Category: life in general

Okay, peeps. And especially Lisa.

So I got this jury summons about a month or so ago and promptly forgot about it. Everything is just so insane right now, it completely slipped my mind. Actually, it didn’t even register with me. It wasn’t even in my mind long enough to slip out of it.

So … I ran across it yesterday and went ACK! There was a form I was supposed to send back within 5 days of receiving the summons. So clearly, I didn’t. Because of the non-registration in my brain, you see. This is for federal court. Grand Jury or somesuch. Turns out, my jury service is supposed to last for a WHOLE MONTH! You call in every day for a damn month and have to go down and sit in the courthouse for 5 whole days out of that time to see if you’re picked. And if you’re picked for a jury near the end of your service — guess what? — your service is extended!

Oh, and by the way, my jury service starts NEXT WEEK.

Boheme — my new business that I need to be present at, every day — opens NEXT WEEK.

Oh, and the topper: Job-related issues are no excuse. They will not accept them.

Totally different from Superior Court where you’re at least allowed some excuses.

Now, I have not responded, as I said. And the summons, with its 6-page instructions, clearly states that failure to appear will result in:

— A fine of $100 or

— Imprisonment for not more than 3 days (oh, that’s comforting — long enough to become someone’s bee-yotch, I’m sure!!) OR

— BOTH!

So …..

In addition to my overall anxious sleeplessness about Boheme, I’m now totally freaked out about this. I can call, I suppose, and ask for a postponement, but I actually already did that in when I was summoned for this very same jury duty for the entire month of December and was going to be out of town for the holidays. I had no idea back then where my life would be just 2 1/2 months later.

What do I DO? Do I just ignore it and take my chances? I’ve done jury duty before, so I’m not a shirker, but I literally cannot do it now or any time soon. A postponement for a few months down the line won’t do me any good. Doing it now or doing it then would be bad for business, bad for my family, bad for our finances that are still in fragile recovery.

Ack. ACK!!

Advice, please. NOW!

Thank you.

Your potential jailbird friend,

Me

It is Thanksgiving Eve. I’m walking the short distance home from The Beanhouse in the dark. I wear an old army jacket because I don’t have a real jacket, a ladylike jacket, a grown-up jacket. This is Southern California, after all. I mean, what’s a jacket? And I like this jacket. It suits me, somehow. It’s khaki and too big and I like the way it holds me. My kind of face looks out of place in this kind of jacket and maybe I like that, too. I feel safe in this jacket. Comforted. I am someone else. Instinctively, I reach for this ragged thing when my life feels upside down. It never fails me, this jacket. It is faithful and warm and ugly.

Underneath the right-hand sleeve, there is a growing rip at the seam. I could mend it, I suppose, if I had khaki thread, but who has khaki thread? And I don’t really sew, anyway. I’ve looked in my sewing kit, halfheartedly: red, blue, pink, green, yellow, brown, black, white. No khaki. Guess you’re not supposed to have clothes this color; the sewing syndicate does not approve. Fine. I take some safety pins — I have a lot of those because I don’t sew — and thread them through, gently, barely grabbing fabric, building a line of little silver soldiers, quietly doing their job. On the outside of the sleeve you can see only the tiniest dots of pin. It’s not enough to bother me. I just let it be. Sometimes I turn the sleeve inside out and I look at that neat line of pins I made. Straighter, more solid than any stitches I could have sewn. I like how staunch they are. How they don’t question what they’re doing. How sometimes, when the jacket is on, I can feel one of them brushing up against my arm, a quick salute, then flattening against the fabric, at ease again.

So I wear this walking home, Thanksgiving Eve. The khaki droops nearly to my knees. But the little silver soldiers are there, holding me in, and the droop is generous. It covers things. The smear of whipped cream on the side of my pants. The cloud of cocoa powder on the sleeve of my shirt. The smell of old espresso and steamed milk mingling with sweaty tired skin.

The crisp air flickers at my cheeks, my hair, the leaves on the trees. I hear the pad-pad-pad of my ugly black shoes on the road. Horrible non-skid monsters that mock my dainty feet and I am vain about my dainty feet. The shoes are dutifully non-skid, it’s true, but they’re also painful, cruelly carving into the smooth curve of my arches. On top of it all there’s nothing interesting about their ugliness. No odd feature. No queer detail. Just run-of-the-mill lurching ugliness. They pad-pad-pad at me in the darkness and it sounds like disdain. My jacket, though, keeps its opinions to itself.

As I walk, I think about tomorrow, Thanksgiving. My parents’ house. My siblings with their kids and their successes and their new cars. I watch my feet, notice the stray splotch of dried whipped cream on one ugly non-skid shoe … there it is … there it is … there it is. I think of all the stories they’ll tell at the dinner table — who’s doing what, how well they’re doing it, how well everyone else thinks they’re doing it. I remember the hot shame on my cheeks when that lady said, “My! What a rich life you lead,” as I shuffled off to clean The Beanhouse bathroom …there it is … there it is …. there it is. I feel my heart burning — aching — with too much love for those kids. With that simmering sometime jealousy of my siblings …there it is … there it is … there it is. I cross the street and feel the familiar stabbing cramps that mean I’ll need a Midol when I get home.

Pad-pad-pad. Pad-pad-pad. I shove my hands deep into the pockets of my quiet jacket, relieved, I guess, that tomorrow, no one will ask me about this person I’ve become.