I meant to take at least one photo of my jury duty outfit, since it was kinda cute.  But after wasting 4 hours being questioned by lawyers who had probably summarily decided to kick me about 10 minutes in…I was kinda cranky.  It was for a criminal case, armed robbery.  While I will say the questions (a/k/a voir dire, which usually have to be submitted to the court in advance, and when we have this deadline, I abbreviate it “VD” because I can) were somewhat repetitive, some people’s answers surprised me.

There was a woman who looked very average, kind of pretty, wearing conservative clothes, pretty quiet….and she’d just finished a deferred sentence for grand larceny.  A couple of other panelists had relatives who were fugitives.  A quiet little retired teacher had a son in jail for kiddie porn.  Someone three years younger than me had GREAT GRANDCHILDREN?!

None of the interesting people made the cut.  Neither did any person of the same race as the Defendant (in fact, one of those was 15 minutes late coming back from lunch and the judge had him arrested.  Which is legal…you can’t be dodging jury duty or ignoring a judge.  Judges hate that).  Mostly, it looked like they were going for the quiet people who didn’t really answer any questions.  I’m not really sure whether they decided to boot me because I worked in the legal field, or if they didn’t like my answers.  The prosecutor asked each of us what we would change if we could make one change to the justice system, and I said “abolish the death penalty.”  Which is true.  If I had to pick one thing, that would be the thing.

Why? It’s not applied fairly across socioeconomic lines; it costs more for the state to kill people than to lock them up without parole; it forces doctors to violate the Hippocratic Oath in providing drugs to kill people; and, most importantly….INNOCENT PEOPLE HAVE BEEN EXECUTED.  If there is the possibility that even one innocent human dies at the hands of the state, we cannot in good conscience allow that penalty to be applied to anyone.  To me, this is a responsibility of the system.  A lot of people have heard of the Innocence Project. Well, they have had people released from jail. You cannot un-kill someone.

When I made the comment, the prosecutor was like “you know this isn’t a death penalty case, right?” I replied, “yes, or you would have asked about it by now.” Maybe that’s what did it.

Whatever. I did my civic duty. State court is bullshit, though. In federal court, I got $45 a day plus parking. State is $20, no parking. Between lunch and parking, there’s my $20 and then some…but I did eat a delicious cheeseburger for lunch.

I had an outfit planned for today, as well, because I thought I’d have to go back.  While part of me was like “fuck dressing up” (seriously, my jury duty look was way dressier than work), the other part was like “you already made sure this was de-wrinkled and hanging in the front of the closet, just put on your grownup clothes and quit being dumb.”  They’re not uncomfortable clothes, but they did require the wearing of the required wrestling uniform:

tights.

I have made so many attempts to rid my tights drawer of the runny, saggy, droopy, and otherwise annoying tights, yet the pair I put on today (a) had a run in the toe, and (b) were falling down by 10 am.   I just threw them in the trash.

On to the adulting clothes:

The skirt, shirt, and sweater vest are all from Universal Standard, size XL (26/28).  They’re in the process of expanding their size range, so the tee is now available in a 6/8 and a 30/32.  These are all good quality pieces, are soft and comfy, and can be mixed & matched.  (I was also pleased to note that, even if the colors of the skirt and tee looked different on the website, they were the same color IRL.)  (However, the fanny pack revival is still stupid.)

I’m not sure of the origin of the tights.  I suspect Catherine’s, and I think it’s because they were out of the taller size…but I’m not positive.  The boots are old as hell and are made by Fitzwell.  I suppose technically they do: the footbed is the right length and width, and the calf circumference is just right…but they’re not very comfortable, even with my go-to insoles. I’m about a 10.5 C/D shoe, and the women’s ones fit exactly right in all my shoes. That’s the advantage of being bigfoot, I guess…I never have to trim insoles?  I just threw on a minimalist necklace that I think maybe came from Lane Bryant a while ago.

The length of the skirt really isn’t my favorite, but it doesn’t look as awkward as I thought it would.  I do wish they would make one that was about 4 inches shorter, though.   I think without boots, this length might not work so well.  Boots fix lots of things.  They’re really my favorite type of shoes.  As much as I love my Birkenstocks and my flip flops, I always feel more secure in my footing (and in my style) with boots on.  As an added bonus, no one knows if your socks match.

I also probably should have worn a jacket today, because it was kinda chilly, but I hate coats and my nice hoodie had hanger wrinkles and I didn’t realize this until it was too late to remove them.

Fuck it.  I have lots of insulation.