personal

I the Jury

Jury duty was surprisingly not terrible.

I had to get a slightly earlier train this morning than usual, and to Brooklyn instead of to Manhattan, but that wasn’t too difficult. True, I’ve only ever been to Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn once before, and that was well over a year ago, and by mistake. But I didn’t get too lost, mostly because I asked someone in a ticket booth for directions, and I wound up at the courthouse sometime after 8 o’clock. (I couldn’t take my cell phone in with me, so I didn’t bring it at all, and it’s the only working watch I own.)

I went upstairs to the jury assembly room, checked in and grabbed a seat, and read for a little while — though for much less of a little while than I’d been expecting. We had a short information session about the whole selection process and about the federal court, some questions and answers, and before long they started calling people to go upstairs.

I was in the first group. We went upstairs to the thirteenth floor, all twenty or thirty of us, where the judge, his clerk, and the US attorney were waiting. They were selecting replacements for the grand jury. And, you know, under those circumstances, had I been selected, it might not have been so terrible. It’s one day a week, unlike a trial jury; and because these were replacement spots, filling in for jurors who, for whatever reason, couldn’t finish their service, it was only scheduled to run until the end of January. (Normally, while still only one day a week, members of a grand jury can meet for several months, or even a year.)

But I wasn’t selected. After a brief interview with ten people, they’d filled all the spots they needed to, and the rest of us were dismissed. We went back downstairs, got the paperwork saying we’d been there for the day, and then were free to go. I don’t know exactly what time I left — again, no wristwatch, no cell phone — but I quickly caught the subway back to Atlantic Terminal, then another quick LIRR train to Jamaica, and from there the 11:55 back home. So it was less than half a day, whatever it was.

I’m still on telephone standby for the next two weeks, which means I have to call each evening after 5 to see if they want me back in. But this morning they said that was unlikely, given the relatively small number of cases they had to fill, and I’m not required to be there tomorrow.

That doesn’t mean I’ll be in the office tomorrow, though, since it is Tuesday. And Wednesday, I have a number of campus visits scheduled at Hofstra, so I won’t be back into Manhattan until Thursday. But I actually managed to get some work done this afternoon, which was a pleasant — well, pleasant-ish — surprise.

And then this evening, kind of on a whim, I decided to watch Moonraker, Roger Moore’s fourth outing as James Bond. It’s not exactly what I’d call good, but it’s reasonably entertaining as ridiculous camp. (It might be tough to appreciate if approached at any other level.) Like jury duty, it wasn’t nearly as painful as I had been expecting.

Oh, and meanwhile it was like 60 to 70 degrees and sunny today. I don’t know what’s up with that.

Sunday

Sunday just sort of disappeared out from under me.

It turns out, I do have jury duty starting Monday, not just telephone standby but actually showing up to the courthouse in Brooklyn. There’s no way of knowing yet if anything will come of it, if I’ll actually wind up on a jury, or just sit there all day. I’ll definitely be bringing a book. I can’t bring my computer, obviously, or even a cell phone, so there’s that. We’ll see. I’m not upset by the jury duty itself — even if it’s all the way in Brooklyn, not the much closer Mineola — so much as the timing of it.

The rest of the day…I dunno. I slept late, if not well, and did but didn’t finish the crossword puzzle. I did some editing for the next issue of Kaleidotrope, which amazingly is only one month away. When the heck did it get to be December?

Nobody does it better

It was kind cold and dreary out today, so I spent most of it just puttering around the house. After a week’s reprieve, I returned to James Bond and watched The Spy Who Loved Me. It wasn’t at all bad, although that may only be in comparison to the last few, which were pretty dire. And, as someone who’s more or less committed himself to watching all of the Bond films — I own them all now — I’m a little disheartened by the oft-repeated wisdom that this was Roger Moore’s best. (It’s not that good.)

I also watched Men in Black 3, which was pleasantly diverting. Mildly entertaining. I mean, Josh Brolin does a pretty great Tommy Lee Jones impersonation, and that’s worth something.

I also set up these polls to vote for your favorite Kaleidotrope stories and poems from 2012. I realize I may just end up exposing myself (and everyone else) to how few people actually read the zine, but it seemed like a thing to do.

I mean, it was that or watch Moonraker, and nobody wants that.

Friday!

I don’t know what it was about this week — the disruption of my normal schedule that was Wednesday, the much bigger disruption that could be next week, or just the fact that I have so few weeks left before the end of the year — but I’m really glad it’s over.

No immediate plans for the weekend beyond sleeping late tomorrow.

Wedthursday

Last night, I went to this:

It was part of Selected Shorts, one of three I’m attending in the next few months. The stories were quite entertaining, and Baldwin — who apparently almost didn’t make it, thanks to filming across town — was quite good, as were all the other performers/readers.

I got home around 11 o’clock, quite tired, and allowed myself to oversleep and catch a slightly later train this morning.

I was also still weirdly shaken, almost certainly more than I should have been, by a phone call that had gone exceptionally poorly earlier in the day. I’ve been trying to set up campus visits, this time closer to home than Maryland, and it’s been tough. One instructor agreed to talk over the phone with me yesterday…and then almost immediately asked that we terminate the call. “Yeah, I think I’m going to hang up,” he said. “I really don’t want to go through all the courses I teach.” Which, you know, fair enough, especially at this busy time of year. But that’s the only reason that I called, and what I hoped I’d made clear in my original e-mail. I want to know the courses you’re teaching and the books you’re using and the challenges you and your students face. I have no hard feelings toward this particular instructor, who e-mailed after to apologize, but I’m also not at all happy about how things went. Those phone calls are awkward enough without the other party being openly antagonistic or non-communicative. I’m a pretty shy person to begin with, so I just hope for someone who’s eager to talk about the hows and whys that they teach.

I didn’t lose any sleep over it, though. (I may have mentioned, I slept in a little.)

Today, was just a lot more work. I have another phone call lined up for tomorrow, although I’m hoping that will go a little better, based on the e-mails I’ve already exchanged. And then next week…provided I don’t actually have to go on jury duty*, I’ll actually meet a few instructors in person.

I could use a weekend, though, I really could.

* Yeah, I forgot this summons was for next week. It’s a telephone standby one, which means I might not actually have to show up, but I won’t know until the night before, for about a week, starting Sunday. When I first responded to the summons, and filled out the form, I didn’t realize that now would be the single worst time ever for me to be on jury duty.