VOIR DIRE
Notes & Sketches from Jury Duty, My Accidental Cure for Night Sweats, A New Indie Press for Midlife Women and More!
Thanks for subscribing to In With The Old! You’re all swell! If you enjoy reading these posts, I’ve listed a few things in the cute graphic below that will help people find me. ⬇️
Hiya Friends,
What a 💩 month, eh? I hope you’re all doing whatever you need to do stay sane. I’ve had a lot of distractions including, but not limited to, the dormant arthritis in my shoulder awakening with a vengeance after three drops of rain fell from the sky.
We don’t get a lot of precipitation here in Los Angeles and it had been so long since my rain-induced shoulder pain had flared up, I’d forgotten all about it. Sadly, this pain had not evacuated the premises. No, it had just been biding its time, growing ever stronger in a hidden crypt somewhere in my shoulder, and waiting for the right moment to strike.
One night, whilst watching one of my British murder shows called “Until I Kill You,” which, incidentally, is also the title of my shoulder pain’s one-man show, I started to feel the ache. By the next morning, the stabbing pain was so intense that when I walked the dog, I let out a series of gasps that sounded like I’d just encountered an army of ghosts (HUUNNHH!!!). Thankfully, Noodle (our dog) is 18 and retired from the Critter Patrol Squad. He doesn’t make any sudden moves. If he sees a squirrel, he’ll glance at it for a beat, then go back to sniffing a blade a grass for twenty minutes.
As for my shoulder, I’m happy to report that heat, ice, and advil helped quell the agony and it’s mostly okay now. Of course once the pain started to dissipate, I caught a cold. That was about four days before I was set to host thirteen people for Thanksgiving. So yeah, thanks a lot, Donald Dump Truck!
TO SPEAK THE TRUTH
Before the shoulder pain and sickness settled in for a visit, I had jury duty. I suppose I’d “served” jury duty in the past, or rather I’d dialed the jury hotline for several consecutive days until I was dismissed, and/or I sat around a courthouse for a day until I was dismissed. But I’d never before gone through the voir dire process. Quick side note: Contrary to what I learned in French class, the translation of “voir dire” in this case is NOT to see and to say!! It actually means “To speak the truth.” And here I thought “vrai” meant truth. 🤷🏻♀️ Well, it turns out that all of these things are “true.” (I encourage fluent French speakers to please weigh in!)
From Old French voir "true" (from Latin verus "true," from PIE root *were-o- "true, trustworthy") and from Old French dire "to say" (from Latin dicere "speak, tell, say," from PIE root *deik- "to show," also "pronounce solemnly").[1]
It originally referred to an oath taken by jurors to tell the truth (Latin: verum dicere).[2] It comes from the Anglo-Norman language.
French confusion aside, I made the voir dire cut this time around and let me tell you, this process felt a bit like sitting in gridlocked traffic in a foreign country, ergo, very tedious and slow, and yet also a strangely fascinating way to observe the locals.
I’m not allowed to talk about the trial since it’s ongoing, but I think I can share some generalizations without giving away any sensitive information. What I’ll say about the voir dire process is this: A lot of people don’t exactly speak the truth when they’re trying to get out of jury duty. Go figure. Truth is very hard to come by these days, isn’t it? (I’m looking at you, Donald Dump Truck and your incompetent band of super villains aka government appointees.) *sigh* The judge tried to preempt dumb excuses by explaining to everyone that doing our civic duty is an honor, and the reason jury duty isn’t a volunteer opportunity is because the only way to ensure that jurors represent a cross-section of society is to recruit people at random. It was a valiant speech and I applauded the judge’s efforts, but it mostly fell on plugged ears.
Now, it’s important to note that at this stage in the trial game, we potential jurors had yet to hear a shred of evidence from either side. The judge read a very brief summary of the case to give us a sense of what to expect. Post-summary, several people piped up that they couldn’t possibly be fair and impartial because, allegedly, aspects of the description of the case were triggering. In other words, let’s say this case involved someone suing a barber for a bad haircut (for the record, this trial had nothing to do with barbers). Just hearing the words “barber” and “haircut” elicited a lot of requests for dismissal due to bad haircut trauma. I sat right behind the lawyers, so I was able to spy on them as they scribbled juror excuses on post-it notes and stuck the notes on a grid/seating chart to remember who had said what.
To try to unpack perceived biases, the judge and lawyers then proceeded to ask each juror a lot of follow up questions. Questions like, “Did you complain to the barber about your bad haircut?” “How did the barber respond?” “Were you satisfied with the barber’s attempt to fix the mess on your head?” And though this part of jury selection moved at a glacial pace, I was struck by the careful consideration that went into deciding whether a person would be a reasonable juror.
Throughout the day, we were given short breaks and lunch breaks. Instead of staring at my phone to pass the time, I drew quick sketches of my fellow jurors in my notebook. I’m not allowed to tell you much about these people as some of them may or may not be active jurors. Suffice it to say that many of these folks restored my faith in humanity. During voir dire, the lawyers asked jurors what they did for a living. This turned out to be my absolute favorite part of the day. Despite all evidence to the contrary, many people are still using their powers for good. One juror develops cancer treatments for animals (!), and another juror teaches job skills to special-needs teens so that they’ll be able to collect paychecks as adults.
The juror in the sketch above (on the right) brought along her husband (guy on the left) to keep her company. While we were in the courtroom, her husband sat in the lobby solving puzzles in his word-search book. It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. I also made a buddy at jury duty (Hi, Cat!), who now subscribes to this Substack. She’s getting married very soon. Feel free to wish her congratulations in the comment section.
It took a day and a half of interrogations and when it was finally time to fill the jury box, the lawyers quickly dismissed anyone who’d ever had a questionable haircut (again, the case wasn’t really about haircuts).
Though I would’ve happily served my civic duty and not complained, I never made it into the jury box. The trial is set to begin soon, so mums the word on this post, and may all your haircuts be cute and free from trauma.
MY ACCIDENTAL NIGHT SWEAT CURE!
As I mentioned above, we’d planned to host 13 people for Thanksgiving and a head cold was not on the menu. As soon as my nose started to run, I binge drank a ton of those little bottles of ginger, turmeric, cayenne, and lemon juice concoctions aka “Immunity Boosters” sold at Trader Joe’s. ⬇️ I believe they do help!
I also swallowed Mucinex every twelve hours and took cold medicine. At night, I grated ginger into hot water and drank cup after cup until it was time to go to bed. I started to feel better, but the real miracle took place the first morning I woke up and realized I was still wearing my nightshirt. This was very unusual. As a woman of a certain age, I’m a hot sleeper and suffer from night sweats. In the wee hours, I usually tear off my nightshirt like it’s on fire. Sometimes I even sleep with an ice pack next to my pillow to avoid spontaneous combustion. But after I awoke TWO mornings in a row still clad in my nightshirt, I thought, wait, what’s happening? Could the ginger be staving of my night sweats? I know that ginger is packed full of antioxidants and offers a myriad of health benefits so I did a bit of Googling and by Jove, the answer is yes! “According to another study published in Climacteric: The Journal of the International Menopause Society, ginger extract has been found to significantly reduce night sweats associated with menopause.” DID ANYONE ELSE KNOW THIS? AND IF SO, WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME?? I guess the trick is to take ginger in small doses because it’s a spicy/hot root and ingesting too much can have the adverse effect. If you try this, please report back and let me know if your night sweats vanish.
MIDLIFE WOMEN UNITE!
Back in 2019, I completed an essay collection called Old Soul about my friendships with older adults and how those relationships shaped the woman I am today. I sent that essay collection to an agent named Judy who’d been fond of the cookbook I coauthored. After reviewing my pages, Judy wrote that she absolutely loved the book and my writing, but she didn’t think she could sell my essay collection for a couple of reasons. Number one: our cookbook sales were too soft, she’d said. Number two: I didn’t have a “platform.” “It's almost impossible to harness publisher interest unless the author's name is well-known, the author is an expert or authority, or the author has a large following that wants to know more,” she said. Other agents and our cookbook editor told me the same thing. Several folks suggested I reframe the book to make it more of a straight forward lessons-learned-from-older adults type book. There was just one problem—I didn’t want to write that book. I’d already put a lot of my heart and time into my book and I didn’t think shapeshifting it was the right call. Judy suggested I pitch some chapters to magazine editors and said that sometimes a popular article can lead to a book deal. So that’s what I did.
The editor-in-chief of Los Angeles Magazine at the time, Maer Roshan, published one of these pieces as a cover story in 2020, and in 2023, he published a second chapter. On both occasions, strangers reached out to tell me how much they’d enjoyed the stories, and that my writing had made them laugh and cry. Well, as you’ve probably gathered, the publication of those pieces didn’t lead to a book deal.
And that’s okay, as Stuart Smalley would say. I printed out those reader comments and pasted them to my wall. Any time I feel low and platform-less, I read those letters and they fill my heart with joy. I pretty much gave up on selling my manuscript and accepted that the traditional publishing world isn’t really interested in what I have to say. I know a lot of incredibly talented writers in the same position. So imagine my utter delight and excitement to read about the launch of Empress Editions—an indie press dedicated to publishing the work of women in midlife! See details below.
Introducing Empress Editions: A Publishing Revolution for Midlife Women, by Midlife Women
We’re thrilled to announce the launch of Empress Editions, an innovative indie press dedicated to amplifying the voices of midlife women and transforming the publishing landscape. With a vision born from bold ideas and shaped by global insights—from paper to fulfillment—we’re setting out to rewrite the rules of publishing and storytelling for midlife audiences.
Why Empress Editions?
It’s simple. Traditional publishing often sidelines midlife voices and stories, and even when they’re featured, the financial model is overwhelmingly stacked against authors. Most publishers claim 85-90% of a book’s revenue, leaving authors with just a small fraction. At Empress Editions, we’re flipping that script. We believe authors deserve the bulk of the earnings for their creativity and hard work.
Our Vision for the Future
In our first year, we’ll publish six incredible books—three nonfiction and three fiction—featuring the voices of midlife women. Our nonfiction focuses on self-help and memoir, while our fiction lineup celebrates romance and its many sub-genres. Why romance? Because midlife deserves love stories that reflect its richness, diversity, and passion.
From steamy, authentic tales to actionable guides, Empress Editions will challenge stereotypes and celebrate the messy, magical middle of life.
You know, a lot of people see a problem and just complain about it or, like me, just accept the things we think we can’t change. What I find so incredibly badass and inspiring about about the women behind Empress Editions is that they are actually taking matters into their hands and being the change they want to see in the world. If you’re able, please sign up, subscribe, and buy everything Empress Editions is selling. This is how we effectively smash the patriarchy and agism and sexism and all the isms! Click the link below to get on board!
A quick health tip: According to a study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, if you’re not a very active person, just walking one hour a day can add 5.3 years to your life! Doesn’t sound like much now, but it might when you’re 90. :)
PS: It’s Mercury Retrograde AGAIN! This time it ends on December 15th so don’t sign any contracts if you can avoid it, and be prepared for 💩 to break.
Okay. That’s a wrap for today. Hope the month of December brings you more joy and less agita.
Um, I’m sorry, but i subscribed to a Substack for the first time ever so I could read the work of the world’s kindest fellow (selection) juror and discovered not only a shoutout but that she’s an incredible writer?! Consider me hooked.
Hope your shoulder is feeling better and your cold has subsided. I loved your sketches. Over the years, I've been selected to be a juror in not one but TWO murder cases (two different juries!) In both cases, I learned so much about trials, my fellow humans, and my own capacity as an active listener. I think often about these two experiences and feel very grateful for both of these opportunities to do my civic duty. I love your essay collection idea (and your essays, in general) and am excited to hear about this new press. I think there is a bit gulf between what agents think we want to read and what we actually want to read. I, for one, will always read what you write.