Civic Doody

Yesterday was gray and rainy and I felt a bit under the weather. I've had a near cold for the past couple of days and I think it is starting to wear me down. Also, the uncertainty of everything going on in my life is draining. Jesse gave me a pep talk yesterday afternoon and practically kicked me out of the apartment to attend my monthly education committee meeting a the local preservation organization. A light bulb clicked on in my head as we were discussing programming for the upcoming 2009-2010 season. Each year, the organization presents a lecture series on three local architects and one of the members was talking about how they wish that we could have some more modern architects in the lineup -- Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill came up in the discussion. That led to me finding out that the heritage center has a large collection of SOM papers (left by a former member who worked in the Portland office for over 30 years).

So, what did I do? I volunteered to create a lecture program on SOM's influence in Portland. I figured that if I can't find work, then I'll make work and have a great time. It's my civic duty to inform the public about modernism in Portland right? The moment I spoke up, I had a flashback to first grade when I was very eager to tell Mrs. Mills, my teacher, that my mom was an expert seamstress (she ended up sewing a billion monkey costumes for the class performance that year). At this point, I'm not sure if I'm crazy or not, but the prospect of writing and possibly presenting a lecture is pretty exciting. Most importantly though, if I am up to my elbows in volunteer work and commit myself to doing this, then I'm bound to get offered a full time position somewhere. That's just how things seem to work lately.

Speaking of civic duty, the excitement of my meeting was quickly squelched when I checked the mailbox and saw a big fat envelope from the US District Court of Oregon. Jury duty. Geez, they don't waste any time do they? I was just talking to my good friend, Lauren, the other day while she was waiting for jury selection and bragged that I have never been called for duty. Payback. I completely deserve this. Although, getting called for duty right now is a pretty good thing. I have all the free time in the world, so bring it! I'm ready to see our justice system in action. I chuckled to myself when I was filling out the question bubbles (with my no. 2 Ticonderoga pencil) when I got to the section that asked if I had any disabilities that would prevent me from serving as a juror. I kept thinking about that 30 Rock episode where Liz Lemon dressed up as Princess Leia when she got called for jury duty in NY (because it always got her off the jury in Chicago). I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work in Portland either. We have some strange birds hanging around town.