Jury Duty, Office Party, a Wedding and an Adventure

This was a weekend of strange happenings.

To skip to the photos, click here.

Obviously, I got out of jury duty. Rumors spread quickly at work, which I discovered (more on this in a bit) after I told a few people that I got off of the jury by telling them that I believed crack should be legal, but all nonviolent offenses should be punished with the death penalty, and the death penalty should be by fire. Somehow, the word that spread was that I told them that crack should be legal, but the rest of it, the whole over the top part that made it a joke, seems to have been lost in the tanslation. Not a big deal, but annoying.

Actually, what probably did it was my brief stint volunteering in a public defender's office, the fact that I'm an attorney, my parents are both attorneys and that when I worked for them, I did a bit of criminal defense work. Not much, but enough to be jaded.

It was educational, though. I did see that before the trial even started, some jurors had their minds made up. "His wife was there and she looked so sad, and he was so polite and he bowed to us, I don't think I could find him guilty." She wasn't picked. Neither were the people who said that they couldn't set aside their beliefs about the Rockefeller drug laws, and the ones that either trusted cops too much or didn't trust cops at all.

Not that that's dispositive, and not that there's any way to tell what reason was given for picking whomever was picked. After all, while I was at 100 Center for a criminal case, Rudy Giuliani was down the block at 60 Center on a civil jury. You just never know.

Ironically, my officemate, the guy who has the other desk in my office, had jury duty at the same time, although he was doing civil stuff down the block.

So when I got out, I ended up at the Hughes Hubbard office party. Office parties are weird, especially those within which you A) Don't know very many people, B) spouses and girlfriends are not allowed and C) Alcohol is served. The mix can lead to odd scenes. Nothing I'm willing to talk about here, and frankly, nothing having to do with me (although there was an hour or two there where I could be seen dancing with a bunch of paralegals and lawyers, which was fortunately not caught on videotape.)

One of the more interesting bits is that my personal paralegal (well, the paralegal for my team at least) is also a Vassar alum. She graduated years after me (2002) and no, we didn't know each other there. Now, here's the interesting part, are you ready?

She reads this site.

Yeah. And apparently so do several of the other paralegals and some of the lawyers. Most of the ones I know of were Vassar alumnae, but I don't know if all are. Anyway, hello, coworkers. (Note: you should sign the "Comments" link on this post, so I know you're out there breathing...) Yes, Josiah got me the job, and yes, he's in the cast, but no, apparently, that's not where everyone heard.

That would explain the spate of Google referers I've gotten that say people are searching for "Jonathan Swerdloff" and "Hughes Hubbard and Reed." Writing that, I am reminded of the old emails that Ethan used to send me that read, simply, "Hello to my friends in domestic surveillance" back when being paranoid was a fringe pursuit, not since the new Pointdexter evilness. "Hello to my friends in coworker websurfing. Shouldn't you be billing?"

Anyway, holiday parties are very strange, as anyone who has been to one can attest. I had the presence of mind to not do anything I will regret on Monday, despite an open bar in which they were pouring Texas sized lowballs full of anything you want. The night turned out very well, for that reason. At the end of the night, I took my paralegal to Tribe, where I discovered, to my joy, that Michael is back on Saturday night. I bought her a few well deserved drinks, got her a cab and went home to pass out.

Only to wake up six hours later, at nine, with too much of a hangover for comfort, to make a decision. Do I stay at home for the day, sack out and do nothing, or do I shower, get into a suit, and go to DC for an overnight, go to Darcey's surprise wedding? I call it a surprise, because the invitation was an email two weeks ago.

I went to the wedding armed with my camcorder, my digital camera, and my Titanium. I'd received calls from Sarah, Perren and Ethan, all asking me specifically to come, knowing that I've got a personality which is a cross between stubborn, surly, opinionated, and unwilling to do things I don't like, nor lie to make other people feel good. Ethan claims there's no word for that, I say it just makes me a Republican. Compound that with a sense of pronvincialism that makes me loathe to leave New York to go further than one of the boros, and you'll see why getting me to come was a major ordeal for them.

The chances of my actually missing the wedding, whether or not they called, were around zero, assuming I didn't have to work. I'd never do that to Darcey, that's ridiculous. Plus, I had to see the guy she was marrying.

This particular group of friends from college just keeps growing up, but they stay fundamentally the same people - Sarah's become a resident in adult psychiatry after being our resident analyst when we were students, Perren continues to ask the world's strangest questions (so, how do you like the rent in Washington? In California, we've got various zones...) after many episodes of asking strangers strange questions in college, Gretchen has a house, a fence, a dog, a yard and a steady boyfriend (for 11 years) which is all the same but the dog, the fence, the house and yard, and you all have heard about (and apparently many of you have drooled over) Ethan.

The wedding itself was performed by a justice of the peace, at his office. The vows were short, and, in typical Darcey fashion, she hadn't told her fiance Atef what to say. He's Tunisian, and they do it differently. When asked if he would have her and hold her and be faithful to her and all that jazz, he responded candidly: Of course yes.

There was never any mention of "I Do." Obviously, they do. The cultural differences were highlighted, but then instantly obscured by their obvious feelings for one another.

There was a bit of culture clash between the self professed "Tunisian Mafia" and the "Whitebread American Posse" but the differences were not great, and easily bridged with pleasant conversation and the sudden appearance of a belly dancer. And the fact that we were all there to celebrate Atef and Darcey's day.

The party ended at Karaoke, wherein I kissed the photograph of a not particularly attractive woman when a very attractive one walked up and fluttered her eyelashes at me, and told me that it was her birthday, could I please be in a picture kissing a photo of her boss? I approved heartily of their mission, and kissed the photo.

My drink of the moment, is chilled Patron. It's a good, albeit not great, Tequila. There are about a million degrees difference between a glass of chilled Patron and a shot of Cuervo. Nobody is willing to accept that fact, and so when I lean against the bar, people buy me shots of Cuervo, proud of themselves for remembering that I drink Tequila, and dutifully, I smile, and drink them, and hope that soon the feeling of paint peeling off of my brain will stop. Perren, Darcey and Ethan each bought me shots of Cuervo. My brain did not thank them in the morning.

Because I had brought all of my toys, and because the wedding was so hasty, Perren, Ethan and I became the de facto "crack memories squad" - Perren took a video, and Ethan and I took stills. By night's end, we had seventy plus photos in a slideshow on my computer, I put them into iPhoto, set them to music, and 20 minutes later, we had a slideshow, replete with images fading into one another, background music and a crying bride, as she watched it.

The couple looked genuinely happy together, which was good. By night's end, Ethan and Perren and Sarah and I were the only ones left standing, and we looked at each other and discussed the days events. We know very little about Atef. We know very little about what's going on here. Can this work? Is this a good idea? It's very fast, after all. Sarah summed it up - "He makes her happy, and he seems like a nice guy. Can we ask for anything else, really?" No, really, we can't. He does, though. He seems like a nice guy.

After the party, after the hangover, after the everything, there was the train ride home. The train ride home for the first half had Ethan in it, and we did all sorts of geeky things - watching the video from the night before, instant messaging via Ethan's computer and his unlimited cellular minutes, and I blogged from my seat. Ethan even loaned me his noise cancelling headphones so that I could listen to my music collection on iTunes while I blogged.

When we got to Philadelphia, we went our separate ways, he carried on and I popped off to visit Selena. One of the more interesting things about this whole "earning money" thing is that it frees me up to do silly things like getting off the train an hour and a half earlier than planned to hang out with random friends.

Selena gave me a quick and dirty tour of the University of Pennsylvania campus, or at least, the salient parts that interested me, or were a part of her personal history. We spent eight hours mostly shooting the shit over coffee, talking about her scoping out girls who wandered by our table, and walking around Philadelphia. She introduced me to her "boyfriend" (I've got a signphoto on his lap, note that like the dirty old lech he is, he is trying to look down her shirt...) and showed me a good time.

She even walked me to my train, which was many hours later than the train I was originally on. Amtrak, the kind employees of which are to be commended for their kindness, squeezed me onto a train that was supposedly "detraining only" because _it_ was an hour and a half late, but the train after was delayed, potentially indefinitely. So inswtead of waiting until 12:30 to board the train, I was lucky enough to board the 8:40 train at 10:25, meaning, net net, that I ended upon my way exactly when I wanted to. It did involve a little bit of running around, a little bit of sweet talking the nice man behind the counter (who gave me a discount, I think because Selena flirted with him and made me look like an ass) and the nice conductor, with whom nobody flirted. So now, as I type this, it's 11:15, and I'm on the Amtrak between Philadelphia and Manhattan, hoping to arrive home in time to get a good night's sleep, wake up refreshed, and go to work, smirking that I stole so much fun from this weekend.

Big Monument	The Beautiful Bride	Belly Dancer

Justice of The Peace	You May Kiss The Bride	Old Friends
Ethan and Doctor Caraisco	Ethan and Gretchen	Perren Gets Jiggy Wit It
Doctor Caraisco	Couch Surfing	Selena and Sign

Posted by Swerdloff at December 09, 2002 01:04 AM