Movements Feel Good

What a shitty summer this has been: June brought unemployment; August, Aunt Kittie's death; October, Mom's death. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm reeling.

It seems to me that I get unemployed just when everything else hits the fan. Back in '98 I lost my job, the house, broke up with then-boyfriend Matt and moved into the attic at Johnson Avenue, sharing the house with the moms. It took me nine months to find a job back then, but it led me to the Hollywood Reporter and the best career move I've ever made. Then the Nielsen Company bought up the conglomerate that owned the Reporter and things started going downhill fast. I survived four rounds of layoffs in two years, but got caught up in the fifth. And when I took a look at the job market, design jobs in publishing had vanished (I've seen three in L.A. in the last four months).

But now movement. And it comes just as the first rains of the fall/winter season have arrived. I've been working with EDD to land a WIA grant for retraining in Web design, since those are the only "publication" design jobs out there. And this week I began the research to make formal application for the money.

As an applicant, you're required to research and visit three schools that are approved by the program to provide instruction. Today I went to New Horizon in Burbank, which has a really great program that's only about six months long. Tomorrow (Wednesday) I'm going out to L.A. Valley College to check out their program, which runs a year and a half (though I think I could probably test out of a good nine months of that). Thursday, I'm off to an all-day seminar on resumes and interviewing techniques provided by Foothill Training Center, the one-stop shop in the San Gabriel Valley (where Pasadena is) for EDD. Then Friday I'm visiting ICDC College in Hollywood (can anyone say "Hollywood Upstairs Medical College"?) to check out their program.

From what I know, I'm leaning toward the New Horizon program; not only is it the shortest one, but it also provides testing to become an Adobe Certified Expert, which is kind of like an MD in the Web world (Adobe writes all the programs used in most kinds of graphic design).

So, hopefully by the end of next week I will have the application process completed and then it's just waiting to see if I land the grant. I think it should be a no-brainer, since the WIA program is designed for people who are displaced from their previous employment by technological advances: I fall into that category very nicely. It pays the tuition and costs for retraining and provides continuation of unemployment benefits during the training period. This should help me make it to the other side of this scummy mess we shall come to know as the Summer of '09.

The mourning continues for the two swell ladies who filled my life for so many years, but there's also progress on the personal front. I don't think Mom or Kittie would want me to dawdle, no matter how sad I'm feeling over their departures. More likely, they'd kick me in the ass if I tried to waste time right now.

And one big thing is different this time around: I'm a married person and I have a husband who is really supportive of me and loves me deeply. Things have been rocky financially (though not desperate), but our relationship is going strong.

Steve's doing well. He's pressing his boss to take him back full time (he was cut back to three days a week while business was slow, but the last two months have posted nice profits), but the old gent is hemming and hawwing. I'm feeling really hopeful, though, because the old guy realizes they can't do without Steve. What's more important, his wife knows it, too, and she seems to be the only one that can push him to make a decision. And she really likes Steve.

Is being married and going through all this any different from being domestic partners and going through all this? You bet your ass, it is: Because my mother died knowing that I have someone who exchanged vows of commitment with me before witnesses; that we took one another's hand in matrimony, not simply filled out a contractual form that was notarized and validated by the state; and because my friends and family know what marriage is. And so do we. It makes the intolerable tolerable until things get better.

So why don't you straight people stop knocking it?

Such Devoted Sisters

On August 11, I wrote of the loss of my Aunt Kittie and my memories of her. Tonight I'm writing about the death of my mother, Paula, on Thursday, Oct. 1.

If you didn't know them well, you might not know that Mom and Aunt Kittie were as close as sisters can get without being twins. And while they spent their middle decades raising families and creating careers, their childhood and their retirement were spent together.

When my father died in 1990, Aunt Kittie had recently retired, and she moved up to San Luis Obispo to help with his caregiving. After he had passed, Mom invited her to stay on and the two sisters lived together, naming their shared home "Hag Harbor."

On Labor Day weekend, just weeks after Kittie died, Steve and I went up to Arroyo Grande to visit. It was ostensibly to get out of the fire zone for a time, but I also wanted to see how Mom was doing. I had worried that, like an old married couple, when the first one died the other would not be far behind.

On that visit, Mom seemed OK with Kittie's death, but I think she was denying or cloaking the loss she felt. Mom often said she hoped she would survive Kittie, because she was worried what might happen if she weren't there for her sister. So I wasn't too surprised when my sister Kittie (named for her aunt) called me on Thursday, Sept. 24, and explained that Mom had been in the hospital and that things didn't look good. "They think her lungs are shutting down," she said.

Aunt Kittie's memorial was being held on Sunday, Sept. 27, so we had planned on going up the coast in any case. When we got there Saturday, Mom was sitting in her chair in the living room looking worn out and barely speaking above a whisper. On Sunday, we had a wonderful memorial for Kittie, but everyone was asking where Paula was; surely she wouldn't miss her sister's memorial. During the memorial, my brother-in-law David slipped away and helped the home health nurse move Mom back to a hospital bed in her room. He returned after the formalities were over, and we let close friends know the situation.

The family that came to town for the memorial stayed on, and my brother Steve's family arrived from Wisconsin on Tuesday. His daughter Amanda is a healthcare professional and was a godsend, both for Mom and everyone there. Mom was medicated and as comfortable as possible, and we all felt much better knowing someone was there who was not only family but skilled in hospice care.

On Wednesday, Mom's breathing became very shallow and she was nonresponsive. Thursday afternoon, about 1:30, Amanda came out to the patio where the family was sitting and announced that Mom's breathing was going. Ten minutes later she could no longer find a pulse, and Mom was gone.

I told myself I was not going to write about this right away; I was going to give myself some time to collect photos and organize my thoughts, but I'm just not willing to do that. I may visit this experience again in other posts, but I have to put it down here now, because seeing the blog published will help me make this a little bit more real. Certainly, there will be things about her I will recall now and then for the rest of my life. I just hope the memories don't come with questions, because she's not around to answer them anymore.

My sister Kittie and her husband Dave have been absolutely the most fabulous, greatest people to Mom and Aunt Kittie over the past several years, especially when health problems limited the sisters' ability to get around. Kittie and Dave live just a few miles from the Moms (as Paula and Kittie were known in our extended families), and their presence as helpers was a reassurance to us all. It's not only that they were there to help, but also because the sisters had a habit of going into the hospital for something and never bothering to tell anyone.

Kittie and David were our touchstone to Hag Harbor. And, ever the accountant and stage manager, my sister is a master of planning, organization and confluence. Her husband Dave is a genius in the mechanical realm, so the sisters were in good hands whenever the couple were there.

it's early in the morning and the therapeutic value of this writing has been depleted. Now I'm just looking forward to sleeping in my own bed after this weeklong vigil. Obviously, there will be more later. But the saddest part of all is that, when I write my blog, I write knowing Mom will be reading it, so I write to her. But I see no reason to change that.

Sizzle in September

The first weekend in September brought the Labor Day weekend, and while I'm not one for traveling on holidays by any form of transport, a week of breathing in the smoke from the Station fire had become really irritating, both emotionally and physiologically, so Steve and I decided to take off and go up to Arroyo Grande to visit mom and get away from the smoke and hot weather.

Steve took off Thursday and Friday (without pay, much to the delight of his employer) and we spent four days with Mom, sister Kittie and her husband Dave. By leaving on Thursday during the day and returning on Sunday afternoon (a day before the end of the holiday weekend), we managed to avoid the brunt of the traffic going both ways.

One of the first things I did was to call Sycamore Springs and see about reserving a hot tub for an hour one evening over the weekend. Turns out, though, that the only time I could get was 6:30 on Friday evening. I like to go later in the evening, so that was right out. It's a really nice experience, as the tub are nestled on the hillside underneath old oak trees. They built the first tubs back in the '70s, and I used to go out there with college friends to soak and party. It's kind of a nostalgic thing for me. And, of course, bathing suits are optional since the tubs are private.

Thursday evening, mom took us all out to Jocko's in Nipomo, probably the best steakhouse at which I've eaten. The meat is absolutely marvelous. And while the meal is pretty basic and the ambiance downright bucollic and pedestrian, where else can you get the best 12 oz. Spencer Steak ever and pay only $20 for the whole meal? Quite a place for the thrifty meat lovers among us.

On Friday, Steve and I went driving up to Morro Bay and took in the Embarcadero. As a first, I did not buy any shells at the shell shop. Steve, however, did get a new T-shirt. We had fish and chips while sitting in a restaurant suspended over the edge of the bay and watched the pelicans swoop up and down the shoreline. A fishing boat below our window was being swabbed down, and seagulls took turns trying to steal bait fish out of the chum bucket at the back of the boat.

We walked the length of the Embarcadero, stepping out onto one of the piers to get a shot of Steve in front of Morro Rock (isn't he looking skinny?) and check out the seals and sea lions who sun themselves by the boats. It was so pleasant to be in a cool, sunny place without a hint of smoke in the air.

On the way back to mom's house, I found out that Steve had never been to the Madonna Inn, so I had to take him by and show him the men's room with its waterfall urinal. Installed in the late 1950s, it was quite a feat of technology for its time: When you walk up to do your business, you break an electric eye which starts the water flowing down the rocks from the ceiling.

Another great part of the Madonna Inn is their bakery, and I just had to pick up one of their famed whipped cream cakes. We chose the champagne cake for its signature Madonna-pink color and took it with us as we headed back to Arroyo Grande. Kittie cooked a stir fry for dinner and we had the cake for dessert (well, only half of it).

That evening I mentioned my inability to reserve a hot tub and Dave said he and Kit had just cleaned out the Jacuzzi in mom's back yard (she never uses it). So he took it upon himself to fill and fire up the Jacuzzi so we could partake of hot bubbles the next evening.

On Saturday we all went out to the airport in San Luis Obispo for a memorial gathering of the Friday coffee klatch group which Aunt Kit had founded so many years back. There is a restaurant at the airport called "Spirit of San Luis" which has rather decent food. It was a good time and we all toasted to our absent friend and relative.

On the way back from lunch, Steve and Kit and Dave and I stopped off at the outlet mall in Pismo Beach. Steve needed a new pair of pants and everyone, I think, found something to purchase at the "As Seen On TV" shop. It's really amazing to see all those gadgets they try to get you to buy on TV and see just how junky or far-fetched they really are.

We returned to mom's for the final dinner, where Kittie did her magic by taking all the leftovers from Jocko's and reinventing them as a new meal. We also polished off the champagne cake. The evening was topped of by soaking in the Jacuzzi (suits not optional, as the neighbors can see into the yard).

Mom's doing very well and was much more chipper than I thought she would be. I like the fact that our visit was a good reason for her to get out of the house twice in four days. Taking her age and medical condition into account, she got around very well.

So on Sunday, Steve and I returned to Pasadena and much clearer skies. The major concern by that time was the fire's approach to Mount Wilson (which it had been threatening for many days). The firefighters did their miraculous work, and neither the observatory nor the transmission towers were damaged by the flames.

In the week and a half since then, Steve has been dealing with his employer, who keeps talking about cutting back hours, which makes both Steve and I nervous. I have been scouring the Internet for jobs and, of course, there's nothing out there for publication design, since newspapers and magazines are in crisis-mode-times-two right now. I find lots and lots of jobs for Flash designers and Web developers, but nothing for print (and the few I do find for print have a strong web component).

On Friday, though, I'm going to an orientation at the EDD which will familiarize me with the WIA program, which is a federally subsidized retraining program for workers who have been displaced because of technological changes in the workplace. I think I am prime for that kind of program, since I really only have to train in Web design and then I can take my 20 years' experience and apply it to the new medium. Nice part is, while you are training, your unemployment benefits continue, for up to a year. This, hopefully, would get me to the other side of the recession when folks are starting to hire once more.

So that brings us up to date for September, except for the fact that it's been quite pleasant the last several days here in Pasadena, with temperatures in the 70s and 80s. But today is going to hit 93 degrees, and it should be over 100 come the weekend and well into the next week, even though it's technically fall. I just hope we don't have a hot October, as well. It's supposed to be an El Nino year, which means cooler temperatures and lots of rain during the winter. That would be great, because we really need it. And I really miss the rain.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

The Station Fire burns on. This satellite photo gives you an idea of the size of it and the amount of smoke it's producing. There are no clouds in this photograph: everything you see is smoke. It has now scorched 164 square miles and the smoke is affecting Las Vegas and Denver. Estimated date of full containment: September 15. I don't think my eyeballs will stay in my head that long.

Not much to report in the way of personal activity, since going outside has become difficult. My eyes begin to burn and within five minutes it feels like my eyelids have turned to sandpaper on the inside. Then comes the sneezing and coughing, so I retreat into the house with the air conditioning. I don't even want to think of what the air filter looks like on the AC unit.

Some interesting stuff: Rick Jackoway, an editor I worked with at the Five Cities Times-Press-Recorder back in the early '90s, is a friend on Facebook. He sent me a link to this picture of "the gang," something we did every Christmas to print in the paper over the holidays as a sort of Christmas card to the community (I'm the devilishly handsome one standing to the left on the landing).

We also filled the paper with children's letters to Santa and readers' most memorable holiday moments and favorite holiday recipes and holiday pictures that preschoolers drew and anything else we could think of to take up space between the ads because the staff was on vacation and there was no one in the news room. We'd put the papers together before we left for the Christmas/New Year's week and hoped nothing major occurred in town until Jan. 2.

Well, the upshot of this is I've reconnected with a whole bunch of people in this photo whom I haven't seen or talked to in well over a decade. Seems all these folks were on Facebook all along and it only took something like someone posting a photo and wanting to know the names of everyone in it. The picture went from one person to another, and pretty soon we were all reconnected. It certainly is strange and wonderful here in the 21st century. Now if they would only get me that robot maid and flying car I was expecting...

My cousin Rick and his wife Candy are going to Paris in September and Candy wrote asking if we knew of any special bistros, etc., they should visit while they were there. I ended up sending her detailed information along with Web links to sites where they could purchase museum passes, boat cruises on the Seine, etc. It was lots of fun remembering the great time Steve and I had there on our trip a few years back. I told him we should go now (even though we had to put part of the trip on a credit card) because who knows when we'll be able to go again. And that was the last vacation we've taken (back in 2006). I think it was a wise choice.

Speaking of vacations, we're taking a tiny one up to visit mom over the Labor Day weekend. I wanted to spend some time with her since Kit died last month but, to be a bit more honest, I also just have to get away from all the smoke and heat and go somewhere for a day or two where the weather is pleasant, the air is clear and it doesn't feel so much like Armageddon.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Well, not really. In the above picture, you may think you're looking at thunderheads, but it is actually a wildfire burning out of control in the Angeles National Forest, and coming rather close to some very expensive houses up in those hills. This is taken on Lake Avenue, about two blocks from our house. We were on our way to the supermarket for weekly shopping on Saturday when I took this. I couldn't get the entire plume into the frame, and you can't see the flames at the base of the clouds, though one new plume is visible at the center of the frame: that cloud is in front of the mountains, not behind them.

The air is smokey. It makes your mouth feel gritty, your eyes sore and produces the most prodigious boogers you can imagine. Everything outside smells like a barbecue. Luckily, there's a lot of town to burn between us and the hills, so I think we are safe from harm. But still, we were in Petsmart today and some friends of ours who live up in the hills were buying a carrier for their cat as she was "freaking out" because of the proximity of the fires. I think, too, it was part of getting ready to evacuate, but they were too nervous to say it out loud. Here's a time lapse I found online. It gives you an idea of the explosive quality of this fire (called the Station Fire):

Time Lapse Test: Station Fire from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

And it's HOT! Hot hot hot. Today was around 104, tomorrow will be 101. Thank God there are no winds to speak of, or this situation could be much worse. Still, there's a lot of brush up there to burn (last fire was back in the early '50s). It's so strange, because August has been very mild all month, and now the heat wave hits and everything's burning.

The job search goes on for me. There are lots of design jobs out there, but they are all for the Web. I'm ploughing my way through learning Flash and Dreamweaver. I have actually put together an animation where the images fade in as they slide onto the screen and then a pop-up frame with a description appears when you roll over each image. Only took me about an hour and a half! Recently, I've been converting PDF files of my work at the Hollywood Reporter for use on an upcoming Web site. It's quite a job to wade through the files, find the ones I like the best and get them prepped for use as buttons, images, etc.

Steve's job is going very strangely. He's the accountant/office manager at a plastic manufacturing place here in Pasadena. This next week they are laying off everyone in production because of lack of work. Steve and the two other office staff will be going to work, but it certainly does make us nervous. The gentleman who owns and runs the place is almost 90 years old, and sometimes his memory and judgment don't seem as clear as they might need to be. So we just take it day by day and hope for the best.

Last night we had the police pull a guy over outside the house. They got him out of the car and handcuffed him, then started searching the car: It was like having an episode of "Cops" unfold in our living room window. It was a very strange occurrence, sort of unsettling and entertaining at the same time.

I'm sure you've all heard about the woman who was kidnapped as a child in in the early '90s and turned up in the back yard of her abductors' house in Antioch, Calif., along with the two girls she bore with her abductor. Here's a really creepy Internet coincidence for you all to experience:

Go to Google Maps. In the address, put 1554 Walnut, Antioch, CA, and click on the street view when the map appears. This is the Garrido house where the girl was held. You'll notice a beat-up old Ford Econoline van sitting in the driveway. In the street view, you can pan around. There are also arrows on the street so you can move up and down the street.

Click on the left arrow to go down Walnut. As you progress down the street, turn your view to the rear and you will see the van pull out of the driveway and follow you. Once you get to Bown Street, take a right turn. The van will continue to follow you to the end of the street. On the final frame you can zoom in on the van and actually see Phillip Garrido sitting in the van. Very creepy. Also, if you click back to the map and go to the satellite view, you can see the compound of blue tarpaulin-covered structures out behind the house. This whole thing feels like the Charles Manson episode, except without the murder. And there's a chance that that will become part of the story before it's all over.

It's been a very strange month, indeed. Aunt Kit's passing, Ted Kennedy as well, this hellish weather, the bizarre culmination of an 18-year-old kidnapping case and now driving down the street to the sight of clouds of smoke rising to the north, seeing the flames lick over the edges of the canyons, one by one, seemingly unstoppable. And with no real routine in my life, it all seems to be terribly, terribly random. I keep hoping for some kind of epiphany where I will see the fabric and the texture of life as it's unfolding these days, but it just doesn't happen.

Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough, or perhaps I'm looking too hard. Or maybe the quality of the chaos of the universe just isn't terribly attractive at this time, from this vantage point. All I can say is, it's been one hell of a year so far.

Days of Note

When you think over your life, you can remember days of note; special days both happy and sad, joyful and angry, important and insignificant. And rarely do you realize on each of those days just what you will recall from it, what it will come to mean in the overall fabric of your life. The older you get, the more perspective you achieve, the more understanding you compile and, like anything fine in life, these days of note ripen and your appreciation of them increases. I've had two of those days in the last week, one very happy and one very sad, and both of them milestones in their own ways.

The most recent is the passing of my Aunt Kit. She had been ill for quite some time and knew her disease was terminal, but she kept going until the very end, no matter how weak or tired she was. She will be missed by more people than she probably realized. And while I am glad that she is through her suffering, I am angry at the sickness that took her from me and I reach back in my mind to try to find another day of note; that perfect time when I enjoyed and appreciated her most.

As a kid, I knew her only by reference. She and my mother had been close as kids. When they grew up and each married, they went their separate ways. My father had no qualms about expressing his dislike of Kit and her "irresponsible" ways, dragging her kids around the country from one regional theater to another, never settling down. To me, though, she sounded like an adventurer, my very own Auntie Mame.

I finally met her in my early 20s. She and her husband David were living in Brewerton, outside Syracuse, N.Y., and I had found my way to Ithaca, about 60 miles south. I was quite literally out in the cold, since I was rooming in a Cornell fraternity which was shutting down for the Christmas break and there was snow everywhere.

When I called Kit, I was immediately invited for the holiday festivities. She took me in and gave me more booze than I have ever consumed before or since. She cooked a lovely goose for Christmas dinner, amazed at the amount of fat she was syphoning off the thing. She took me to a Boxing Day party where I hooked up with some shady theater folk. When I ended up stranded after spending the night in a bizarre Victorian house (another story altogether), she drove into town to retrieve me. She took me to the world premiere production of William Gibson's "The Butterfingers Angel..." at Syracuse Stage, and I wrote "Another Little Christmas Story" for her, which I have inflicted upon the entire family each Christmas since. This photo of Kit, me, my mom Paula, and their stepmother Lilian is from around that time. Although very human, Aunt Kit was magical in my eyes.

When she retired and moved out to California, I shared an apartment with her for a short time after I broke up with Dave Mann (also another story altogether). We lived on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake District of Los Angeles. While she tried breaking into commercial acting, she tended bar at the neighborhood gay bar, the Toy Tiger: I was an instant celebrity there simply by being Kit's nephew.

When my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she moved up to the Central Coast and became his caretaker. It was really touching to see these two develop such a tender bond after all the long-distance animosity between them. Once my father passed away, the household was referred to as "the moms'," and together they dubbed their home "Hag Harbor." The two sisters lived together for twenty years, until today. I can't think of anything beyond, and I appreciate all the rich years that she spent with all of us on the Central Coast.

I got to direct her in "Steel Magnolias," (although I didn't give her the part she wanted) and it was a delight. She got to direct me in "The Fantasticks," (although I took the part because it was abandoned two weeks before opening night, not because I was cast). Just this May we had a reading of "Arsenic and Old Lace" with the moms playing the roles of the sisters. Most of us involved agree it was awful, but we all loved doing it and had a great time: It was one last connection before Kit left us, and I'm so glad we took the time.

I drove up to visit just two weeks ago, so I don't feel so bad about being absent now. While I was there, she would constantly forget her walker when she went from the living room to her bedroom or vice versa. Was it on purpose? You never knew with Kit. All her life, she kept everyone guessing. She was a bold spirit who carved out an amazing life. She had her share of days of note, as well. I'm glad I got to share some of them with her.

* * * * * * * * * *

And after that recollection, the second day of note seems almost trivial, but for me it was a very important one: On Saturday, August 8, Steve and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Not only did we make it through the wedding last year, but the California Supreme Court was nice enough to validate our marriage while upholding Proposition 8 and keeping all other gay folks from having one, as well. (You can check out the wedding pictures here in the blog archives or go to Facebook and check them out there.)

We went down to Long Beach for dinner at Parker's Lighthouse, the place where we had our second date (which was the first romantic one). The Long Beach Jazz Festival was happening the same weekend, so parking was absolutely insane. The weather was lovely and, after some confusion, we got our patio table overlooking the inlet and the Queen Mary, ordering our food just as the sun was setting. We had our traditional appetizer (lobster taquitos). It was quite a special evening.

Being married to the person you really love (being able to be married to the person you really love) is such an incredibly important and special thing. I don't think most people understand that; they take it for granted, like it's just part of life.

Fritz Perls, father of gestalt therapy, once described most marriages as relationships of "intimate hostility"; hates and resentments built up over time and intensely shared between only two people. I think that happens because people take marriage for granted and one another, as well.

We are all of us precious, and our loves and marriages even more so. When we lose track of that, we lose track of why we value life so dearly. When status and position and possessions eclipse being alive and loving, things fall apart and life gets cheap and loses meaning.

Here in a time of shitty news and things falling apart, it's easy to despair. But no matter how bad things are (like being unemployed or scraping through the months financially), compared to all the humans on the planet, our lives are truly blessed. If you've lost your perspective of that, it's time to make a fresh assessment and see your life for what it is and focus once again on what you'd truly like it to be. Because, most likely, you're doing a fabulous job.

Time Off in Purgatory

That's what you get for jury duty. I'm sitting in the jury assembly room on the 11th floor of the criminal courts building at Temple and Broadway in downtown L.A.

The room has some of the same aesthetics of an airport waiting room, and you have to go through the same security procedures (except at court they don't make you take off your shoes) and the environment is just as stultifyingly boring.

I took the online orientation program last week, so I was able to arrive around 9:30 instead of 8 o'clock; that was nice. But if you've already seen the boring how-to videos about justice online, you show up, they log you in and then you sit. And wait. And wait.

Around 10:30 they called one jury panel and sent them up to department 117. Then nothing until just before noon, when we were released for lunch. I went directly down to the cafeteria, since I don't feel like going down to the L.A. center across from the federal courts building and fighting the hords at the various fast-food places there. And, too, it's amazing that a cafeteria can cook turkey and make it come out looking like pulled pork and tasting like nothing much other than edible. The corn was even less tasty ... or more tasteless, I'm not sure which.

So I'm secretly hoping that I'll just spend the rest of the afternoon here, not get called out, and have my jury duty done with. Part of me would like to be empaneled and sit on a jury, now that I have the time to, but I also feel like I should get back to my studies and job search.

Speaking of studies, Steve and I went down to Vroman's Books (our local nonfranchise book store) and I picked up a book on ActionScript 3.0, since I wasn't having too much success with the online tutorials alone. It is obviously one of those subjects that has an "aha" factor to it: You kind of go along, not really understanding the meat of the subject, and then -- AHA -- things gel and you understand what's going on.

That's about it. Lunch break is almost over and they might be asking me to go do something semiproductive, so I should sign off. I think I have just enough time to upload the picture I took this morning with my iPhone, showing the enthusiastic citizen-jurors waiting for their chance to take a role in this system we call judicial.