Three days down and three days to go for jury duty.  Just a hunch, but I think both prosecutors and defense attorneys have plenty of reasons to not want me on their juries.  So far that’s been the case, anyway.  A defense attorney asked me yesterday, “Mr. Bridges, what are you thinking?”  That’s kind of weird, isn’t it?  I was thinking about his question of course … and what a dufus he looked like in his ill-fitting suit.   Today in the jury pool room a 9/11 conspiricist sidled up next to me with his grungy laptop, asking me and the folks nearby if we wanted to see a documentary that would “blow your minds.”  I told him flatly I wasn’t interested and returned to reading my book of Joyce Carol Oates stories–which, btw, made me want to stab out my eyeballs they were so depressing.   The  9/11 conspiricist wandered away.   So in the basement at Tulane and Broad this week I’ve read probably 300 pages of Oates’ stories–oh, the slashed wrists, the murders, the sad, the bad, the very bad folks that populate her stories …  I always seem to pick the exact wrong books for such occasions, like a few years ago when I  brought along a Kafka novel to read at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Tomorrow: Vladimir Nabokov stories …

About the Author

Derek Bridges

Derek Bridges lives in New Orleans, trading in words and pictures. A carpetbagger of long standing, he grew up in the top right corner of IL and later went to college in the middle cornfield part. He has also lived in MS and FL, for educational purposes only, and was diasporized for a time in TX.

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