tales of a rampaging librarian

whatever happened to this Buffy voiceover intro?

2011-12-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

	1845 Boston shipyards were plagued by a series of grisly murders. The attacks ended when a quiet young woman arrived in town.
	1866: Virginia. The frequent and unexplained disappearance of local Civil War widows shocked an already grieving community. These disturbing events ended when Lucy Hanover set up camp in a nearby graveyard.
	1893: Oklahoma Territory. A series of savage attacks claimed the lives of seventeen homesteaders. The murders stopped when a young blacksmith passed through town.
	1897: Virginia City, Wyoming. A string of bizarre murders shocked this small hillside community. The killings ceased shortly after 20 year old Florence Gilbert arrived in town.
	1912: 23 New Yorkers lost their lives in the 1912 Brooklyn Boarding House Murders. The killings ended abruptly when a student nurse named Arabella Gish sought lodgings in room number 6.
	1927: Chicago. Over a period of two weeks 41 bodies were found near Union Station. Shortly after the arrival of a young woman, the mysterious murders stopped.

As long as there have been demons, there has been the Slayer. One girl in all the world, a Chosen one, born with the strength and skill to hunt vampires and other deadly creatures, to find them where they gather and to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers.

it opened the show the first season and then disappeared, never to be seen again, not on the vhs releases, not in any of the DVDs, nowhere (believe me, i know…)

Or was it just me?

damn kids…

2011-11-23T22:47:00.001-07:00

not only does this kitten act like a baby Katushka

2011-11-11T02:13:00.000-07:00

she looks like one too:

i see vampires

2011-09-24T23:07:00.000-06:00

so All My Children was never one of my addictions (that honour belonged, very briefly, to General Hospital because i was hard in teenage lust with Thaao Penghlis, then his character came to justice or died or something and i lost interest in General Hospital then, when i was fifteen, one Christmas vacation, i stumbled upon his face on some other show and thus began my thirty-year secret devotion to Days of Our Lives~when you’ve watched something for that many years it just seems inappropriate to give it up, but that is far beyond the point…)

I have other, well-known-and-no-need-to-mention reasons to be pleased by this:

Sarah Michelle Gellar returns to 'All My Children,' makes us pine for soaps' good ol' days

Sarah Michelle Gellar made her triumphant return to daytime TV today (just one week after making her triumphant return to all of TV in Ringer!), appearing in one episode of her old stomping ground, All My Children, which goes off the air for good Friday. (Sob.)
Despite saying she would be playing a whole new character, Gellar appeared as a hospital patient with amnesia who can’t remember anything about herself — except that she is Erica Kane’s (Susan Lucci) daughter, the role she originated nearly 20 years ago. One highlight? While chatting with the nurse, Gellar describes her unique condition and alludes to her future star-making role in a tongue-in-cheek way:
Gellar: “So I see vampires, that doesn’t make me crazy!”
Nurse: “No, vampires are very popular…”
Gellar: “I saw them before they were trendy!”

Gellar, who won a daytime Emmy for her work on AMC, was only in two brief scenes, but it’s nice to see her back on daytime — it helps us remember the good ol’ days when she played Kendall Hart, personal assistant and long-lost daughter to Erica, in the ’90s. Still, we forgive her for moving on to play a kick-ass heroine in a show about vampires… yes, before they were trendy.

i just can't help it

2011-09-08T06:27:00.001-06:00

i have to post this because it is so like the world i am living in:

Erin McKean redefines the dictionary | Video on TED.com

2011-06-23T14:18:00.001-06:00

why the hell can't blogger just leave my formatting alone?!?!?!

2011-05-19T16:03:00.002-06:00

Apparently, one of the ways my obsessive-compulsive tendencies make themselves known is in formatting. I want my stuff to appear the way i intend it to appear, the way i slaved over making it (for some reason i like to compose my book thoughts in the same font, or a close proximity to, as the font the book was published in {yes, i know this is strange}, i'm one of those people that actually reads the little publishing note about the typeset {and i'm annoyed if a book doesn't have one}.)

I remember when i was young (high school and college), back in the early days of word-processing that it would take me a few hours to write a paper and then something like thirteen hours to format the damn thing (and that wasn't even due to my pickiness, it had to do with the fact that the programming wasn't set up to format the page for you so you had to set each margin, line break, page break, etc. yourself just so you could meet your teacher's expectations.

Now, it seems, i take that long re-formating my blog posts (usually in HTML) just so that it appears the way i originally intended, because blogger seems to think it knows better than me and inserts new line breaks, fonts, colors, etc.

Why can't it just trust that i know what i'm doing (even if i do type all my "i"s in lower case, and otherwise knowingly disobey rules, and even if what i have decided upon is a little hard to read). And god forbid i decide to add a word or something after i finally get the formatting right in its published form because then the process has to start all over again!

I think, since i am probably the only one reading this, that my opinion and vision should take the highest priority!

E-books drive older women to digital piracy

2011-05-18T22:07:00.022-06:00

The Telegraph

by Christopher Williams, Technolgy Correspondent 1:44PM BST 17 May 2011

One in eight women over 35 who own such devices admit to having downloaded an unlicensed e-book.
That compares to just one in 20 women over 35 who admit to having engaged in digital music piracy.
News that a group formerly unwilling to infringe copyright are changing their behaviour as e-books take off will worry publishing executives, who fear they could suffer similar a similar fate to the record labels that have struggled to replace lost physical sales.
The picture across the entire e-reader and tablet markets is even more troubling for the publishing industry. Some 29 per cent of e-reader owners of both genders and all ages admit piracy. For tablets the figure rises to 36 per cent.
The findings are part of the Digital Entertainment Survey, an annual assessment of consumer behaviour online by the law firm Wiggin.
The online poll of 1,959 consumers also found that the potential damage to publishing is likely to increase, as a quarter of those who admitted to e-book piracy said they would continue.
And the iPad and Kindle were both in the top three most wanted devices across all consumer groups.
The Publishers Association recently revealed the number of physical books sold fell by 3 per cent last year, and although consumer e-book sales grew strongly revenues were just £16m, compared to £3.1bn in physical sales.
Announcing the figures, the group’s chief executive, Richard Mollet, placed emphasis on preserving copyright protections.
"The innovation in the digital marketplace and the strength of British publishers’ export performance is only possible because of the robust and flexible copyright framework which underpins the UK creative industries," he said.
"Copyright ensures that authors, writers and researchers get rewarded for their talent and expertise, and that the publishers who support them see a return on their investment – particularly in their digital infrastructure."

Maybe the people over 35 are just more honest than those under 35 (although i have found that "kids today" don't even seem to realize that copying cds you don't own as wrong/illegal {at least when i do it, i know it's wrong} And that downloading book texts from sites like scribd is violating copyright (somehow, i am less likely to do that~although i do seem to reprint entire articles on my blog~is attribution enough?)

There are not a million stories in the naked city.

2011-05-18T02:07:00.000-06:00

There is only one story, but a correct translation cannot be unanimously agreed upon and no one can believe the ending, so it is in a constant state of being retold.

now the year needs to expand

2011-05-07T03:17:00.005-06:00

or just make a new calendar (after all if we are moving into a Post-Modern version of our language, why not a PoMo calendar...)

Past, Present, and the Quantity of the Year

New York TimesPublished: May 3, 2011

How long is a year? Ask most people, and they’d say 365 days and not nearly long enough. The year, of course, is the time it takes the Earth to orbit around the Sun, a rate that is slowing fractionally each century. For many reasons, scientists need a more precise definition of the year than its length in days, yet the only unit of time defined in the International System of Units is the second, which is measured in oscillations of cesium atoms.

(i'm not sure i love this word, though

Recently, a task force of geologists and chemists proposed a new unit of measure called the annus — the Latin word for year — which would use the length of time between one equinox or solstice and the same equinox or solstice a year later. Because the Earth’s orbit varies in temporal length, the annus is keyed to the year 2000, which was 31,556,925.445 seconds long.Astronomers prefer to use the Julian year — which is 31,557,600 seconds long — and they, like some scientific journals, are not likely to adopt the annus. Many working geologists are objecting to the proposed abbreviation for annus, which is “a.” To the task force, the symbol Ma means mega-annus, or million years. But to geologists, Ma means “million years ago,” and 90 Ma, for instance, means a specific point in the Cretaceous period.
However this is resolved, we are left meditating on a remark made by a pair of geologists who note that a geological date like 90 Ma, or 90 million years ago, implies “before present.” Unfortunately, these geologists write, the present “is not well defined.” We know the feeling. We also know that whatever you call it, the year gets shorter and shorter the older you get.

(do you remember when the days, and weeks, and months, and years went by so slow you couldn't stand the wait?)but then, of course, all of our years will run out. . .

Someday the Sun Will Burn Out and the World Will End (but don't tell anyone)
The New York Times By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: February 14, 2006

I've always been proud of my irrelevance.

When I raised my hand to speak at our weekly meetings here in the science department, my colleagues could be sure they would hear something weird about time travel or adventures in the fifth dimension. Something to take them far from the daily grind. Enough to taunt the mind, but not enough to attract the attention of bloggers, editors, politicians and others who keep track of important world affairs.

(is this anything like my raising my hand to argue with my high school teachers?)

So imagine my surprise to find the origin of the universe suddenly at the white hot center of national politics. Last week my colleague Andrew Revkin reported that a 24-year-old NASA political appointee with no scientific background, George C. Deutsch, had told a designer working on a NASA Web project that the Big Bang was "not proven fact; it is opinion," and thus the word "theory" should be used with every mention of Big Bang.
It was not NASA's place, he said in an e-mail message, to make a declaration about the origin of the universe "that discounts intelligent design by a creator."
In a different example of spinning science news last month, NASA headquarters removed a reference to the future death of the sun from a press release about the discovery of comet dust around a distant star known as a white dwarf. A white dwarf, a shrunken dense cinder about the size of earth, is how our own sun is fated to spend eternity, astronomers say, about five billion
years from now, once it has burned its fuel.
"We are seeing the ghost of a star that was once a lot like our sun," said Marc Kuchner of the Goddard Space Flight Center. In a statement that was edited out of the final news release he went on to say, "I cringed when I saw the data because it probably reflects the grim but very distant future of our own planets and solar system."
An e-mail message from Erica Hupp at NASA headquarters to the authors of the original release at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said, "NASA is not in the habit of frightening the public with doom and gloom scenarios."
Never mind that the death of the sun has been a staple of astronomy textbooks for 50 years.
Personally, I can't get enough of gloom- and-doom scenarios. I'm enchanted by the recent discovery, buttressed by observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, that an antigravitational force known as dark energy might suck all galaxies out of the observable universe in a few hundred billion years and even rip apart atoms and space. But I never dreamed that I might be frightening the adults.
What's next? Will future presidential candidates debate the ontological status of Schrödinger's cat? That's the cat that, according to the uncertainty principle of quantum physics, is both alive and dead until we observe it.
Apparently science does matter.
Dreading the prospect that they too may be dragged into the culture wars, astronomers have watched from the sidelines in recent years as creationists in Kansas and Pennsylvania challenged the teaching of evolution in classrooms. Never mind that the Big Bang has been officially accepted by the Roman Catholic Church for half a century. The notion of a 14-billion-year-old cosmos doesn't fit if you believe the Bible says the world is 6,000 years old.
And indeed there have been sporadic outbreaks, as evidenced by the bumper stickers and signs you see in some parts of the country: "Big Bang? You've got to be kidding — God."
When the Kansas school board removed evolution from the science curriculum back in 1999, they also removed the Big Bang.
In a way, the critics have a point. The Big Bang is indeed only a theory, albeit a theory that covers the history of creation as seamlessly as could be expected from the first fraction of a second of time until today. To call an idea "a theory" is to accord it high status in the world of science. To pass the bar, a theory must make testable predictions — that stars eventually blow out or that your computer will boot up.
Sometimes those predictions can be, well, a little disconcerting. When you're talking about the birth or death of the universe, a little denial goes a long way.
That science news is sometimes managed as carefully as political news may not come as a
surprise to most adults. After all, the agencies that pay for most scientific research in this country have billion-dollar budgets that they have to justify to the White House and the Congress. It helps to have newspaper clippings attesting to your advancement of the president's vision.
It's enough to make you feel sorry for NASA, whose very charter mandates high visibility for both its triumphs and its flops, but which has officers recently requiring headquarters approval before consenting to interviews with the likes of me.
The recent peek behind the curtains of this bureaucracy has been both depressing and exciting. So they are paying attention after all.
They should be paying attention, but I'm not looking forward to having to include more politicians and bureaucrats in my rounds of the ever-expanding, multi-dimensional universe (or universes).
I'll do it, but, lacking the gene for street smarts, I fear being played like a two-bit banjo. I'm even happy to go star-gazing with Dick Cheney, if duty so calls, but only if he agrees to disarm
and I can wear a helmet.

I loved going to the planeterium as a child, one of the programs showed (what they imagined to be) the solor system's birth to death. The idea that it would all die out wasn't so much frightening as incomprehensible to me.I also remember being in church and finding it so hard to contemplate a never-ending eternity (like a ring that has no beginning and no end.) It hurt my brain and i was left in the void not being able to contemplate either ending or not-ending.Luckily it looks like i'll have 7.59 years to work it out...

In the end, there won’t even be fragments.

we all have different priorities

2011-03-23T04:33:00.000-06:00

My dad is under the mistaken impression that i could have bought a house with the money i have spent on earrings over the years. Every time he and my stepmother come to visit me i see them shaking their heads and issuing a silent "tut-tut" at the collection of earrings i have hanging on my wall.

First of all, this collection has been amassed over thirty-some-odd years, and it isn't like i spent inordinate amounts of money on the things (i couldn't afford to~both because i never have inordinate amounts of money available to me and also because i'm always loosing earrings.)

Losing earrings has somehow been one of the biggest, oft-occurring tragedies of my life. I buy earrings because i like something about whatever pair it is, its uniqueness, it's catitude, or whatever. Often the ones i own are irreplaceable (not because of their monetary worth, but because of their availability.) One lost earring is usually not that big of a tragedy because i seldom wear matching earrings (i figure different earrings in each available hole offers more display room and, along with my black toenails, is one of my signatures.) The main problem comes when i loose my only remaining earring or the pair happens to offer two different "perspectives" (the same image only mirrored, one earring has the western hemisphere and one the eastern, or, one of my favorite pairs "IN ONE EAR" and "OUT THE OTHER".) Occasionally i will catch an image of myself in the mirror and wonder how i ended up with matching earrings.

Because i have such a tendancy to loose these precious baubles i am always paranoid of vacuming my living room floor or sweeping my bedroom floor for fear of loosing them eternally. If i do either of these dreaded activities (not that i'm dying to anyway) i search through the debris for any strays and have admonished my mother to do the same...

Best day ever!

2011-01-01T01:27:00.003-07:00

Demetra somehow managed to open a closed box, open the cellophane packages inside, and rip apart the new toys i had ordered for her.

I pinched a very sensitive part of my body when i tried to close the recycling bin.

The ATM ate my debit card.

I lost my license.

I almost T-boned another car because i could not stop my car from sliding into it.

I locked both my keys and my phone in the car and had to call a locksmith who demanded $65 from me (i was praying to someone's god that the charge would actually go through..)

Finally got home and spilled coffee all over my brand new carpet.

About 11:00 pm the power went out to my entire house (and ONLY MY house,) had to call the power company who sent someone out only for him to be completely baffled by the situation.

I'm just hoping that the universe is just letting my bad luck run out before the new year starts.

or maybe not--now 12:17 am, January 1, 2011 and i just dumped red wine all over myself and my new couch...)

(1:17: now my computer has completely ceased to work...)

patty cake, patty cake, . . .

2010-12-05T17:42:00.003-07:00

kitty say what

2010-11-06T02:43:00.000-06:00

some days

2010-10-28T21:35:00.004-06:00

are just like that

(and this is so apropos to my life as i have not been able to print anything on my printer for centuries because of some non-existant paperjam!*#%&*! ~ no matter how many times Demetra has tried to remedy the problem!)

i remain unimpressed

2010-07-14T19:00:00.008-06:00

I write like Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

was my result with my recent blog posts (i've never been a fan) i tried sticking in a poem and another random piece and got:

I write like David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

i'm really not sure what to take from that. but then i tried one more poem and got this:

I write like Vladimir Nabokov

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

i cheered at the thought of being compared to my favorite author and decided it was time to stop trying (and stop questioning.)

i have always longed to be compared to Margaret Atwood, what she says and the way she says it is who i want to be ~maybe it's the woman in me (and my temperment probably matches hers~being more than a little cranky and all...)

poor little turtle

2010-07-09T12:33:00.004-06:00

only wants to be kitty's friend and the cat is having none of it...

(not one of my cats, by the by...)

finally (even if i don't know where anything is)

2010-07-06T16:07:00.044-06:00

so, i have been talking about remodeling my living room for years. Had it all planned out (and, believe it or not, this wasn't my plan) but have been thinking that the next day would be the perfect day to procrastinate day after day, after day. My sister, who i suppose has grown quite weary of hearing about this project, is visiting, apparently, with the express purpose of tackling this job herself.
I go to work, take naps, whatever only to find more and more of my living room gone. Now all that is left is the tv and its accouterments, the sofa and some pieces of cat furniture. I have no idea where anything is (and, since most of my clothing was spread all over the living room, getting dressed has become quite an adventure.) Yesterday i went to retrieve the cat food from my trunk and found some things stashed there.
I still have all my masks up (and i suppose i shall not take them down until after the carpet is ripped up and i am ready to paint. The first pictures here are of my entryway.

I have masks in every room my house. I began collecting them about twenty-five years ago because of my theatre major, my love of Shakespeare, and the fact that i believe they are unique. All told, i have no idea how many i have as there are still some packed away (over 200, i believe.)

So this is the current state of my living room (i'm planning on trashing the green curtains for blinds, although i suppose they match the plant.): the carpet is probably over 25 years old and has had too many cats live in it over the years (the entry way is completely ruined by former feline residents as well as my own sixteen-year-old feline who thought that because the odor was already there that was the place to go. I am afraid of what the state of the sub-flooring there is but once the damage has been mitigated i plan to replace it with tile in the hopes that it will be easier to clean)

I have never been a huge fan of red (everything i like tends toward the cool side,) but, as of late i've been obsessed with all things red (and i'm trying to go to the cool side of red.) I hope i don't hate it once i have to live in it...For my carpeting i have always wanted to do carpet tiles because of the beasties and the clumsiness of their owner, but found myself turned off by the colors, textures, and lack of ability to install padding underneath. FLOR finally came out with a solution to the first two and i decided to sacrifice the third to the greater good. I was thinking of doing yellow blinds for my window so that the living room was all primary colors but i'm not sure how that whole effect will go. I do have a celestial (blue sky, yellow stars, moon or something similar running throughout my house so the yellow is there, but then again yellow is from the wrong side of the spectrum and yellow hasn't grown on me like red has.

Ikea provides my desired sofa and chairs (time to relegate the futon to the basement~and only if Ikea would actually PROVIDE the sofa and chairs so i didn't have to use my imaginary cash...) I have decided to pack away my hundreds of cds instead of displaying them since i have everything on iTunes now and then i might actually have space in my tiny living room for the furniture.

I still have black furniture/accents remaining from my early household fantasies of every room a color accented by black and the dark grey was the only color i liked in the styles i wanted.

After i complete the living room, my next wad of imaginary cash will be devoted to installing a platform in my bedroom (i am becoming too old and crickety to launch myself off my beloved futon~and though i still love to sleep on it i need it to be a bit higher off the ground~i could also use the extra storage space drawers would provide.)
this is my current bedroom look with the usual feline decorations.

if you could only see the ENTIRE bedroom you would get a sense of the type of mess my sister had to clean up in the living room...

My mother told me that when i got a housekeeper i would have to learn to put up with people putting away my stuff. And i said, "But mother, i have no more imaginary cash to spend on a housekeeper." To which my wonderful mother said that she was going to pay for it (she never did my housework when i was growing up~i suppose she is tired of visiting me in chaos...
Although i love my family for all their help i hate that my migraines prevent me from doing much myself and feel so guilty that others have to do it for me.

(and once upon a time i had matching lamps~i have a replacement shade somewhere but i know not where.)

I am much too picky to ever accomplish anything!

thoughts?

damn, missed yet another Pagan holiday

2010-07-02T00:59:00.003-06:00

Now however will i predict my future?

"This is an excellent time for rites of divination."

Humanity has been celebrating Litha and the triumph of light since ancient times. On the Wheel of the Year Litha lies directly across from Yule, the shortest day of the calendar year, that cold and dark winter turning when days begin to lengthen and humanity looks wistfully toward warmth, sunlight and growing things. Although Litha and Yule are low holidays or lesser sabats in the ancient parlance, they are celebrated with more revel and merriment than any other day on the wheel except perhaps Samhain (my own favourite). The joyous rituals of Litha celebrate the verdant Earth in high summer, abundance, fertility, and all the riches of Nature in full bloom. This is a madcap time of strong magic and empowerment, traditionally the time for handfasting or weddings and for communication with the spirits of Nature. At Litha, the veils between the worlds are thin; the portals between "the fields we know" and the worlds beyond stand open.

i've done it before

2010-06-22T06:21:00.009-06:00

i'll probably do it again...

(and somehow they totally fucked up the picture/description corespondence in the above~and the below, just so you know. . . i may not be as weird as this makes me seem . . . or i could be even stranger...)

the question is

how many different mes

are there???

if only...

2010-06-22T01:11:00.006-06:00

and for the friend who commented:

"Sassy gay friend" isn't exactly an archetype you'd stick in a tragedy. That's probably why he's missing from Hamlet. He does show up in Romeo and Juliet, but luckily he gets stabbed to death in the second act, otherwise he might have interfered with the suicide scene in act 5.

here ya go:

to which said friend adds "That's why Mercutio had to die."

librarians do the gaga

2010-06-21T20:17:00.002-06:00

¿and what is the big six? you may ask...

i wouldn't recommend this experience

2010-06-03T19:07:00.012-06:00

There i am, on my way to work, after lunch break, i am pulled over by a detective (and i have no idea why.) She comes to the window and asks if there is any reason why i'm driving a car whose registration expired in December (because i had thrown my current registration in the glove box and completely forgot about it~and apparently couldn't be bothered to put the sticker on it.) I hand her the registration. Then she asks if there's any reason why i'm not wearing my seat belt (i really don't know, as i always wear my seat belt.) Stammer a little. She asks me for proof of insurance, license, all that jazz. Then she says something about me going to work and her putting the sticker on my car (or so i thought~it sounded a little strange but whatever.) She goes to her car, i wait for her to come back (while giving questioning gestures to her about what i'm supposed to do), then finally start my car.

The next thing i know two more police cars pull up, sirens blaring, and surround me (and i'm thinking "My coworker, who had her car impounded this morning, was right about the police being crazy.) One officer walks around my car then approaches me.

"Why did you do that, why were you fleeing."

"I'm sorry, i was confused, i misunderstood what she said."

He continues to question my actions, i continue to apologize.

"What is your criminal record?"

"I don't have one."

"You've never been to County Lock-Up?"

"No."

"You don't have any warrants out for your arrest?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Okay, we're going to check your record."

"Alright."

Then he points to the passenger side of my car, "Have you been drinking any of that hard liquor today?"

I'm thinking "What hard liquor?" I glance to where he is pointing to (barely) see a liquor store bag hiding underneath a BUNCH of books (from my vet visit i'm sure~but i don't even know why it's there because i always put my liquor (as i do all groceries) in the trunk. "No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, i'm on my way back to work." (and wouldn't you be able to smell it or something?) "Is it supposed to be in the trunk?"

"No it's fine." He grills me a little more then finally is on his way.

The detective comes back and again quizzes me about why i tried to flee the scene.

"I'm so sorry, i misunderstood what you said."

"We don't know if you're fleeing the scene of a murder or something." (then why would i pull over in the first place?) "I'm ticketing you for a seat belt violation." (again, i couldn't tell you or her why i wasn't wearing a seat belt either because i ALWAYS~or apparently not always~wear a seat belt.)

Then she asks me if i'm alright.

"I am a little shaken."

"Haven't you even been pulled over before?"

"I have been pulled over, it's just a little different than being surrounded."

After a few more warnings, i am on my way back to work.

Moral of the story?

Never forget ANYTHING; not your registration sticker, not to not start your car, not that you have liquor on your floor, and especially not your seat belt!

(and when i told my mom she first asked if any of the officers were cute (i didn't even notice) and then asked if they checked to see if i was a citizen (i don't know what the detective looked up in her car, but they didn't ask me.)

beware appealing looking miniature cupcakes!

2010-05-30T19:17:00.006-06:00

My mom knocks on the door with a gift of a mini-cupcake that she has picked up at some wedding reception, somewhere. It has vanilla frosting on the top and some sort of light-colored cake (i don't like chocolate cake for some odd reason, even though i love chocolate~but vanilla is my favorite.) I set aside the cupcake to enjoy sometime when i really want it.

A few days go by with my mouth watering but still not enough. I finally decide it is time to eat the delight and i take a bite when something awful tasting explodes in my mouth. For some reason i take another bite and the same thing happens. I call the mother to ask what nasty poison she has fed me. It was a "cute" little bath bomb disguised as a cupcake (there was no note or tag to identify it as such, although my mom insisted there was.) The creator of said "cupcakes" had laughed that her children been fooled into thinking they were edible.

I do not think it is a laughing matter.

goodbye to you (or should that be I?)

2010-05-30T00:59:00.023-06:00

So i watched her for a while and then i was SO over it (and i must admit i'll watch ANTM occasionally (mostly on Oxygen. Speaking of which, just caught the "petite", most of the models were 5'7", season and couldn't help that notice that all of them wore flats during judging, when in other seasons they have been told they must learn to walk in heels~did the producers tell them to do that so that they would look even shorter? Or do all of us shorties just detest heels?) I think my favorite contestant ever was Alison, broken-doll, Harvard (or as her internet fans/discoverer know her, Creepy Chan.) Besides the strange fascination of it all, there is the fact that Nigel is so gorgeous (i've also always found it more than a bit hypocritical that she makes her contestants do all sorts of things like pose with animals and in the nude that she had barred from her own contracts.)

When i did watch The Tyra Show i was always so annoyed that she would ask her guest a question and then interrupt them before they got to the answer (and it always seemed to be with someone that i REALLY wanted to hear the answer (tho i'm sure she did it other times, i just didn't care to notice.)
Her ego always shone through...

and supposedly she fired Paulina because Paulina's ego was too big, how could her ego be bigger than Tyra's? I like Paulina (even if i have no idea what she's really like~she's blunt and honest AND she's married to Ric Ocasek {gotta love the Cars! [and i do!]})

I'm not sure if i'll miss her or not (i'm thinking not, as i haven't seen her for quite some time...)

Just another bunch of YoSafBridg thoughts you probably have no interest in!

a trip to the vet...

2010-05-19T21:29:00.018-06:00

We were off to our vet appointment today (well three of us were off, since Dixie seems to have learned that precognitive skill of sensing beforehand that the vet trip is eminent.) Even though i was able to lure Demetra and Katushka into the bathroom with cat treats and then close the door only to insert them into cat carriers, Dixie was having none of it (nor the promise of food) and hid in the basement. The search for her was futile. So i trundled off the two others to the appointment meant for three. The beasties needed their annual exams and to have their talon-like claws clipped (they will not let me near their paws--amazing how an animal 5%-10% of your body weight can really hold their own against you.) I threaten them with declawing every now and then but i never would as i am morally opposed to it (besides the fact that i refuse to put the 16 year old Dixie under anaesthesia unless absolutely necessary.) I have bought those soft paws things (rubber caps that slip over the claw itself and fall off after six to eight weeks) but not only do you have to trim their claws before you can apply them but you also need them to hold still while you glue them on (what's the point?) I've had groomers tell me that vets can do it for you, and of course the vets tell me that groomers do. Does anyone know anything about the effectiveness of EmeryCat? I'm actually more concerned about my own safety rather than my furniture (although Katushka claws at my kitchen bench incessantly). Dixie claws at the carpet and runs over me with her claws, Katushka also runs over me, and she has a bit of a kneading problem. Demetra has a major kneading problem because she was weaned too early (but she always using her scratching post.)

As if you cared for any of the above detour, back to my story: I asked Herr Doctor if Demetra has gained weight just because her sides seem to be buldging a teensy bit (can i stress teensy?) I probably wouldn't have even noticed if Demetra had not been a short-haired cat, unlike her sisters (Katushka once lost 25% of her weight without my note until the vet weighed her.) So Herr Doctor tells me that she has gained a little and then proceeds to tell me that she needs to go on a diet (a little difficult with three cats who don't care whose food they eat), that i need to brush her back better because she probably can't reach around to groom herself (little does he know i rarely brush any of them), and that she has possibly lost the fur underneath her chin due to her neck size increasing rather than some kind of reaction to her collar. I wonder if he would have even come up with this theory if i hadn't brought it up (she had hissed at the vet tech, something she never does~maybe she was unhappy with being called fat) it's not like the animal is obese, just a little pudgy.

Cats all bundled up and in the car i make a quick visit to the liquor store next to the vet (it was a five minute trip and cool and cloudy outside.) Had a major attack of vertigo while in the liquor store, shaking, swaying, waving vision (and i'm sure as i stumbled out of the liquor store a few assumptions were made.) My mother claims it was the act of being in the liquor store~maybe it was bad Karma for leaving the kids in the car~in actuality i believe it was just a relapse.)
Got into the car and had a lens fall out of my glasses (which rendered me completely unable to see.) Called mom to let her know she might need to come pick us up. So, with shaking hands, after about ten minutes got the lens back in. Drove like a little old lady until i got about a block away from my house where i ran out of gas. Had to call mom to rescue us, and then carry the animals in once i got home I'm sure they were wondering what the hell was going on when their trip home was much longer and confusing than it usually is. Needless to say the trip home from the vet was not the most enjoyable adventure...

wildest places

2010-05-18T03:47:00.011-06:00

in no particular order (except my own...)

underneath the lifeguard tower on Silver Strand Beach while the grunion were running

fifth floor balcony, student services building

car in mom's driveway (Wade and the gearshift)

car in mom's driveway (Brooke)

tent with First Love's mom knocking on the canvas

tent with four other people sleeping, unaware, no indication beforehand, no speaking, no further awknowledgement

in my bed but with the random poker guy who stopped by looking for "Bud"

men's bathroom at Twelve Oaks (with White Magic)

men's bathroom at The Deerhunter (with the gay bartender)

women's bathroom at The Pie (with that mohawk guy)

in the drug deal room (Black Magic)

balcony at Plastique

boat that we had broken into on the Great Salt Lake

apartment hallway because we were locked out

underneath upstairs pool table at The Zepher

driving and parked on 6th South and 3rd east (and in the Avenues)

on the picnic table outside the youth hostel

Mark's bathroom (John)

It'sComplicatedLoveYouInMyOwnWayRelationship's bathroom (with his best friend)

John's Dad's Bar's bathroom

Clete's car (but not Clete)

gravel at the desert show (Roger)

Dave V's car at the desert show

what-his-name's living room floor (did either of us even know who's house we were in?)

Tammy's back yard

Kurt's rec room floor

(bathrooms seem to be popular~don't they?)

and you have a right to tell me how to feel...exactly why?

2010-05-14T14:07:00.010-06:00

Quite sometime ago i had jotted down my thoughts about The Girls Who Went Away and then posted them to my annotations/review on goodreads as well. Last year a perfect stranger with the user name Erin had then commented on my thoughts/feelings which boiled my blood a little every time i saw it but kept deciding there was no point to even trying a response.

I wasn't sure about your point of view until the very end of your review. Being pregnant and having a child changes people. There is no way to explain it, and no way to create that change but to have a child. You will never understand the desperate love until you have a child.
~Erin (whoever that is...)

Yesterday, for some reason, i finally decided i had to respond, for whatever it was worth:

I'm sorry that you had to slog through my ENTIRE review to understand my feelings (you could have stopped reading--and there were three people who admitted to liking it!)
I never claimed to be inside my mother's head and know what she felt or thought, but YOU were not inside her head either, and even though some feelings are SOMEWHAT universal that does not mean she was as connected or felt the same way you do.
You have no idea where i am in terms of motherhood so you can't tell ME how to feel about it or what to understand (one of the reasons i can't relate to what my mother went through is because of some of those same feelings you describe...)
She never has sought me out so it seems she might not have cared to.
This is about MY feelings, my issues and thoughts about something i have had to deal with my whole life.
It is also about my not caring about hers and you can't tell me that i must care!

and i don't WANT to help you either!

2010-05-04T17:03:00.004-06:00

I just crept out of the back room to tell the people manning the reference desk where i had stashed the winning patron's gift certificate and what to do with it to find a man asking for help with his flash-drive, and the moment the words "computer illiterate" start to pass his lips the other librarian tells him that LibraryAssistant will help him to which LibraryAssitant says "Oh no, i can't help with any computer thing."

Librarian says "We'll I'm about to leave."

LibraryAssistant sees me coming up behind her and says "RampagingLibrarian will help you."

To which i reply "No, i'm not here." (meaning i am not currently supposed to be at this station~something that always seems to make sense to those of us in the service profession but makes no sense to anyone else.)

The patron standing at the self-service catalog chuckles and i think the man seeking help may have wandered off but it wasn't my problem!

Just stop by your local helpful librarian (or not.)

this is NOT a post ~ this is how i feel ~ tonight

2010-05-02T04:13:00.031-06:00

once again i am up in the night. Can’t sleep. Can’t think. Can only roll with the waves, be pulled by the pain, wait for the oh-too brightness of day—and sleep…

Wreck Of The Day
Driving away from the wreck of the day
And
the light's always red in the rear-view
Desperately close to a coffin of
hope
I'd cheat destiny just to be near you
If this is giving up, then
I'm giving up
If this is giving up, then I'm giving up, giving up
On love, On love

Driving away from the wreck of the day
And I'm thinking 'bout
calling on Jesus
'Cause love doesn't hurt so I know I'm not falling in love
I'm just falling to pieces

And if this is giving up then I'm giving
up
If this is giving up then I'm giving up, giving up
On love, On love

And maybe I'm not up for being a victim of love
When all my
resistance will never be distance enough

Driving away from the wreck of
the day
And it's finally quiet in my head
Driving alone, finally on my
way home to the comfort of my bed
And if this is giving up, then I'm giving
up
If this is giving up, then I'm giving up, giving up
On love, On
love
~Anna Nalick
Kyoto Song
A nightmare of you
Of death in the pool
Wakes me up at quarter to three
I'm lying on the floor of the night before
With a stranger lying next to
me
A nightmare of you
Of death in the pool
I see no further now than
this dream
The trembling hand of the trembling man
Hold my mouth
To
hold in a scream

I try to think
To make it slow
If only here is
where I go
If this is real
I have to see
I turn on fire
And next
to me
It looks good
t tastes like nothing on earth
It looks good
It tastes like nothing on earth
Its so smooth it even feels like skin

It tells me how it feels to be new

It tells me how it feels to
be new
A thousand voices whisper it true
It tells me how it feels to be
new
And every voice belongs
Every voice belongs to you

~The Cure

Catch
Yes I know who
you remind me of

A girl I think I used to know
Yes I'd see her
when the day got colder
On those days when it felt like snow
You know I even think that she stared like you
She used to just stand there and stare
And roll her eyes right up to
heaven
And make like I just wasn't there

And she used to fall down a lot
That girl
was always falling
Again and again
And I used to sometimes try to catch
her
But I never even caught her name

And sometimes we would spend the night
Just
rolling about on a floor
And I remember
Even though it felt soft at the
time
I always used to wake up sore

You know I even think that she
smiled like you
She used to just stand there and smile
And her eyes
would go all sort of far away
And stay like that for quite a while
And I remember she used to fall down a lot
That girl was always falling
Again and again
And I used to sometimes
try to catch her

But I never even caught her name
Yes I sometimes even tried to catch her
But I never even caught her
name
~The Cure

and now i hear the birds singing, bird songs are my death

one after another, they stumble

2010-05-01T16:03:00.015-06:00

There i was, sitting at the reference desk all by my lonesome, minding my own business (and why, i ask you, why, can't everyone else mind THEIR own business and not pester me with questions as if i'm sitting behind a big sign that says INFORMATION or something???) when a guy in his mid-twenties comes up to the desk and says "There is some paper in the back that says "*(insert very, very common last name which also happens to be the name of our library here) on it and is that my mom's?" pointing back to our computer room. me: "What?" Mid Twenties Guy: "Is that my mom's paper?" "Huh?" "That paper that says (afore-mentioned name), is that her?" A bewildered, confused, flustered me says, "I'm not sure what you're asking me, what is your question?" "Is that my mom back there?" "I don't know." "You don't?" "No, i don't. He exits stage right. He Comes back, "There's a paper back there that has writing and 4/30 on it" Still Me, "Yes?" What month is this, the fifth?" "This is the fourth month." "So is she here, or is she coming in?" "I couldn't tell you." "Well, is that her writing?" "Does it look like her writing?" "Yes." "Well then it might be." He walks away again. He comes back. "I want to know where my mom is." "I'm not sure what i can help you with, sir, what did you want me to do?" "I just want to talk to her, i haven't seen her in four years." I'm thinking she just might like it that way, "I don't know, you might need to find her in a different way."" You haven't seen her, she has red hair, kind of weird face, she's really big, and she's crazy." Must run in the family, "I haven't seen her." "Well, where is she? "I really don't know her or where she is." He wanders off, yet again, only to assault the other librarian with the same questions. About 45 seconds later a wizened, old, drunken cowboy (boots, spurs, hat and all) wants a list of our falconry books. We don't have any in our library (so odd that we wouldn't in such a small library~isn't it?) So i print one out for him. Drunken Cowboy asks "How much do i owe you?" "Don't worry, it's fine." "Oh, you're cute." "Thanks" "What's your name?" "I'm RampagingLibrarian." DrunkenCowboy sticks out his hand and says "I'm Drunken Cowboy. It's a New Foundland name. I'm just an old cowboy." I shake his hand. "This is a wealth of information, i owe you big time." "Well, pass it along." "You're cute, I'll pay you back," DrunkenCowboy continues, "I'm a good kisser, er, i'm a good dancer," he shakes my hand again. "Um okay." He almost walks away, then comes back to shake my hand again, "I like my women worn out." Is that this the cowboy form of compliment? "I don't think i'm worn out." "No I don't think you look worn out, I meant broken-in." Is that any better??? I give him a clenched-teeth laugh. "I break horses, so it's good to be broken in," he shakes my hand again. "Uh, okay." He starts to walk towards the door, but no, "I'll come back and take you dancing, this is such great information." "Uhuh." He shakes my hand again, "I'll be back RampagingLiberrian." (not only does he get my name wrong, but he doesn't even tip his hat at me...) And hopefully i won't be here.

in the er

2010-04-08T17:47:00.016-06:00

There i was, sitting ever so calmly at the reference desk, horrible migraine had not yet kicked in when i started to get really dizzy (even though i was sitting still in my chair.) About 10 minutes later my vision started shaking (seeing double because everything was moving so fast, as i'm trying to convince myself that this is just a new migraine symptom that i will have to get used to), 10 minutes later i completely lost my sense of balance and was falling (making other people walk back to the computer room because i was unable to.) At this point my manager was wanting to call 911 but i didn't want to pay for an ambulance. Started shaking uncontrollable, had my mom come get me (my manager and a coworker were on either side of me, supporting me, escorting me to the car and i still fell). Had to be wheeled in on a gurney and they did a cat scan thinking i may have had a stroke.
My mom came into the ER with me, which i never let her do because i'm an adult and can handle myself (plus i don't always appreciate her interrupting to clarify or add to what i'm talking, but i wasn't feeling all that capable at the moment. Triage asks me the usual "What medications have you taken lately and i try to go through what my memory allows but words don't come easily to my tongue (and memory is a little difficult to master as well.)

Laying down doesn't help too much, world still spins. I tell the nurse i just want her to give me something to knock me out. She says "Oh no you don't want that, why would you want it."

"Because i just want to sleep/be unconscious than experience this." Plus i wasn't entirely serious.

Once i'm chatting with the ER doc i remembered that glass of wine i had the night before (heavy partier that i am) and mentioned it to her and she rolled her eyes (like stupid girl, that has no influence on anything,) then i told her that i had smoked a little marijuana for my migraine and nausea which made her decide i was some kind of druggie and that my current problems reaching for words were related to marijuana affecting memory (even though i smoke it only occasionally and never have memory problems at any other time~again she rolls her eyes and says it doesn't matter how much i smoke.) She started grilling me about where i got the weed because of problems with suppliers and i'm thinking "do you know every drug dealer in town and weather there products are pure (and wouldn't they usually not want to lace weed with anything since other drugs are usually more expensive)?"

Then she wanted to know what i'd done in the past even though it's been twenty years or so, i glance at my mom because i really didn't want to subject her to the entire list of my rather extensive recreational history. Doctor says "time for full disclosure."

I run through my list for her (probably missed a few--i think my list includes pretty much everything excluding heroin.) So then she told me i was just having flashbacks or that it was bad marijuana (which seems rather unlikely because i haven't ever had flashbacks and i had already smoked from that same bag.)

Final diagnosis: vertigo. She gives me Valium and tells me to see my neurologist in the morning (and she mentioned how wonderful my neurologist was. The Valium just makes me sleepy (which, i suppose, is not bad, but it didn't help me with much else.

When i stumbled into my regular neurologist's office the next day she said she didn't think it was anything to do with drugs but wasn't too fond of the weed just because it's illegal and you don't know where it comes from and she doesn't want me getting arrested.

The Antivert she gave me was much more effective with the nausea and, somewhat with the dizziness than the Valium. I couldn't walk straight (and constantly fell down) for about three days, and the world didn't stop spinning (along with the accompanying nausea) for about a week and a half. Was bored as hell because i couldn't read and couldn't watch television too well.

Today is my first day back at work, still a little shaky and very little sense of balance, but i am doing much better.

it's twenty-ten let's do the timewarp again!

2010-01-01T02:33:00.009-07:00

and isn't that a brilliant almost-rhyme?

It's just a jump to the left

And then a step to the right

With your hands on your hips

You bring your knees in tight

But it's the pelvic thrust that really drives you insane,

(insay-ay-ay-ay-ane)

and bid adieu to the 'aughts (tried and tried to get that one to catch on--maybe in retrospect...)

hundreds gather for global warming protest

2009-12-10T01:52:00.002-07:00

what isn't now

2009-11-05T15:06:00.014-07:00

History Mutates
and you effortlessly, indifferently glide over the gaps
i have left behind

you say:
this was the place
and this was the time
and these were the people

but I am not there
as if i never was

my existence disappears

from pictures
and from memory

pieces of who i was
lay

abandoned

as i was
Once

without thought

and i am left with Those pieces
just as i am left with the Absence of you

Forever became Finite

and i wonder
why, how, when

Who you were
made you who you are
and even if that once-was you
is passed
(and will never come back)
how can you forget it, erase it?
how do you change it to never-was?

i don't miss you
(much)
nor do i want you
again
But
Sometimes nostalgic, small thoughts
of who you were,
who i was

come unbidden

thoughts I cannot lose

don't ever say you weren't warned!

2009-09-05T04:07:00.004-06:00

deep in the heart of the Buffyverse…

2009-07-05T03:57:00.000-06:00

as you know, i'm sure, by now, i'm a big buffy fan. Edward, Bella, Twilight, not so much:

BUFFY KICKS ASS (does she not?)

small acts of betrayal

2009-07-04T14:17:00.001-06:00

Walking down the sidewalk, towards the cafe, a small group of alternatives stood on the sidewalk and he pulled me aside to let me know that it was "each man for himself" (no chivarly involved.) I didn't need a knight in shining armour, but he didn't have to say so.

After the night of acid-induced wandering, while the cops were drunk-testing the drunken driver, he whispered, "our apartment's just right there, we could sneak out of the car, walk home and leave our friends far behind. I don't want to go down for this."
(no loyality involved.)

"don't warn the tadpoles"

2009-07-01T04:59:00.001-06:00

paranormal activities in the night...

2009-05-05T04:14:00.003-06:00

or, close encounters of the What kind?

Bite me, please, somebody just Bite me...

2009-03-25T05:47:00.005-06:00

vampire wars is just a pyramid game without even the action of those first text based adventure games (Madness and the Minotaur for instance, and how much am i dating myself~or is the reference completely lost?) Also, the only payoff that may come to you is the reward of extra blood. What kind of pyramid scheme is that???

so why am i so addicted?

I simply MUST enter the fray multiple times per day so that i can fight other vampires for dominance. I have to go trolling for strangers on Facebook to "friend" so that i can have a large enough clan to win these fights. I then promptly "defriend" them, because, in general i only like to have my "real" friends on Facebook. The fights don't even have any kind of animated action to watch the battle in progress they only give you the results afterwards. And then there are the missions so that you become all that more blood enriched and powerful

I'm sure it is somehow related to my whole Facebook obsession (just like the rest of the kids~whatever happened to my rebellious, non-conformist ways?

Do i really have this much time to waste???

vernal equinox

2009-03-20T07:53:00.001-06:00

Happy Ostara

or maybe...

the Vernal Equinox

or even Easter as most of you may celebrate...

Today is the Vernal Equinox, the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and the New Year in many ancient traditions. It is the time of new growth and new beginnings. Eggs are one symbol of this festival since they represent new life. To celebrate, decorate an altar or small table with a green cloth and place on it spring flowers, Pussy Willows in vases, or sprouting bulbs in pots. Place a bowl of hard-boiled eggs in the center. Cast a circle and call the quarters: east for the spring, now with us; south, for the summer that is to come; west, for the autumn far away; and north for the winter that is ending. Hold up an egg and say, “I dedicate this egg to new beginnings in the coming season.” Meditate for a little while on your hopes for spring, then take that energy into you by cracking and eating the egg. by.....
~Magenta Griffith

blessed be...

once upon a time

2009-03-14T17:49:00.012-06:00

in a very snowy clime

all the roommates were gone...

on a freezing New Year's Sunday morn, YoSafBridg left the warm apartment, in her nightshirt, to pick up the morning paper. As she heard the heavy, locked, outside door close behind her, she realized she had no way of getting back in because not only were all of HER roommates gone but so were all of the old house/apartment building tenants.

She sat outside on the ice covered porch contemplating her options; perhaps walk the eight blocks to work in her bare feet (and night shirt) where she kept a spare set of keys; perhaps venture across the street where the Sunday services were just letting out and begging for phone access; or perhaps trying her hand at breaking into the lower apartment (not hers, by the by) with nothing but her rapidly freezing fingers.

Any stick or branch she tried, of course, broke off in the window frames. Snow burned her feet with every romp of the porch. She sat some more, contemplated some more, tried some more, as the time ticked by. Sat, thought, romped, repeated as deeper desperation sank in. Banged on screens with a rock, seemingly to no avail; but as she continued one screen began to give. She slowly worked her fingers into the small gap, ripping them apart in the process (the cold staunched most of the blood flow.)

After what seemed like hours (but was only one or so) she managed to pry the screen off. Then, through sheer force of will, lifted the window and climbed in. As she made her way to the apartment door, she discovered, quite miraculously, someone, maybe who was done with there lease had left a key inside the door that had appeared to be slid under the door as a return. She pushed the mangled screens out of their places, slipped out the door, slid the key back in and made her way up to her own apartment (with a light door that did not swing close, therefore unlocked.) Grabbed the keys to her roommate's car and carted the screens off to a nearby dumpster.

No one ever seemed none the wiser.

Reminds her of another time, same town, this time in the hot, humid summer. After the long walk home from work she looks for some cool refreshment. Chilled Pinot Grigio seems to fit the bill (over ice, how gauche!) She gulps the extra large size tumbler with no thought to alcohol content. Then, quickly off to the bar to meet friends. Once there the waitress dumps a pitcher of beer down her back and, to make up for it serves her free pitchers all night (and who is she to say no?)

At the end of the night she invites all her friends back to her place to imbibe from the beer she is sure she has left over from another party.

Somehow she ends up alone to walk home. Isn't sure how to find it. As she steps off the curb to cross the street she slams into a big concrete wall (and what a stupid place to put a wall!) But, as she backs away, she realizes that somehow her horizontal position had suddenly turned vertical and the wall that made her bleed was actually the street.

She feels no pain from the many scrapes and cuts covering face to toe, and forgets the friends awaiting her at home.

When she gets there she recounts her tale of woe to no sympathy. They want the beer that was promised them. Of course, she has lost her keys somewhere along the way and has no idea how to get in. She repeatedly rings the doorbell (all the apartments') to no avail. They all stand in the street and shout at the second floor, no one opens a single window.

The idea occurs to climb the fire escape which leads to a roommate's closet and pound on the window there. Eventually this rouses Roommate who lets the crowd in where they refuse to leave because the promised beer is nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps all her experience as a latchkey-locked-out child served her well

it's a thought...

2009-03-12T03:47:00.010-06:00

now that i have this type of experience perhaps i can make some extra cash from a few other avenues...

the idled librarian type can use the computer and/or print resources to identify and locate people whose homes can be burglarized; some of them might even be robbed if the research reveals that they go around with a lot of cash on hand. Many a clever criminal has used the library for these purposes. Why should we leave all the good things to them? Besides, it is a way to get a bit of revenge against a society that doesn't value either the librarian or her skills--if you don't believe this, take a look at your paycheck to see how you've been robbed.

Most librarians lack up-to-date robbery or thieving skills. Few of them are adept at cracking windows or carrying off home-invasion heists, but knowledge, as we like to say, is only a few keystrokes away. To begin with, you should research prominent folks in your neighborhood. Find out where they live. If they belong to social clubs, dig up schedules--it's a lot better to jimmy a window when only the maid is home--she probably makes about what you do and won't mind you stepping on the curtains if you're polite. Oh, and learn Spanish. Many household slaves are underpaid foreign nationals from Hispanic countries. A few nice words will get them on your side; maybe they will even show you where the Master of the House keeps his coin collection.

Also: know when to use violence. Is it more lucrative to pistol-whip the man of the house, or just threaten? This is another skill that will come in handy when you are managing your own library.

[It is very important that you do not kidnap kids unless you have a place to put them. If you must, leave them in the children's section of the library; they will be indistinguishable from the others dumped there, and will doubtless be happier than at home with the folks.]

Do some hard thinking about murder. It is not something to take lightly. Most thefts are treated like squashed bugs by the police, but if you off some fool, even if he wouldn't give up the leather, they'll put the eye on you but good. You might end up doing life, clerking in the library at the state pen, and they don't have wireless connections, believe me.

My suggestion is that you begin by dipping into the cash box, just to see if you like the feeling. Give a look at gun magazines to see if they've got something that matches your purse. When you see patrons, don't just think of service, think of opportunities. What the heck, if you don't ever become a thief, you can always run a retirement plan.

hmmm...i think i might have a few patrons in mind...

little ways to annoy me

2009-03-11T21:43:00.022-06:00

snowing on my car (which is in my carport, after all)
refusing to let me into your lane even though there is room for you to either speed up OR slow down (i mean how much harm does it really cause you?)
make a right turn from the left lane or a right turn from the left lane (when both are clearly marked.)
riding my bumper and when i move forward to allow you space getting back on it (if you're going to ride my ass, at least pull my hair...) Were you not in Driver's Ed the day they discussed the amount of car lengths you were to allow between you and the car in front of you? I might just allow my car to roll backwards...
running your red light causing me to slam on my brakes in my green light
honking at me once you've decided i need to turn into traffic (i know how fast my car moves as well as its capabilities, and it is my decision to make how reckless i want to be at any given moment...) or if i don't advance on the green light the millisecond it changes (i once had a friend pulled over and ticketed for just such an action~the officer told him the horn was only to be used for emergencies and that didn't quite qualify.) In fact honking at me at all (except in an afore mentioned emergency when my course of action might kill me or you (or our respective cars) might just annoy me to the point where keeping you from your destination becomes my greatest mission in life (can we say road rage?)
honking (those quick little beeps to let someone know you're just driving by their house or those long annoying ones to let your roommates know you've just arrived home, or those long annoying ones to tell someone to come out to the car, perhaps after ten minutes or so of repeated honking you might want to go inside to see what's keeping them) next door to my own house especially when i am critically migraining in my living room. And honking your horn repeatedly outside a public library to tell someone inside the library to come out is completely unacceptable (do you get the idea i am not overly fond of horns? I am also no hypocrite, i never use mine {except in emergency situations of course...})
asking me what i did to my (slinged) arm. I have no idea (my collar became mysteriously fractured {though the doc did suggest it was my multiple personality acting up}), i have a nerve infection, and possibly something else which requires a very expensive MRI.) Not that you would know that but i am wearying of the entire fiasco...)
and yes it hurts
telling me to smile, i will smile when i damn feel like it, don't tell me what to do (this is especially annoying when you add "life's not that bad," you have no idea what is going on in my life; maybe it IS that bad.)
trying to provoke a smile (you also have no idea how stubborn and oppositional i really am, the more you push the less i give.)
friends asking me how i am (not so much because i am so often terrible but because i feel almost guilty telling you that, yet again, and like i'm trying to elicit sympathy~i really don't love to complain even though i am so very good at it...)
not looking at me when i am using my finger to point you in the direction of the location you asked me for and heading off in the complete opposite direction when you do look (i once had to tell a woman quite slowly and explicitly to "look in the direction i'm pointing"the fifth time she asked me and then walk over there as she wondered past it.)
in general, not listening to the answer to your question as i give it to you either by asking the question and then wandering away from the desk (or answering your cell phone before you give me the chance to answer), or interrupting me to ask the question i am in the process of answering, or letting your mind obviously wander even if the answer is very short, or just not listening to me at all, did you really need to know the answer? By about the third repetition becomes incredibly difficult to control my words, voice, and tone.)
not even asking a question but rather standing in front of the desk smiling at me when i ask you if i can help you (and yes isn't a question in and of itself, i need more information if i am to actually help you~i am not a mind reader.)
asking another staff member the same question you just asked me simply because you didn't like me (often times you ask a third or fourth staff member because you keep getting the same answer from each one.) And i have to suppress a smile when the second staff member sends you back to me because they don't know the answer or because i am the one in charge.)
Teens telling me to "just relax" because they are doing what i just asked/told them to do and they are showing no evidence of doing so.
i can't relax because they are not relaxing me
and when you ask me why i am so annoyed it is because you are so annoying (but i do love it when you are so totally misbehaving, disruptive and disturbing to other patrons that i finally get to ban you from the library and have the police come ticket you for trespassing during the proscribed period of time.)
using the phrase "excuse me" just BEFORE you do something extremely rude (as if it really does excuse you.) This former form of manners has just become another irritation.
stupidity/ignorance, in general is not that annoying (most of the time...) but complete unwillingness to learn is (especially if you are just using it as a reason to get me to do everything for you.)
constantly disconnect me from the internet, causing me to buy a new router which might not even solve the problem.
my mom asking me if i am speaking clearly into the telephone as if i were some kind of idiot who doesn't know how to use a telephone (and if i didn't wouldn't it have been my mother's responsibility to teach me long, long ago?) Please, just tell me that you can't hear me or that i am breaking up and i will take the appropriate action. (and while we're on the subject while it doesn't annoy me but quite amuses me when my one and only sister leaves me a message and feels the need to add "your sister" to her greeting of it's me, as if i wouldn't recognize her voice.)

ditch that man and read a book instead

2009-03-11T13:11:00.010-06:00

works for me...

Picking the perfect companion

Back in the dark ages when I was dating, I had a friend tell me I had no standards when it came to men – that I'd date anyone. Now, that certainly wasn't true. I wouldn't, for example, date someone with poor hygiene or who professed to be an axe-murderer. I did have to admit, though, that my friend had a point, that I would date, well, pretty much anyone who'd ask me out. On further analysis I decided that this was not, as implied by this so-called "friend," an indication of loose morality, but was in fact an indication of strong character. It meant I didn't judge people too quickly; I got to know them a bit before deciding whether or not a relationship had any chance of working out. A valuable gem might lie just beneath a rough exterior. I was willing to take the chance of finding out.

I'm no longer free to date (I have a feeling my husband would disapprove), so I've had to find something else to feed this need I have to try new things. That "something else" is, of course, the world of books. (Who knows? Perhaps it was my love of constantly exploring different kinds of books that led to my willingness to sample different kinds of men.)

Think about it – there are a lot of similarities between picking a mate and picking a book. Your eye may land on a handsome volume at random, or you may hear about a promising one through a friend whose taste you respect. You pick it up and take it home with you to evaluate further. The relationship might be fast and furious, or it may end up being something you savor, or - even better - a love that you return to again and again over the years. Or it may end up being a complete waste of time. You just never know until you investigate what's between the covers.

Relationships with books actually have some pretty compelling advantages over relationships with men. With books, it's always your choice if the liaison ends prematurely. You don't have to worry about the awkwardness of trying to avoid your discarded book should you bump into it in the grocery store. You can tell it, "It's not you, it's me" or even "You know, it actually IS you" without hurting its feelings. It will also never insist on an exclusive relationship, and no one will think ill of you if you love more than one. You can take one to bed with you the very first night you bring it home without your mother blinking an eye.

I seem to have a misplaced sense of loyalty toward the books I start. I know a number of readers who will stick with a book for fifty or a hundred pages, and if they're not impressed by that time, will unceremoniously discard it, never giving it another thought. I, however, end up feeling that even if I have my reservations, I need to give it a chance; it may improve on further acquaintance. I feel guilty if I don't struggle through to the end. Like most of the men I've dated, though, my initial impressions were correct, and the additional time spent struggling to enjoy the experience was time lost. Perhaps now that I'm older I should start developing higher standards... at least where books are concerned.

BookBrowse reviewer Kim Kovacs is an avid reader in the Pacific Northwest. All those rainy days give her the opportunity to enjoy a wide variety of books that span many genres.

(and i'll try to keep it in mind the next time i find myself hungering after some man...)

because i am so prone to bandwagon jumping

2009-03-10T22:57:00.002-06:00

(even if i'd like to hope i'm not, proud non-conformist that i am)and i seem to have developed a facebook addiction I’ll post my 25 random things about me list here (and yes, Tim, i know that they are not really random but that is what they are calling it and this is a band wagon thing…:) I'm sure i've mentioned at least a few of these before...

I’m a raging insomniac (technically, delayed sleep phase syndrome) and often times, after midnight, very ill-advised ideas seem like very good ideas.
Although i have never felt a desire for children, if it weren’t for my nephews and niece i might have felt compelled to have them.

Even though my sister is twelve years younger than I, from her early childhood i always knew she would get married and have children before i did.
My cats ARE my children and i am as committed to them as i would be to my actual offspring.
Although three cats are definitely enough, lately i have felt an irresistible urge to add a dog to the mix.
Although i have made many a stupid mistake in my lifetime i don’t regret a single one (they have made me who i am today and i am pretty okay with that person.)
Although i would give almost anything to be without these damn migraines i am
very grateful for all they have taught me about myself.
I am addicted to popcorn (and cheese—meat is not such a big sacrifice but i could never give up cheese.)
When i was small and went grocery shopping with my father i somehow got the idea that the beer he bought smelled like rice pudding and was so disappointed to discover it tasted absolutely nothing like rice pudding.
My favorite kind of beer is Pyramid Apricot Weizen even though i am not that found of apricots (too many memories of being forced to pick up the mushy rotten ones from our back lawn as a child.)
I always wanted to be an academic librarian and the thought of being a public librarian was at the very bottom of my list (never was a big fan of the public.) Now that i am a public librarian i can’t really imagine being anything else.
I love reading and even though i own probably more books than i could ever read i somehow keep acquiring more (a bitch to move across country—and my list of books to read is even larger than that.)
I remain friends with almost all my exes.
I could not survive without sarcasm.
I am NOT shy, people that know me are more than aware of this; people that don’t rarely believe me when i tell them so.
I see a neurologist at least once a month and she is constantly switching up my meds (I also see a second neurologist every three months for my sleep disorder.)
I am a mass of contradictions.
I am very rational and logical but my passion seems to rule my life (and that little voice in my head is not so much one of morality but rather constantly telling my how irrational my actions are.)
It took me forever to like sci-fi because when i was little my dad used to come home from work, drag me downstairs, switch on star trek, and not allow me to talk to him except during commercials (he wanted to spend time with me~and such quality time it was…)
Now i love Star Trek (original and TNG~Gina, you got me hooked on this...)
I can’t stand squash (any kind—even zucchini). Never have, never will (again, childhood memories which i shan’t get into here.)
I love New Year’s Eve but haven’t celebrated it for years.
When i was younger i used to think most people thought like me, the older i get the more i realize that i am so much more liberal than most of the population.
People who think they know everything are rather annoying to those of us who actually do (see number 14, and i actually think agnosticism is the only way to go.)
When i was a child in Alaska i believed you plugged in you cars overnight to make them go the next day (instead of to keep the engine from freezing—don’t know why i never noticed my parents didn’t plug them in during the summer—perhaps because summers were so short?

funny how

2009-03-10T04:57:00.009-06:00

Time slips

not only on seas of good intentions

but on waves of dismotivation (and lack of intentions)

on streams of distraction

on ripples of boredom

on infinite raindrops of emptiness and dissatisfaction

and on mists of ambivalence

Away. (and the water is so murky…)

(and maybe it's not so funny either...)

¿¿¿how does one fracture their clavicle anyway???

2009-02-26T02:38:00.008-07:00

i mean i know how i've fractured my right collarbone twice in the past (by falling on my head at an accelerated, gravity assisted pace) but now my left clavicle is fractured with no similar mishap having taken place.

When i went to the doctor for my unexplained pain (was visiting the neurologist anyway and just thought i'd stop by~did that once when my ankles were hurting only to find they were both broken~did remember that time the incident that did it but it makes me wonder how many broken bones i have had when i didn't happen to be at the doctor...)

The man quizzed me about my lack of accidental memory.

Just a crazy, random happenstance, i suppose...

does it mean anything

2009-02-26T02:27:00.005-07:00

that i am constantly typing my email address as ME@homail.com rather than ME@hotmail.com?

hey... it's me...

2009-02-26T01:27:00.010-07:00

did you notice my absence? have you missed me (if you have i'm about to make you regret it...)

i have been here and i always have good intentions to blog along but the intended never seems to actually happen...

WARNING:

DO NOT READ THIS UNLESS YOU FEEL LIKE LISTENING TO THE RAMBLINGS OF A SOMEWHAT DERANGED MIND

i am discombobulated

My current insomnia bout has escalated into mania and my mind is racing (my computer[S?!?] are not racing with me)

I was so happy when i got a wonderful new laptop for christmas because i had become so very weary with my large, heavy, slower laptop that would often overheat and shutdown without warning even though i had taken all the tedious precautions.

My new laptop had a few problems connecting to my wireless network in my bedroom (i would be connected and then suddenly it would go away if the computer happened to move--hello---laptop... ) this particular problem was one i never had with my toshiba but i attempted to deal (even though internet in my bedroom is extremely important--my need to watch television shows and movies in there without an actual television...)
then...

this weekend the power cord to my dell suddenly seemed to deliver no power to the computer (this in and of itself is peturbing enough but also rather disturbing because i am already on the third power cord for my toshiba because they also stopped working--apparently a flaw with the model i have but given the vague memory i have of the same thing happening to an even (more?) prior computer i begin to feel that i am electronically cursed (and having the experience that i do i am extra careful with power cords...)

Back in the day my walkman (what we used to use before iPods were invented), vacum cleaner, and VCR all went out at the same time--i also walked into my mother's den once and as soon as i entered the couch exploded because of the octipi of electrical chords underneath.)

Anyway, after rouble shooting with dell i sent the computer off to have the motherboard replaced and currently i am working on my old, cumbersome toshiba and a laptop i borrowed from my mother--both these computers seem to be so slow that i am finding myself doing one thing on the borrowed toshiba in the living room and doing another thing on my toshiba in the bedroom (my toshiba has to live on a chill hub to try and decrease the chances of the aforementioned overheating) i find myself running back and forth between the bedroom and the living room because i can do something on one computer, let that process while i complete some other task---not terribly efficient
I have tried installing a newer, faster version of my router but am unable to do that with the "help" of both Dell and my internet provider (often after receiving such help i have to resort to my own technical skills which usually work out better than theirs)

kind of crazy how lack of sleep (for days on end) can scramble your mind and body more than the hallucinogenic drugs you used in your twenties...

oh . . .

2009-02-05T03:42:00.001-07:00

the memories . . . . . . .

This life has past,

2009-01-23T14:03:00.002-07:00

slipped away, flown under (always like water, these lines of mine~how it feels, how it looks.)

Water flows, it passes over. It wears away. It slips through. It leaks, it runs. It reflects. It pools. It stills. It stagnates.

yule

2008-12-21T16:51:00.005-07:00

This “low holiday” or “lesser sabbat” falls on the Winter Solstice, the longest night and shortest day, when the decreasing days give way to increasing light and life. The Goddess becomes the Great Mother and once again gives birth to the new Sun King. This sabbat is also known as Midwinter’s Eve. This date varies each year.

This is the holiday that i celebrate with "Seasons Greetings" (and i always send out cards with out the mention of Christ even though most of my friends are Christians.) I also love winter!

and i don't consider it at all low!

all hallow's eve

2008-10-31T17:50:00.002-06:00

One of the two most important “high holidays” or “grand sabbats,” this festival marks the beginning and end of the pagan year. It is the beginning of the resting season of the land, a time of remembrance of those who have gone before, and a time to pierce the veil between the worlds and divine what the coming year holds. This sabbat is also known as All Hallows, Hallow E’en, Halloween, and Samhain (meaning “summer’s end”). Depending on where you are from, “Samhain” is pronounced “sow-in” (in Ireland), “sow-een” (in Wales), “sav-en” (in Scotland), or “sam-hane” (in the US, where Gaelic is not spoken). This date stays the same each year.
Note: Some pagans participate in non-pagan Halloween festivities on 31 October and then celebrate All Hallow’s Eve “Old Style” when the sun has reached fifteen degrees Scorpio (6 November 2008; this date varies each year).

mabon

2008-09-22T17:50:00.002-06:00

This “low holiday” or “lesser sabbat” falls on the Autumnal Equinox, when once more the balance of day and night are equal. This sabbat is also the height of the harvest and is sometimes called Harvest Home. This date varies each year.

The leaves begin to turn from green to brilliant reds and yellows, animals start to migrate, and the harvest is underway by the time of the autumn equinox. Celebrate Mabon on September 21 with rituals, mythology, craft projects, and magic!

"well i never felt more like singing the blues...

2008-08-28T07:11:00.003-06:00

~Daniel Ash (Blue Angel)

here i sit, awake again, headaching and with a new mystery abdominal pain that has had me wishing for death going on almost two months now.

not such a great mood i'm in.

lammas

2008-08-01T17:49:00.001-06:00

This “high holiday” or “greater sabbat” marks the first harvest. This is the feast of Lugh and of the Sacrificial King, who a gingerbread man most often represents these days. This sabbat is also known as Lughnassah, Lughnasadh, and Lamastide. This date stays the same each year.
Note: Some pagans celebrate Lammas “Old Style” when the sun has reached fifteen degrees Leo (6 August 2008; this date varies each year).

why drinking the entire bottle of shiraz might not be the best idea

2008-07-04T04:57:00.010-06:00

You may find yourself driving down the freeway drunk (and i really do try not to drive drunk, but occasionally when judgement is shot and you call your ex up just to talk and he wants you to come over it seems like a good idea at the time) and lost looking for your ex-boyfriend's house which is on the other side of time, rarely visited and somehow always hard to find. Sometimes it seems that you have slipped into an alternate universe going round and round (or not round and round but always going in the wrong direction that only gets you more lost and doesn't seem to provide a turning point until you are much further north or west than you should be and you discover things with names like micro motels(isn't a motel itself usually small enough?) where once you get in the driveway you can't find your way out for hours.) And you are grateful for your iPod but it keeps playing and even though you want to give up and go home you can't even seem to find your way there either.

Call the ex and call the ex for help and guidance and finally stumble your way there without ever getting arrested (even though he was the one with a suspended license.)

And it is nice to be with someone who knows you well and who you can be comfortable with (and in the morning he even knows/remembers how you take your coffee and offers to make you breakfast.) But you can't help wondering how exactly you got here and want to leave.

But i always live my life with no regrets!

midsummer's eve

2008-06-20T17:48:00.001-06:00

This “low holiday” or “lesser sabbat” falls on the Summer Solstice, when the Sun is at the peak of its power. This is the longest day and shortest night of the year. From this time onwards, the days gradually grow shorter again. This date varies each year.
Note: This sabbat is also known as Litha (based on a Saxon word meaning the opposite of “Yule” but for which there is no historical evidence of its use) and St. John’s Eve (Christian name).

Celebrate in whatever way makes you happy!

how can i dream about the soles of my feet if you're sitting on top of my head???

2008-06-12T06:23:00.008-06:00

Was in the middle of figuring out where my dream was heading (or just beginning to enjoy the bizareness of it when Dixie Louanne bothered and awoke me both by sitting on my head and rattling the blind. Now i'll never know!

do you ever get the feeling people just call the local reference librarian because they're lonley and need to chat (or because they are obnoxious and bitchy and need someone to yell at and have already lost any friends they might have had?

Do you ever get the feeling i am just a lonely old -spinster-cat lady?

and who are your favorite fictional librarians

2008-05-07T16:57:00.031-06:00

I can't think of any of mine of the top of my head (i know i've read a few though. Here's an article from the Seattle Public Library's Shelf Talk mentioning a few (mostly mysteries which i don't read much.)

I didn't find many likable (or even memorable characters~maybe that's why i can't mention any names) from In the Stacks: Short Stories About Libraries and Librarians ~nor was i all that fond of Borchert's Free for All non-fiction adventure, anyway.

Unleash your inner librarian
by David W (5/4/08)

What are the odds? The brand spanking new Library of Congress subject heading for “Public Libraries – California – anecdotes’” is getting quite a workout. In the past six months we have seen the publication of two humorous memoirs by librarians in the Los Angeles area: Don Borchert’s Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks and Gangstas in the Public Library and Scott Douglass’s Quiet Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian. They’re both entertaining slices of the library life (or as I like to call it, “The Game”), and I recommend them both. You may have to get in line, as they are both proving to be very popular, and not just with library staff either! It seems a lot of you are interested in exploring your inner librarian. While you’re waiting to get a behind-the-scenes look at the glamorous, high-stakes world of public librarianship, let me introduce some of my favorite fictional librarians.

Meet Cassandra Mitchell, librarian of the small town of Sechelt, British Columbia. While perhaps less well-known than the prim and plucky Miss Helma Zukas just down the coast in Bellehaven, Miss Mitchell is smart, compassionate, resourceful, sexy, a trained professional with a deep commitment to her community, and a love of books, which, she writes, “are my work, my comfort, my joy.” This, in a personal ad answered by RCMP Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg, who observes her well-rounded character in acute detail. “He noticed that as she shelved the books, she pulled some slightly farther out, and then, unthinking, ran her fingers along the spines as if playing a harp.” Small wonder Alberg becomes her love interest and fellow crime solver in nine evocative, psychological mysteries by L.R. (Lauralie) Wright, beginning with The Suspect, winner of the 1985 Edgar award for best novel. Readers with a Masters in Library Science will find special poignancy in A Touch of Panic, in which Cassandra is stalked by that most exasperating of villains, a pompous, predatory professor of library science. Wright died in 2001, but her masterful Northwest mysteries deserve to live on with fans of P.D. James, Ruth Rendell, and mainstream fiction readers as well.
Dorcas Mather, head of Rhode Island’s Squanto Library and droll narrator of Jincy Willett's cunningly titled Winner of the National Book Award, in which she offers her uproariously trenchant views on readers and books, most notably a tell-all crime story written by her twin sister. Abigail Mather is sensual, fleshy, impulsive and free-spirited, while Dorcas is bookish, angular, self-contained and sensuous only toward books. “When I was twelve, and An American Tragedy was my favorite summer book, (Abigail) thrilled to Forever Amber…” Yet the odd pair is linked by mutual love, and the despicable attentions of the superlatively creepy Conrad Lowe, with tragicomic results. Although Dorcas seems at first glance stereotypic spinster librarian, her keen perceptions, vulnerabilities and devastating wit make this a compelling, hilarious and irresistible read.
Myrtle Rusk, the academic librarian heroine of Michael Griffith’s Bibliophilia who has been pressed into service by the head librarian at LSU to prowl the stacks in search of clandestine coitus and to curtail all such free exchange of bodily fluids on library property. Not surprisingly, Myrtle resents being placed in the role of “…deputy sheriff of nookie… a sexless functionary …that joy-spurning old biddy, the Puritan at the Circulation Desk.” It is fair to say that the library itself resents it as well, for one can feel the life force pulsing through the aisles, yearning to break free of its hidebound restraints in small transgressions and grand flagrances, just as Griffith’s prose roils and bubbles with savory expressions. When the library director’s vampish daughter sets her sights on Seti, a pious, charmingly befuddled Egyptian exchange student studying water management, Myrtle must somehow find a way to dam or channel the inevitable deluge.
Then there are librarians’ librarians, such as Alexander Short, the brilliant young hero of Alex Kurzweil’s The Grand Complication, who sublimates his personal insecurities and shortcomings into the exhilarating chase after elusive knowledge, and whose relentless skill at unlocking puzzles and finding arcane answers just opens up more questions. Or William of Baskerville, that daring champion of free thought from Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose who must puzzle through that cruel perversion of learning – a library ingeniously designed to confound its users. Who of us have not shared his frustration from time to time?
We’ve only scratched the surface, so look for more posts on great fictional librarians. And make some noise: Who are your favorite librarians, in fact or fiction?

maybe i'll be able to think of a few at some point...
Well, i do have some fondness for Dewey of Unshelved fame (not to mention Dewey the "Small-Town Library Cat" and Robert Hellenga's Margot Harrington of The Sixteen Pleasures. And okay, The Camel Bookmobile's Fiona Sweeney by Masha Hamilton was somewhat appealing as was of Josephine Carr's somewhat stereotypical Alley Sheffield of The Dewy Decimal System of Love; and of course, i loved Henry from Audrey Neffeneger's The Time Traveler's Wife (haven't seen the movie, though.) So maybe i can think of a few. There is also Charlaine Harris's Aurora Teagarden series, which i haven't read, but i do like the Sookie Stackhouse series (or True Blood for you television aficionados~which i have seen and loved.) And, gosh, that's a mystery too (go figure...)
Then there are a few non-fictional librarians that i appreciate: starting with Henry T. Coutts and Edmond Lester Pearson from the turn of the last century (i'm talking about the 19th here, folks~couldn't find these in any library or even ILL so spent more than a pretty penny to actually buy them!); Joel Rane (Scream at the Librarian); Betty Vogel (A Librarian is to Read); and Will Manley.

bookthoughtdraft #1 (not a full-grown post) Enola Holmes

2008-05-03T15:36:00.016-06:00

So, good intentions have left me with a gigantic (read: massive, enormous, colossal, extensive, imposing, ponderous, monumental, cumbersome, towering [get the thesaurutical idea? i think i've actually amassed about two years worth~yes, i said two years] ) pile (pile being only theoretical, of course) of unposted posts that i keep meaning to post. I'm going to start posting them unfinished (the idea being to make it just one step further along on the stumbling path of my life. That being said, let me present the first such draft (appropriately back-dated, but of course.)
maybe one day i'll find my notes for these.
The Case of the Missing Marquess is the first in the Enola Holmes Mysteries series by Nancy Springer (Enola Holmes being the much younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft). Enola's mother disappears leaving the Holmes' brothers to threaten Enola with boarding school where she'll learn to be a "lady" (the last thing she wants, by the by) after they see the appalling amount of freedom Enola has to run about and be herself. When Enola discovers a series of cyphers left behind by her mother (who has conviently been teaching her the art of cyphering) Enola runs away from the Holmes' estate to London both to find her mother and escape her brothers' plan. As soon as she hits the city she immediately stumbles upon a mystery of her own involving the disappearance of young Viscount Tewksbury. She uses what is apparently a genetic propensity to solve the case employing a wide variety of disguises. Springer plays with quite a few ideas surrounding the restrictive Victorian mores, but if Enola's character seems to make some asynchronous slips her naivety makes up for it. She is an ingenuous ingenue. Sherlock comes off as rather an ass at the beginning but his character grows on you a little (the same can't be said of Mycroft so much.)
The second Enola Holmes mystery~The Case of the Left-Handed Lady has Enola (still in hiding from Mycroft and Sherlock) setting up shop as a Perditorian (totally stumped me until i realized that it has zipped right past me in the first book: from the Latin perditus meaning “lost”, Perditorian: one who divines that which is lost) in London. She has gained quite a bit of street smarts this goround and has grown quite adept at juggling disguises. The book is pretty much as enjoyable as the first (which was enjoyable~did i mention that?) A quick, intelligent, entertaining read for early teens (or those of us with that level of intellectual ability.)

it's about time for a Beltane celebration (and where are those May flowers?)

2008-05-01T17:46:00.010-06:00

Maybe because it comes in May, perhaps something about the name, it could be that it signals the "springing up" of flowers (and i do love certain flowers~wild flowers~[believe it or not this sarcastic librarian not only appreciates certain beauty in nature but also gets extremely sentimental at times~just between you and me] especially forget-me-nots, my favorite, the flower {sometimes mentioned as my birth-flower and the flower i wanted as my centerpiece/theme if ever i should marry}~the color {the color of sky, the color of air} i would love my dress to be...). But anyway give May Eve (sounds so much better than "May Day" for us night owls) a chance to let go of worries (and that ever-present head pain) and be happy that you are alive in the beautiful world.

Today is Beltane (and Mayday was my grandmother's birthday so i always remember what a great woman she was on this day~a family of May Taureans somehow we turned out~me, my father, his mother...)

Second of the two most important “high holidays” or “great sabbats,” this festival celebrates the marriage of the Goddess and the God. This pagan holiday centers on flowers, Maypoles, and greenwood frivolity. This date stays the same each year.
Note: Some pagans celebrate Beltane “Old Style” when the sun has reached fifteen degrees Taurus (4 May 2008; this date varies each year).

Also known as May Eve, May Day, and Walpurgis Night, happens at the beginning of May. It celebrates the height of Spring and the flowering of life. The Goddess manifests as the May Queen and Flora. The God emerges as the May King and Jack in the Green. The danced Maypole represents Their unity, with the pole itself being the God and the ribbons that encompass it, the Goddess. Colors are the Rainbow spectrum. Beltane is a festival of flowers, fertility, sensuality, and delight. Prepare a May basket by filling it with flowers and goodwill and then give it to someone in need of healing and caring, such as a shut-in or elderly friend. Form a wreath of freshly picked flowers, wear it in your hair, and feel yourself radiating joy and beauty. Dress in bright colors. Dance the Maypole and feel yourself balancing the Divine Female and Male within. On May Eve, bless your garden in the old way by making love with your lover in it. Make a wish as you jump a bonfire or candle flame for good luck. Welcome in the May at dawn with singing and dancing.

go romp in the meadow amongst the flowers and celebrate life...

"You can be lonlier in the wrong relationship than you can ever be when you are single."

2008-04-23T19:47:00.010-06:00

Once again i find myself in the midst of reading a book and wondering exactly what continent the author is living on (in this case Imogen Lloyd Webber~yes, she is the daughter of Sir Andrew~is in London~something i guessed from her language~though she could have just been displaying her anglophile airs like me and Madonna)~i guess i should start reading those back inside flaps before embarking on my reading tasks (or at least paying more attention when i do). The Single Girl’s Survival Guide: secrets for today’s savy and independent woman is one of those books that i bought for my library (even though it didn’t necessarily fit my collection development plan) because nobody else in the system seemed to be picking it up and Brodart listed it as being in high demand (besides which it looked like something, in my silly, thinking i am still a young foolish girlish, girl, phase i would want to read myself~bad, bad librarian, i).

Anyway now that it is in there are quite a few people who have put it on hold so i feel somewhat vindicated. . . The book itself is somewhat silly and suggests we single gals have more money than we often do (especially the slightly younger Bridget Jones type set i’m suspecting the book is aimed at~Lloyd Webber doesn’t even use the word singleton~which might be considered passé now~see how out-of-it i am) i do suppose Miss Imogen is not quite as strapped as many of us might be. The book is rather amusing (especially its A Single Girl’s Survival Glossary including such terms as ALL TEXT NO TROUSERS, BIG DUVET, BUNBURY, EXplotation, NFI, RETROSEXUAL, SOCIAL HAND GRENADE (i have a few of those in my past) and SQUEAKY. Other than the amusement to be found (and it is almost worth reading for that) much of the advise is rather basic (tho perhaps the young-just-embarking-on-life might find it more useful than i) and some of it is quite useful. Worth a glance but not much more…

"if Oprah told you to jump off a cliff...

2008-04-13T21:47:00.008-06:00

would you do it?"

would have made a great teenager's retort to the traditional parental sarcasm about peer pressure.

Now Oprah has joined with the ASPCA to take on puppy mills (an admittedly worthwhile cause~and one which would do some good from having so influential a voice speaking out against it).

My only question is: where was this worthy cause the last time she bought two pups (an event she also devoted one of her shows to) she choose to get them from an obvious puppy mill (and a breeder who had previously been cited).

Oprah definitely has the money to purchase purebred puppies if she so chooses (and i'm not going to go so far as to rant against the practice of breeding {i'm not entirely against it~tho i think people who purchase from [reputable only] breeders should also contribute to animal welfare groups~or just adopt a purebred from a rescue group} when their are so many unwanted, lovable, adoptable animals out there) but if she chooses to be hypocritical she could at least do so a little more privately...)

As for me, two of my current cats were adopted from shelters (Demetra with semi-special needs) and even though i found Katushka at the library i feel like i rescued her from the more than mischievous boys who were looking for the source of the mewing. I'm also not against the registration of cats (just like dogs are registered).

(at least Oprah has now vowed to adopt all her future dogs...)

"...as a girl, about to descend a snowy slope, I seemed to hear advice: Hold on tight, Marie. It seemed to come from the mountains themselves,

2008-04-01T12:27:00.011-06:00

…or from the future.”

In my continuing quest to learn about all things Marie Antoinette i picked up Abundance: a novel of Marie Antoinette, a rather richly detailed 545 page book by Sena Jeter Naslund. Naslund writes with a very obvious sympathy towards Marie Antoinette and at times it was hard to believe M.A.’s absolute goodness (even tho she did come across as quite shallow~perhaps more interested in politics and learning than i had previously thought~yet she still loathes reading.) Most of the story is told in M.A.’s own voice, but it also includes letters exchanged between M.A. and her mother (Maria Theresa, Royal Empress of Austria) and between M.A. and her brother, Joseph II (these letters were apparent constructed from the historical record). Nalund seems to have most of her details quite close to the truth (from whatever i know on the subject, and haven’t we already established that that isn’t much?~but her reliance on resources contemporary to the time seem to bear the assumption out~tho Naslund does blame the infamous “let them eat cake” line on the wife of Louis XIV when the line is probably entirely apocryphal and not attributable to anyone, in addition to not having the traditional meaning) but both a little more embellishment and a little less depth of detail might have helped (i’m not sure the length of the book was entirely warranted~Naslund turns phrases well enough that just as much could be said with less).

“Perhaps captive animals do not see beyond the grilles of their menageries.”

M.A. led a sheltered life and she was raised to expect the privileges she received (she did try to make reforms to simplify things in court but she shows a real lack of understanding of how things really are for the peasantry and how her extravagances effect them or how truly ineffective her attempted efforts at helping that peasantry are~tho listening to her mother a tad more might have behooved her, i’m not sure it would have saved her...) She is truly surprised and confused by when the tide of public opinion turns against her but Naslund has her bear it rather gracefully, she believes her duty is to the people of France (as well as her children) even if she has little idea how to serve those needs. I felt it was quite a realistic portrayal of someone of her class, her age, living in the times that she did.

“I find my mind has become a dense, opaque cloud of confusion. And what has become of the part of me that I mean when I say “I”? I am lost in a fog, I have little sense of who I am. But I know I am not what they imply.”
“How can I play my role—that is to say—how can one maintain her identity, without the proper costume?”

Even though it wasn’t a terribly tedious read, it did get somewhat repetitive in some places and i didn’t feel like i needed to hear quite so much of the minute goings on of almost everyday of her life (or so it sometimes felt). I finally lost my sense of trudging along (the novel did just enough to keep me interested) once M.A. was imprisoned and began her inevitable path toward the guillotine. I was definitely sad to see her go but i don’t believe i would have enjoyed life in the eighteenth century French court~just a bit of a bore~no matter how opulent and decadent it may have been…

why won't those damn librarians just retire already?

2008-03-27T00:27:00.008-06:00

Of late there has been a bit of a firestorm brewing on publib about how old librarians won’t retire to make room for the new.

here’s the email that started it off:

Just to chime in here...
There have been quite a few postings for jobs here in Michigan, some requiring to no experience, but I have yet to get my degree so they won't interview me at all.
From what I read, I got the impression that this "librarian shortage" or "job increase" was not due to demand, but to the retirement of a lot of librarians. At least here where I am, a lot of librarians are very old and ready to retire, even the University ones. The new
reference librarian at MSU just graduated last year, so they want to hire new people. Especially with the old librarians and technology? Oh God, do they want new people!
The universities are having the students teach old librarians up here.
I agree with the economy issue. The failing economy, the recession, social security and all that, are making retirees nervous. I'm thinking that the reason we aren't seeing jobs as much, is due to a lot of people working longer than they should because they're worried they won't have enough money. At least, that's what's I'm hearing from the older
librarians.
This problem could go away soon, could not. I'm considering a possible overseas move, librarians are in demand elsewhere in the world... drastic though it be.

yes, it is a bit incendiary, and it really makes you wonder what is considered old. I thought a couple of things:

First of all the poster hasn’t even started looking for a job yet, are things really as dire as she believes (i got my first job, my first interview, directly out of grad school, in the city i was living~and I know it all depends on the time you are looking but my system still has openings…)?
Perhaps she has unrealistic expectations of income in this profession (i remember when i was applying to grad school and discovered the little bit of info that librarianship is the lowest paying profession for the level of education it requires~a choice you make when you are deciding what to do with your life~money ratio to job satisfaction desire)
Perhaps a different career, one that pays more and has more perceived opportunity is in order here (but perhaps attitude is a factor?)
Why should someone be forced into retirement simply because they are of a certain age, especially if they still enjoy what they do?
Librarianship is a second career for many people (maybe because they need the income?) so the average age at entry is older to begin with...
Sure some older librarians are not up on the new technology (just as many younger ones aren’t) but many are (and many of them are more adaptable than the rest of us having gone through many drastic changes in the profession in the working life~not to mention that this is one profession to quickly take on the new technology) .
It is true that people are not making enough money to save enough, should we force them to live on less than they can simply to make room for the younger whipper-snappers?
Some of us (even not so old) librarians have extreme medical costs (or other life-circumstances) which require us to retain that job for the health insurance.
Will she feel the same when she comes of age and somewhat younger, stronger, leaner, more learned, more sure of her own abilities wants her job (and your perception of age does change relative to your own age)?
There is something to be said for experience!

These are all my own assumptions and presumptions of course...

Lady Day

2008-03-21T00:11:00.000-06:00

This “low holiday” or “lesser sabbat” falls on the Spring (or Vernal) Equinox (tho it may not feel much like spring with this weather...), when day and night are equal. The Great Mother Goddess, who returned to her Virgin aspect at Candlemas, welcomes the young Sun God’s embraces and conceives a child to be born in 9 months at the next Winter Solstice. This date varies each year.
Note: Some pagans refer to this sabbat as “Ostara” or “Eostara,” which is historically incorrect. The festival of the Goddess “Eostar,” whose symbols are the egg (sound familiar?) and the hare, is separate and is best celebrated on the vernal full moon or esbat.

Ostara is the Sabbat associated with Spring and is the time of the year when there is an equal balance of light and dark, 12 hours of darkness and 12 hours of light. This is an important time to embrace a point of balance in your own life, where everything is in harmony for a brief time before summer is upon us...

so if you are not celebrating Easter this year (or you want a reason for sharing that Easter dinner with your traditional family) sweet Ostara...

"Marie-Antoinette was the victim of idealogical inflation systemitically fueled by the pamphlets and the press."

2008-03-09T20:47:00.018-06:00

and "Even when thrown by the handful at their targets, the pamphlets failed to rattle the good humor of the queen--thanks, perhaps, to her complete lack of curiosity about the written word. Reading, an immobile an immobile activity demanding sustained concentration, bored her."

Yeah, reading kinda does suck (or so i've been told)

So a short while ago i watched Marie Antoinette (rather enjoyable flick) and became interested in the life of the queen. After devouring what i could find on the internet and biographical databases i went in search of actual books. The only thing that wasn't a children's book my library system seemed to possess was The Wicked Queen: the origins of the myth of Marie-Antoinette by Chantal Thomas, a title i think i picked up once before, started perusing, then returned. This time i struggled my way through (don't get me wrong, it was interesting, if somewhat dense~don't know if any of this was due to the translator, Julie Rose, but i do think this is a tome written for academia more than anyone else).

I perhaps should have noticed that the call number was not one for biographies, though a quick perusal of even the book flap would reveal that it is a study of how the contemporary propaganda pamphlets and tracts not only turned the French people against the foreign queen, but were mostly untrue. I would have benefit ted from a more thorough grounding in the details of Marie-Antoinette's life (there is a brief chronology). And a glance at the back of the book to reveal that the names of everyone i was having such a hard time keeping straight were glossed there might have helped (i am forever making too-late discoveries such as these...) Apparently people were as obsessed with the sex-lives of royalty (the celebrities of the day) then as they are now (not too surprising) and there is quite a bit of vulgarity to be found here.

Perhaps of interest to students of eighteenth-century aristocracy, historical scandal sheets, or the French Revolution. I will continue my quest for biographical details and i might enjoy this one more after a few more facts under my belt (though i did read the entire thing in just a few days...)

in the waiting room, or (to quote Elizabeth Grymeston) "I resolve to break the barren soil of my fruitless brain."

2008-03-05T15:43:00.001-07:00

so here i am, waiting them to set up the ultrasound machine after my follow-up mammogram came back with wonky, mysterious results (the whole medical mystery thing is something that has been going on all my life and i often wonder if there is more to this whole adoption thing than my parents were ever let in on... or were they?)

The whole results waiting thing is getting a little tedious...

a few thoughts on my waiting room reading...

an article about a woman who has chosen to live with the man she loves for the rest of their lives but does not wish to marry (for what is a legal/religious commitment anyway~they don't feel it's necessary). Although i've had a few live-in situations in my life i've come to the conclusion in my old age that, unless there is some legal (such as same-sex commitment~which should be legalized) or financial reason (sometimes senior citizens are better off without marriage) preventing a legal union you really should get married (especially if you have children). This isn't necessarily a moral opinion, but i believe that it makes everything much more tidy in terms of finances, insurance, life decisions, and even, gods forbid, the dissolution of the relationship. Even if a commitment between the two of you is enough, why is marriage so distasteful (and how cranky am i getting???)?
obama vs. hilary (convinced of his own fitness for office~he is quite audacious, is he not?) and i suppose he must be so convinced to go up against hil's "experience". I am waffling about which of these two i want to elect (i just want a democrat in there for a change!)
"Tragedy, in the Shakespearean form that Weisberg seems to cite (although there is nothing tragic about Henry V either), requires self-awareness and at least some level of greatness squandered. The Bush whom Weisberg skillfully and largely convincingly portrays is a man who has rarely reflected, who has almost never looked back, and who has constructed a self-image of strength, courage and boldness that has little basis in the reality of his life. He is driven less by bold vision than by a desire to get elected (and settle scores), less by real strength than by unfocused ambition, and less by courage than by an almost passive acquiescence in disastrous plans that the people he empowered pursued in his name."
Alan Brinkley's review of The Bush Tragedy by Jacob Weisberg in The New York Times Book Review, March 2, 2008
and then there is my ever frequent meditation on and frustration with idiots on the road (i have mentioned my hatred of driving here before {and what is it about traveling to medical appointments that makes it all so much worse?}). But i must say my very biggest pet peeve of all (beyond the sheer stupidity of nearly everyone on the road but me) is honking horns (i once had a friend ticketed by a police officer for excessive use of his horn~he honked at someone at a stoplight and the officer told him the horn is only to be used in cases of severe emergency {tho i must admit, when someone doesn't notice the light has changed after longer, than say, 45 seconds, that does seem like rather an emergent situation...) But i feel almost the same way about horns, nothing will more quickly make me want to doggedly prevent you from reaching your destination than if you honk your horn at me (talk about road rage). I don't often follow through on that impulse (at least not for long). At least i'm not hypocritical about this, it seldom even occurs to me to honk my horn at someone, unless i see my eminent death looming closeby...

"Maybe when your real life becomes the terror, there's just nothing left to dream about."

2008-03-05T04:41:00.018-07:00

In Taken Edward Bloor imagines the year 2036 as one with severe class divisions (an outgrowth of divisions which are already dangerously increasing.) Thirteen-year-old Charity Meyers is a Floridian daughter of privilege who lives in the Highlands, one of many gated communities, escorted to and from satschool (a school where lessons are beamed by satellite from an elite Manhattan academy) a heavily-armed butler, Albert (who along with her family's live-in "french maid" Victoria are part of the RDS~Royal Domestic Service~the "largest and most prestigious company in the service industry.) Their very names are regulated by the RDS.

Kidnapping has become a "major growth industry" in this society of the future and, as such, the rich kids are trained to deal with the stress of the situation as well as follow the "protocol", the ransom is to be arranged within twenty-four hours and the child returned safe and sound. On New Year's Day 2036 Charity is kidnapped and thus begins her twenty-four hour countdown. The pace of the book keeps the reader enthralled as the hours are counted down and Charity's story is told in both present-tense and flashback. The details of the society she lives in are often relayed from details she has written about in various term papers.

Charity's father is a dermatologist who amassed his fortune by developing a skin bronzing treatment (ironically, her mother died of skin cancer) and his wealth has survived the "world credit crash". Her stepmother, Micki, is a self-centered "vidqueen" who makes documentaries and with Micki and her father in the midst of a divorce Charity spends much of her time with Victoria and Albert. With many twists and turns and Charity's growing sense of social awareness, Taken is a fast-past, thrilling read.

"Innocence is a curable disease, you know."

2008-03-03T19:53:00.014-07:00

another rewriting of Shakespeare; another feminist interpretation; another Lisa Fiedler young adult novel (even though i wasn’t excessively thrilled with the last); i guess i just can’t resist…

Romeo’s Ex: Rosaline’s story takes a rather minor character from Romeo and Juliet (though she is the catalyst for the meeting of the couple that many consider the most romantic of all time~just in case you need a refresher, Rosaline was the character Romeo was mooning over at the beginning of the play and drove him to sneak into the Capulet’s party where he instantly fell in love with Juliet). In Fiedler’s take, Rosaline is Juliet’s cousin (a not entirely unbelievable premise given that the drama’s character has some relation to the Capulets [else why would she be at the party?]). Rosaline is also an apprentice healer (seemingly to be a common theme with Fiedler~tho Rosaline has ambitions to study medicine at an academy), which provides her an opportunity to meet Romeo in the first place (and he to become enamored of her).

Rosaline’s story really is the main focus of this novel while Romeo and Juliet’s is told as more of a subplot (and as a contrast to the true love that develops between Rosaline and Benvolio {both originally skeptical of love and all things related), who saves her life during the play’s initial Montague/Capulet brawl~tho she originally mistakes her savior for Mercutio). Rosaline’s yearning for the bad-boyedness of Mercutio is in direct conflict with her growing affinity with Benvolio. Mercutio wishes to make a conquest of Rosaline (as is his wont) and it makes for a somewhat involving (if entirely predictable) story.

I found this book to be rather more enjoyable (still somewhat fluffy tho) than Dating Hamlet (perhaps the experience of a freshman novel matured Fiedler…) (but i did find the trivialization of Romeo and Juliet’s love somewhat annoying~even though i once wrote a term paper for my Theatre History class about how their relationship was one more of adolescent attraction than true love~much the same concept, but it was my concept; therefore all that much better!). This novel was much truer to the original play (perhaps easier to do when using more minor characters). But one does wonder at the eventual “collapse” of the all independent, feminist women in these type of books, when love conquers all…oh well (some of us are so happily single we just can’t understand…

"Sometimes, we lose sight of ourselves when we're not paying enough attention."

2008-03-02T00:27:00.011-07:00

When Sandy Shortt is ten years old her classmate Jenny-May Butler disappears, and the very public search garners a great deal of attention for her small Irish town. Though Jenny-May lived across the street from Sandy she was more antagonist than friend but her mysterious disappearance obsesses Sandy. From that day on she finds herself preoccupied with finding all things that go missing (those single socks in the dryer, that , sweater you wore one time, the stray notebook, even something as trivial as a paper clip). Sandy looks for all lost things and grows more isolated from the rest of life.

I found myself relating to the description of Sandy’s obsession for “missing” those things lost (though i think i believe i might lose the meaning and the memory they held for me while Sandy just wants to understand where they go, how they go~but reading this reminded me of so many things i could never find~the anklet i lost and never found in my first boyfriend’s bed, the ring i lost the night i spent guarding the Greek theatre with my current crush~all the watches that disappeared in my apartment on Catherine Street {and it never occurred to the me who likes to think myself cynical that some things disappeared into roommates hands~until now~almost fifteen years later} perhaps loosing things attatches even more meaning and memory to them than keeping them ever would…)

Though i have a bit of the OCD myself, Sandy takes it to rather dysfunctional levels. Her obsession with searching continues into adulthood when she becomes an agent for the Gardá Síochána (the Irish National Police Service~i get the Scotland Yard impression here), and later a Missing Persons investigator on her own. Cecelia Ahern delivers her story in There’s No Place Like Here in delectable pieces, she made me want to read more of her work (and i was rather surprised to discover she wrote P.S., I Love You.)

Sandy stumbles into a land of the lost and is at first somewhat elated to find all things that have ever gone missing. But as details of her life and those of Jack Ruttle (the man who had hired Sandy to find his brother just before she disappeared) are slowly unveiled she begins to “miss” the not only the life that she left behind (and had isolated herself from) but the chances she had never given herself. She finds herself longing to return to her life (and the life she might have if she tries…)

This book is going onto my favorites list (at least for the moment…)

"Cursing, threatening, perhaps violent librarians."

2008-02-29T18:06:00.021-07:00

"It was a concept that they could not get their minds around. Their whole world fell to pieces and not one of the subjects they took at school gave them a clue about putting it back together. Had they Googled it, it still wouldn't have helped them"

sounds somewhat more interesting than it actually is…

(i, at least, have managed to bite my tongue before the curse words actually emerge, or at least muttered them under my breath)

Free for All: oddballs, geeks, and gangstas in the public library is a book that i saw somewhere and thought would be somewhat entertaining (i, like many others like me, snap up those tales of libraries and bookstores for the camaraderie, relatability, or something like that.) Dan Borchert

“was a short-order cook, door-to-door salesman, telemarketer (did a bit of that myself back in the day...), and Christmas-tree-chopper before landing work in a California library. He never could have predicted his encounters with the colorful kooks, bullies, and tricksters who fill the pages of this hilarious memoir.”

(Some note should be made here that Borchert isn’t a MLS degreed librarian~nor did he ever call himself one in the book~apparently there has been some not-mild controversy surrounding this because in his marketing or publicity interviews or some such, he has been called a librarian; and of course many librarians, having worked hard and paid much for that grad school degree, resent people taking the title librarian unjustly~let me just say here, that, tho i am among those~to a certain extent~who cling to that title so proudly and possessively, i’m not sure if this is his mistake or those marketing him and i’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and much of the public is unawares so that can’t really be blamed [to a certain extent~i believe it is at least partly our job to educate the public…] {and we have a librarian assistant at my library without whom i would be lost~but she's still not a librarian~perhaps Borchert's system should make a clearer delineation between tasks that various job functions perform than they currently seem to~because his book makes it appear a little haphazard...and maybe it is...})

Having got that out of the way, Free for All was quite a bit less than i wanted it to be. As many other librarians have said i have much more humorous (and more frightening) tales to tell (though a few of his were unique in some respects~i'm sure every librarian has at least a few of those...) And is this really an urban Los Angeles library~it sounds a bit more like a smaller town~or is that just my cynical jaded self? I must say i was not overly impressed with Borchert’s writing ability either (nor his seeming equation with the way things are done at his library, in his system with the way things are done in all systems~such as who does what and way as well as the way his bureaucracy function.) I’m not a big fan of the book's organizational scheme either. It wasn’t a complete waste of time, though, and there were some amusing moments. Perhaps this would actually be of more interest to those who do not work in libraries to discover that all is not quiet in the library or that we do not "just sit around and read all day, perhaps for me it is more like a “busman’s holiday”.

what do we need librarians for anyway?

2008-02-28T22:47:00.015-07:00

not that i’m asking, of course, (that would be a little self destructive, don’t you think?) but a number of people do some to wonder such a thing, especially as budgets are crunched and administrators begin to investigate where they can cut costs…

The latest kafuffle concerns the elimination of the "librarian 1" positions in the Marathon County Public Library. One of the four positions is currently vacant and the others will be collapsed into three customer service/librarian positions which the current librarians will be offered (at $10,000 less per year) or they can apply for a lead customer service/librarian position (along with everyone else) that job pays what they currently make. I suppose this is a much better deal than many people are getting in this time of recession and unemployment, but i find the reasoning for the cuts a bit off: that libraries are becoming more like community centers (not necessarily a bad thing, but they are still libraries) and that their demands are for less complex, detailed work; mainly simple customer service and computer assistance. I have said before and shall repeat myself here that the public has a hard time differentiating between those who simply work in a library and librarians. They don’t really understand what librarians do or that they really need them (coincidentally enough, i just had two gentlemen ask me questions {one for a book one for computer searching [paid database~not internet} which required research only a librarian could perform...). Just because times are changing (and we must change with them, there are new expertise's to be learned but at the same time we must exercise the old~and remind people why they need us). As librarians we do a poor job of self-promotion and if we are to retain our jobs we need to do better…

Here’s John Berry’s opinion from March’s Library Journal:

Blatant Berry: The Vanishing Librarians
It looks like the “transformation” we seek for libraries and librarianship may turn out to be more of a “deskilling” of library jobs than an enhancement of the profession. More and more working librarians are “managed” by a new breed of library leader. Their model for the new public library is that dehumanized supermarket or the chaotic disorganization of the largest Barnes & Noble.
As this process unfolds, the once professional responsibilities of librarians are being dumbed down into the duties of retail clerks or the robotic responses of machines. Our circulation desks are disappearing. The humans who once greeted and discussed with patrons our wares and services as they dispensed them are being replaced by self-service. Those circulation clerks are either being terminated or sent to work elsewhere in the library.
Our reference services and the desk from which they were delivered are gone, too, replaced by wandering “librarians,” with or without an MLS. They are supposed to be proactive in searching out patrons in need but are too often summoned on walkie-talkies or terminals to come to the aid of only those who ask or to respond to the few inquiries that arrive online. Of course, we need fewer and fewer of these librarians, because patrons are urged to do it all for themselves, via Google, PACs, or whatever they discover through our terminals or their own laptops and PCs.
Our catalogers began to disappear with the takeover of that function by OCLC, the nonprofit that aspires to be a corporation in this brave new retail library world. The standardized result of the effort is bypassed by patron and librarian alike, as they turn to the more friendly Amazons, Googles, et al., for the less precise, more watered-down “metadata” that has replaced what used to be cataloging. Apparently, users don’t miss the old catalog, except as a familiar artifact, which is testimony to how low this dumbing down has taken us.
In the new model, that most sacred of our professional duties, the selection of materials to build services and collections, is turned over to either small centralized teams of two or three librarians and clerks, or in extreme cases to an external vendor, usually a library book distributor.
The resulting “destination” libraries resemble the cookie-cutter design of the grocery store, aimed at making sure everyone who comes in goes out with “product” (books, CDs, DVDs, or downloads). What the patron takes is of as little concern to the storekeeper librarian as it is to the supermarket manager. The success of the enterprise is measured in the number of products collected by patrons, now called “customers.” It is no longer measured in the usefulness or impact of the service on the quality of life in the community served.
Many of the American Library Association-accredited LIS programs that once claimed to “educate” the professional librarians who run these libraries have been invaded by faculty from other disciplines, a great many of whom are far more adept at the politics and pedagogy of academic survival than they are at the principled professional practice of librarianship.
Now the progress of this deskilling has come full circle. Having discovered that the manager librarians of these supermarket libraries need fewer and fewer professional librarians to staff their simplified operations, the governing authorities are beginning to decide they don’t need a professional librarian to manage them. Some have been turned over to successful business types from industry, some to lawyers, some to academic administrators or fundraisers, and some to professional financial managers.
The most surprising part is that so few library leaders have raised their voices in alarm or outrage at this erosion of the standards to which libraries once aspired. It is frightening to think that we will stand quietly by and watch as professional librarians disappear from libraries and with them the quality of the services and collections in which we once took such professional pride.

And here’s the ever-entertaining(don't always agree with her, but still love to read her) Annoyed Librarian

Library Jobs that Suck #4
There's an exciting opportunity in Wisconsin for anyone who wants to work in a library with a demoralized staff and a director who likes to demote or drive off librarians.
Wouldn't you just love to apply to be the new Customer Services Lead Librarian at the Marathon County Public Library in lovely Wausau, Wisconsin? I knew you would. Doesn't this sound
like a fantastic job:
"The Marathon County Public Library is seeking a highly qualified individual for the position of Customer Services Lead Librarian. This is a leadership position focusing on constantly improving the customer-library experience throughout the Library system. The ideal candidate advocates for [sic], researches, creates, develops, and executes innovative approaches, services, and products to meet diverse community and diverse customer needs using creativity and entrepreneurial leadership for the
Library’s system. This position works directly with library staff to improve their customer service and responsiveness skills.
"I only had to read through that advertisement once to say, "Wow! This job is HOT!" They're looking for highly qualified people. I'm highly qualified. They want people to service some customers. I'm great at servicing customers. That's how I paid my way through library school! And they have that great long sentence explaining everything the lucky candidate would get to do. The lucky candidate could advocate innovative approaches or execute innovative products, really just anything, as long as its "innovative." And all of us would probably like to work with that persnickety staff to improve their responsiveness skills. That staff must really suck if the library is advertising how unresponsive they are. Someone needs to go in and light a fire under their bottoms! Also, who wouldn't want to work for a library with a mission "to attract customers to discovery and fun through exploration and entertainment." Ooohh, ahhh, discovery and fun through exploration and entertainment! That sure beats this mission: "The Commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty." Because it's fun! And entertaining! And about servicing customers! Yay!!!
And it would also be fun to work in such a well known library. Oh sure, I know plenty of you work in well known libraries such as the New York Public or Widener or something. But how often do you get to opportunity to work in an increasingly nationally recognized public library in a small place in Wisconsin? Not often. But this library is famous, or at least it should be among librarians. See the news stories here, here, and of course here. Perhaps not everyone reads the Wausau Daily Herald (and why would you?), but everyone reads the AL, at least everyone who's reading this right now.
So if you want to work in a "customer service"-oriented job (and from what I hear every librarian should want to do that because that's what we're all about!), then go ahead and apply to the

Marathon County Public Library. There you can work in an "innovative" environment where the director demotes librarians and cuts their pay and where whatever formerly professional staff are left will resent you until they can find other jobs. And when the last of them go, you can hire some even lower-paid and less competent people to take their place. Yay! And you can improve their "responsiveness skills." Yay!
This is like a dream job, isn't it? The deadline is March 24, so hurry up with that application! Tell 'em the AL sent you and your application goes to the top of the pile.

So I suppose that’s my PSA, blah, blah, blah rant for the day… perhaps i’m just feeling a little self-important and want to hang on to my job as well as my salary (tho i still believe in that M.I.L.S.)

"I wished that I were anyone but Ophelia, victim of mischance and evil"

2008-02-24T19:03:00.016-07:00

I won't rehash my love of all things Shakespeare and the particular love i have for his play Hamlet here (although my reading of the particular young adult novel Ophelia by Lisa Klein did prompt a viewing of all six of my various Hamlet dvds for their sundry interpretations~it is always better to view performances than just to read over the text and i felt it all needed slight refreshing so i pulled i started by rereading the text itself then decided to pull out all five of my Hamlet dvds and watch those instead.

I started with the Kenneth Branagh version because that is the first version to actually use the full text of the play. It is set in Denmark, though in the nineteenth century (somehow i feel a bit iffy with the whole messing around with the bard thing~but then i think~how anachronistic was old Will to begin with? and i rethink my whole thinking...) Overall i liked the Branagh version (though, of course, i did have a few quarrels with it~can anyone ever do a film of something you love ever fully to your liking?~i found Ophelia a tad too "knowing", if that is in fact the word...).

I've always been fond of Franco Zeffirelli's Shakespeare and his Hamlet is no exception (tho i've somewhat soured on Mel Gibson now~i do love Helena Bonham-Carter as Ophelia and the locations here are wonderful). Olivier is brilliant as always~i can see why he is who he is (was?), but of course (tho how you can leave out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is beyond me...) and i also really like Richard Burton's dress rehearsal version. I must say i'm not a huge Ethan Hawke fan but i did like his Hamlet (even if it was set in "modern"~well year 2000, god how time does fly~New York). And then there is the Russian Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet, beautifully sparse and spare (just as imagine ninth century Denmark), it is also beautifully Russian… (i would also love to get my hands on a Ralph Fiennes Broadway production~so i'm just a little obsessesed~but this was probably enough for a single film festival...)

I think that Lisa Klein might be a slightly better author than Lisa Fiedler (what is it about the name Lisa and making feminists out of Shakespearean heroines~even when there already are a few feminist Shakespearean heroines already?). I’m actually quite struck by many of the similarities of the backstory in these novels. Klein doesn't seem to be stretching quite so much for her language anyway, and the book just seemed to flow much more naturally. Her Ophelia also seemed to be much more of a real feminist than did Fiedler’s (who’s felt more like what every young girl dreamed of being in a strong female~but maybe that is appropriate to a young adult novel.) And is there really a textual basis for Ophelia being an expert herbalist (other than her “there’s rue for you..” speech?~much of which content was more common knowledge than it is today) Not that i didn’t love the detail but it was common to both novels. I did have some problems with the setting tho~seemed to be more Elizabethan than the ninth century Danish i wanted it to be (there i go again...)

I really liked the relationship developed between Ophelia and Gertrude, as well as between Hamlet and Ophelia. Familial relationships seem to be more realistic than in Fiedler’s book (and no obnoxious father reworking...) The end is somewhat predictable (although about half of the novel takes place after the end of the play) from too many clues laid out along the way (and doesn’t seem entirely in keeping with the point of the novel~tho i suppose some concessions must be made.) ‘nough said? Too much?

"Why on earth would anyone refuse to be the queen of England?"

2008-02-15T22:27:00.011-07:00

It's a concept that eight-year old Anne Boleyn can’t quite wrap her mind around when Charles, the grandson of Maximilian, patriarch of the Hapsburg family and Holy Roman Emperor, tells her that his aunt Margaret had refused to marry Henry VII. Charles plans to be the Holy Roman Emperor one day (not an unreasonable expectation, given hereditary lines and all~also given the fact that it is fulfilled). Anne plans to be the queen of England one day (this seems like a much more unreasonable expectation…but isn't it funny, isn't it strange how sometimes those, ever so unreasonable expectations come to pass? . . . )

Robin Maxwell considers her Mademoiselle Boleyn to be a prequel to her previous (rather excellent) works as it tells of Anne’s youth (before she rather fatally catches the eye of the lecherous King Henry IVIII, much of it spent in the French court of King Francois and Queen Claude (daughter of King Louis XII). She befriends Leonardo da Vinci (not mentioned in the history books but imagined, i suppose reasonably, by Maxwell).

It's been quite some time since i read her earlier works and, memory being what it is, though i remember liking them, i don't remember many of the details (though i did recommend The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn to a costumer just the other day because of course i had Mademoiselle Boleyn checked out at home~i just hate having to recommend books to customers~even though it is a big part of my job when they are completely uncooperative in telling me about their personal likes and dislikes, "Well, what do you like?" they so unhelpfully ask, as if we would have the exact same tastes, anyway...)

I've been watching The Tudors lately on Showtime and Maxwell seems to have her historical accuracy down much better than the creators of that show (although i'm not quite so much up on Anne's upbringing or the peripheral figures of the Tudor court as i could be~history never was my strong point, much as i loathe to admit it). But the Showtime people seem to have confused Henry's sisters as well as a few other characters which bothers me just a tad and i wonder what else they got wrong~still and all it is a very interesting series and i would recommend for its entertainment value and for some of its historical value.

From what i know Maxwell got right i tend to trust her other details and she does have some interesting after notes. Overall, i can highly recommend this book and it gives a much better (and much more sympathetic~and i do see many of Henry's wives as quite sympathetic characters~they really were victims of there age~and the only one i would wish to be is Anne of Cleves~she had it the best of anyone of her time and all because she was judged to be ugly~go figure...) portrait (in my ever so humble opinion) than that, ahem, other, Boleyn, historical receiving so much attention of late...

"bleedin' poetry"

2008-02-10T05:03:00.003-07:00

If a novel were trying to talk big in an attempt to make itself look tough i think it just might be Channeling Mark Twain by Carol Muske-Dukes. This seems to be the first book in a while that didn't touch me personally, (other than reminding me of Vida~probably my least favorite Marge Piercy novel, or parts of The Handmaid's Tale, or my one ex-roommate). Before i figured out that it was actually set in the seventies i thought it was a little too hippy-heavy-handed~actually not a mixed metaphor however much it may sound like one.
I didn't find the narrating character all that likable~nor her motivations so easy to grasp~but with those caveats it wasn't the worst book i've ever read (hmmm...damning with faint praise anyone?) Holly Mattox is a Midwesterner (Minnesota to be exact in New York. She has just finished grad school, teaches at the New School and has some big ideas on social justice, feminism, radicalism, and all those other isms.
She has been part of an after-care program Women's House of Detention on Rikers Island and has just been granted permission to teach a poetry class there. One of the woman in her class, a Polly Lyle Clement, an epileptic inmate who was found floating in the East River and is currently awaiting transfer to a psychiatric facility (as about half the women in the detention center are), claims to be a direct descendent of Mark Twain and also claims to be gifted with "second sight", to be able to see into the future and the past and to be able to channel communication from her famous ancestor.
This was not an emotionally difficult book to read (nor was it painful to slog through). It was interesting despite my mis-connection and i'm not sorry i read it~though it did take me a while because i put it down several times (just not my highest recommendation here...)

for all you non-lovers out there...

2008-02-02T19:43:00.000-07:00

Sandwiched six weeks after Yule and and six weeks before the spring equinox (and a few weeks before that greeting-card created holiday "Valentines Day") comes Candlemas:

This “high holiday” or “greater sabbat” marks the time when the first signs of life return to the land and the Goddess changes her robes for those of Maiden. Other names for this sabbat are Imbolc (which means “in the belly”) and Oimelc (”milk of ewes”), which refer to the imminent growing and lambing season. This date stays the same each year.
Note: Some pagans celebrate Candlemas “Old Style” when the sun has reached fifteen degrees Aquarius (4 February 2008; this date varies each year).

so if you need/want another cause for celebration (or shun that other~as i so often do...)

don't people know that...

2008-01-31T23:27:00.000-07:00

...they really shouldn't call you dear (and definitely don't do it twice if they value their life and limb) unless they are of a certain age (like they lived through the Great Depression) or they know you REALLY well and even then it's questionable.

My horoscope for the day tells me that:

Your mood is a little darker than usual, though it might be hard for most people to tell. There's no need to hide it unless circumstances demand sunshine and kittens and it should pass soon anyway.

don't know why i continue to subscribe to these things as i really think most astrology a bunch of bullocks anyway) but this is just a bit smack on actually. Could it be that it might be hard for most people to tell because my mood is always a little dark? Too bad the circumstances of my job seem to demand sunshine and kittens but my rampagey nature makes the mood a little hard to hide like when one (of the two) annoying and seemingly dim witted customer service substitutes asks me the passwords to our system and i begin to tell it to her and she tells me she will never remember it i ever so patiently (or perhaps just a little patronizingly) tell her "Well perhaps you should write it down..." Or when a woman comes up to the desk and asks me for a certain form and as i turn away to get it for her she walks away from the desk and when i hand the form to the woman who is now standing at the desk she is abashed that i have not noticed she is not the same woman who asked for the form and i have not intuited what she approached the desk for (and why do people come up to a desk, ask for something then walk away to begin with?) Or when another woman asks for something by a certain author, i tell her we don't have anything by him in our library, she asks if she can order it (what it, by the by, we discussed an author, we have not yet discussed titles!) i tell her yes, there is this title and this title and this title in the system would she like to have one brought in..."oh, is it checked in at this library?" ...well no. And, yes, i'm sorry, you just might have to figure out what your five year old daughter would like best out of this list of recommended titles i've handed you because i assume you know her while i don't and i don't care how much or how loudly you sigh or stomp your feet as you walk away (and you better tell her to stop tossing the books all over the floor.)

And when people ask me where the tax forms are (tis the season after all) i point (and no, it is not rude to point~i don't know whoever or whatever gave you that idea~maybe if you are pointing AT Someone and making a derogatory comment~but how else are you to indicate direction???), "right over there where it says tax forms..." Sometimes i do this with a lilt in my voice, sometimes i try to be somewhat light-hearted, sometimes i try to do this helpfully, sometimes i am just dismissive, and, yes, sometimes i am a wee bit sarcastic. Every once in a great while people get it.

Do i sound a little grumpy?

Do i sound like i'm cut out for the customer service industry (really makes you wonder why i've been in it for over twenty years~i remember commercials from years ago for some technical college showing people in job interviews when questioned about their qualifications they would answer {all of them~over and over again) "I'm a people person" and i would think "i am so NOT a people person... so here i am...)?

Perhaps it is because i am finally working out again (which actually is not that bad and feels pretty good, in and of itself) and my trainer is not only making me face the ugly truth about myself but also keep track of everything i eat and stay within certain limits (which is also, surprisingly, not so bad because it makes deciding what to eat less difficult~plus i'm not that big on food to begin with~and if i just eat before i get hungry i get neither cravings nor hunger) so perhaps it's just the idea of regiment i don't like?

"Scrawls of desire."

2008-01-23T01:13:00.001-07:00

I don't know who jenny downham is or what she's done (apparently trained as an actor and worked in alternative theatre, kindred spirit, hmmm...) but she can put words together in the most beautiful manner imaginable. I am so very jealous~or actually just so very glad to be able to read her writing.

Before I Die is sixteen-year-old Tessa's story~her thoughts, feelings, wishes, as she experiences them in the months, days, hours before her death. Depressing? Perhaps a bit~i wasn’t really in tears until towards the end, and even then it wasn’t a really sobfest~but it was of course sad. Tessa isn’t the long-suffering altruistic teen we’ve all come to know from those movies-of-the-week and all to prevalent child is dying novels who serve as an inspiration to all around her (though she definitely has her moments~as i hope all of us might). She feels anger, depression, selfishness~lashes out at those around her~goes through most of the horrible teen moments (those times that make you want to send them all away to their own special island as a friend and i had planned when we were barely out of our teens ourselves).

Tessa wants to experiment with sex, with drugs, with life, to fall in love~she wants to experience what is out there to experience (not so uncommon i suppose). Tessa’s father and the mother who has been absent for much of her life find it difficult to place limits on the child who will not live long enough to set her own limits~or to see the consequences poor choices may bring down the line.

This book is a beautiful and startling piece of fiction. One that is written in a true and lyrical voice (easy enough to read in a day, as well. It is one that i want to own and put on my shelves to pick up and read again~or just pick up every now again to read a passage here and there for its poetry.

do we really need to put a sign up

2008-01-22T22:17:00.002-07:00

telling people there is only one person allowed in the bathroom at a time?

(since there is only one toilet in there, after all)

I was sitting at the reference desk (surprise, surprise) when someone came up and told me he thought there were guys having sex in our bathroom (this was right after i had made a desperate search for a man's pen who called and said he had left in the library the day before~blue pen with a clip~surprisingly enough i didn't find it).

When the man first approached me he seemed somewhat embarrassed and was talking very softly and i, of course, assumed he was trying to tell me that someone was looking at porn on our computers so when i finally managed to understand what he was saying i was a bit taken aback and unsure of what to do (this would be a time when my manager was out of town).

I decided to confer with a few other staff members before finally knocking on the door and being told by (one of) the occupant (s) just a minute. I had to knock one more time before the gentleman and his gentlewoman friend exited (he zipping up his pants, and dropping things from his pockets), went their separate ways (she down the hall toward no exit), under the watchful eyes of most of our inquiring staff.

I also had our mentally and socially challenged adult in and behaving so badly that he had to be asked to leave (yet again) and stay away until further notice...

such is the life...

how long would this one take to tap out?

2008-01-22T03:27:00.006-07:00

for me?
I'm not sure i even want to contemplate...
It takes me forever to type text messages and appointments into my cell phone~even with t9 capabilities (maybe it's just a matter of age~much as i hate to admit it):

The New York Times, January 20, 2008
Thumbs Race as Japan’s Best Sellers Go Cellular
By NORIMITSU ONISHI

TOKYO — Until recently, cellphone novels — composed on phone keypads by young women wielding dexterous thumbs and read by fans on their tiny screens — had been dismissed in Japan as a subgenre unworthy of the country that gave the world its first novel, “The Tale of Genji,” a millennium ago. Then last month, the year-end best-seller tally showed that cellphone novels, republished in book form, have not only infiltrated the mainstream but have come to dominate it.
Of last year’s 10 best-selling novels, five were originally cellphone novels, mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but containing little of the plotting or character development found in traditional novels.
What is more, the top three spots were occupied by first-time cellphone novelists, touching off debates in the news media and blogosphere. “Will cellphone novels kill ‘the author’?” a famous literary journal, Bungaku-kai, asked on the cover of its January issue. Fans praised the novels as a new literary genre created and consumed by a generation whose reading habits had consisted mostly of manga, or comic books. Critics said the dominance of cellphone novels, with their poor literary quality, would hasten the decline of Japanese literature.
Whatever their literary talents, cellphone novelists are racking up the kind of sales that most more experienced, traditional novelists can only dream of.
One such star, a 21-year-old woman named Rin, wrote “If You” over a six-month stretch during her senior year in high school. While commuting to her part-time job or whenever she found a free moment, she tapped out passages on her cellphone and uploaded them on a popular Web site for would-be authors.
After cellphone readers voted her novel No. 1 in one ranking, her story of the tragic love between two childhood friends was turned into a 142-page hardcover book last year. It sold 400,000 copies and became the No. 5 best-selling novel of 2007, according to a closely watched list by Tohan, a major book distributor.
“My mother didn’t even know that I was writing a novel,” said Rin, who, like many cellphone novelists, goes by only one name. “So at first when I told her, well, I’m coming out with a novel, she was like, what?
She didn’t believe it until it came out and appeared in bookstores.” The cellphone novel was born in 2000 after a home-page-making Web site, Maho no i-rando, realized that many users were writing novels on their blogs; it tinkered with its software to allow users to upload works in progress and readers to comment, creating the serialized cellphone novel. But the number of users uploading novels began booming only two to three years ago, and the number of novels listed on the site reached one million last month, according to Maho no i-rando.

* * * * *

The affordability of cellphones coincided with the coming of age of a generation of Japanese for whom cellphones, more than personal computers, had been an integral part of their lives since junior high school. So they read the novels on their cellphones, even though the same Web sites were also accessible by computer. They punched out text messages with their thumbs with blinding speed, and used expressions and emoticons, like smilies and musical notes, whose nuances were lost on anyone over the age of 25.
“It’s not that they had a desire to write and that the cellphone happened to be there,” said Chiaki Ishihara, an expert in Japanese literature at Waseda University who has studied cellphone novels. “Instead, in the course of exchanging e-mail, this tool called the cellphone instilled in them a desire to write.”
Indeed, many cellphone novelists had never written fiction before, and many of their readers had never read novels before, according to publishers.

* * * * *

Written in the first person, many cellphone novels read like diaries. Almost all the authors are young women delving into affairs of the heart, spiritual descendants, perhaps, of Shikibu Murasaki, the 11th-century royal lady-in-waiting who wrote “The Tale of Genji.” “Love Sky,” a debut novel by a young woman named Mika, was read by 20 million people on cellphones or on computers, according to Maho no i-rando, where it was first uploaded. A tear-jerker featuring adolescent sex, rape, pregnancy and a fatal disease — the genre’s sine qua non — the novel nevertheless captured the young generation’s attitude, its verbal tics and the cellphone’s omnipresence. Republished in book form, it became the No. 1 selling novel last year and was made into a movie.
Given the cellphone novels’ domination of the mainstream, critics no longer dismiss them, though some say they should be classified with comic books or popular music. Rin said ordinary novels left members of her generation cold.
“They don’t read works by professional writers because their sentences are too difficult to understand, their expressions are intentionally wordy, and the stories are not familiar to them,” she said. “On other hand, I understand how older Japanese don’t want to recognize these as novels. The paragraphs and the sentences are too simple, the stories are too predictable. But I’d like cellphone novels to be recognized as a genre.”
As the genre’s popularity leads more people to write cellphone novels, though, an existential question has arisen: can a work be called a cellphone novel if it is not composed on a cellphone, but on a computer or, inconceivably, in longhand?
“When a work is written on a computer, the nuance of the number of lines is different, and the rhythm is different from writing on a cellphone,” said Keiko Kanematsu, an editor at Goma Books, a
publisher of cellphone novels. “Some hard-core fans wouldn’t consider that a cellphone novel.”
Still, others say the genre is not defined by the writing tool.
Ms. Naito, the novelist, says she writes on a computer and sends the text to her phone, with which she rearranges her work. Unlike the first-time cellphone novelists in their teens or early 20s, she says she is more comfortable writing on a computer.
But at least one member of the cellphone generation has made the switch to computers. A year ago, one of Starts Publishing’s young stars, Chaco, gave up her phone even though she could compose much faster with it by tapping with her thumb. “Because of writing on the cellphone, her nail had cut into the flesh and became bloodied,” said Mr. Matsushima of Starts. “Since she’s switched to a computer,” he added, “her vocabulary’s gotten richer and her sentences have also grown longer.”

Now, i have always harboured dreams of being a novelist (though the dreams grow dimmer with each passing year)~but if it ever happens it certainly won't be happening thisaway (i don't know that i can imagine a bigger nightmare.)

Though i do recall seeing some kind of news piece about the younger set adapting/evolving a different set of thumb dexterity to us oldsters to deal with things like cell phones, video games, and the like (and apparently there is something to that, as it says Chaco could compose much faster with her cellphone "by tapping with her thumb"~can't imagine that, myself~though evolution doesn't generally function in that manner OR that quickly, but what do i know~not a hell of a lot, really...)

campfire tales

2008-01-22T03:15:00.006-07:00

i remember lying in that tent

on the hard ground
night silent
night dark
awake like always

Five other people

Asleep?

and the body next to mine

Static Electricity

Almost

slowly i moved

my smallest finger

closer

twitch

so the very tip

was touching

very tip

(that tip burning like the earlier campfire as the man stepped through it) then
twitch

so outside edge

of finger

touched outside edge of finger

time moved

so that seconds

ticked like minutes (longer even)

and minutes moved even slower and further apart

i could feel every tick

within my body

as each twitch

twitched

as i wondered

does he sleep?

am i alone in this full waking?

Then

the hands
touched

just barely

just the outside
edge of pinkie
stretching along each millimetre of skin of the edge of the hand

(is there another word for hand~for that bundle of nerves that feels every, each touch?)

every feeling cell of my body
was concentrated on that one small piece of my skin

(i could feel the enormity of that largest organ)

all consciousness, my brain, my whole being, only alive within my hand

my heart beating only there

As the time stretched endlessly by

(eternities passed, and were felt, electrically)

the skin stretched to arms

then, ever possible, if possible

skin stretched slowly along the side of torsos

sliding down

slipping to thighs

knocking to knees

feet brushing together

when did it change

to consciousness?

to lips on lips?

to body on body?

full on touch

full skin on skin

skin to skin (all skin, each skin)

those nerve endings awake

electric

on fire

like never before

When did it change to wordless knowledge?

Silent, sweet intimacy with a stranger

Soundless

a tent with four other people sleeping soundly

That i will never forget

Will you?

probably already have. Probably did long ago (soon afterwards). Too much wine, too much cocaine. What an odd night. With the crazy drunken man. And the gunshots. And what came after, in the tent.

Is it okay to relish moments like these? To revel in their memory? Excusable to excesses of youth?

"All writers struggle, very few manage to get published, and almost none are any good. It's the 'believing' part that's the trick."

2008-01-21T23:11:00.000-07:00

I almost put down Chuck Thompson's smile when you're lying: confessions of a rogue travel writer before i was 50 pages into it with the intention of never finishing it (which is something i rarely do~sometimes i will put down a book with every intention of finishing it and not ever doing so but for some reason i often plow through many as i ended up doing with this one~and there were a few interesting parts~more than a few in actuality...) It was Thompson's caustic personality that put me off more than anything (not that i know him or anything, but since this a non-fiction piece that he narrates i did get some sense of the guy and i don't think i liked him much~and he doesn't seem to like much of anything~tho maybe i'm getting him all wrong~he admits that many of the people he now counts as friends"apparently had to overcome some initial repugnance toward my supposedly radioactive personality." And i have come to really like a few people i absolutely hated upon first, second and third impression...)

But, shall we get back to the book? I can't remember why i picked it up (are you getting sick of hearing that from me?) I think perhaps because i like reading travel narratives (and no, Chuck, not the rhapsodizing, sunny type that the travel editors demand~as you argue in this book~and i do believe you, there~but the book type that describe the good and the bad) and this one purported to describe the "real story" from someone who had been to many, many places. Alas 'twas not to be.

This included less description of travel and more bitching about life and politics than much of what i've read of late. He describes experiences teaching English in Japan, traveling in Southeast Asia, some in former Soviet bloc countries and that seems to be about it (well there is a bit more but mostly it is just opinion spouting~he hates the Caribbean and really likes Latin America.) I must give Thompson credit for a sense of humour and there are a few bits worth reading as well as a few bits that were a little enlightening (and i suppose it's good every now and then to read things that just plain piss you off~more than just occasionally in fact.) There are a few travel tips most of which are common sense, some of which are silly and stupid, some of which are very helpful (rubbing batteries on your leg for a few extra hours of static electric charge~never knew...). The book takes a truly ugly and surprising turn at the end talking about the possible end of oil-dependent energy, which while true, seemed out of place.

Thompson does describe some of his youth in Juneau, Alaska (been there, done that~NOT to be confused with Anchorage as some reviewers have done~Thompson would be appalled) Alaska he describes as the whitest state in the nation (Utah being the second) having lived in both i would have to agree somewhat (that is IF you are excluding Native Americans and Hispanics which i suppose he is...) this is a very personal account about much more than travel (and very little travel at that. Mostly rant, rant, rant about anything and everything. I didn't absolutely hate it though. From what i can gather Thompson is about the same age (and i didn't disagree with everything he said~and i haven't been to many of the places he describes so i can't have an opinion on much of that...) as me so you would think we would have more in common (and perhaps we do~i often wonder exactly how unlikeable i am, and for that matter~exactly how parenthetical i can become...)