Gregor in Reverse

So this week I had to visit some schools to talk about the library and reading for the summer and all like that. I'm going to be straight up with you about visiting schools. It's not my favorite thing. The reason it's not my favorite thing is because often the teachers will want you to stand up in front of the class and give a presentation of some sort. And when you do that, you can see that the kids who already pay attention in class will continue to pay attention. The kids that don't usually engage with teachers who talk at them glaze over instantaneously. I hate that, because those glazers are my people. I don't want to be talked at either, so why should I blame them if they ignore me?

So my solution is that I have thrown that whole model of presenting out the window. I can tell some of the teachers would rather I not do that, but oh well. What I do instead is ask the kids about what they like to read, or what they hate to read, or what music they wish they could find in the library. I just chat with them. And I affirm whatever reading they are doing. If they're into reading Thrasher magazine, I ask them to recommend a good article they read recently and I promise to check it out. And I do. If they like reading Stephen King, I don't tell them they're too young for that (for which I've seen many a teacher glare at me and even intervene). I tag on some recommendations and let them know about things they may like, but I let them lead. And even the toughest crowds of kids respond to this, like magic. And when they do, some surprising things start coming out. For instance, this tough-looking quiet guy slumped at his chair in the back of one of the classes who didn't talk the whole hour finally raised his hand to tell us all about a book he had "found" where this guy woke up to find that he had turned into a bug, and how everyone treated this guy "whack." This quiet little burn-out-looking 6th grader is back there reading Kafka, people. And he told everyone about it, and when I asked him more questions, he gave a better interpretation of it than I could have given. I don't think he had any idea at all who the hell Kafka is, or that the book was "above his reading level," or whatever. It was awesome.

At one of the schools I went to, the group was so big that they provided me with a wireless microphone. Yikes. With the amount of time that I spend having the kids talk rather than me talking the whole time, I didn't want to have to run around all Phil Donahue style. So I asked anyone if they wanted to emcee and up popped this kid who was all too happy. He took the mike, and ran around with it, adding his own commentary as he went.

This kid was actually quite amazing. A true library-geek, he was very excited to have me there, and he told me all about how he planned to apply to work as a shelver at the library as soon as he was old enough. He had obviously read or was familiar with just about every fiction book available for his age group, because every time someone mentioned a book they liked, he came back with an enthusiastic comment ("didn't you love the part where...") or even a recommendation ("oh, you would LOVE Alex Ryder!"). I'm sure he could have run that entire discussion without me, just fine. As I watched this kid in action, my heart sort of went out to him. So many kids who read that much at that age tend to be pretty quiet about it. And those middle school years are not the highlight of self esteem for most, so that makes those bookish kids withdraw even more. This kid, however, had the double-stuff qualities of book-smarts PLUS oodles of confidence. He was geeky and completely loud and proud about it. In fact, it was kind of ridiculous how loud and proud he was. The confidence was crossing a line into arrogance in that little eleven-year-old body. And I could see that the other kids' reaction to this sort of smarts-plus-confidence might be something to the tune of oh-my-god-you-are-driving-us-crazy-will-you-just-SHUT-UP. It made me wonder what was in store for that kid. I really hoped that this enthusiasm for reading and talking to other people about it wasn't going to be systematically beaten out of him in the years to follow. On the other hand, I also hoped that this arrogance and Nellie Oleson style know-it-all-ness would not be allowed to rage on unchecked either. Because what was kind of funny/annoying behavior in a sixth grader could very well turn into that adult whose co-workers think oh-my-god-you-are-driving-us-crazy-will-you-just-SHUT-UP. You know, the sort that just bugs everyone. I just kept looking at him and hoping that he would wake up one day and retain his confidence, his book-love, AND have an added dose of mellow. Transformed OUT of bug form and into something less...whack.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

House Party

After typing in the title to this post, I almost want to ditch writing about my house-hunting mumbo jumbo and write something about Kid N Play. Didn't that dude have the biggest pencil-eraser-flat-top you have ever seen? Come to think if it, they both had flat-tops. Will the flat top come back? And remember when George Clinton said that line about crying two tears into a bucket? What the hell is that guy talking about all the time?

Ok, for now, I shall leave these questions about House Party to the professionals. For as you know, dear readers, my brain has been full of houses, mortgages, number-crunching, blahddy blahddy, hoo-hah. Such grown-up stuff. Not Kid N Play stuff.

So here's the update people. This house stuff has made me sweat more than Brandon Davis. It has made me crazy. This is because I am a girl who counts her pennies. I mean that literally. Every Sunday I gather up all of my change and count it and deposit it in the bank on Monday morning. I can't help it. My parents raised me this way. My dad is the type who goes over his grocery store receipt with a pen and checks to make sure that his oranges scanned in for the correct price. My mom will call me on the phone to ask why in the world I would stick two first-class stamps on a letter that only needs fifty cents worth of postage. So when I see houses with that many zeroes attached to them, it makes me a little queazy in the kneesie, Weezy.

The other thing about house-hunting in my town is that this shit moves fast. Houses will go on the market on a Thursday, be shown over the weekend, the seller will look at bids on Monday morning, and whazzahbah, you've had a house change hands in five days total. Does this seem insanely Pauly Walnuts to anyone else? Nuts. Seriously.

The third thing I have to say about this whole farce of a process is that for each listing, there are 10-20 different bidders that you have to compete with. So nothing, and I mean NOTHING, goes for the asking price. You have to outbid a couple of dozen other people. A couple dozen! Mad malarky, I tell you.

Here's what I don't get. How come we weren't learning this whole sick process in high school? Why come I have a Master's Degree and the stuff that goes on in home-buying-land makes me do scrunched up thinky-faces like that kid in Spellbound? Why can I do a calculus problem in a few minutes but yet it takes me a good hour to understand my good faith estimate? And how come I didn't already know what a good faith estimate is? I feel like I'm crying two tears into a bucket. (I'm just trying to use that phrase, so maybe it'll make sense. What do you think? Did I pull it off?)

Maybe I'm just showing my ignorance here, and all ya'll out there know all about this stuff and I'm the dumbass who doesn't. Wouldn't be the first time. All I know is, this house-buying stuff ain't no party. Perhaps it would be more fun if I got a flat top.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Silence of the Lick

This weekend I stayed over at Neighbor J's house while Nordic Boy ripped my bathroom out and put it back together again, all shiny-like. In preparing to go over to Neighbor J's house, I packed some clothes, my laptop, and a book or two, but that's it. I didn't feel the need to take much more with me, because when I am around Neighbor J, I don't really need much to occupy my time. This is because she falls into that category of friendships that can only be described as Two Motormouths Gone Wild.

You see, Neighbor J and I can TALK. And I mean Chatty Cathy, non-stop, take-a-breath-for-God's-sake talk. When we really get going, we refer to ourselves as Statler and Waldorf, because it is like a running commentary on any and all topics under the sun. We have joked that she and I could have a talk show that wouldn't require any guests, because they wouldn't be able to get a word in edgewise anyway. We have something to say about EVERYTHING. Politics, current events, gossip, family stories, work anecdotes, minutiae, it all gets mixed in to one big gooey conversation, and it is delicious. There are some people that just connect this way, who find each other infinitely interesting, and she and I have had this connection ever since we've known each other. When she used to live next door to me, both of us had to purchase headset phones because otherwise we would never get a damn thing done around the house. We would come home, dial up the other person, and talk our way through making dinner, or doing laundry, or washing dishes. There have been times when I have gotten off the phone with her and my ear hurts from being on it for too long and I have a sore throat from gab-itis.

So this weekend has been one long bout of (as we used to say in middle school) diarrhea of the mouth. We woke up in the morning, and the starting gun went off. We both walked out of our bedrooms and were in a full-fledged conversation by the time we reached the kitchen. We talked through breakfast, we talked as we both got ready for the day (yelling at each other through the bathroom door), we talked as she stretched her sore hamstring on the floor and I checked my email. The talking ranged from me putting my head down on the table and misting up while talking about something serious to both of us laughing ourselves silly because Neighbor J got down on the floor and dragged herself across it with her hands, yelling "It's a Celebration, Bitches!" a la Chappelle as Rick James in Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories. We run the full spectrum of talking points, people.

In the afternoon we decided to go over to Macy's. As we browsed the clothes and tried stuff on, the blah-blah-blah continued non-stop. There are no pauses. How can I talk this much to another person, how? When I go to parties and stuff, I'm not usually the chattiest person in the room. Far from it. I am actually known as more of a listener, an observer, and a person who knows when to shut up. I am amazed at the sheer quantity of words that I have spoken in one day.

As we wrapped up our time in Macy's, we walked back over to the escalator so we could make our way to the parking lot. We rounded the corner and stepped onto the escalator, still flapping our gums about our hope for the return of the full-length caftan. As we talked, my eyes looked down to the bottom of the escalator. What I saw made me stop in mid-sentence. "Oh!Oh!Oh!" was all I could muster in a panicked sort of tone. Neighbor J followed my gaze down to the bottom of the escalator. Standing there, watching us come down, was a little boy, about 7 years old, seemingly unattended. He stood facing us, slightly bent over in front of the left handrail of the escalator. He had his mouth open as wide as it would go, with his tongue
completely unfurled. He had laid the flat part of his tongue ONTO THE MOVING HANDRAIL, giving it a long, continuous lick as it fed back into the escalator to go back up to the top. Neighbor J and I stopped our marathon conversation dead, and watched this germ-fest in silence for the loooooong ride down to the first floor. This kid's open mouth was finally the thing that shut ours. It was grosser than gross. I think this was the universe's way of telling us to shut the hell up for ten
seconds. Statler and Waldorf silenced. Out of the mouths of babes.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

"The Long Gray Line"

As young hipster librarians in Library Skool, we all heard about the "graying" of the library profession. We were assured again and again that there was an upcoming librarian shortage, when scads of librarians would retire, and that if we didn't step up to fill the void, we would have to start drilling for fresh librarians at an Alaskan wildlife preserve or make new librarians out of french fry oil or switch grass or something. Now that I'm a librarian, and I saw how competitive and cut-throat the job search was, I wondered when this massive drain would actually happen so that all my grad school pals could find gainful employment, as it was promised to us by all those lying bastards who took our money and force-fed us Belkin.

Because the job search was so Machiavellian (jump through this hoop of fire in your undies and sing Talking Book while we laugh at you and drink our champagne!), I was convinced that no one was retiring, ever. The generation of librarians before me had vampiric qualities of immortality and it was folly to think that they would ever give us young whippersnappers a chance. In fact, the last quarter I was in Library Skool, I chatted with an academic librarian and mentioned that I was going to be in the market for a job within the year, and she cut me off and snapped at me: "It won't be MY job! Because I'm going to stay here until I DIE AT MY DESK!" And yes, she really said that, people. I am not making that up for comic storytelling purposes.

Now that I work for a large urban library system, I can anecdotally tell you guys poised to graduate out there (and also those of you who are still looking for full-time or any-time librarian work) that the retiring IS happening. It may not seem like it, but it is true. It took me a while to see it, and I'll tell you why. Librarians retire quietly. No fanfare, no parties, no SEE YA SUCKAS as they leave for the last time after 30 or 40 years. No one has retired from my department yet, so I don't know how quiet people are about retiring within their own work units, but system-wide, people really keep retirement on the DL. For instance, there was a retirement scenario that happened today that is completely typical. In the late afternoon, an email appeared in everyone's inbox. It's from a department head and goes a little something like this: "Today is Loretta Buffy Omnibus' last day on the job, after 723 years of service to this library system. She has asked that we not make a fuss about her last day, but I wanted to send this email out to acknowledge her..." and then there are a few genuinely touching comments about all the work this person has done for the past millennium. Then, before the end of the work day, the retiree will send her own email saying "Goodbye, and thanks for everything!" and maybe a couple more sentences and that is IT. I always feel a little sad when I get these emails, because although they asked for no fuss to be made, I feel like their contribution to our profession deserves a fuss. A big, hairy, pulchritudinous fuss. I always hope that at least their co-workers all give them a hearty hug and applaud them out the door. If/when one of my co-workers retires, that's what I plan to do.

Maybe I feel so strongly about this because I am a sucker for celebrating. More likely, I feel like this because I have endured a couple of bad endings to jobs that I have had, and I know that it felt awful. For instance, after spending two years at the Suck Ass Job From Hades, I finally decided I needed to quit because crying before going to work in the morning out of quiet desperation and tedium just didn't seem like, well, quite the right fit for me. So I gave notice, and worked diligently through my last two weeks. On my last day, there was to be a bon voyage party for me in the lunchroom, with cake and punch and well wishes for me. Four people came. FOUR PEOPLE CAME. The rest of the staff just went right on working in their cubicles and ignored the two years I had given to that stinky poopy footface establishment. It was horrible. Because all my life, I have been eminently likeable, people. Co-workers always dig me. And I was nothing but sweetness and light and kitties and puppies and rainbows to all of those people. I mean, in hindsight I know it was because that place sucked the joy out of all who picked up a paycheck there, but at the time, it made me saaaaaad.

The story gets much more pathetic than this. So, at the end of my day that day, I packed up my desk, and I looked around. Quittin' time. Is anyone going to say anything to me? A good-night and good luck, perhaps? Anyone? Anyone? I stood up. Everyone typed diligently on their compooters, apparently staying late for yet another night. "Bye!" I say, giving them one last cheerful attempt at camaraderie. "Oh. Bye!" they all say back. No one gets up. They kind of wave at me from their desks, perhaps mad that I was getting out and they were left in this sweatshop of drudgery. I took my box o' desk items and left the building. I walked the two blocks to my car and got in, only to remember that I had left a favorite photo of mine pinned to the wall above my desk. Damn it, I had to go BACK IN. I walked the two blocks back, entered the building, walked down the hall, and turned into my now ex-office. Folks, here's the scene that I saw. My entire department, out of their seats, CARRYING MY DESK TO THE STORAGE CLOSET. I had not been gone for a half hour, and my desk was GONE. Everyone looked uncomfortable and embarrassed that I had come back to witness this (and it was a disturbingly jovial scene, I might add), but no one tried to explain it away. No one mentioned it. I walked over to the-artist-formerly-known-as-my-workspace, got my photo, and said "Bye, again!" and laughed my tinkly, carefree laugh as I walked out the door. Because honeys, I can SWEEP out of a room if I need to. And boy, did I need to.

So when I get these low-key retirement emails, I want these people to have some fanfare. I only gave two years of my life to that stoopid job, and I didn't really like what I was doing there all that much, but it felt bad to not be acknowledged. So how you gonna walk outta here after a bubzillion years with a five sentence email? It ain't right. It just ain't. Plus, you've got all these baby librarians that are nipping at your heels as you leave the occupation, and so my feeling is, have your friggin' MOMENT. Get all Celine and ride out of here in a bedazzled faux-Arab harem carriage that is carried by four hunky dudes in sequined Hammer pants and oiled waxed chests. You know you want to.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Lost and Found

There are two kinds of people in the library biz. Those who categorize people into two groups and those who don't. Guess which one I am? Just kidding, folks, I'm here all week, thank you!

But seriously, there ARE two kinds of people of the Librarian persuasion. The super messy and the over-orderly. I don't usually talk about my co-workers on this blog because that can get a bit ungraceful, and honeys, I am nothing if not graceful. But in this case, I will make an exception because it's just too illustrative of my point, and besides, I ain't sayin' nothing that my beloved co-worker doesn't know already. So there's this librarian that I know, let's call her Rolanda. Rolanda kicks ass at librarianing, and she does it through a literal sea of books, papers, and miscellaneous items that congregate wherever she is. She never loses anything, or lets the messiness hinder her job performance in any way. I am hard pressed to recall any time that her disarray has had a negative impact on anything or anyone. But no one, even Rolanda herself, could argue that there isn't utter clutter wherever she hangs her hat. Her office is adjacent to mine, and it is like we are bizarro worlds colliding. Her desk is piled high with paper, books, journals, remnants of notes, post-its, you name it. It literally stands at least 2 feet high on her desk, and there is NO space for her to write. She can squeeze in to peck out some stuff on her computer, but that's it. If anything requires more space, she has to move to another table out in the library. And the floorspace in her area is packed tight with book carts full of books that need mending, or processing, or who knows what all. Her chair has wheels on the bottom of its feet, but she doesn't need them because her chair is not going anywhere. All the real estate in her little office space is piled high to the point where she literally cannot be seen from the entryway if she is sitting at her desk.

I, on the other hand, have the opposite neurosis. From Rolanda's office, do an immediate left turn and you enter my world. I am embarrassed to admit this, but having clutter that I have created really disturbs me. I am the type of person that has to get myself organized before I can concentrate to work on something. Draw your conclusions about what this says about me, people, but it's just the sincere troof about myself. I like things put away. A place for everything and everything in its place. I am rolling my eyes at myself even as I type this, but that doesn't change the fact. This trait is a handy barometer of how I am feeling that day. If my physical surroundings are messed up, you can be sure that something's amiss with me on the inside.

So currently, I have four piles of books on my desk, miscellaneous reminder notes scattered among them, a dusty computer screen (haaaate that), and no order to my in- and out-boxes. I also have Summer Reading program flyers in my car waiting to be delivered to schools, unopened mail on my dining table at home, no food in my fridge and a pair of heels that I can't find anywhere. How does one lose heels?

The trouble, dear friends, is that I am trying to figure out my mortgage. Let me rephrase. I am trying to figure out if I can afford to have a mortgage, and if so, what kind? Who knew, but there are exactly one hundred forty thousand two hundred nine different distinct mortgage plans. And they are all a snoozefest, every one. They are designed to strike one dumb. I have absolutely no room in my brain for any ridiculous details like where the rubber bands go in my cute blue desk drawer organizer. No room at all. Put the rubber bands in the paper clip compartment, go crazy! Kick off those heels and just leave them somewhere! I have amortization to think about!

This whole process is making me sloppy, and I don't do well with sloppy. When things are sloppy, I can't friggin' FIND anything, and not being able to find something rattles my chain or yanks my leg or whatever the hell the correct phraseology is. (See, I can't even FIND things in my brain). And if there's one thing that librarians have in common, messy and orderly alike, it's that we enjoy being able to FIND stuff. That's what we do. Rolanda may be messy, but she knows where stuff is, I guarantee you. Our FINDyness is what links us. And why do I keep capitalizing the word FIND? I don't know, maybe I'm afraid I'll lose it. Or, from the look of this post, maybe I've done lost it already, if you know what I mean.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Nope, My Name's Not Naturalizer

That's my name, don't wear it out. Actually, go ahead, wear it out. Because the thing is, my name is so unusual, the chances of it being worn out from people saying it and hearing it too much are slim. It's more unusual than Calista, or Tallulah. Then again, it's less unusual than Kal-el or Pilot Inspektor. There was a time when this difference of mine made me kind of glum. I knew early on that my name would never be on Romper Room, ever. Miss Sally never saw me through that freaky magic mirror of hers. I could never stand that Do Bee do-gooder on that show anyhow, and I always felt a little condescended to with all that Romper Bomper Stomper Boo stuff. And with my name, I had to forget about personalized merchandise of any kind. No "Carrie" necklace like Ms. Bradshaw, no junky souvenier keychain with my name on it from the gift shop at Cedar Point. When your name is not reflected any where that you can see, it starts out as a sad thing, but it also connects you to your name with a fierce kind of loyalty. It drives home a feeling of individuality that much sooner. By the time I was in high school, I loved my name and could never imagine having any other one, despite the armies of cute Jennifers and Melissas that surrounded me. There was a group of friends in my high school who were all named Amy. Seriously. There were four of them. I always wondered what was up with them, that they all had the same name and hung out together all the time. It was so Heathers. I mean, you KNOW that they didn't all just happen to befriend each other by coincidence. The fact that they all had the same name had to have played a part in the formation of the clique, right? And if that's true, how strange. I've never even MET anyone that has my first name, let alone imagined starting a social grouping based on personal nomenclature. In fact, it's usually quite an event for me when I hear that someone shares my name. People who have met someone with my name will go out of their way to tell me about it, and I am always really interested. "Really? Where do you know her from? Tell me more about her." It's like I think that there has to be some doppelganger qualities just because we share this unique name. You know how Joey Tribbiani had a hand-twin? I feel like these people are my name-twins. We have to have some sort of bond, just because we have the same name. So I guess the Amy-Clique in high school isn't so dumb after all, since it's based on the same idea.

So this weekend, I went shopping with Jenny for some bridal shoes. She is the bride, and she needs to be wearing some shoes, so hence, we are looking for shoes brimming with bridality. We went to a bunch of different stores, and I was really focusing my shoe-chops on finding her a good pair of hoofers to get hitched in, both because I am a good friend, and also because I blew my frivolity budget on recent fun times with Biology Girl and Neighbor J. So no non-bride shoes were looked at by me, the non-bride. Except one. And it was fate. Shoe fate, name fate, all kinds of fate just flying around the room.

We were in Nordstrom's, which has a shoe department larger than my entire house. And we were making a bee-line to any shoe that may match up with the wedding get-up that she will be wearing. As we looked, there were many cute shoes that caught my eye, but I was being good on my shoe diet and bypassed them all. Then, there it was. A peep-toe pump with straps down the outstep in black and red. And of all the hundreds of shoes in that store, I walked over and picked that one up. Just that one. I flipped it over to look at the price, and written on the bottom of the shoe, was MY NAME. The price, the size, and my effin' name! I wish I could convey to you how much of a shock this was. Did I mention that I never see my name in reference to anything other than myself EVER?? It was such a shock that the first thought that came into my head was that this was somehow my shoe. That somehow, some way, a shoe that I owned had somehow gotten onto the showroom floor at Nordstrom's, and had been labeled for me. "This is your shoe," is what I said to myself. How can this be? My synaptic pathways almost malfunctioned, I tell you. It rocked my world. After a moment, all I could do was say to Jenny "check it out!" and hold up the miracle of miracles in front of her face. "Wow!" she said. "That's crazy!" And she bugged out too. Bugged out, yes, but world rocked? Probably not. I have my doubts about whether someone with a name like Jenny has can truly appreciate down to the bottom of her gizzard just how freaketty freaky that was. I thought about it all day. I'm still thinking about it. And who knows how many hundreds of women have bought that shoe, and are clomping all over the country with my name on the bottom of their soles, grinding its lovely imprint into nothingness?

That's my name. Don't wear it out.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Unless We Get a Little Crazy

I have a deep, dark secret and it is this: I did not hate high school. Are you shocked to the depths of your innards? Apparently, you should be. Cool grown-ups hate high school. 4 out of 5 dentists agree. It's totally a verified fact. And I am a card-carrying life-long misfit in many ways, in that I am not your conventional girly. Now I am not saying that those were the best years of my life, or that you could pay me to go back there and relive it. I don't get misty at Glory Days or that Nickelback song or anything. But I don't look back at it with hate and disgust. I mean, sure, I sort of always hated the oppressive nature of schooling in general. All that raising-your-hand when you want to talk, put-your-head-down when you were bad, parrot-back-what-you're-told, get-in-line-and-shut-up stuff was never my cup of tea. So I hated that, but I didn't mind the social stuff. It was fun, angsty, hormonal goodness with all the usual drama, and I knew I was getting out. I always knew I was on to better things. So I wore blue mascara and silver metallic flats and kissed boys and ignored teachers and ran around town to my heart's content. And my friends were smart, cool, sassy chicks and so I had run-around comrades. My talent seemed to be that I was a part of every group and part of no group at the same time. A lot of high school was crap and a lot of it wasn't. Whatev. So that's my keyboard confessional for today. I didn't loathe high school and I was a misfit. Both. Inexplicable but true.

So here I am a librarian and part of my job is to sometimes go to high schools and talk to teens. And being back in those buildings is enough to turn anyone's stomach. The lockers, the sweaty bologna smell (what IS that?), the infernal bell-ringing. It makes me want to ask permission to go to the bathroom. It makes me uncomfortable that I am walking around the halls without a big piece of wood that has the words "hall pass" burned into it. It makes me want to go out back and have a smoke with the burnouts. It makes me remember the teachers who we thought of as one and the same with the friggin' po-po. It's just all so fraught with...anxiety. Between classes, I see the kids swarm into the halls, and watch as many of them run amok. A-serious-mok. And I can't really blame them. When I go into the classrooms and I remember what it's like to sit there in those Goddamn rows while hour after hour some adult comes in and talks at you until you want to stick your pencil in your eye, I certainly understand the need to get nuts during your five minute break that you're allowed. Look for the purple banana 'til they put you in the truck, certainly. I totally get that. In fact, I kind of envy it. That's honest-to-goodness freedom of expression right there, and I can so relate to it. I wonder what it would feel like to cut footloose like that. I wonder if, during my breaks at work, I could get away with letting it rip like these teens do. I can picture it now: on my break, I could put in my ipod and do a full-scale poplock routine in the lobby, just because I want to. I could yell out "Go-rillaaaaaaaz!" as I walk through the work room, just to let off some steam. Ah, refreshing. And when breaktime is over, I could savor every last minute of it, and then run back to work, doing a full layout in order to get to the ref desk exactly on time.

There was something so pleasant about that phase. So true, Gnarls, so true.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Golden Girl

Today's birthday shout-out is for my beloved Biology Girl who just last week celebrated her golden birthday. There are so many things I could say about her, but my brain is so tired from the past three days of birthday revelry, so I've decided to make a list.

Ten Birthday Fun Facts about Biology Girl

1. She accidentally locked herself into her apartment once, and I had to climb into her window to bring her dinner, and Nordic Boy had to Bruce-Lee-kick the door down, right off its hinges.

2. There have been times where we have literally emailed each other twenty times in one day. Pathological.

3. She has a thing for this guy.

4. We somehow always owe each other three dollars.

5. She's the only one who will stay on the dance floor with me when everyone else has bailed.

6. When we used to work together, I walked into work and heard a crash. I found her in a back office, where she had managed to tip her chair over as she sat in it. She was carrying on her business call while lying on her side on the floor, her butt still on the tipped-over chair seat, in perfect sitting formation.

7. I once told her a secret so shocking, that she wordlessly got up and went into her bathroom, closed the door, and stood there for a minute and laughed herself silly. The girl's got creative coping strategies.

8. She once described intimacy as "touching with emotion," now known as T.W.E.

9. When we shop together, people seem compelled to give us free items.

10. After hearing that Soleil Moon Frye had breast reduction surgery, she ingeniously re-named her "Chunky Boobster."

Happy birthday, BG. I love you to pieces.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl