back in it.

good lord...it's been more than fifteen days since i last appeared in this space. my internet access having been shut off by the man, and the people i had been henceforth stealing my wireless from having caught on and blocked my access, it has been somewhat of an internet draught around these parts lately. the good news is that i have been once again writing in my good old fashioned notebook journal(i don't even want to tell you when the last time i wrote in that thing was...it makes me feel terrible). but this one needs an update. like right now. while the wireless-hoarding neighbors aren't looking.

so let's see... first of all, let me note for the record that a particular AL team is a half game up in the AL east as of tonight, and let me save you some time...IT AIN'T THE BOSTON RED SOX. holla back. not that i'm saying anything about that right now. just pointing it out. and holla-ing about it. briefly. moving on.

um...i am experiencing new levels of poor-itutde, as if you couldn't figure that out from my need to pilfer wireless internet. i also spent a week without a phone, which was conversely refreshing and annoying, as well as depressing(when i realized how heavily i rely upon it. there was a time, way back when, when i survived and lived a rather full social life in the absence of cellular service. what has happened to me???). we still don't have hot water(it's been like three months. it's sorta starting to seem like a prison camp, especially when you figure in the barren landscape of our refridgerator. but i still have hope that one day i will again know what it is to take a hot shower in my own bathroom. oh, how i live for that day.)

i also had a stint serving jury duty last monday...i was actually planning to do a whole series, entitled "blogging my civic duty: an exercise in sheer alarm" but i wasn't called this week. maybe monday, though. we can hope. anyhow, to blog my one exercise in sheer alarm through my participation in the legal process, let me just say, again, as i have said it to just about everyone i know at this point: i hope i don't ever get arrested for murder, or for anything that's going to come before a jury of my "peers", because so far as i can tell, these people can only be considered the peers of those with absolutely no clue about anything that doesn't directly relate to whatever misguided system of rational existence they have chosen to subscribe to. wait, i just realized that they therefore are the peers of about 99.9999 percent of this country. so i guess it's a decent cross-section.

anyhow, to stop being long-winded, here's the deal: you don't want people who's only knowledge of the legal parameters and responsibilities of our American justice system comes straight off of law and order, or csi, or any television program whatsoever. and that's what is happening, my friends, in jury rooms all across this land. everything goes straight out the window. all those hours spent in amercian government, history, civics, whatever...nope. nothing. law and order? that's what's informing our conception of our OWN FUCKING GOVERNMENTAL STRUCTURE AND PROCEDURES. scary.

also scary was spending an hour arguing with one woman who refused to accept the legal definition of "malice" WHILE SERVING ON A JURY!!!!!!!!! sorry, there isn't room for a semantic argument about something they give you the definition of on a piece of paper with it all spelled out in it's legal manifestation. according to this lady, if i scratch you, it's malice. why? because it hurts! and hurting is bad! so there you go. send him to the chair. done, and done.

it was an interesting day. and yes, unlike law and order, or a time to kill(which, incidentally, another juror referenced in one of his ridiculously irrelevant statements regarding the case we were slated to decide), we did hear and decide a murder trial in just one day. so it goes.

anyhoo, if i do wind up back in there next monday, i will be sure to give a full report on what transpires.

i'm out for now, but i have fifteen days to catch up on, so i will be back shortly.