I took meticulous notes at jury duty. They are unstructured and underwhelming, much like my jury duty experience. Enjoy!

It took me an hour and a half to drive here. I'm in a room full of white people-- literally, we are all white. Truly a jury of my peers. The website told me to pack some work to do and some snacks, a suggestion I have never taken lightly. Then, when I arrived, the security guard made a joke about how I don't travel lightly. UM, SIR, I WAS FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS? I joked back, "I am a nester." I'm like a mom with a huge bag full of toys for her toddler, but I am also like the toddler.

There are two middle aged white men sitting in the front row of this jury waiting room. They have nothing and everything in common in the way that only white men can. 

Now we're watching a video, and this judge keeps gesticulating wildly and saying that I, Kelly Fine, am advancing the cause of justice. He said the justice system relies on me! He pointed at me with finger guns! He said he knows I can "rise to the occasion" when I get to the jury box. I hope he's right!

Oh God, the history section of this video starts at the Magna Carta. We're going to be here a while.

People are really proud of the Massachusetts constitution, which ALLEGEDLY was used as a guide for the US constitution. I forget that people are proud to be from states other than Texas. I wonder when I'll stop forgetting that. Probably never, I guess!

Women couldn't serve on a jury until 1950. We have come so far but not like THAT far.

"Today our juries are diverse in every way," the video preaches to us, a choir of white people.

The video is done. Now we sit. My phone battery is already down to 78%.

That 15 minute video earned us a 30 minute break! So I jogged to the corner store and purcahsed some tampons, because you never know, and I can't think of a worse place to free bleed than a courthouse in Wrentham, Massachusetts, USA. Now the tampon box is sticking out of my backpack and the man next to me looks concerned, so I just looked him in the face and dry swallowed 2 advil without breaking eye contact. Watch me advance the cause of justice while my insides are screaming in pain, sir. #ImWithHer

It's been an hour, so our half hour break is officially over. I'm down to 67% and I'm getting nervous about it.

This courthouse is the cardboard tampon applicator of courthouses. 

We are still waiting. I beat level 570 of Two Dots! My battery is at 54% :(

Now it's almost noon, and we get to go home. They didn't need a jury after all. I feel like I've certainly risen to this occasion. 

I've always been a little weird about birthdays. I am generally very happy with my job and my friends and my life and yet, without fail, I wake up every birthday with the feeling that a few dozen boxes of Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix have fallen on my little toe, pointy corner first.

So when I woke up last Friday, I was unsurprised by the anxiety. But this year was a little different. 24, for whatever reason, was always going to be a particular beast of a birthday for me. Growing up, I pinned a lot of hopes and dreams and goals on 24. Here are all the ones I remember. 

By 24 I would have:

1. A husband. Most likely a dashing man I met in college, probably in a literature class, probably after making a complex observation about how Thoreau would have been a lot happier if he'd installed a water slide on Walden Pond.
2. Twins. I desperately wanted a twin as a child, and when it became apparent that I (most likely) was not going to have a twin sister, I decided that I would settle for mothering a pair or two. Oh, the hijinks my identical blonde daughters, Mary Kate and Ashley, and I would get into together! Nothing in my genetics indicates that I will give birth to twins, let alone blonde twins. But hey. Anything can happen at 24.
3. A PhD in something. Whatever is easiest to get. I've never been interested in working very hard, and I didn't think that would change by 24. It hasn't!
4. A job editing the New Yorker.  Ask me if I've ever read the New Yorker. I haven't! Literally not even once.
5. My standing back tuck, even without the aide of the spring floor. 
6. A savings account I could access without my mom's permission. I nailed this one.
7. 3,000,000 twitter followers. I'm so close!
8. Fans, just in general. In 2nd grade we wrote a little book called "The Story Of My Life," and mine ended with this exact quote: "Everyone will clap for me. I will be beautiful and everyone will love me. I will be magnificent."
9. I would be beautiful
10. I would be magnificent
11.  And finally, I would have a closet full of beige bras with thick, supportive straps. I've always been a realist about lingerie. 

Here I am at 24, with almost none of those things. But I'm doing alright. I guess 25 is when the real fun starts.