Kafka, anyone?

That's what I keep thinking of. Kafka. I told Rick, and he said, "You feel like a giant cockroach getting smashed underfoot, eh?" I had to admit I was thinking of The Trial instead. Now I come to think of it, though, why did he go straight to cockroaches? Hmmm... Maybe it's time for a haircut or some new makeup...

In any case, all those long corridors, and reporting to different rooms only to be told that one is in the wrong room at the wrong time, these images have long sat in the back of my mind and they now resonate more than ever. Maybe I shouldn't have been an English and Comp Lit major at such an impressionable age...

Long story short: I went today. I filled out a questionnaire consisting of 140 questions (!!). (I should note here that the questionnaire was very badly constructed; one would never get such a thing past a Human Subjects Review Board. I thought about writing a disquisition on that subject, but figured that I had hopes of leaving the courtroom sometime while it was still light out and desisted. I may not have thought that through very well, though; such a commentary might have gotten me a peremptory challenge right off the bat.) I was told that since I answered the question about whether serving on an eleven-week trial would constitute a serious hardship in my life (the answer was a resounding YES with four subparts fully explicated in very tiny writing plus an offer of supporting documentation), I need to appear again tomorrow morning at 9:30, at which point the judge will decide whether I then need to come back for the next step. Dudes, if I didn't have small kids at home and weren't halfway through a semester, this all might be very interesting (although to be honest, this is going to be one disturbing trial), but I am, so it's not. Should the judge not be swayed by my pleas, he will bind me over to appear for voir dire. This has spiralled completely out of control.

So, let's talk about something else entirely. Look what I got a couple of weeks ago when we were at SeaPort Village!
Isn't it fabulous? It's a mobile/windchime. Those little bells are sheep bells from India, and each has a slightly different tone. It moves and makes happy little ringing sounds and I was completely charmed when I saw it and bought it right away. I just knew I couldn't walk away without it, and I'm really glad that I didn't. (I'm trying to learn to pay attention to that feeling; I don't get it often, and I have always regretted it in the past when I haven't listened to myself.)

So, if you can spare them, keep thinking jury-less thoughts at me. And I will keep knitting, and trying to remember that my real job is being a professor, not wandering through the tortured corridors of our legal system, or filling out ridiculous forms for both the courts and my bosses, or negotiating labor law as it relates to furloughs; it's hard to keep track of that some days.