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- Melanie
So by 8 p.m. last night, I was sitting around in my pajamas.
I'm officially a bachelor. Next thing you know I'll be on the Barcalounger, drinking a beer, belching and scratching myself.
Oh, wait.
Never mind.
Next time the huz ventures by, all he'll find are piles of laundry, garbage, McDonald's bags and dirty dishes. And no milk.
No, no, no. I have a list to keep to. I have responsibilities to shoulder. I have to make him proud of me. Must buy own milk.
He'd make an excellent househusband he would, in the John Lennon mold.
But I Won't Be His Yoko Ono. Yeah, R., like you thought I'd leave that one hangin'.
Oh, I actually did make the cut for jury duty. I'm an alternate for a personal injury case (a slip'n'fall) that begins Wednesday. Or not, if they settle tomorrow. It's weird I suppose, but I don't actually mind being called. It seemed like everyone and his brother in our empaneling room had an excuse (and they were legit excuses too), and they were so ree-lee-ved when their excuses panned out. What's so bad about it? Of course, my company will pay me for up to 21 days, so I don't have to rely on the guv'mint's $40-a-day handout. But is it such an inconvenience to actually be asked to participate in the process, and to make an intelligent, informed decision based upon the facts? I didn't actively search for an excuse -- because I don't feel that it's something I need to be excused from, barring exceptional circumstances. Yes, the attorneys know I work at a law school. Yes, they know I served as a respondent in a mock trial as part of a CLE program. They don't seem to have a problem with that. Okay, I'm in. And I'm fine with that. Because there isn't a reason for me not to be.
I have this odd list of things that I feel it's my duty to do. That I guess would fall under my interpretation of Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing."
~Attending funerals. Paying your respects to the dead, and also to the living. Being there for my friends and my family when they need someone most.
~Voting. If you don't vote, don't complain about the government.
~Jury duty: see paragraph above.
~And my own small attempt at patriotism. I'll admit, I was very perturbed by all the bunting brandishing that went on in the wake of the WTC. All the "US (pun intended, I suppose) vs THEM-ing." Gotta love the denizens of the self-proclaimed Greatest Nation in the World when they get all het up about something. Everyone painting "Fuck Osama" on the backs of their pickup trucks. And don't go all "anti-redneck-bashing" on me; this was on Long Island. Everyone practically painting themselves red, white & blue. That's not what it's about. Crumpling a flag on the back window ledge of your sedan isn't patriotism. Not to me. Go to a military cemetery. Walk among the gravestones, all in their perfect rows, and look at the dates. Look at the young men and women of every era who died for this country. And not against another. Listen to the silence. Let it speak to you. Read the poetry of a John McCrae or a Wilfred Owen. Or
"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"Randall Jarrell
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.Read the stories of the nurses in Vietnam. Read about Georgette "Dickie" Chappelle, one of two female photojournalists who died on the front lines there, trying to show the world what she saw through the eye of a lens.
This country is not about a plastic flag.
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a very fine cat indeed - Friday, Jan. 17, 2014
happy new year! - Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013
this is where i am - Saturday, Jun. 30, 2012
this is how it is - Friday, Feb. 24, 2012
a very late last year's wrap-up - Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012
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