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She got summoned for jury duty and never came back . . . well, it felt like that for a while at least. I got called in for jury selection on the morning of September 18 and wasn’t released until the afternoon of October 3rd. Would you believe I was juror 46 out of 51 and I still ended up sitting as an alternate for the trial? I think by the time they got to me, they were desperate.

And what a trial. 1st degree murder. I won’t go into the details because honestly, the people involved don’t need any more publicity. AND the sooner this event fades from my own memory the better. Let’s just say I know more about deciphering blood splatter evidence than your average citizen. For all you fans of trigonometry, this is your field!

So, I’m back going through the motions of my normal routine, thirteen dollars a day richer, with the thanks of the county, worn out and weepy, trying to catch up on the mountains of grading that piled up unattended while I was attending to my civic duty.

You see, substitute teachers teach, they don’t grade, so tests, reports and assignments waited patiently for me to get back and NOW THEY ALL NEED TO GET DONE. Yikes! 112 hours got sucked out of my life; it’s already two weeks later, and still I haven’t figured out how to squeeze them back in.

Photo © Aleksandar Radovanovic

Continuing with the "Diversity" theme I started a while back, I decided to do some small pieces in the same vein. They will be studies in shapes and colors, and all done (like this one) with Polychromos on illustration board.

This is 5 x 7, and took way longer to do than I care to admit. Its several layers of pencil, built up slowly. I had a general idea of the color family I wanted to use (plummy reds) but beyond that I just let it develop on its own. I used a very sharp pencil and enjoyed doing it a lot. So I will do more!

I'd like to do some in different colors, and also explore some other geometrics.

I think I'll put these for sale somewhere at some point, but haven't decided exactly where or how yet. I'll let you know.

In other news, much less exciting news, today was the dreaded JURY DUTY DAY. Good lord. I couldn't even draw, that's how draining it was. But at the very end when I was back in the jury room staring at this wall, I sketched this image. It perfectly sums up the day. A lot of blank nothing, then what was there wasn't even interesting.



A white wall, drinking fountain, magazine rack with one magazine (SKI) and a framed thing with rules about jury service. All very inspiring (not).

Some people are actually crazy, did you know that? They look normal until they sit in a jury box and are asked a simple question. Then they short circuit. Scary.

I did meet a nice lady at lunch who also used to live in San Francisco, in my neighborhood even, with whom I commiserated about not being able to find good bread here, so that was a highlight in the otherwise very tedious day.

Ok, pursuing a Master's is taking up all my time, but I'm done with classes for now and don't have my next one until Nov. I'm back to work on my YA novel and finally hit the 10,000 words mark. That was my first milestone. I'm also taking a slightly different direction after discovering the incredibly gifted writer, Jeffery Deaver during my Jury Duty stint.

I'm not sure why people have such a negative attitude towards jury duty. I loved it, learned tons about our judicial system, and was fortunate to actually serve on a jury. During the two weeks I had to report, only two cases actually went to trial, so I was lucky to have served.

I also entered the Cheerio Story contest today and ordered the 2009 Children's Writers Market Guide by Alice Pope.

It feels good to be back.