You know, for a day completely spent waiting in a large room with thirty-three strangers, it was quite productive.

I reported for jury duty at the Wake County Courthouse in Raleigh this morning at 9:00. Luckily, I had the good advice of some coworkers to bring along reading material, which I did (I finished Carol Emshwiller's Report to the Men's Club and read all of Say...What Time is It?), along with my laptop. I got a lot of reading done, and quite a bit of writing: 600 more words on "Last Fare" and 300 words on a new story, entitled (you guessed it!) "Jury Duty", that I plan on submitting to Eggplant Literary Productions Library. (In fact, there, I just did.) I'm quite proud of myself.

So I waited, and waited, and waited. The criminal case we were supposed to be called for we weren't called for because apparently the defendant pled guilty. This was around noon. They asked us to come back at 2:30 since there was another case that might need jurors. So I had a nice long lunch, and bumped into an old high school friend at Chick-Fil-A who I hadn't seen in a long time. I walked for a bit around the Fayetteville Street Mall (which is not a shopping mall), then went back upstairs to the jury lounge at 1:00. What's supposed to happen is that if you're not called by 5:00, they dismiss you and you don't have to come back. What happened today was that they waited until 4:20, and then called us upstairs to the courtroom for jury selection. *grumble grumble*

It's a civil case, but that's all I can say about it (I've been sworn to secrecy, mwa-ha-ha). Luckily, civil cases usually last much less time than criminal cases, so if I do get picked, it hopefully won't cause me to miss too much work. I report back tomorrow morning at 9:30.

It was weird not being able to check email during the day today. I had 23 messages when I got home tonight.

On a totally unrelated note, I've been looking at what I have going on for the rest of the year, and it's a bit daunting. I have to find out whether or not I got a Residence Director position with NCSU, and if not, I'll need to find a townhouse with my friend John Lewis. (No matter what, I'm moving, which completely sucks.) Also, if the RD thing falls through, I'll need to get financial aid (i.e. student loans, bleh). I have to turn in all my materials for Janet's fiance visa petition, then sit around and wait six months for it to be approved. I'm planning the wedding without knowing exactly when we're having it. I have three weddings to attend in the next four months (and one more to get a gift for). School starts August 20. There's Trinoc*con in August and World Fantasy in October. I have to start working on the novel again.

The whole rest of this year will be a stress-fest. Guh. I'll be so happy when Janet gets here and we can start our life together. Not all the stresses will go away, but I'll be able to handle them much better with her here.

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Now Reading:
The Kappa Child by Hiromi Goto

Stories Out to Publishers:
13

Books Read This Year:
24

Novel Word Count:
9200