Voi Dire My Dear

Tonight I am going to Trader Joe’s to get microwavable eggrolls and potstickers for our book club meeting Tuesday.

Or maybe, like, cheese sticks and deep fried poppers.

I am so very near the end of KAFKA ON THE SHORE. I swing back and forth between really enjoying the book and feeling like I am reading some odd combination of Harry Potter and soft core porn.

Now you all want to go out and read it, don’t you?

Seriously though.

Tuesday is also special because I HAVE TO REPORT FOR JURY DUTY.

Jury Duty.

I have a love hate relationship with jury duty. I was called in during the summer of 2001, just before I left New York. I’d quit my day job, I’d just gone through my first grown up break up, I had some savings, and I wasn’t working on anything theatre related. So the idea of being chosen to serve on a jury was actually not all that tragic. It would, shake things up somehow in a way that I needed. I went through the voi dire, not expecting to get chosen (I still always think that people have a view of theatre people as flaky and unreliable). But sure enough – my name was called when they announced the jury.

So for three weeks (three weeks!) I headed downtown to the Tribecca/Civic Center area of New York. Bear in mind – this part of New York would change forever come that fall. Heck, all of New York changed forever that fall.

It was fun to explore on my way to and from the courthouse every day a neighborhood that I’d barely broached in my two years in the city. Especially during that summer which, little did I know at the time, was to be my last in New York (for the time being at least).

Our jury was a perfect mix of real New Yorkers. There was the older Hispanic gay man who worked for a healthcare related non-profit. He had that hint of melancholy in his eyes, the sadness that men who watched most of their generation wilt before their eyes have. There was a quiet Asian woman who worked in publishing. She recommended WHITE TEETH to me, which ended up being one of my all time favorite books. There was a beautiful woman in her fifties, so stylish and well spoken – who lived in the neighborhood. I think her husband did something that made a lot of money. She had just finished a course of astrology and by the end of our time had done all of our charts. There was a very sweet short Jewish thirty-something year old lawyer guy. And a graphic artist who had kids and a husband and always seemed a bit frazzled, but happy. And me.

I think I’m forgetting someone. Maybe an alternate.

It was a civil case. A guy who was working as a roadie for Phil Collins whose foot was run over by a forklift (one of those small ones that scoot around backstage) while loading out of Madison Square Garden. He didn’t really tend to the injury, kept driving for the tour, and within the year had terrible back issues that he blamed on the foot injury that he blamed on the forklift that he blamed on the driver (a woman who was a man at the time the injury happened – no joke – a trannie techie) that he blamed on Madison Square Garden.

It was a fascinating experience. The lawyer for MSG was really good. A complete dick, but really good. The plaintiff’s lawyer always seemed really nervous. He wasn’t good at talking and listening. I thought he could benefit from some acting classes.

Anyway, the jury got along really well. It was actually, dare I say, fun. I won’t get into the details of the case and the outcome, but I will say – I have always really valued having had that experience. It taught me a lot about the legal system and it was a perfect way to say goodbye to that city.

That all having been said, serving on a jury would be a big pain in my ass right now.