Characters from the "office"

On some days, going in to work for me means going to court, and like any other workplace, it has its characters.* Go often enough, and you begin to recognize the ones with recurring roles: the court officers who rotate metal detector and wanding duties at the courthouse entrance, the window clerk snatching bites of her bacon-and-egg sandwich between customers, the slightly frumpy court attorney with rapid-fire speech who flutters about the judge like an anxious satellite...


This is not including the various shades of lawyer there to represent and defend clients: there's the 40- or 50-something ponytailed lawyer whom I've never seen in a suit, always in dress shirt and slacks or khakis. Another one seems to come straight from the eighties - salt-and-pepper goatee, unkempt salt-and-pepper mullet, rumpled suit, sometimes sneakers. He's usually short and impatient with his client's opponents. Another of the attorneys always seems to be in a bad mood, her face a puffy red as she galumphs off to another appearance, files tucked under one arm and uncoordinated purse swinging wildly about.

And of course you can't forget the judges. I only see one of them with any regularity, but he's a hoot. In contrast to his surname, Judge Little is a giant of a man who looks especially imposing when he strides into the courtroom, black robe streaming behind him. Everything about this 50- or 60-something figure is broad and measured: his frame, his gestures, and especially his speech. Little speaks as though each word were a particularly tough morsel that he must bite and chew carefully: he bares his teeth before speaking, and enunciates every syllable in a slightly gravelly, even tone. He uses the same tone even when he's joking, so it's difficult to tell at first. I remember how he prefaced one occasion when we'd appeared before him for at least the eighth time in a contentious case. To our client: "Ms. Cutler, Mr. Perfiglio has said he wants to write you a check and be done with everything." Turning to Perfiglio: "Ms. Cutler has said she is very happy with your concessions and never wants to come back here again. So what do you need me for?"

Judge Little asks tough questions of both sides, and you'd be afraid of him generally, except for moments like these. Every so often he'll also take out a large plastic container from behind the bench and start offering candy to everyone in the courtroom like a sombre St. Nick.

Nearly ten months after being on the job, it seems my own character has acquired a name: "HP Girl," referring to the type of case I usually work on. Never mind about the inaccuracy of calling a woman a girl. I've arrived at last and can now join the circus performers who make up New York's courts.

*Names in this post have been changed to protect privacy.

Holding the Door Open

I know an actor, who, though straight, went through a spate of roles playing lesbians. Discussing this, she commented that there must have been something about her that brought out the lesbian in others, given that a good percentage of the women she'd kissed finally realized they were gay. My flippant mind quickly responded with a tagline per magic bullets seen on TV: "Unsure if you're in the closet? Just one kiss and all your sexual identity issues will disappear like that!"

Never trust infomercials.

Recipe

NPR once did a report on people who made charts and graphs of various life experiences - quantifying the qualitative. For example one woman made a graph spanning several years of the number of her random hook-ups, a couple rated then averaged each of their perceptions of how good the sex was, etc etc.

Springing off this general idea, here is my "recipe" for a typical meal:

Main Dish
1/16-1/8 parts oil, fats, SPICES
1 part meat or protein
2 parts vegetables
2 parts carbs...aka rice

Drink
Water

Dessert
1/2 to 1 part

Midnight Oil

You know the feeling of being exhausted by the day's events yet unable, nay, unwilling to sleep? Unwilling to let go of these feelings and experiences and thoughts toss-tumbling in the head to simply lose the self in oblivion, to be dead to the world. On those nights, the body slumps forcefully towards rest, and yet something wants to hold on to consciousness, to feeling, to being present. A small something that wishes to remain connected to the world of the thinking, breathing, living. Of intention, and not Morpheus' realm of unconscious chaos.

Well, this is it.

They Eat Trees in Canada

I think this John Stewart quip from yesterday's Daily Show must have prompted one particular part of my dream last night. In it, I stood on a bridge overlooking some body of water, trying to ward away a trio of anthropomorphized beavers. They wore wigs or hats, and faded tags that warned people to hum or maintain eye contact in order to avoid being attacked. So I stood on that bridge, staring down these beavers while striving to hum them away.

Dreams as bizzare as this occur so frequently that they no longer warrant a "Wtf?" moment upon waking.

The Upwellings of Memory

I like when memories take you by surprise, that sudden recollection of smell or sound or sight that comes unbidden. You again possess knowledge of what was perhaps lost, another piece of yourself has returned to you.

Today I was doing some research on David Sedaris, and how he had gotten his big break reading his "SantaLand Diaries" essay on NPR back in 1992. The description triggered a memory, though I didn't even know who Sedaris was at the time - I had heard this broadcast. Christmas week, 2004. A hotel room in New York City, my first visit there. I'd turned on the radio, tuned it to NPR, a holiday broadcast. I specifically recall Sedaris singing a carol in the style of Billie Holiday (I didn't know who she was then, either).

Just to be sure, I found the broadcast online, and listened to it. Yep. David Sedaris, singing like Billie Holiday.

I remembered.

Street Talk

Snippets gleaned from the street.

Morning - a hoarse, moderately low male voice with a New York accent:
"She was a real looker back in her day."

Morning - brisk weather, a woman with sharp gestures and punching delivery:
"In general, stagehands are assholes."