I kissed a juror

I spent the last week and a half on jury duty.

I spent the first two days sitting in the Death by Boredom potential juror waiting room and thought i had successfully avoided getting empanelled.

I was two minds about this.

Mind One:

Oh, oh, pick me, PICK ME!! I am special. Whatever your criteria are, i meet and probably exceed them.

Mind Two:

Shit, get me out of here! I have things to do, squash games to play, quilting to attend. My cat is lonely.


One of me got her wish, Dammit!

At the very end of the second day, just when i thought i had made it without actually having to do anything, i got called as Number 12 for a potential jury. Sadly, i was not able to say anything offensive enough to get out of it. (Even wearing my "KILL 'EM ALL AND LET GOD SORT 'EM OUT!" t-shirt didn't work.)

Being on a jury is quite weird. This was a civil case about a man suing the local Bus Authority because of an injury sustained when he was getting off the bus.

It's just amazing that 12 people can watch the same thing and come up with such different perspectives.

I decided to lay low so as to not get elected as the "presiding juror." In the end this might have been a mistake as the woman who did get elected got all officious and emotional and kept saying things like, "HOW CAN YOU EVEN THINK LIKE THAT?"

Well excuse me all to hell for trying to apply logic to the situation.

Anyway, jury duty is over and i'm back to living my unimportant life doing unimportant things.

Out of nowhere

Sometimes it creeps up on me, despite my best efforts to distract myself with shiny objects and food.

We are NOT IN CONTROL. Any one who thinks we are is a fool.

Something horrible could, and often does, happen at any moment, without any warning.

Earthquake, Nose piercings, Car accident, Cancer, Heart attack, Meteorites, Plane crash, Car bomb, Locusts, Oil spill, McDonalds.

And so on. The list is literally infinite.

There is no amount of money or planning that can insulate us from these events. As the bumper sticker says, "THINGS OCCUR." (Or something like that.)

But there is really know way to live knowing that at any SECOND, things could deteriorate into utter shit. So i blunder on. What else can we do?

Nothing in particular triggered this in me, things are a bit uncertain right now in regards to selling our house, it might happen, it might not, either way we'll be fine. But it's the suspense that's driving me anxious.

Must practice denial skills.

My Big Mouth

picture purloined per Wikipedia.

I was half-assedly listening to the radio and i heard a promo for this upcoming segment "How to repair a sarcastic friendship."

My eyebrows went up as i thought, What an interesting topic! I could use that information.

What my brain failed to process is that i was listening to a cooking show and the upcoming topic was "How to prepare a sarcastic fringehead." (A real fish, see above.)

Big difference.

But i am still interested in how to repair a sarcastic friendship. Sometimes i meet someone who is a real smart ass (like me) and we get going, moving from sarcasm to amusing insults and never recover. I then find that the other person has a higher tolerance for sarcasm and amusing insults than i, and i wonder how to tone it down so we can actually get to know one another, because i'm bored with the sarcasm and insults.

I find myself in this very situation with someone The Mister and i are becoming friends with, one half of a couple. I've come to be very wary to be around this person.

See? Mom was right, It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt!

It's difficult for me to play the earnest dim wit, but i think that's the course of action i've settled on. Perhaps when things settle down a bit i can bring the sharp tongue back out.

Of course the best thing would have been to not get started in the first place, but given my medium level of social anxiety, i'm not sure what to do without that coping behavior.

I really could have used that advice show.

The Human Disaster Report

I organized a function, a "Tea Party" (and thank you to those fuckers for ruining THAT phrase) to thank the former volunteers of the organization i volunteer for.

One of the women i invited is someone i don't really care for, but i figured she would get lost in the crowd and i wouldn't really have to interact with her.

Which was mostly true, but she managed to deepen my dislike of her in 5 seconds. Pretty impressive!

This woman, i'll call her Cynthia, LOVES bad news with almost a sexual excitement. She'll rush up. panting slightly, and say, without even a" hello" first, "Did you hear about **fill in disaster here**?" There's this little gleam of excitement in her eyes.

I find it really unappealing.

Someday, with all the work scientists are doing on brain chemistry and genetics and all that, i wonder if there will be some genetic marker for people who are REALLY FUCKING CLUELESS socially inappropriate.

Something really horrible did happen to someone close to Cynthia, but she made it really hard to respond sympathetically because she seemed so aroused by being able to deliver the news.

Wrong venue, wrong delivery, wrong audience.

Yuck!