kate moss

People we know who get married and become parents tend to forget they had a life before they had kids and thus are unable to talk about anything other than that. Blah blah blah…yeah we get it. You reproduced. Congratulations! Next subject.

It’s not that I don’t think it’s fabulous you have kids, it’s that I’m not interested in talking about them 24/7, NOR do I care about:

-Chem Lawn treatments
-Flooding
-Sales at Gymboree
-Storytime Land or whatever the f**k it’s called
-the act of crawling, walking, pooping, eating and all the gory details
-storm windows
-Home Depot
-Circular Saw (???)
-replacing the soft water conditioner (WTF is that?)
-fencing (not the chic, white suit kind)
-the differences between each brand of diapers
-how your kid’s vomit was soooo cute, omg look! I took a picture!
-3T, 4X, things that sound like equations but are actually child’s sizes
-the frequency of replacing white t-shirts
-skid marks (spare me)
-Thomas the Train (shoot me)
-how your weekends are spent going to birthday parties, not at the bar but at Chucky Cheese
-your child’s halloween costume, not yours because you’re not wearing one
-alcohol? what’s that?
-fun? what’s that?
-sex? Um, no, I’m married.

Inhaling fumes from too much baby sh*t might cause one to think that these things excite us, but I assure you, they do not. Keep it to yourself and talk about things infinitely more interesting, like Joe Scarborough’s F bomb on national television.

The court system certainly titled it right – I can’t think of anything more obligatory than Jury Duty. The second you get that dreary postcard you just want to send it back with “I’m deceased.” After postponing it for as long as humanly possible, I finally get on the subway this week and go to the courthouse.

First I walk in and immediately get lost. No one cares at all, like it’s just normal to see jurors walking around aimlessly like zombies in a psyche ward. Finally I get to the place; it’s been specially designed to be the most uncomfortable room you could possibly imagine. Everyone looks miserable, like it’s detention in high school all over again. Our reward for being law abiding citizens is sitting in a 12×12 room, devoid of food and water for 8 hours. JAIL, would be more comfortable. (At least you get to work out in jail). Right away a video comes on the television. It’s Judge Catherine Adams, standing in front of the camera like a corpse, talking at the camera: “Trial by Jury is the heart and lungs of liberty.” “Your willingness to serve…” (NO) “We hope you’ve had a chance to review the juror handbook…” (NO). She goes on.

“We realize that the conditions may be less than ideal…” Less than ideal? You mean a room so dead it resembles the DMV from Beetlejuice? More like the purgatory of civil duty. “We are working hard to improve things for you…” Oh, they’ve worked hard to ensure that this will be the most uncomfortable 8 hours of your life, so that in the end you don’t even give a sh*t. [Perfect prepping to make life-altering decisions about people you don't know.] Then Mark Hoover gets on the camera in a goofy suit resembling that guy from the Butterscotch candy commercials. I’m not even listening because I’m laughing so hard; this video was the most entertaining part of the day, believe it or not. This video is actually telling us what to do, too bad that no one is listening because we’re all dreaming of more pleasurable activities, like colonoscopies or Chinese water torture.

I immediately start by breaking the law when I whip out my cell phone and start messaging everyone I know about how I am in hell and can be reached by text only. A court officer walks in with the indifference of Jeffrey Dahmer and switches the tapes in the vcr. A video comes on from the 1970s which is supposed to instruct us on how to be the “best jurors we can be” even though we’ve been brought here against our will, threatened with big fines and forced to sit for hours. Isn’t that a hostage situation? [those are better actually because in a hostage situation you know that help is on the way]. The conditions are so bad that they actually mention it again in this video. FROM THE 70s, assuring us that they are working hard to improve things. I look around the room for 30+ years of improvements. I notice that taped everywhere are laminated signs telling me what NOT to do:

-DO NOT TOUCH TV
-DO NOT OPEN WINDOWS
-NO CELL PHONES
-DO NOT PUT TRASH ON FLOOR
-NO ESCAPING

The court officer’s duty is to disappear and blast bad gospel elevator music from her station so that in 2 hours I will be bona fide crazy, writing “liberty sucks” on the walls in dog poop. There’s of course one pompous jackass who immediately gets to showing everyone that his pinstripe suit, rolex-wearing self is more important than the rest of us and he “has to leave soon, how long is this going to take, I have a plane to catch,” blah blah blah. I sit down with my dixie cup of water (from the bathroom, how healthy is that?) and take a sip. The music blasts from the court officer’s station:

“I wanna live for Jesus…Oh…I…wanna live for Jesus….

I can hear her singing along so it’s like gospel karaoke.

Incoming text message: “Help! The office is going to sh*t over here, we moved money to the wrong account and we don’t know how to undo it invisibly, help us!!!” Sigh. All I can hear is:

“I wanna live for Jesus…with the word of the lord…he will make things better….”

There are so many levels of hell going on that all I can do is start laughing to myself, convincing everyone around me that I’m totally crazy. If it gets me out of here faster – fine. The court officer comes in and notices that we’re not in enough agony and puts a movie on to entertain us. Here’s the first few lines of dialogue:

husband: “Hello?”
wife: “Your mother died in her sleep last night”
husband: “Oh, God.”

“Every day I love him more and more….ohhhh Jesus…” I could put my ipod in but I don’t. I’m trying to test my torture endurance.

2 HOURS LATER

The movie is finishing and I can no longer feel my lower extremities, I’m totally numb. What if all of these seats were filled? It would be like an airplane cabin on an 8 hour non-stop trip to nowhere. (with no cocktails). I’m curious to know why people need to sit here and wait but I don’t have a law degree so what do I know. I attempt to look at the other people in the room. Luckily everyone is so miserable, no one wants to talk to each other. One lady is knitting, another guy is on his phone, and another is just pacing. I wonder what would have happened if I had just not shown up.

The gospel singing court clerk comes back to remove the movie and puts Jerry Springer on just in time to see 2 girls ripping each other’s hair out on stage. Then it hits me. This court clerk lives this every day. 8 hours a day. No wonder she’s singing to Jesus. She puts a new movie in. This one is a 80s film. Uncle Buck. I immediately wonder if she plays the same movies each day, over and over and over again. This place is so surreal.

It’s now mid-afternoon and people are so bored they are actually attempting to make conversation.

juror #1: “Boy, this process is lousy.”
juror #2: “It sure is.”

Then out of nowhere I hear:

old rolex guy: “I bet you’d look great in a black cocktail dress.” (!)
young girl juror: “My name is Carrie.”
old rolex guy: “Oh, like Carrie Fisher. Would you like a job? Let me call my secretary.”

Real conversations. The court clerk comes in again and announces that we are going to panel, and then the people who have not been chosen can go home. This is the time where everyone starts prepping their “I’m a racist” or “I have a drinking problem” speeches. I’m so utterly bored and miserable by this point that I’m contemplating announcing to the court that I have 4 personalities and drink bleach for fun.

I’m asked to fill out a paper explaining why I cannot be a juror. Years ago back in LA I was too ashamed to fight it and so I completed my service quietly without protest. Now, the gloves are off. I’m totally ok with it, I could care less what these people think. I write down the following:

“I have no judgment and cannot tell right from wrong.” I actually wrote that.

At panel, these papers are given to the judge who then reads them with the attorneys at sidebar.

“Would juror #10 please approach?”

That’s me. I get up and walk across the room to a waiting group of 4-5 people, including a stern male judge resembling someone that you don’t want to lie to. He has bifocals on and is reading my paper, tracing the words with his finger.

“So…you wrote down…I have no judgment?” He is staring at me intently, almost in disbelief. The room is so still you could hear a pin drop. I am trying not to laugh because hearing him read that out loud was pretty ridiculous. He asks me why not. This is what I said, with a straight face:

“I have a drinking problem.”
“You cannot make fair decisions because you have a drinking problem?” He kept saying it.
“No, your honor.”

The prosecuting attorney was a young guy who I hope I don’t run into at a party in the future; he was examining me with the same look of utter bewilderment on his face. The judge could not wrap his head around it, I think he thought I was either really brave, really stupid or actually believed me, I have no idea. He tells me to go sit down. For a second I feel really bad about it, but then I have one of those “NAH!” moments, reminding me that I have THINGS to do in this world. I’m free! I walk out of the courtroom, feeling liberated from this nightmare, finally.

What a day. Time for..a drink?

To say that he helped me would be an understatement. Without him, I’d be copying and pasting for the NEXT 4 years. Luckily for people like me, there are people like Jim out there who are genuinely nice and helpful. (so there’s hope for the world after all, good. That helps me sleep at night).

Check out Jim’s blog, and leave him a comment or two (or three, or 800).

I’ve had this thing a little more than a year and NOTHING has changed since I last printed. No earthquakes, no liquid spills, same president in office (sigh). Every time I go to print something, I do the EXACT same thing: turn on, push cntl + p, click OK, then presto! A little piece of paper comes out with the correct ink pattern resembling my manifesto/coupon/hate letter to the meter maids. I did nothing different this morning and yet for no apparent reason I get this banner that says:
“New hardware! Installing new drivers!”

Rewind. My computer pretended not to know my printer? Likely story, Toshiba. You know you’ve been hitting up this printer for 1 + year now, don’t try to deny it. It might be a low-grade printer but it gets the job done. (typical)

So anyway, this green bar starts moving in a way that means scary data is coming into my laptop, data that I don’t think I NEED because I ALREADY have the drivers installed.

@#*@*#&(&*(@#??

I watch it as it “re-installs” the drivers I already have, then proceeds to continue being broken.

I go to print. Again. This time, a little box comes up that says “printer status….”

…?

Yeah, no sh*t, laptop. You damn right it’s “…” because NOTHING is happening.  By this time, I’ve already gone into silent rage mode and am passive aggressively tap dancing all over my keyboard, trying to investigate ways to make it work again without throwing it across the room. Now I know why people fly off the handle, this stuff is maddening.

Five minutes later, I’m already debating walking over to Best Buy and getting a new one. That’s when I thought, maybe they WANTED this to break so that I’d have to buy a new one. Wonderful people.

I start Googling up a storm, typing in the phrase “Help! My Canon MP160 stopped working!” and wouldn’t you know, there are a ton of people out there with the same problem, posting cries onto online tech help sites trying to figure out the same secret to the universe: why did the @&*@#& printer just stop working? I must say thank you to Al Gore for inventing the internet because he helped me solve my problem. It turns out that the secret fix isn’t really a secret at all.

The printer driver became obsolete and needed to be updated?

Ok, after you’re done laughing at my perceived naivete, answer me this: why the F*** did it need to be updated? It was printing FINE.

Put paper in = put ink on = paper come out.

I don’t need UPDATES to a printer process that already works. I could understand if I bought a new laptop or installed a new operating system that was incompatible with my “antiquated” printer but the thing is 17 months old. What’s this ‘new and improved’ update going to do, print out my documents telepathically? If they want to help they should design an update to be run on my checking account that adds zeros to my bank balance every month. That, would be helpful, instead of creating this infuriating confusion.

Bottom line: I downloaded the update and can you believe the thing actually started working again? I almost popped open a bottle of champagne just laughing about it. No need to pay a little dork to come over and fix it, I took care of business.

-my colleague, wanting to ask Zorro, the latin slacker at my firm, what really happened to his eyebrows when they were suddenly gone after a 2 week vacation to Puerto Rico (in his own language).

Violet is the color for Fall. Look in all the runway mags, it’s everywhere. Jewel tones are in which means bauble earrings, sparkly necklaces, and cuff bracelets.

Violet In Culture (courtesy of Wikipedia)

-In Chinese painting, the color violet represents the harmony of the universe because it is a combination of red (yang) and blue (yin).

-In the UK it is traditional to package chocolate in violet colored packaging because of the association of the color royal purple with luxury.

In other news…

The Love Doctor is on holiday. I’m sick of my deluded friend and her tales of woe. I’m tired of hearing her obsess over a guy who is never going to get back together with her. If you’ve been following this column you know how long she’s been hanging on to this guy and we are finally over it. Her type of “love” as she calls it, is nothing more than a sickness, an obsessive disease that has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with her refusal to accept rejection.

Several times a day I get text messages from her. It’s always about him. The second I log on to AIM, she IMs me (about him). She never asks me how my life is going. If I try to change the subject, she goes back to it. It’s like dealing with a drug addict.  I’m through being her addiction sponge.

My favorite new magazine for runway pics is Runway Beauty Magazine. It’s a steal at $12 a year and features detailed hair & makeup pics that you can take to your stylist and ask them to duplicate. They have individual shots of every runway collection, it’s very organized.

This summer has been a huge success. I’ve been working steadily and balancing modeling with work and frequent vacations. My next trip is to the Caribbean in a few weeks, where I’ll be sipping native rum drinks while island boys fan me and feed me frozen grapes all day.