyway, did some work, did some reading and then they called the rest of us into a side room (no windows, no heat, no air) where we listened to two lawyers speak at LENGTH about a case and although it became apparent that they would only need 6 of the 21 people in the room after about say 30 minutes, they kept this up ALL day...oh - they did give us the required lunch break which I spent wading across the street to try to find some decent food. $10 later I had a tiny salad and some seriously over-priced water. Day 2 will start in the same airless, heatless, windowless room although hopefully, they'll be done with us soon.

And now, I'm going to go read some Winterson to get that sad old white man's fantasies out of my head. ick.