Last weekend started off really great. I woke up thinking it was Friday and then had the unexpected pleasure, just as I was about to get into the shower, of realizing that it was in fact Saturday. I WAS STOKED! I love Saturday. It's the best day of the whole week. You get to sleep a little bit more and don't have to work (except if you do... and sometimes I do, but its usually easier work) and then you have the next day to recover from whatever you do on Saturday night. It's just an all around super time of the week.
Having overly excited myself by realizing what day it was I decided I could not go back to sleep... and that wasn't even a problem 'cause I knew I could take a nap later. Since I was up I decided I should take the opportunity to do some grocery shopping. I had noticed that strawberries or something random like that was on sale at Safeway so I decided to go there instead of going to Trader Joes like I normally do... and I COULD NOT BE HAPPIER WITH THAT DECISION. Not only were strawberries on sale, but also ARTICHOKES, MUSHROOMS, RICE CRISPIES, FROZEN FRENCH FRIES, FROZEN PIZZA and probably some other stuff I am forgetting were all on sale...so basically a PLETHORA of my favorite foods were well stocked and on sale... it was sooo damned exciting ! ! ! According to my receipt I saved like $36.00 on groceries... I could not be more proud or pleased about that if I had gotten food for free. AWESOME. Getting good deals on groceries just really does it for me...
So anyway, I went home put the groceries away did some cleaning and took a nap... when I woke up from the nap it was like a whole new day... It wasn't like I was in a bad mood, but my excitement had been reset to whatever my normal level of excitement is. I was looking forward to going to dinner with my coworkers, but I was not nearly as excited about that as I was about the artichokes (the were $1.00 each they are normally like $3.50 - $5.00 each... and they weren't even shitty artichokes... it definitely was a sale worthy of the excitement it brought me), but I wasn't particularly in the mood to ride my bike 'cause it was windy outside (Me + Bike + Wind = Me - having a good time + annoyed) ( why do I love making word equations? I am such a dork...)
Whether I wanted to or not (and I DID NOT) I had to ride my bike to my office though to meet Theresa 'cause she was giving me a ride to the city where we were meeting the San Francisco Shamrock office ladies for dinner. Tony would have given me a ride at least to my office I'm sure, but he was indoor sky diving with his friend, so that wasn't an option.
The wind was totally horrible on Saturday. I was pedaling as hard as I could but felt like I wasn't even moving. and that is something that really jerks my chicken... I just hate working really hard at things and ending up with nothing to show for it, so after about an hour and forty minutes of struggling against the wind I arrived at my office pretty cranky and exhausted, but I felt better after I got a chance to change into my nicer clothes and do my hair and put eye liner on... and I was starting to get a bit more excited about seeing the girls from the other office, so I'd say by the time Theresa and I headed out I was at a baseline level of confidence and excitement.
When Theresa and I got to the city and met Emily in front of the restaurant though, my excitement level went up a little and my confidence plummeted. which resulted in me pretty much immediately acting like some stupid ass hole. Emily asked me how jury duty was and I was like "oh it would have been good except some punk kids threw rocks at me" (ok, that's true it happened so I have no problem with that comment) but then I was like "but it WAS fun to watch the prospective jurors and mock them in my head" (WHAAAAT ? Why would I say that ? It was slightly true, but it was an arrogant thing to say... why would I want to sound arrogant what the hell? I gave an example of the kid that had not yet graduated high school who told the judge that he had lived in Hayward for 4 years and San Leandro for 16 years, but was only 18 years old... yeah he made an inaccurate statement, but I'm sure its scary to be sitting there in the jury box in front of a bunch of ass holes like me telling your life story to a judge and some lawyers) So I made that comment which I wish I hadn't, but in my head at the time I was just trying to sound more bad-ass than I actually am... I don't know why I cant just let myself be an amusing dork when I'm around people... Why not just throw out some word equations and talk about how I love food... everyone loves food... and who doesn't love a good word equation... I wish that my brain would just work out its issues with my mouth and let me be me all the time, but I haven't seemed to master that art yet.
The problem I was having on Saturday night was that I think that Emily is quite possibly the coolest chick in the world and I want her to like me, but I haven't seen her for a couple months so I was trying to cram 2 months worth of coolness into 1 night and acting like I used to act in high school when I wanted people to think I was cool... namely I was acting like a callous idiot. This continued the whole night. I kept trying to force myself to say something funny or interesting and I kept saying arrogant things that were somewhat true, but were not kind things to say about people (and which I won't repeat here). I wish I didn't get like that. I wish I could just be myself. I wish I had been spouting off shit about the artichokes I bought or baby geese or things that make me happy instead of the crap I was saying to sound "cool", but when I try to force myself to talk in a group that I am not fully comfortable with I just only seem to be able to spout out caddy bitchy things or random observations like when Emily was texting a lot and I said "hey you're acting like you have an Iphone but you don't have an I phone" ... Yeah good one Jill way to start a conversation what is she going to say to that... Anyway I was lame all night and probably left a really poor impression on everyone and then I went on to leave an even poorer impression on myself, but to sum up this post in a vague and awkward way... I need to stop trying to be someone else and accept that sometimes being myself means just sitting there and being quite. I think quite lameness is a lot easier to forgive than arrogant stupidity.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Jury Duty with a fist full of rocks on top
I was not immediately thrilled when I received my jury summons, but the way Alameda County rolls is that they have all potential prospective jurors (those who've received a jury duty notice in the mail) call the night before the date of their summons to find out if their randomly assigned number had been drawn to receive the grand prize of a stay at the luxurious jury assembly room in the Hayward superior court house. Tony got his summons in the mail the same day I did and he was dismissed without ever having to report to the court house, so when I called the night before my report date I was very hopeful that the same fate would befall me as well... but It didn't.
My initial reaction to the automated woman who informed me that my prescience would in fact be required at the Hayward Superior court for jury duty earlier this week was "Youuu BITCH... I hate you for casting this burden on me !"... and then I moved onto "Life is soooo not fair, why did III get jury duty but Tony didn't, he has a car and it would have been soooo much more convenient for him to go, but no III have to ride my BIKE through ghetto-ass-Hayward to the court house and I will probably get shot and die on the way. this is Awwwwfullll!" but eventually I calmed down and realized that cursing the automated phone woman and Tony's good luck was not going to make jury duty go away, so I began to look for the silver lining. and it did not take me too long to find one.
The time for me to report to court was 8:30 AM and as it happens we live just 5 miles away from the court house which meant I would get to sleep in about 45 minutes longer than usual... and upon researching my route it seemed that I would have a pretty safe flat ride to jury duty, so I decided a day away from my office: reading a book and not having to deal with the constant nagging of phones or paperwork might be a nice change of pace, .
Upon arriving to the jury assembly room I settled into a not so comfy chair in the corner of the room next to a table (so that I would only have to sit next to 1 person ). Then I was pleased to hear that there was a secret upstairs prospective juror waiting room that had couches... I was saddened, however, by the news that, due to budgetary cuts, there were no cups available to get water from the arrowhead water cooler. I am used to keeping my body thoroughly hydrated and I had assumed their would be drinking fountains, so I was not prepared for this cupless watercooler situation. At least I had a nice couch to relax on for the day, I consoled myself. The "no cup" wound was quickly re-opened though, as I bitterly watched the court employee who had just made the announcement about cups flagrantly filling his Nalgene bottle shortly after he had broken the news to us.
I did not have too long to stew in my bitterness though, they started to call names of prospective jurors pretty quickly. When my name hadn't been called by 10:30 I assumed that I would be let go for the day... but instead the Nalgene bottle toting employee made an anouncement that all prospective jurors whose name had not yet been called would be assigned to a court room, but the room would not be ready until 1:00 pm, so we were to leave and come back to the juror assembly room in 2.5 hours. That Nalgene bottle guy was really starting to piss me off !
I returned at 1:00 pm after 2 1/2 hours of aimlessly wandering around Hayward and sitting on random benches for short periods of time to read Saving Fish From Drowning an Amy Tan book that my mom gave me around Christmas time which I was just now getting around to reading. (It's a pretty good book so far, but I don't expect to finish it unless I somehow get jury duty again or some other task forces me to sit still and not sleep, watch TV or be on the Internet for several hours at a time... and such occurrences seem to be rare in my life these days).
It was hard being away from the Internet for so many hours at a time. I was desperate to know what Michael Ian Black had tweeted about that day or what fun, exciting or pointless status updates had gone up on facebook recently (although I was fairly certain that Michael would have posted something about drinking a glass of water), but I guess did managed to fulfill my social networking needs the old timey way... with my good old cell phone. It was nice to get a chance to catch up with Michael and Megan who seem to be too busy to chat during hours that I'm not working.
After I felt I had had enough of socializing on the phone and being outside I obediently returned to the juror holding pen at 12:45. There weren't many people in the room when I got there, but I did notice there was a stack of cups by the water cooler... just as I was making that observation Nalgene bottle guy announced " We restocked the cups at the water coolers feel free to help yourself". You'd think it would have won him some points with me that he scored some cups, but it just made me like him even less since I am pretty sure he'd been lying earlier about there being no cups due to budget cut backs... I wouldn't be surprised if it was just some twisted game he likes to play with the prospective jurors for his own amusement... Nalgene bottle guy can suck it !!! I don't like him! (I made my own cup by saving the container from my apple sauce, so I just used that to get water... I'm resourceful... I don't need to be part of Nalgeen bottle guys sick cup game... )
It was not until a little after 1:30 that I received my assignment, so after 5 hours of suspence the remaining 59 prospective jurors and I shuffled into court room 209 to fill the jury for a criminal DUI hearing.
I held my breath as the court clerk called the first 12 randomly selected jurors and sighed with relief when my name was not called. It was a long process just going through the introductions of each of the 12 originally selected random jurors. Each prospective juror that had been called into the "box" was to state where they had lived for the last 5 years, the jobs they'd had for the last 5 years, if they were married or lived with someone and if they were (or did) what did their spouse/ roommate do and did they have kids, what high school they attended, had they ever served in the military and what was their education level... for most jurors there were follow up questions and random bits of unnecessary details, so it was a very slow processes... especially since some of the jurors had to be replaced as they identified reasons why they were unable to serve on that particularly jury as they went through their introduction.
For example, it took several hours to get to juror number 9 whoe we learned happened to still be an 18 year old senior in high school (even though he had lived in Hayward for the last 4 years and lived in San Leandro for the first 16 years of his life (he really needed to be in school)... Apparently students are excused from jury duty until they have a break from school.
We had only just finished going through the introductions of the 12 jurors at 3:45 when the judge dismissed everyone for the day. He wanted to give anyone who had suddenly had something come up (such as a family emergency or conflict of interest) that would prevent them from serving on the jury talk with him in private before the end of the day... so I was called to come back the next day to see if I would be required to fill in for any of the original jurors.
The next day the lawyers began their process of weeding out the jurors that would be biased against their client. I had never seen lawyers in action other than on TV and it struck me that lawyers (at least during the jury selection process) are not much more than charming teachers that have to somehow explain laws as if the jury is full of preschoolers while the actual mix of jurors ranges from high school drop outs to PHDs. Despite all of the big words and legal jargon that they had learned to pass the bar, those lawyers had to break things down to a pretty elementary level if they wanted to have everyone in the jury understand and eventually side with them.
Mrs. True (Tru?) the defendant's lawyer, whose name I swear I am not making up, was the coolest chick I have ever seen. I so want to be BFFs with her... although I'm sure she's way out of my BFF league. She was just all chill with the prospective jurors asking them about how their family's restaurant that they mentioned was and apologizing for her mispronunciation of peoples names in such a cute sincere way and throwing in witty little observations about things the prospective jurors had said... I can't recall any exact examples of why, but she just left you with the impression that she was the easiest person in the world to get along with. She must have aced her schmoozing test in Law school 'cause that chick new how to work a court... I think if I had been pulled up as a prospective juror my excuse to get out of serving would have been that Ms. True's obvious super coolness had rendered me unable to side on any other side than hers... I'm sure the judge would have loved that... Lame Mr. prosecutor would have had to dismiss me... he was not nearly so cool as Ms. True... he didn't even have a memorable and fitting law name like she did... he had mastered the talking down to the jury without sounding like he was talking down to them thing. First he asked the jurors to imagine that they were at a dinner party and had had a few drinks... and then he asked how they would tell if someone had had too much and couldn't drive... I totally wanted to raise my hand. It was just like a brain storming session in 3rd grade or something. I didn't realize how much audience participation there was in jury duty... but his next "imagine that..." scenario which involved working on a broken car never got to come to fruition 'cause the judge cut him off for wasting everyone's time... the judge did not seem to care for the prosecuting attourney... I didn't really care for him either although I don't know why exactly I think it might have had something to do with the fact that he really was just not as cool as Ms. True...
The lawyers and the judge questioned all of the prospective jurors in the box for several hours dismissing jurors for various reasons... a couple of the jurors seemed to be throwing their answers so that they would be let off...One guy was clearly desperate to get out of the trial so he said he had been charged with a DUI while he was working on a military base. Nobody seemed to want to dismiss him for that so he added that he suffered from panic attacks when he was alone, and after the judge assured him that he would always be with at least 13 people through the duration of the trial the guy suddenly claimed not to speak English very well and with an annoyed look the judge dismissed him.
Some of the questions that they asked each of the prospective jurors seemed like a trap... there were things that you knew would get you out of jury duty, but would probably also get you beat up in the parking lot outside: "Is there anything about the fact that the defendant is a Latino that would make you inclined to vote one way or another on this trial" was one question that I was sure that no one would bite on... yet much to my surprise on the second day of jury selection... after about 20 minutes of questioning just befoer swearing in the 2 alternate jurors and dismissing us for the day alternate juror number 2 had a burning confession he had to make...
alternate juror number 2 was a hearty looking Chinese man who worked for his brother's construction company and who felt unique in that the "majority of his friends [were] Latinos because of the industry he worked in so [he] would probably side with the defendant"... WHAT? We live in California who doesn't have a dozen or so Latino friends ? Come on... really? You really can't see the distinction in your mind between our defendant "Mr. Perez" and your friends from work? To me that seems almost as racist as if he had said that he would have to convict Mr. Perez because he just didn't trust Mexicans... do they all look the same to you man ? Total crap! Oh well. The prosecutor obviously had to pull that guy off of his alternate jury seat, so another random name, which was not mine (SCORE! ) was called, and a very sweet soft spoken Asian girl who didn't drink because it was considered a sin at her church, but didn't judge people who did drink, took the final alternate juror position. The alternate jurors were signed in at about 3:00 pm on the 2nd day of selection and the 7 or 8 unselected prospective jurors (including myself) were set free minutes later (after the judge assured us that us unslectees were really missing out on an experience... I guess I can go ahead and look forward to my next jury duty session then).
I was so excited to be out in the sunshine and fresh air and on my way home at 3:00 in the afternoon. I was already dreaming of walking through my garden at home and admiring my little baby corn and pea plants when I approached my bike and noticed that my front tire was flat. It was the second flat I'd gotten in 3 days so I was a little annoyed, especially since 3 days ago I had ordered a new bike tube online, but had not yet received it, and when I went to the bike shop to get a new tube for my first flat I hadn't the fore site to buy an extra tube to take care of my next flat.
I remembered that there was a gas station about 3 blocks from the court house though so I figured that I could put some air in it and see if i could ride it at least most of the way home... I was still in pretty good spirits and was optimistic that I could find a way to ride my bike home, but as I walked my bike past a group of teenagers they decided I had somehow offended them and the two boys started to throw rocks at me... fortunately for me they seemed to be completely blind and managed to miss me (and my bike) with each of the 14 or 15 rocks they threw... I was glad to find that not all the youths of Hayward are ass holes though 'cause the 2 girls that were with those boys convinced them to stop throwing things at me cause they, like me, had noticed that the boys were "being stupid". Looking back on it, it doesn't seem like such a big deal, but at the time it made me want to cry. I guess it was just so unnecessarily mean and inconsiderate that it made me feel kind of helpless and definitely angry. Cruelty bothers me...
I got to the gas station a few minutes later and found that the valve stem of my bike's tire had actually been completely ripped off. I am not sure if it was something that I had inadvertently done when I was locking up my bike or if it was an intentional act of random vandalism, but feeling the way I did at that moment I was certain it was intentional and I once again felt like the victim of injustice. I decided I would turn it in to a positive thing though 'cause I knew there was a K-Mart not too far away and I needed practice changing bike tires, so I thought this would be a good opportunity. I could just buy a new tube and a cheap air pump and get my independent womanness on. I did make it to Kmart after about 45 minutes of walking my bike across town (turned out that Kmart was a little farther than I had originally imagined) and I did successfully changed my tire, but much to my shagrin when I went to pump up the new tube and couldnt seem to get air into it, I suddenly remembered that the wheels on this particular bike required a special type of valve that was longer than those on regular bike tubes... so I was stuck once more with a heavy useless bike to walk home and now I also had a 10 lb bike pump to carry with me. AWESOME HAD JUST GOTTEN AWESOMEER!
At that point there was no saving my mood. I was hot and tired and angry at the injustice of it all, but fortunately I called Tony and he came to rescue me and I still got home exactly at 5pm which is earlier than usual. I find it somewhat striking though that I went to jury duty which is supposed to teach you about justice and I seemed to learn a lot more about the prevalence of injustice in America. Not just because some punk kids threw rocks at me, or because I had to go to jury duty and Tony didn't, but the whole system, the way prospective jurors will say things to get let off the jury and the way lawyers will try to charm you to say something rather than leaving it to be truly decided by the evidence seems kind of whack although I definitely can't think of any solution to our legal system that would be better... but I hope that if I ever am on a jury I can put a little justice in the justice system... but I guess I can't totally hate on my 1st bay area Jury experience If nothing else I got some extra sleep, read part of an actual grown up book and I rediscovered PB and J so I guess that alone is enough to make it a positive experience.
My initial reaction to the automated woman who informed me that my prescience would in fact be required at the Hayward Superior court for jury duty earlier this week was "Youuu BITCH... I hate you for casting this burden on me !"... and then I moved onto "Life is soooo not fair, why did III get jury duty but Tony didn't, he has a car and it would have been soooo much more convenient for him to go, but no III have to ride my BIKE through ghetto-ass-Hayward to the court house and I will probably get shot and die on the way. this is Awwwwfullll!" but eventually I calmed down and realized that cursing the automated phone woman and Tony's good luck was not going to make jury duty go away, so I began to look for the silver lining. and it did not take me too long to find one.
The time for me to report to court was 8:30 AM and as it happens we live just 5 miles away from the court house which meant I would get to sleep in about 45 minutes longer than usual... and upon researching my route it seemed that I would have a pretty safe flat ride to jury duty, so I decided a day away from my office: reading a book and not having to deal with the constant nagging of phones or paperwork might be a nice change of pace, .
Upon arriving to the jury assembly room I settled into a not so comfy chair in the corner of the room next to a table (so that I would only have to sit next to 1 person ). Then I was pleased to hear that there was a secret upstairs prospective juror waiting room that had couches... I was saddened, however, by the news that, due to budgetary cuts, there were no cups available to get water from the arrowhead water cooler. I am used to keeping my body thoroughly hydrated and I had assumed their would be drinking fountains, so I was not prepared for this cupless watercooler situation. At least I had a nice couch to relax on for the day, I consoled myself. The "no cup" wound was quickly re-opened though, as I bitterly watched the court employee who had just made the announcement about cups flagrantly filling his Nalgene bottle shortly after he had broken the news to us.
I did not have too long to stew in my bitterness though, they started to call names of prospective jurors pretty quickly. When my name hadn't been called by 10:30 I assumed that I would be let go for the day... but instead the Nalgene bottle toting employee made an anouncement that all prospective jurors whose name had not yet been called would be assigned to a court room, but the room would not be ready until 1:00 pm, so we were to leave and come back to the juror assembly room in 2.5 hours. That Nalgene bottle guy was really starting to piss me off !
I returned at 1:00 pm after 2 1/2 hours of aimlessly wandering around Hayward and sitting on random benches for short periods of time to read Saving Fish From Drowning an Amy Tan book that my mom gave me around Christmas time which I was just now getting around to reading. (It's a pretty good book so far, but I don't expect to finish it unless I somehow get jury duty again or some other task forces me to sit still and not sleep, watch TV or be on the Internet for several hours at a time... and such occurrences seem to be rare in my life these days).
It was hard being away from the Internet for so many hours at a time. I was desperate to know what Michael Ian Black had tweeted about that day or what fun, exciting or pointless status updates had gone up on facebook recently (although I was fairly certain that Michael would have posted something about drinking a glass of water), but I guess did managed to fulfill my social networking needs the old timey way... with my good old cell phone. It was nice to get a chance to catch up with Michael and Megan who seem to be too busy to chat during hours that I'm not working.
After I felt I had had enough of socializing on the phone and being outside I obediently returned to the juror holding pen at 12:45. There weren't many people in the room when I got there, but I did notice there was a stack of cups by the water cooler... just as I was making that observation Nalgene bottle guy announced " We restocked the cups at the water coolers feel free to help yourself". You'd think it would have won him some points with me that he scored some cups, but it just made me like him even less since I am pretty sure he'd been lying earlier about there being no cups due to budget cut backs... I wouldn't be surprised if it was just some twisted game he likes to play with the prospective jurors for his own amusement... Nalgene bottle guy can suck it !!! I don't like him! (I made my own cup by saving the container from my apple sauce, so I just used that to get water... I'm resourceful... I don't need to be part of Nalgeen bottle guys sick cup game... )
It was not until a little after 1:30 that I received my assignment, so after 5 hours of suspence the remaining 59 prospective jurors and I shuffled into court room 209 to fill the jury for a criminal DUI hearing.
I held my breath as the court clerk called the first 12 randomly selected jurors and sighed with relief when my name was not called. It was a long process just going through the introductions of each of the 12 originally selected random jurors. Each prospective juror that had been called into the "box" was to state where they had lived for the last 5 years, the jobs they'd had for the last 5 years, if they were married or lived with someone and if they were (or did) what did their spouse/ roommate do and did they have kids, what high school they attended, had they ever served in the military and what was their education level... for most jurors there were follow up questions and random bits of unnecessary details, so it was a very slow processes... especially since some of the jurors had to be replaced as they identified reasons why they were unable to serve on that particularly jury as they went through their introduction.
For example, it took several hours to get to juror number 9 whoe we learned happened to still be an 18 year old senior in high school (even though he had lived in Hayward for the last 4 years and lived in San Leandro for the first 16 years of his life (he really needed to be in school)... Apparently students are excused from jury duty until they have a break from school.
We had only just finished going through the introductions of the 12 jurors at 3:45 when the judge dismissed everyone for the day. He wanted to give anyone who had suddenly had something come up (such as a family emergency or conflict of interest) that would prevent them from serving on the jury talk with him in private before the end of the day... so I was called to come back the next day to see if I would be required to fill in for any of the original jurors.
The next day the lawyers began their process of weeding out the jurors that would be biased against their client. I had never seen lawyers in action other than on TV and it struck me that lawyers (at least during the jury selection process) are not much more than charming teachers that have to somehow explain laws as if the jury is full of preschoolers while the actual mix of jurors ranges from high school drop outs to PHDs. Despite all of the big words and legal jargon that they had learned to pass the bar, those lawyers had to break things down to a pretty elementary level if they wanted to have everyone in the jury understand and eventually side with them.
Mrs. True (Tru?) the defendant's lawyer, whose name I swear I am not making up, was the coolest chick I have ever seen. I so want to be BFFs with her... although I'm sure she's way out of my BFF league. She was just all chill with the prospective jurors asking them about how their family's restaurant that they mentioned was and apologizing for her mispronunciation of peoples names in such a cute sincere way and throwing in witty little observations about things the prospective jurors had said... I can't recall any exact examples of why, but she just left you with the impression that she was the easiest person in the world to get along with. She must have aced her schmoozing test in Law school 'cause that chick new how to work a court... I think if I had been pulled up as a prospective juror my excuse to get out of serving would have been that Ms. True's obvious super coolness had rendered me unable to side on any other side than hers... I'm sure the judge would have loved that... Lame Mr. prosecutor would have had to dismiss me... he was not nearly so cool as Ms. True... he didn't even have a memorable and fitting law name like she did... he had mastered the talking down to the jury without sounding like he was talking down to them thing. First he asked the jurors to imagine that they were at a dinner party and had had a few drinks... and then he asked how they would tell if someone had had too much and couldn't drive... I totally wanted to raise my hand. It was just like a brain storming session in 3rd grade or something. I didn't realize how much audience participation there was in jury duty... but his next "imagine that..." scenario which involved working on a broken car never got to come to fruition 'cause the judge cut him off for wasting everyone's time... the judge did not seem to care for the prosecuting attourney... I didn't really care for him either although I don't know why exactly I think it might have had something to do with the fact that he really was just not as cool as Ms. True...
The lawyers and the judge questioned all of the prospective jurors in the box for several hours dismissing jurors for various reasons... a couple of the jurors seemed to be throwing their answers so that they would be let off...One guy was clearly desperate to get out of the trial so he said he had been charged with a DUI while he was working on a military base. Nobody seemed to want to dismiss him for that so he added that he suffered from panic attacks when he was alone, and after the judge assured him that he would always be with at least 13 people through the duration of the trial the guy suddenly claimed not to speak English very well and with an annoyed look the judge dismissed him.
Some of the questions that they asked each of the prospective jurors seemed like a trap... there were things that you knew would get you out of jury duty, but would probably also get you beat up in the parking lot outside: "Is there anything about the fact that the defendant is a Latino that would make you inclined to vote one way or another on this trial" was one question that I was sure that no one would bite on... yet much to my surprise on the second day of jury selection... after about 20 minutes of questioning just befoer swearing in the 2 alternate jurors and dismissing us for the day alternate juror number 2 had a burning confession he had to make...
alternate juror number 2 was a hearty looking Chinese man who worked for his brother's construction company and who felt unique in that the "majority of his friends [were] Latinos because of the industry he worked in so [he] would probably side with the defendant"... WHAT? We live in California who doesn't have a dozen or so Latino friends ? Come on... really? You really can't see the distinction in your mind between our defendant "Mr. Perez" and your friends from work? To me that seems almost as racist as if he had said that he would have to convict Mr. Perez because he just didn't trust Mexicans... do they all look the same to you man ? Total crap! Oh well. The prosecutor obviously had to pull that guy off of his alternate jury seat, so another random name, which was not mine (SCORE! ) was called, and a very sweet soft spoken Asian girl who didn't drink because it was considered a sin at her church, but didn't judge people who did drink, took the final alternate juror position. The alternate jurors were signed in at about 3:00 pm on the 2nd day of selection and the 7 or 8 unselected prospective jurors (including myself) were set free minutes later (after the judge assured us that us unslectees were really missing out on an experience... I guess I can go ahead and look forward to my next jury duty session then).
I was so excited to be out in the sunshine and fresh air and on my way home at 3:00 in the afternoon. I was already dreaming of walking through my garden at home and admiring my little baby corn and pea plants when I approached my bike and noticed that my front tire was flat. It was the second flat I'd gotten in 3 days so I was a little annoyed, especially since 3 days ago I had ordered a new bike tube online, but had not yet received it, and when I went to the bike shop to get a new tube for my first flat I hadn't the fore site to buy an extra tube to take care of my next flat.
I remembered that there was a gas station about 3 blocks from the court house though so I figured that I could put some air in it and see if i could ride it at least most of the way home... I was still in pretty good spirits and was optimistic that I could find a way to ride my bike home, but as I walked my bike past a group of teenagers they decided I had somehow offended them and the two boys started to throw rocks at me... fortunately for me they seemed to be completely blind and managed to miss me (and my bike) with each of the 14 or 15 rocks they threw... I was glad to find that not all the youths of Hayward are ass holes though 'cause the 2 girls that were with those boys convinced them to stop throwing things at me cause they, like me, had noticed that the boys were "being stupid". Looking back on it, it doesn't seem like such a big deal, but at the time it made me want to cry. I guess it was just so unnecessarily mean and inconsiderate that it made me feel kind of helpless and definitely angry. Cruelty bothers me...
I got to the gas station a few minutes later and found that the valve stem of my bike's tire had actually been completely ripped off. I am not sure if it was something that I had inadvertently done when I was locking up my bike or if it was an intentional act of random vandalism, but feeling the way I did at that moment I was certain it was intentional and I once again felt like the victim of injustice. I decided I would turn it in to a positive thing though 'cause I knew there was a K-Mart not too far away and I needed practice changing bike tires, so I thought this would be a good opportunity. I could just buy a new tube and a cheap air pump and get my independent womanness on. I did make it to Kmart after about 45 minutes of walking my bike across town (turned out that Kmart was a little farther than I had originally imagined) and I did successfully changed my tire, but much to my shagrin when I went to pump up the new tube and couldnt seem to get air into it, I suddenly remembered that the wheels on this particular bike required a special type of valve that was longer than those on regular bike tubes... so I was stuck once more with a heavy useless bike to walk home and now I also had a 10 lb bike pump to carry with me. AWESOME HAD JUST GOTTEN AWESOMEER!
At that point there was no saving my mood. I was hot and tired and angry at the injustice of it all, but fortunately I called Tony and he came to rescue me and I still got home exactly at 5pm which is earlier than usual. I find it somewhat striking though that I went to jury duty which is supposed to teach you about justice and I seemed to learn a lot more about the prevalence of injustice in America. Not just because some punk kids threw rocks at me, or because I had to go to jury duty and Tony didn't, but the whole system, the way prospective jurors will say things to get let off the jury and the way lawyers will try to charm you to say something rather than leaving it to be truly decided by the evidence seems kind of whack although I definitely can't think of any solution to our legal system that would be better... but I hope that if I ever am on a jury I can put a little justice in the justice system... but I guess I can't totally hate on my 1st bay area Jury experience If nothing else I got some extra sleep, read part of an actual grown up book and I rediscovered PB and J so I guess that alone is enough to make it a positive experience.
Friday, April 17, 2009
This one's for Carly... but not because it's her birthday... we're not thinking about that
One of my favorite days EVER was when Carly and I went to CLU one time in high school. I don't remember why the hell we decided to go there, but I think it had something to do with the fact that it was the summer and we wanted to take pictures. Maybe it was just because we both looked particularly cute that day (and we totally did ! I have photographic proof of that... which was awesomely double exposed over pictures of Carly's family in New York ... I love those pics. For the longest time they were the best looking pics of me in existence (thank you for your awesome photographic skills Carly! )... until I discovered what a difference tweezing your brows can make... Carly was super delicious in the pictures too by the way... maybe if I'm feeling ambitious I will scan them and put them with this blog entry... I wouldn't hold my breath for that though 'cause it would involve me remembering to bring them to work, then actually bringing them to work and then somehow making it look like I am doing actual work for my company while I scan them... maybe next time I work a Saturday I can do that. )
Wow, I just wrote the majority of that last paragraph in parentheses... I think I probably don't understand how to use Parentheses correctly... like that sentence that I just wrote... the one about using parentheses, (that probably should have been in parentheses).
So I actually don't remember exactly what we did that made CLU day so fantastic, but it was! I know it was a Carly and Jill day... or I guess it could have been a Jill and Carly day either way it would mean there was an exchange of awesome hand made cards... that in itself makes for a good day I think... OH and also I remember it was warm and I like being warm so that was nice, and as I mentioned earlier, Carly and I were looking hot, and I like that too! and I really enjoy taking pictures with friends (especially when everyone is looking hot) it's just fun ! I don't care if it makes me a poser or something, but I love posing for pictures... I don't do well with trying to look pretty or modelly or anything, but I think I can usually pull off a pretty kick ass silly face... and sometimes I feel kinda artistic and creative when I take pictures of other people or scenery and what have you, but based on looking through pictures I've taken compared to pictures other people have taken I've come to realize that I am not very great at photography... oh well..
Another fun thing Carly and I did at CLU was run through their fountain (and pose on it like mermaids), so that was fun 'cause we were being daring and mischievous ... and who doesn't love some good mischief... ; ) (<-winking face... I find it odd that I have suddenly started using winking faces when I write things 'cause I would never wink at someone in real life... I guess I throw out the occasional super over exaggerated wink where I scrunch up one entire side of my face and open my mouth really wide, but I don't think I can pull off a sexy wink... facial coordination [ or any kind of coordination for that matter] is not my thing).
Also on Carly and Jill/ CLU day Carly and I went in the student union and at the time I thought that was super bold of us. I remember thinking that we must have stood out so much when we were going into the student union and I was sure we were going to get yelled at or thrown out for not being CLU students or for being minors, but after having actually gone through college I realize now that no one really cares about that sort of thing... I think we had been looking for somewhere to buy ice cream or water or candy and food / water tend to be good motivators so I guess that is why we went ahead with it despite the whole being strangers in a strange land thing... i think we did end up finding some type of vending machine or snack stand, so I guess it was all worth it... anway that is my story about Carly and Jill day/that one time Carly and I went to CLU in high school... I am super awesome at remembering things and telling stories about those things huh?
Wow, I just wrote the majority of that last paragraph in parentheses... I think I probably don't understand how to use Parentheses correctly... like that sentence that I just wrote... the one about using parentheses, (that probably should have been in parentheses).
So I actually don't remember exactly what we did that made CLU day so fantastic, but it was! I know it was a Carly and Jill day... or I guess it could have been a Jill and Carly day either way it would mean there was an exchange of awesome hand made cards... that in itself makes for a good day I think... OH and also I remember it was warm and I like being warm so that was nice, and as I mentioned earlier, Carly and I were looking hot, and I like that too! and I really enjoy taking pictures with friends (especially when everyone is looking hot) it's just fun ! I don't care if it makes me a poser or something, but I love posing for pictures... I don't do well with trying to look pretty or modelly or anything, but I think I can usually pull off a pretty kick ass silly face... and sometimes I feel kinda artistic and creative when I take pictures of other people or scenery and what have you, but based on looking through pictures I've taken compared to pictures other people have taken I've come to realize that I am not very great at photography... oh well..
Another fun thing Carly and I did at CLU was run through their fountain (and pose on it like mermaids), so that was fun 'cause we were being daring and mischievous ... and who doesn't love some good mischief... ; ) (<-winking face... I find it odd that I have suddenly started using winking faces when I write things 'cause I would never wink at someone in real life... I guess I throw out the occasional super over exaggerated wink where I scrunch up one entire side of my face and open my mouth really wide, but I don't think I can pull off a sexy wink... facial coordination [ or any kind of coordination for that matter] is not my thing).
Also on Carly and Jill/ CLU day Carly and I went in the student union and at the time I thought that was super bold of us. I remember thinking that we must have stood out so much when we were going into the student union and I was sure we were going to get yelled at or thrown out for not being CLU students or for being minors, but after having actually gone through college I realize now that no one really cares about that sort of thing... I think we had been looking for somewhere to buy ice cream or water or candy and food / water tend to be good motivators so I guess that is why we went ahead with it despite the whole being strangers in a strange land thing... i think we did end up finding some type of vending machine or snack stand, so I guess it was all worth it... anway that is my story about Carly and Jill day/that one time Carly and I went to CLU in high school... I am super awesome at remembering things and telling stories about those things huh?
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Saying good bye is hard
One of my best friends (who is a former SF roommate of mine), Anushka, had a 5-day visit to the Bay Area this week after having been in Kenya for the last 9 months (today she is going back to Kenya - after she makes a 5 day stop in Baharain and Syria to visit another friend of hers... she's so travely ! ) ... so for me this week has been a whirlwind of fun, good food and shadowing Anushka through her exciting fast paced life ! I wish I had 1/2 the energy Anushka does ! She can wake up at 6:00 Am and still be partying hard at midnight (with the help of some coffee to get her going). I on the other had am pretty much ready for bed by 10:00 pm no matter what, but I can usually fake alertness (with the help of caffeine or a 5-hour energy drink) until about 11:30pm... after that I'm pretty much useless...
Anyway, to culminate her stateside stay, Anushka, threw a party and invited a bunch of her friends to Tony's and My house last night... and I, hoping to give off the appearance that I have more friends than I really do, took as many pics as I could of everyone at our house so I can put them on Facebook. It was AWESOME ! We had to use all 8 of our plates 'cause that was how many people were AT OUR HOUSE AT 1 TIME. It was like an octagon of FUN in our living room.
Also, it was actually the first real party our house has seen since it's been OUR house (Apparently the guy who owned the house before Tony and I bought it was very popular in the neighborhood and had a lounge set up in his garage, so I think the house was probably pretty disappointed in Tony and I for being so lame, but I like to think we took a HUGE step towards redeeming ourselves last night) It was frickin' WEDNESDAY NIGHT and we were just chillin' till like 11:00 PM and snacking on some pasta and aps (that's how us cool kids refer to appetizers... and also computer applications, which seems like it might get confusing, but us coolies can tell which "ap" is being used by looking at the syntax)... we've had people over to our house since we bought it of coarse, but those were small tame dinner/board game kind of gatherings... and I'm not saying I'm opposed to that. I do love a good board game, but last night was an off the hook drinkin' wine, eating cheese / worldly hors d'oeuvress and watching U-tube videos on our TV kind of party. It was definately a more exciting type of fun than I'm used to. I'd say it was probably akin to a typical Wednesday night for Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan... well, actually, I think Lohan and Hilton probably aren't quite hard core enough to watch 4 YOUTUBE videos on a weekday night...ROCK-US-NESS ! After a few glasses of wine I even cast off the poncho of shyness that I usually wear to other peoples parties and I started to talk to people I BEARLY KNOW ! ( there were two guys there that I had only met once before and I believe I spoke 2 or 3 FULL SENTENCES to each of them... I feel so brave ! I was pretty familiar with everyone else at the party though, so I was actually a fairly particiapatory party at Anushka's party).
Anyway, as the night started to wind down people inevitably had to leave... and that's where things always get REALLY awkward for me (I am in standard awkward mode from the time a stranger or someone who I'm not 100% comfortable with enters my presence, but knowing that they're leaving enhances the awkward to a whole new level for me...) First Magnus left, I think I had met him once before, but he said "nice to meet you and thanks for having me over" and we shook hands and I think it went pretty well 'cause he took control of the situation and I don't think he heard my awkward "I think I met you once... before... ... but maybe not" and he made it clear we were going for a hand shake and not a hug, so that actually took a lot of pressure off, but then it was Brian's turn to leave... I think Brian is at least equally as socially awkward as I am... so while he was saying good bye to Anushka I kind of stood awkwardly off to the side and stared at them... he hugged Anushka and I stood there rigidly thinking he would probably hug me... but he didn't and I wasn't sure if that mean I should go for the hug with him or not... so I didn't, and then he hugged like everyone else at our house and left... and I was standing there feeling even more awkward than before... It suddenly occurred to me that maybe that was meant as a snub? had I somehow offended Brian ? Was he mad at me ? or was this just because I looked like I didn't want a hug ?... I was still pretty baffled and distraught about it 5 minutes later when Marlen and Mark said they were gonna head out... but I think my good bye went pretty well with them. I hugged Marlen or she hugged me either way it seemed natural (she is super cool and lives close to where I work, so I am hoping she and I will get to hang out sometimes...)... anyway, after I hugged Marlen, I shook Mark's hand and I think it was a really well executed hand shake on both of our parts... and I think it would have been a really good goodbye session overall, but then I started to feel a little awkward again when Marlen and Anushka hugged for like 5 full minutes. For some reason I feel like its rude to NOT STARE at people when they are saying good bye to someone, but my eye balls were starting to feel dry from being so focused so late at night so I think I started to look like I was fighting back tears 'cause I kept blinking... but I really don't know what you're supposed to look at or do when a good by hug is going that long so eventually I sat down and had some more chips while they finished... and then Anushka remembered she wanted Marlen to mail something to her brother for her and that just kind of extended the weird everyone standing around good bye phase...
ok, well anyway, this is getting to be a really long boring play by play of people hugging good bye, but i guess the fact that I have so damn much to say about it is probably a testament to the fact that I give way way way too much thought to good byes... They are important and all, but there really is no reason for me to freak out over it so much... I wish that I was part of a culture where there was some definite thing to do when you leave... I would prefer it if you just always hugged everyone when they left or you never hugged anyone when they leave... why is it sometimes yes and sometimes no? CONFUSING ! Actually I think high 5s would be nice... its satisfying, you can just take all of your good bye time tension and slap it against someone else's hand ... it just feels good... hugging can be nice too, but its kind of an intimate invasion of space, so I guess that is why there is the sometimes no with that...
Anyway, it was a great visit with Anushka, so it was hard too having to mentally say good bye , but I am so friggin exhausted I think I can only hang at her pace for like 3-4 days at a time before I get zonked out... it would be nice to be able to get those 3-4 days more often than once a year though... Perhaps I shall look into going to Kenya.
Anyway, to culminate her stateside stay, Anushka, threw a party and invited a bunch of her friends to Tony's and My house last night... and I, hoping to give off the appearance that I have more friends than I really do, took as many pics as I could of everyone at our house so I can put them on Facebook. It was AWESOME ! We had to use all 8 of our plates 'cause that was how many people were AT OUR HOUSE AT 1 TIME. It was like an octagon of FUN in our living room.
Also, it was actually the first real party our house has seen since it's been OUR house (Apparently the guy who owned the house before Tony and I bought it was very popular in the neighborhood and had a lounge set up in his garage, so I think the house was probably pretty disappointed in Tony and I for being so lame, but I like to think we took a HUGE step towards redeeming ourselves last night) It was frickin' WEDNESDAY NIGHT and we were just chillin' till like 11:00 PM and snacking on some pasta and aps (that's how us cool kids refer to appetizers... and also computer applications, which seems like it might get confusing, but us coolies can tell which "ap" is being used by looking at the syntax)... we've had people over to our house since we bought it of coarse, but those were small tame dinner/board game kind of gatherings... and I'm not saying I'm opposed to that. I do love a good board game, but last night was an off the hook drinkin' wine, eating cheese / worldly hors d'oeuvress and watching U-tube videos on our TV kind of party. It was definately a more exciting type of fun than I'm used to. I'd say it was probably akin to a typical Wednesday night for Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan... well, actually, I think Lohan and Hilton probably aren't quite hard core enough to watch 4 YOUTUBE videos on a weekday night...ROCK-US-NESS ! After a few glasses of wine I even cast off the poncho of shyness that I usually wear to other peoples parties and I started to talk to people I BEARLY KNOW ! ( there were two guys there that I had only met once before and I believe I spoke 2 or 3 FULL SENTENCES to each of them... I feel so brave ! I was pretty familiar with everyone else at the party though, so I was actually a fairly particiapatory party at Anushka's party).
Anyway, as the night started to wind down people inevitably had to leave... and that's where things always get REALLY awkward for me (I am in standard awkward mode from the time a stranger or someone who I'm not 100% comfortable with enters my presence, but knowing that they're leaving enhances the awkward to a whole new level for me...) First Magnus left, I think I had met him once before, but he said "nice to meet you and thanks for having me over" and we shook hands and I think it went pretty well 'cause he took control of the situation and I don't think he heard my awkward "I think I met you once... before... ... but maybe not" and he made it clear we were going for a hand shake and not a hug, so that actually took a lot of pressure off, but then it was Brian's turn to leave... I think Brian is at least equally as socially awkward as I am... so while he was saying good bye to Anushka I kind of stood awkwardly off to the side and stared at them... he hugged Anushka and I stood there rigidly thinking he would probably hug me... but he didn't and I wasn't sure if that mean I should go for the hug with him or not... so I didn't, and then he hugged like everyone else at our house and left... and I was standing there feeling even more awkward than before... It suddenly occurred to me that maybe that was meant as a snub? had I somehow offended Brian ? Was he mad at me ? or was this just because I looked like I didn't want a hug ?... I was still pretty baffled and distraught about it 5 minutes later when Marlen and Mark said they were gonna head out... but I think my good bye went pretty well with them. I hugged Marlen or she hugged me either way it seemed natural (she is super cool and lives close to where I work, so I am hoping she and I will get to hang out sometimes...)... anyway, after I hugged Marlen, I shook Mark's hand and I think it was a really well executed hand shake on both of our parts... and I think it would have been a really good goodbye session overall, but then I started to feel a little awkward again when Marlen and Anushka hugged for like 5 full minutes. For some reason I feel like its rude to NOT STARE at people when they are saying good bye to someone, but my eye balls were starting to feel dry from being so focused so late at night so I think I started to look like I was fighting back tears 'cause I kept blinking... but I really don't know what you're supposed to look at or do when a good by hug is going that long so eventually I sat down and had some more chips while they finished... and then Anushka remembered she wanted Marlen to mail something to her brother for her and that just kind of extended the weird everyone standing around good bye phase...
ok, well anyway, this is getting to be a really long boring play by play of people hugging good bye, but i guess the fact that I have so damn much to say about it is probably a testament to the fact that I give way way way too much thought to good byes... They are important and all, but there really is no reason for me to freak out over it so much... I wish that I was part of a culture where there was some definite thing to do when you leave... I would prefer it if you just always hugged everyone when they left or you never hugged anyone when they leave... why is it sometimes yes and sometimes no? CONFUSING ! Actually I think high 5s would be nice... its satisfying, you can just take all of your good bye time tension and slap it against someone else's hand ... it just feels good... hugging can be nice too, but its kind of an intimate invasion of space, so I guess that is why there is the sometimes no with that...
Anyway, it was a great visit with Anushka, so it was hard too having to mentally say good bye , but I am so friggin exhausted I think I can only hang at her pace for like 3-4 days at a time before I get zonked out... it would be nice to be able to get those 3-4 days more often than once a year though... Perhaps I shall look into going to Kenya.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
It may not seem like it at first but this entry is about how Michael Ian Black might be the funniest man alive
I tweeted... yesterday. it was something that I have feared was coming for a long time, but I felt that I really had to do it. I broke down and joined twitter...
The morning radio show that I dearly love has been wretched from the airwaves. It came right after the show had taken a vacation to go to Disney world, so at first I didn't realize the show had actually be cancelled, but when the vacation started to roll into it's 2ND week I began to fear for the worst... and then yesterday when they played a commercial (during the time when the morning show should have been on ) making fun of morning radio talk shows and saying how great it is that live 105 doesn't have one of those, the reality sunk in like a lead weight through a bubble bath. The Woody Show was over.
They had taken the website for the morning show off of the radio's website and google didn't have much info, but in the weeks leading up to the tragic death of my morning show, the host of the show and his cohorts had been talking about their twitter accounts, and since I am the type of person who enjoys reality TV, and therefore has become accustomed to knowing all the details of the lives of the complete strangers that are broadcast to me, I had to know what had happened to the radio personalities that had brought me so much laughter and joy on so many cold/wet mornings as I rode my bike to work... so the second I got into my office yesterday I went online and signed up for twitter and tracked down these radio people and found out that they had been fired over some legal issue which they could not discuss until lawyers were done sorting it out... so that was pretty disappointing... but i figured since I'd already taken the plunge and joined twitter I might as well look around....
I didn't know who's tweets to follow so I decided to just check out who my radio peeps were following... and one of them happened to be following Michael Ian Black, who I knew from such things as "I love the..." on VH1 and random movies like "wet hot American summer" and anyway, I've always thought he was funny and cute so I put him on my "following" list... and within 3 tweets I realized that he was even funnier than I had originally thought...
so I followed a link he had tweeted to the website for his blog, http://michaelianblack.typepad.com/blog/musings/ , and I read his blog entry about writing for a TV show... and it made me chuckle on the inside... so I started reading more stuff on his website... and it made me LOLAW (laugh out loud at work... I'm pretty sure I'm not the first you use that acronym but I'm the first person I know and it has a nice ring to it i think...) and I hardly ever laugh at work, but I could not contain myself... that guy is funny... I am super stoked that he will have a new show on Comedy Central this summer... although I am not going to count my chickens or anything 'cause I watched a couple episodes of his last show on Comedy Central, "Stella" and either it was horribly unfunny or I just totally didn't get it... none the less Michael Ian Black seems to have mastered the art of blogging and twittering and that in turn has filled about 5 or 6 of my otherwise empty minutes at work with laughter and happiness, so I'm pretty grateful for that! Maybe I won't be so bored next winter during the slow moving season... and maybe I'll be slacking off on http://michaelianblack.typepad.com/blog/musings/ a little too much this summer during the winter moving season... only time will tell I guess.
The morning radio show that I dearly love has been wretched from the airwaves. It came right after the show had taken a vacation to go to Disney world, so at first I didn't realize the show had actually be cancelled, but when the vacation started to roll into it's 2ND week I began to fear for the worst... and then yesterday when they played a commercial (during the time when the morning show should have been on ) making fun of morning radio talk shows and saying how great it is that live 105 doesn't have one of those, the reality sunk in like a lead weight through a bubble bath. The Woody Show was over.
They had taken the website for the morning show off of the radio's website and google didn't have much info, but in the weeks leading up to the tragic death of my morning show, the host of the show and his cohorts had been talking about their twitter accounts, and since I am the type of person who enjoys reality TV, and therefore has become accustomed to knowing all the details of the lives of the complete strangers that are broadcast to me, I had to know what had happened to the radio personalities that had brought me so much laughter and joy on so many cold/wet mornings as I rode my bike to work... so the second I got into my office yesterday I went online and signed up for twitter and tracked down these radio people and found out that they had been fired over some legal issue which they could not discuss until lawyers were done sorting it out... so that was pretty disappointing... but i figured since I'd already taken the plunge and joined twitter I might as well look around....
I didn't know who's tweets to follow so I decided to just check out who my radio peeps were following... and one of them happened to be following Michael Ian Black, who I knew from such things as "I love the..." on VH1 and random movies like "wet hot American summer" and anyway, I've always thought he was funny and cute so I put him on my "following" list... and within 3 tweets I realized that he was even funnier than I had originally thought...
so I followed a link he had tweeted to the website for his blog, http://michaelianblack.typepad.com/blog/musings/ , and I read his blog entry about writing for a TV show... and it made me chuckle on the inside... so I started reading more stuff on his website... and it made me LOLAW (laugh out loud at work... I'm pretty sure I'm not the first you use that acronym but I'm the first person I know and it has a nice ring to it i think...) and I hardly ever laugh at work, but I could not contain myself... that guy is funny... I am super stoked that he will have a new show on Comedy Central this summer... although I am not going to count my chickens or anything 'cause I watched a couple episodes of his last show on Comedy Central, "Stella" and either it was horribly unfunny or I just totally didn't get it... none the less Michael Ian Black seems to have mastered the art of blogging and twittering and that in turn has filled about 5 or 6 of my otherwise empty minutes at work with laughter and happiness, so I'm pretty grateful for that! Maybe I won't be so bored next winter during the slow moving season... and maybe I'll be slacking off on http://michaelianblack.typepad.com/blog/musings/ a little too much this summer during the winter moving season... only time will tell I guess.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Skunks are PUNKS ! and a poem about nature
It never ceases to amaze me what arrogant brats Skunks are... it like they think that just because their shit stinks worse than anything in life they are entitled to have everyone bow down to them !
This morning when I was riding my bike through Coyote hills on my way to work I happened upon a skunk in the middle of the road... actually at first I thought it was a bunny 'cause he seemed to be hopping, but then I realized it was too slow to be a bunny... and then when I started to get close he* stopped and stuck his big bushy tail up in the air and I was like WHOA... I DO NOT WANT ANY OF THAT... so I slowed down even though I had had a pretty good momentum going on my bike and was about to start up a huge hill, but that's fine. I can break for small woodland creatures.
When I stopped the skunk put his tail back down and continued to scurry SLOWLY along RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD up this STEEP ASS HILL. It was as if he figured all he would have to was threaten me with his rank rear end and I would just high tail it out of there, but there was no other way for me to get to work on time, so even if I wanted to go back and take another route I couldn't... We were on a little dirt road that ran along the edge of the bay right up against a fairly steep hillside with tall grass, so the road was really the only thoroughfare...and I was perfeclty willing to share the road with HIM, so I decided I would just speed up and hang as wide as I could and pass the lil' guy... but as soon as I was about 2 feet away from him he turned around again, thrust his little tail up and aimed his b-hole straight at me. JERK! He apparently was never taught about sharing the road.
I was alone and this skunk clearly was not intimidated by me, so I tried yelling at him to see if that would make him get out of the road... "YOU ARE A WOOD - LAND CREATURE WHY ARE YOU NOT SCURRYING OFF IN TO THE WOOD LAND AREA ? !" I yelled at him, but he just kept right on trudging up the hill IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD so I continued to sit on my bike seat and slowly scoot my bike along a few yards behind him... yelling... and every time I would start to get close him: up went his bushy striped tail.
Clearly Mr. Skunk was calling my bluff . He knew I did not want him to shoot that thing at me. He didn't even turn around and he did not step one inch out of the middle of the road until we were up over the hill and half way down the other side... that's right he made me WALK UP THE DAMNED HILL then he had the AUDACITY to STEAL the GLORIOUS DOWN HILL MOMENTUM from me. Jha-hERK ! (That's supposed to be "jerk" pronounced in a sing songy way).
Fortunately we passed his home or something 'cause he finally strolled off the road into the bushes... I think I heard him laughing though... such a punk... oh well he waass kinda cute and I made it to work on time, so I guess I'll forgive him... one thing that does make it even more annoying though was that I was totally having an awesome bike ride and nature was speaking to me or something 'cause I started having these poetic sounding thoughts so I really wanted to get to work and write a poem ( I can be super hippy dippy sometimes huh ?) But I think my poem suffered as a result of Mr. Le Pew distracting me
( *I assume it was a male skunk 'cause it was slow and annoying... j/k... about men being slow and annoying... some aren't. )
Anyway here's my naturey bike ride poem... I'm not sure about the title, but I think Sherpa seems fitting:
SHERPA:
As the city sleeps off Friday night
and the week that came before it
I am guided by good fortune
through a spot of overwhelming natural beauty
My bike and I trespass on the perfect serenity of the morning
Birds are calling into the cool quiet mist of the wetlands all around
and I am honored to be the only lucky person
drinking in the sanctity of this moment
HERE
I am humbled and awed by the wild freedom that surrounds me
The wild freedom people have traded for an existence
bound by nagging obligations
which render numbing comfort and predictability
...for the fortunate
But I know I am only a trespasser
journeying through this tiny corner of wilderness
My presence is announced by the whirring of my bike's wheels
which sound almost like the whooshing of a birds wings... but not quite
In a moment I will see the lights of the city again
and cross the bridge that takes me to work
but before I an engulfed by obligations
I have this moment
This morning when I was riding my bike through Coyote hills on my way to work I happened upon a skunk in the middle of the road... actually at first I thought it was a bunny 'cause he seemed to be hopping, but then I realized it was too slow to be a bunny... and then when I started to get close he* stopped and stuck his big bushy tail up in the air and I was like WHOA... I DO NOT WANT ANY OF THAT... so I slowed down even though I had had a pretty good momentum going on my bike and was about to start up a huge hill, but that's fine. I can break for small woodland creatures.
When I stopped the skunk put his tail back down and continued to scurry SLOWLY along RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD up this STEEP ASS HILL. It was as if he figured all he would have to was threaten me with his rank rear end and I would just high tail it out of there, but there was no other way for me to get to work on time, so even if I wanted to go back and take another route I couldn't... We were on a little dirt road that ran along the edge of the bay right up against a fairly steep hillside with tall grass, so the road was really the only thoroughfare...and I was perfeclty willing to share the road with HIM, so I decided I would just speed up and hang as wide as I could and pass the lil' guy... but as soon as I was about 2 feet away from him he turned around again, thrust his little tail up and aimed his b-hole straight at me. JERK! He apparently was never taught about sharing the road.
I was alone and this skunk clearly was not intimidated by me, so I tried yelling at him to see if that would make him get out of the road... "YOU ARE A WOOD - LAND CREATURE WHY ARE YOU NOT SCURRYING OFF IN TO THE WOOD LAND AREA ? !" I yelled at him, but he just kept right on trudging up the hill IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD so I continued to sit on my bike seat and slowly scoot my bike along a few yards behind him... yelling... and every time I would start to get close him: up went his bushy striped tail.
Clearly Mr. Skunk was calling my bluff . He knew I did not want him to shoot that thing at me. He didn't even turn around and he did not step one inch out of the middle of the road until we were up over the hill and half way down the other side... that's right he made me WALK UP THE DAMNED HILL then he had the AUDACITY to STEAL the GLORIOUS DOWN HILL MOMENTUM from me. Jha-hERK ! (That's supposed to be "jerk" pronounced in a sing songy way).
Fortunately we passed his home or something 'cause he finally strolled off the road into the bushes... I think I heard him laughing though... such a punk... oh well he waass kinda cute and I made it to work on time, so I guess I'll forgive him... one thing that does make it even more annoying though was that I was totally having an awesome bike ride and nature was speaking to me or something 'cause I started having these poetic sounding thoughts so I really wanted to get to work and write a poem ( I can be super hippy dippy sometimes huh ?) But I think my poem suffered as a result of Mr. Le Pew distracting me
( *I assume it was a male skunk 'cause it was slow and annoying... j/k... about men being slow and annoying... some aren't. )
Anyway here's my naturey bike ride poem... I'm not sure about the title, but I think Sherpa seems fitting:
SHERPA:
As the city sleeps off Friday night
and the week that came before it
I am guided by good fortune
through a spot of overwhelming natural beauty
My bike and I trespass on the perfect serenity of the morning
Birds are calling into the cool quiet mist of the wetlands all around
and I am honored to be the only lucky person
drinking in the sanctity of this moment
HERE
I am humbled and awed by the wild freedom that surrounds me
The wild freedom people have traded for an existence
bound by nagging obligations
which render numbing comfort and predictability
...for the fortunate
But I know I am only a trespasser
journeying through this tiny corner of wilderness
My presence is announced by the whirring of my bike's wheels
which sound almost like the whooshing of a birds wings... but not quite
In a moment I will see the lights of the city again
and cross the bridge that takes me to work
but before I an engulfed by obligations
I have this moment
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