My Day of Service

Fittingly, I spent September 11th at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, doing my civic duty as a prospective juror. "Dread" does not even begin to capture the feeling that welled up in me when the recorded message told me to report downtown for jury duty at 7:45AM Friday morning. But I'm going to see Mark Lanegan at the Troubadour the night before! But I'm freelance, what if I get put on a case?! But I don't have an iphone, how will I check my email???

I have no idea why the whole thing threw me into such a tizzy. Sure, I was tired when the alarm went off at 6:30, but it was actually kind of nice to be strolling the grand, sunny streets of downtown with the morning workforce, and then it was actually pretty cool to see inside the building where Phil Spector stood trial. The 5th floor hallway was tiled with shiny brownish bricks - very '70s - and the benches along the walls were occupied by people of all ages and races, some chatting animatedly, others sipping coffee in silence. I felt a peculiar surge of pride and connection to my fellow Americans as we all embarked on what the administrator/comedian told us would be "one of the most boring days of your lives."

But I had the New Yorker style issue with me, and there were creaky old PCs where I checked email and was denied access to Facebook (which is probably a wise idea). Somehow it all passed rather quickly and I was never even called to a courtroom. Around 4:15 funny guy said, "I'm sorry to tell you all that you have to go home now. Your service is complete."

I felt surprisingly cheerful as I left the building, stopping to look at the above image of a woman on the glass (which reflects the abandoned building across the street), who I learned was Clara Shortridge Foltz herself, the first female lawyer in California and the founder of a magazine called The New American Woman.

And then, on my way home I decided to pop in to the Silver Lake Crossroads, and scored a bitchin' pair of tortoise shell Lanvin sunglasses. Ah, justice!