nightmusic's Open Salon Blog

Think Like a Dog, Be Like A Building

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 16:08:24 -0400

My mother, an architectural draftsperson, once told me that buildings are made to bend. At the time I was about ten and was incredibly disturbed by the idea that skyscrapers could move and flex. I wanted then to be stronger than that. I have never liked the idea of something so large, so seemingly solid, being changed by the wind. However, after my recent move to a dry and hot city in Israel I see those buildings differently. In the middle of the desert, I’m starting to understand that strength requires adaptation.

These days, for me, adaptation means thinking like a dog. It is really hot in Israel. I was warned beforehand that the months of July and August would be maliciously warm. However, nothing could have prepared me for the reality of walking out of the Tel Aviv airport terminal into a wall of sun and heat mortared with humidity.

I have never been very good in the heat. My ideal temperature is 62°. Any hotter than that and I start to transform into a different person. I perspire, my mouth gets dry, for some unknown reason my face turns bright red and I become increasingly angry at the world. I’m like a heat-activated version of the Hulk.

Currently, the temperature regularly climbs to at least 100°. Needless to say, the last few weeks have not been pretty. The only way I’ve managed to cope is by mimicking my dog. I find the shade and stay in it for as long as possible. This includes standing in the rail thin shadows of lampposts while waiting for street lights to change. I also walk like a hunchback, crouching until I am beneath the protection of four-foot tall bushes. I also drink lots of water, and occasionally I can be caught panting.

I’m also learning to find joy in the small things. My dog gets so excited about the simplest of things. A new squeaky toy is as good as winning the lottery, bacon is better. I used to think I was good at finding joy anywhere: a good book, coffee with a friend, the small everyday miracles of art and community. Now, I realize that I was full of it. Everyone finds joy in friends and coffee and hobbies that they enjoy. It doesn’t require a particularly positive or spiritual person to be happy in the presence of what they love. Currently, the high point of my week has been being able to tell someone the time in broken Hebrew, and I was seriously ecstatic about being able to have that conversation. I wanted to do a backflip, but it was the middle of the day and too damn hot for any form of physical activity.

I am a creature of habit. I like having a routine, a plan for the next week and the next year. I like being surrounded by people I know, by familiar things. I moved here not knowing anyone, and it can be terribly lonely. My classmates are all wonderful, but I am an introverted person with an anxiety disorder. This doesn’t lend itself to quickly forming friendships. The lack of connection, coupled with the heat, the stress of a new culture and a huge move, can be disheartening.

So I go for walks in the evening and say a prayer of thanks for the cool breezes. I try to find humor in my mistakes: like coming home with a liter of milk only to open the carton and discover it was sour cream. In the heat of the day, I stop to admire the local plants. The desert is a surprisingly lush place. Bougainvillea, cacti and hibiscus flowers grow everywhere. I’m told this is nothing compared to what it looks like after the rain though, when all the flowers and dormant seeds awake and make themselves known; sprouting, blooming, savoring the small window of opportunity.

During the planning process many people asked me why I was moving here. I always had a hard time explaining it. I never had any particular desire to see Israel and going to medical school outside of the United States puts me at a disadvantage in my later career. By way of explanation I usually referred to one of my favorite Nathaniel Hawthorne quotes. I told people I wanted to “plant my roots in unaccustomed earth.” These words are the best way I have to encapsulate my scattered reasons and the vague intuition that told me this was the place I should be.

I have moved many times in my life. Although in prior moves the transition has never been so abrupt or extreme, I have always found that I have been challenged and strengthened by change. To some extent, I moved to this country to be hot and uncomfortable, to be lonely, to be different. As I struggle to find roots here, this knowledge is what keeps me going. I moved here, so that I could adapt.

I am learning to bend with the wind. I’m still not very good at it. I probably won’t be good at it for a very long time. Somedays I’m so happy to be here that I want to skip down the street singing at the top of my lungs. Somedays I’m so sad that I want to curl into a ball and cry. But I am learning to cope with the highs and lows. I reach out to these people I don’t know very well. I force myself into social situations. I try to speak Hebrew with anyone who is patient enough to listen.

I also buy a lot of ice cream. The corner store near my apartment sells Magnum ice cream bars for 10 shekels apiece. I usually wouldn’t spend the equivalent of $2.50 on an ice cream bar from a gas station, but on hot days it is the only way to stay sane. I’ve seen a few of these ice cream bars that were dropped on the pavement and left to melt and ooze all over the cobbled sidewalks. As I walk by I try not to think about how much I resemble them, drenched in sweat and turning bright red, melting beneath the desert sun.

Right now I’m a puddle, but someday I’d like to think I’ll be a desert flower. I’ll be tough and beautiful, flexible enough to bloom when it rains and hide when it doesn’t. I’ll be strong enough to thrive even in harsh environments.

The Coldest Winter

Sat, 4 Aug 2012 15:08:31 -0400

On February 14, 2008 I found myself sitting in a locked and windowless classroom on the Northern Illinois University campus. The room was half filled with students and staff. Some of them belonged to our department. Others had never set foot in our building before that day.

We were on the top floor and we could hear helicopters circling overhead. Some belonged to the police. Some belonged to news stations. The room was hot and, although it was large, I felt claustrophobic. But we had been instructed not to leave. No one knew what had happened, except that there had been a shooting of some kind and that we were supposed to shelter in place.

Some students had smart phones, and provided sporadic updates, all of which turned out to be false. First there were multiple shooting locations, then there were multiple shooters. The shooters were apprehended, then they were at large. There were so many wounded and at least 10 were dead. After two hours we were told that the situation was contained and were instructed to leave campus. No further details were given.

It wasn’t until I watched the news that evening that I was finally able to piece together an accurate account of what had happened. There was one shooter and one location, a large lecture hall located a two minute walk from the building I worked in. I had taken a class in that room the semester before. I knew it well. Five were dead, six if the report included the shooter Steven Kazmierczak, which it usually didn’t.

My phone rang for most of the night. I finally took to facebook to assure my friends and family that I was alive and well. I spent most of my evening staring at the walls, pacing the floor of my bedroom and obsessively checking my work email. I had never felt so unsure of what to do with myself. Around 8pm I was informed by email that the entire university would be closed for the rest of the week. I finally went to bed at 9:30. I wasn’t tired, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

I want to be clear. I had never really considered myself a part of the NIU community. At the time of the shooting I had lived in DeKalb for five months. I had moved there to take a job at NIU. It had not been an easy transition. I referred to that fall as the season of plagues. It started with the flash floods in August. This was followed by an Asian beetle infestation, swarms of black gnats so thick it was impossible to go outside without swallowing a few of them, torrential Fall rains and the worst winter in anyone’s memory. The university was closed for a day in December due to an anonymous shooting threat.

On top of this the department I worked for was dysfunctional and work was miserable. By the time February came I was worn down by the cold and the short days and the constant, small catastrophes. I had already informed my supervisor that I would not be returning the following year. I did not know any of the victims or anyone who was in Cole Hall when the shooting took place. Yet I was there. I was a witness to this surreal event and it’s aftermath. It is a strange thing to find oneself adjacent to tragedy, to share space with ghosts and mourners. It is impossible not to be affected by it.

In the weeks that followed details emerged about the shooter, and the news channels picked his life apart. He was a paranoid schizophrenic with a history of violent tendencies and institutionalizations; a love of violent movies, metal music and an obsession with weapons. Around campus these details became a language, a way of translating the unintelligible darkness that filled our short days. He was troubled, people said. Why didn’t anyone see how troubled he was?

Steven Kazmierczak’s history sparked the usual questions. How was a paranoid schizophrenic able to legally obtain three semi-automatic handguns and a duffel bag full of ammunition? Did we need more or less gun control? How could this have been prevented? Who was at fault?

The political debate filled the airwaves. It took over after the first few days of reporting when there were no new facts about the shooting and no new tragedy to replace it. I barely heard any of it. On campus, we existed in a different reality. The rest of the world kept moving and we stayed where we were, still and frozen.

January had been cold in DeKalb and February was even colder. Snow fell on candlelight vigils. Bouquets; mementos and cards were wedged into snow banks. News images of our campus showed people swaddled in coats and scarves standing transfixed in front of Cole Hall, the only visible movement coming from the small clouds their breath made in the frigid air.

I left a mandatory grief counseling and training session and went to my office for the first time in a week. I wanted to check in on things, remind myself where I had left off. I stayed later than I meant to, and it was dark when I left. The snow swirled around my feet as I walked across the dark and silent campus. My hooded outer coat covered my ears, muffling external noise and magnifying the sounds of my breath as I leaned into the wind. I walked from my office to my house without seeing another human. I unlocked the door of my tiny, dark apartment and peeled off all my snowy outer layers. It felt like I was the only person on earth.

The seasons waited on our grief. The snow continued falling into March and Spring came mercifully late. The air was cold and clean when the students returned to campus. Hundreds of counselors walked the campus with color-coded arm bands pinned to the their coats. In the days following the shooting, Mental health professionals flew in from all over the United States to help train our staff, and then stayed for several weeks to help shepherd students through their first days back on campus. Many of them were directors of university counseling centers. They were all volunteers.

Community members came to campus to assist in any way they could. Some made memorial ribbons and food. Handlers walked around with therapy dogs during the first few weeks after classes resumed. I knew a few of them from my time volunteering at the local nursing home. I was used to seeing them around the aged. I associated them with decay and could never reconcile their presence in a place where youth and life and promise should rule.

A media shanty town sprang up on campus. There were satellite trucks and reporters clutching cups of coffee, bouncing up and down to stay warm. Cameras appeared at the back of churches during service and hovered like gnats around the edges of candlelight vigils. Every night there were images of students, some of whom I knew, clustered in groups, faces lit by the tiny candles in their hands. We were clutching at any source of warmth, and the world was watching us do it. Somehow our campus had become the star of a macabre reality show. Tragedy in the Heartland, new episode at 10.

Eventually the media went away, the snow melted, the ground thawed and life returned to campus. Flowers and greenery took root in the soil. Students smiled more easily. We laughed in the hallways and walked more easily through campus, breathing in the warm Spring air. “A new normal” asserted itself as the grief counselors had assured us it would. If not for the makeshift memorials around campus no one would have known what had happened only a few months before.

The semester ended, and by the time fall came I was in a new state with a new job. I am twenty-seven now. The same age as the shooter was. I will always be older than four of the victims were when they died. I don’t think about the shooting often, although I can still name all the victims as easily as I can tell you my phone number. I think about them every Valentine’s Day and every time I hear about a tragedy like the one in Colorado.

At some point after the shooting, I became obsessed with Kazmierczak and others like him. I stayed up until 3am every night for weeks reading everything I could find about him, Seung-Hui Cho, Gang Lu and all of the others. I researched schizophrenia. I started seeing their faces in my dreams, and I knew I had to stop. I wanted so badly to understand. I wanted to resolve their actions for them, to make sense of the mess of their lives and the mess they had to cause before they died. But I knew I never would.

There will always be men and women who want to watch the world burn, and there will always be those waiting to photograph the flames. But there will be countless more who will show up and help sift through the ashes, who will bring food, comfort, kindness and dogs. All of it, the evil and the good, will always be a mystery to large for me to understand. The only thing I know with certainty is that the heart of this world is big. It is deeply flawed and perhaps a bit clogged from too many cheeseburgers. But it is big and it is good and it is the only thing that keeps any of us alive in this world.

Betting Big

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 15:07:58 -0400

I am a pretty good poker player when the stakes aren’t too high. Nickel poker nights with friends in Kentucky always saw me leaving with more change than I brought. I’ve played casual Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments, usually organized by coworkers, and always end up at the last table. I never take the prize though. Once I am at that final table the nerves get to me. I second-guess my own hand, other people’s bluffs and I’m never able to bet big. In all my years of playing, I think I have gone all in twice.

Overall, this is a good metaphor for how I live my life. I was raised in a family that was always teetering on the edge of destruction; both emotional and financial. We lived in a string of run down homes and got evicted more than once. We may or may not have had furniture at any given time, depending on whether or not we needed to sell it in order to pay bills. We wore hand-me-down clothing. We were barely holding our ground, and the slightest breeze of change could prove disastrous.

Stasis was always the goal. Stasis may have meant sleeping on the floor of a living room warmed by space heaters after the gas got shut off, but it was better than sleeping in a car. In all my life decisions I was painfully aware that there was no safety net if I failed. I chose safe college courses and a safe career. Big risks could mean big rewards, but they also had the potential for big losses and that was something I couldn’t afford to sustain. I had dreams and goals of the modest variety: a normal life, a family, a house that no one could take away from me. I also had dreams of a greater kind, but I didn’t dwell on those. It was best not to think about things that weren’t realistic.

Then I woke up and found all my modest goals had been achieved. I had a stable income, a home that I owned, a dog that I loved and a solid community of friends and loved ones. The past several years have been the most stable of my life. Yet they've also been some of the most dissatisfying. I achieved the goals I thought would make me feel complete, and they only made me feel more empty and more stressed.

I hated my job. The work environment was more toxic than Chernobyl and I was miserable there. My house was in constant need of repair. My dog fell ill earlier this year and required months of specialized care including surgery. None of that was really the root of my misery though. The basic problem was that I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be a doctor. I have wanted to be a doctor since I was a child, but never thought I would be capable of it and knew I couldn’t afford it. It was one of those big dreams that I thought was just too far out of reach. On a lark I applied to a medical school in Israel. I was accepted two months before classes started and I decided to go.

I have been telling myself for the past few months that I was placing a poker bet, going all in. As I waited for visas to come through and tried to make the financial acrobatics work there was a part of me that didn’t believe this would happen.

Then it did. The visas came through. I found responsible tenants for my home. I dropped my dog off with friends. I bought a ticket and got a ride to JFK.

I checked in and shortly thereafter I broke my tooth while eating a piece of pizza, and was left with half of a tooth in my mouth and half spit into a napkin. I also saw Josh Groban on his way to a flight and was convinced that I had witnessed two harbingers of doom. I freaked out a little. I called my Mom, cried in the middle of Terminal 4 and decided that I would not let creepy pop stars or traitorous teeth disrupt my fragile calm. I bought some Anbesol and got on the plane. One of the things about betting big is that you have to play the hand, regardless of the consequences.

Now that I’m here, now that the bet has paid off and the road is open before me, there is a part of me that can’t help feeling that this type of winning feels an awful lot like losing. Sitting in a foreign country, less one dog, one home and part of one tooth it is easy to think about what I am giving up. The thought that occurs to me over and over is that I am giving up all my security. I am going deeply into debt and moving to a war torn country. However, I am reminded that a few months ago I had a great deal of security and very little happiness or peace.

One of the fallacies of our modern mindset is that we seem to believe that security is some sort of financial and emotional benchmark that can be obtained, by a better job, a sound investment, a house purchase, a stable relationship. I have had all those things and I have only felt worried that I would lose them.

Everywhere I look these days I see scared and worried people. Don’t get me wrong. Things are bad out there and I know that. Still I can’t help thinking that part of the fear and worry has more to do with our inability to feel safe in our own skin. Poverty doesn't just deprive one of physical needs. It also steals the confidence of it's inhabitants. I am always worried that there won’t be enough, that I won’t be able to take care of myself or the responsibilities entrusted to me.

What I know now is that security is not a physical state, but an attitude. You get one life and you have to live as though you aren’t afraid to lose. That’s what separates the great poker players from the pretty good poker players. The really great players bet big as though they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. From now on, I plan to play that way too.

The One-Sided Competition

Mon, 9 Jul 2012 10:07:01 -0400

My older brother Joshua is the sort of person to whom things come easy. A few years ago he took up home-brewing beer. He submitted a bottle of one of his first creations to a national homebrewing contest and won second place, resulting in an all expenses paid trip to Colorado for him and 3 friends. In a family that is short and roly-poly he has managed to attain an average height and weight. He has perfect pitch and a musical ability that is unfairly matched to his complete and total lack of interest in learning an instrument. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

Our younger brother Don likes to say that Josh got all the cool genes in the family. The inference being that he and I were stuck with the left-over and less awesome pieces of our family heritage. His theory is hard to refute when you stack up the facts. I love music more than anything (this blog began as a place for me to talk about music). I tried very hard to learn an instrument, but am near tone-deaf and completely unable to keep time. I am very short and more than a little roly-poly, despite an active and healthy lifestyle.

These differences are superficial, but there are other deeper issues. My older brother has always been calm and laid back, in direct opposition to my fretful nature and hair trigger temper. Josh sailed through teen-age years and adulthood with an easy confidence and ability to make friends. At the age of 27 I still don’t feel as though I fit my own skin. Then there is the mental illness - the depression, loneliness and anxiety disorder - that has been my chief genetic inheritance and constant companion since childhood, but has never seemed to visit Josh’s heart or head.

As a small child I was not as aware of this disparity in our natural gifts. Josh and I are eighteen months apart and, being that we were born into the war zone of our parents marriage, we grew up with the camaraderie and interdependence of fellow soldiers. We shared rations and hid in bunkers together during the worst of it. We almost never fought. We couldn’t. We needed each other too much.

Josh was older though, and heavily favored by our father. Somehow as we grew into teenagers I always found myself racing to keep up with him. If Josh read a book in three weeks I would finish it in two. If he got straight A’s, I wanted an A-plus. If he played a video game well, I wanted to play it better. If he had two cavities I had better have three. I needed to win.

My brother bore this with typical equanimity. He was content to finish books in his own time and play video games for enjoyment only. It was maddening, but it might have been tolerable if we hadn’t also started college together at the ages of 12 and 13.

At the time we were both being homeschooled by our father. His definition of teaching involved sitting in the living room smoking weed and watching soap operas in his underwear, like some strange cross between the Dude and Betty Draper. He occasionally barked commands at us during the commercial breaks. These orders were usually issued through closed doors and had more to do with house cleaning than studying. In other words, as long as we did the dishes and stayed out of his way, we were pretty much free to do as we pleased.

For some children that might be a dream, but I wanted to learn. I had loved public school. My older brother and I were both fervent readers and very bright. School was one of the few places where I was singled out for doing well, and I desperately needed the escape. My dad took a couple of classes a semester at the local community college. He had been working towards a two year degree for most of the last ten years. I began begging my father to let Josh and I go to school with him. My father said that I was too young, but agreed to see if he could get his professors to allow Josh to audit the courses and possibly register for his own the next semester.

This was not surprising coming from my dad. In fact, dividing my brother and I was one of his favorite tactics, as was withholding the thing he knew we most wanted. My dad is deeply insecure and has a need to control people. A family counselor that we went to once said that my father was the most skilled manipulator she had ever met (strangely, this was the last insight that counselor was allowed to offer). My dad made it his art form, and our family was his Guernica.

Josh wanted an escape as badly as I did, and couldn’t afford to worry about whether or not I was allowed to come along for the ride. My father eventually agreed to let me go, after I was made thoroughly aware of how grateful I should be toward him. Josh and I started college together, but the damage was done. I was determined to show both my dad and Josh that I was better, smarter, more mature than either of them gave me credit for. I got better grades, joined more extra-curricular activities and took more credits. However, no matter how hard I worked or what accomplishments I attained, Josh never seemed to care that I was showing him up.

Josh never seemed to care and neither did our dad. His love and approval remained just as erratic as the swings of his bipolar disorder. Meanwhile, my parents marriage got worse and Josh and I found ourselves on opposing sides. By the time I was 15 I no longer wanted to prove myself. I just wanted to leave the battlefield. I got good grades, worked hard and moved out of our house for the last time at the age of 17. A friend picked me up in the dead of night and drove me to the room I had rented across town. I graduated college six months later, took an internship in California and never looked back.

Josh continued at his own pace. He traveled to Japan, change his major, graduated 4 years later, met and married a wonderful woman. After graduation he was offered a mid-level job as a software engineer at a California tech company. Like most things he didn’t seek it out, but it found him anyway and he accepted it.

He still works for the same company today. His wife and he are still happily married. He doesn’t love his job, but he fills his spare time with hobbies and travel. Overall he seems content. Meanwhile, I have changed jobs and moved across states at least five times. Things still come easy to him, but it doesn’t bother me as much anymore. He is still moving at his own pace and I am still chasing after myself.

During our childhood I had seen his contentment as arrogance or superiority. I think I envied his ability to accept circumstances more than anything else. As a teenager I had never been able to find a place where I felt comfortable. I thought maybe if I beat him I could find the same easy happiness he possessed. However, these days I am happy. I have good friends who accept me and all my neurosis, financial stability and a plan for my future and I still find myself just as driven and competitive. The difference is I started competing with myself. I no longer want to be the best, but I do want to grow, to change, to be better than who I was before.

My older brother and I aren’t as close as we used to be. We live on opposite coasts and lead separate lives. We exchange birthday presents and emails and talk on the phone a few times a year. We still love each other. We are still family, but, like with most war buddies, seeing each other feels like being back in ‘Nam.

Still I am keenly aware of how interconnected our paths have been. I wonder if I would be as successful and driven as I am if I hadn’t been constantly measuring myself against him. I wonder if I would have come through our childhood as whole as I am if we hadn’t shared a foxhole, if I hadn’t had him to lean on. We have both grown up. We have been through difficult times and come out stronger. We are successful and happy and compassionate. We turned out to be pretty decent human beings and we helped make each other that way.

Our sporadic phone calls usually take place because we have news to share. I still occasionally feel a pang of jealousy when Josh shares some piece of amazing news, but more than that I am happy for him. I am grateful to be able to share in his triumphs, and have him share in mine. When I called him three months ago to tell him that I was moving to a foreign country, quitting my job and starting medical school, he congratulated me warmly and offered any assistance he could provide. His reaction wasn’t a surprise. No matter where our lives take us or what news I call to share I know I will be met with acceptance.

Parking at 84 Miles An Hour

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:01:37 -0500

I don't usually park at 84 miles an hour. I don't usually park at 2 miles an hour. I got my license two years ago. I learned to drive not as an invincible, irrational sixteen year old but as a responsible, level-headed adult. As such, I am terrified of cars and tend to drive like a grandma. Actually that's not true. Frequently, as I am cruising along the highway in the slow lane I will see men and women who have long qualified for AARP membership whipping past me in their aged Cadillacs and Lincoln town cars.

I am typically a religious observer of speed limits which is why I was somewhat surprised to find myself in court 2 days after Christmas, on trial for a speeding ticket.

The saga began 2 months prior. I had been tasked with picking up some equipment in a town 2 hours away at a facility located down long winding back roads. I was driving a fifteen passenger van and didn't realize that speed is harder to feel in a bigger vehicle. When I saw the flashing lights in my rearview mirror I assumed they were for someone else and switched lanes to give the trooper room to go by me. He switched lanes too and I started to panic.

I have never done anything remotely illegal. I grew up in a permissive family. My father smoked about ten joints a day and my parents were very honest about the other illegal activities they had engaged in when younger. Just like any teenager, I sought to differentiate myself, but could only do it by walking the straight and narrow. In my family, the only way to rebel was to go to school, get a job and join the Young Republicans. The flashing lights in my rearview were the first time any law enforcement officer had any reason to notice me at all.

I pulled over and prayed for a friendly officer. Those hopes were quickly dashed. The trooper I encountered had clearly gone to the Ann Coulter school of compassion. He was no nonsense and not interested in my plight. He rolled his eyes as I fumbled around, searching for the van registration and was reproachful when he brought my ticket back. I apologized, said yes sir, no sir and drove away as quickly as possible with one eye glued to the speedometer.

Unable to stomach the thought that my insurance rates would shoot up over one mistake and disputing several of the facts the officer had listed on the ticket, I decided to plead not guilty. I checked the not guilty box on my ticket, sent it in and began a two month game of chicken with the town court.

My initial hearing was over very quickly. The prosecutor offered me a plea deal that reduced the cost of the ticket by $70 and the amount of license points by one. I raised questions about the officer's deposition and was told by the judge that I would need to go to trial, which is how I found myself in a mostly empty court two days after Christmas, as the minutes ticked away. I was pretty certain that if the cop showed up I would be sunk. Every time I heard the outer door swing open I turned to look, vaguely panicked.

Finally at ten minutes until 4:30 the judge called me up to the bench and offered me a plea deal. Two months and two court visits later, my 4 point, $75 surcharge speeding ticket had turned into a no point, no surcharge, non-moving violation. I had entered the murky woods of America's legal process with an 84 mile an hour speeding ticket and had emerged with a parking citation.

I am usually a fan of speeding laws, the police, our court system and big, messy bureaucracy in general. I understand there are flaws in the system, but still believe it is basically good. However, this process raised a number of questions for me. Why do state troopers wear those funny hats? Do prosecutors ever smile? What's the point of having incredibly punitive fines if they are so easy to circumvent? Why, during the course of my 2 court visits, had I watched people charged with much more serious crimes leave the court with unbelievably lenient plea deals? Personal injury accidents were reduced to parking tickets, a woman passing counterfeit money was released on her own recognizance and a man charged with assault left with a minor fine. Was the court actually interested in justice or just money?

I know our towns and counties are cash strapped and in need of revenue streams. But wouldn't it be simpler to charge smaller fines, refuse plea deals and free up our courts and law enforcement to pursue more serious crimes and criminals? Study after study has proved that speeding limits do little to reduce the number of accidents or stop people from speeding. I have never been on a highway where all the cars were driving the speed limit. What is the point of this system? Does it do any good?

In the end I didn't really care to find out answers to any of the larger procedural questions. I was just glad that I wouldn't have points on my license and wouldn't have to see the inside of a courtroom again. I felt something else too; a peculiar, slightly giddy buzz. I had gotten away with something. I had broken a law and not suffered the consequences. This feeling was new to me and it was intoxicating.

I could barely suppress my grin as I waited to pay my $150 fine. While the cashier was processing my payment 2 public defenders went before the judge, making brief appearances to file motions and submit paperwork. As I skipped out of the court building I ran into them in the parking lot. They both turned to look at me as though I was a crazy person. They had just watched me plead guilty to a parking ticket and pay an exorbitant fine. No sane person would feel triumphant or even remotely happy about this, but anyone who looked at me would've thought I'd gotten away with murder.