Mind Reader

Lately, I have been thinking about what my perfect karaoke song would be. Why am I doing this? Am I going to be karaoke-ing any time soon? No. But I was at a karaoke establishment a few weeks ago, and the indecisiveness of my party (I am including myself here) on what we all wanted to sing was PITIFUL. Pitiful, I tell you. For some, the indecisiveness may have been a red herring. I suspect it may have been a way for some to deflect their fair karaoke turn. Hmmm, I can't be next to get up there and make an ass of myself. I haven't decided on a song. A likely story.

But not me. My indecision was real. I couldn't decide! And ever since then, I have been ruminating on what the perfect choice, for me, would be. It came to me over the weekend, and I was SO EXCITED. Again, why was I excited? I am not planning on going back to karaoke land any time soon. But still. I have to get my jollies somehow, people.

I couldn't wait to tell someone. And in my house, the only other someone is Nordic Boy. Nordic Boy is not a karaoke-er. He is a reserved sort of fellow when it comes to public embarrassment, and to think of him willingly getting up in front of strangers to belt out a tune, or to do anything really, is laughable. It just would. not. happen. He is not a performer. But still, I wanted to tell him of the joy of my choice.

Instead of just blurting it out, I couched it in the guise of wanting to hear something that he had to say. I started it out with posing a question to him. You know you've done this. Asked someone a question not to actually hear what they have to say, but just so's you can tell them what YOU have to say after they're done jibber jabbering. This is what I was doing. I admit it.

Me: So, let's say you were to karaoke.
Him: I wouldn't.
Me: I know. But let's say you were. Like, if it was just us and our friends. Not in front of strangers.
Him: Ok.
Me: What song would you pick?
Him: Probably a Journey song.
Me: WHAT?
Him: Yeah, like "Separate Ways" or "Any Way You Want It."
Me: But... but...

See, you guys, THAT WAS MY PICK. Not only was my pick a Journey song, but it was THOSE TWO SONGS. IN THAT ORDER OF PREFERENCE. It was like he read my mind. It's not like we are playing Journey songs at our house. We haven't even heard a Journey song in years. HOW could he have picked it out of thin air like that? My songs? MY SONGS?

Me: YOU STOLE MY SONGS.
Him: What?
Me: Those were my songs! MINE!
Him: Really? Huh. That's weird.
Me: YOU CAN'T HAVE THEM!
Him: It's not like I'm really going to sing karaoke, you know. You can have the songs.
Me: Well... I don't know if I want them now.
Him: You're a strange, strange girl.
Me: You're a song stealer.
Him: Maybe we should touch and go our separate ways.

Bastard.

I'm out,
Librarian Girl

Flint Pong

I'm back, babies!

The plural of baby just doesn't come out right. Like, if I were to say "I'm back, baby!" that sounds alright. But make it babies? Then it just gets weird.

Anyhoo. I am back on the west coast after a foray to the land of my birthing. It was a rad trip. IT WAS A RAD TRIP, OK?

I'm feeling a little defensive about my trip, as I always do when I go home. Let me let you in on a little something. When I talk about my hometown, people dole out the sympathy. Like it is a town that is worth the same as a dirty tick on the ass of a dirty rat. I HATE THAT. If you want to make me a little teed off, say something to me about how assy my hometown is and then make a face like you are smelling something bad when you say it. I AM SO SORRY THAT MY TOWN DOESN'T HAVE BILL GATES AND RIDE THE DUCKS TOURS AND HIPSTER DOOFUSES ON EVERY LAST STREET CORNER. But lay off. It made me, and I'm pretty cute, right?

I said, RIGHT?

Let's focus on some of the things you might not know about that little place that spawned the crazy black-haired librarian who shoots off at the mouth.

1. Although much of the town looks tired and beat down and busted up, one thing that most people have there is a little patch of yard. Even if your house or trailer or whatevers is saggy, for some reason yards are plentiful. It's the kind of thing that makes you want to lie down in it and roll around. Which is just what I did.









View from mid-roll

2. There's also a lovely destination I like to call I'll Be the Banana For That Hammock, Indeed.








I don't really call it that but I totally could.

3. From which place you can be treated to a view such as this.









And the birdies have never pooped on me once.

4. But get in line because your gentleman friend might hog the snooze bag.









That friggin' Nordic Boy.

5. And you can run through apple orchards that used to scare the jeebus out of you when you were a kid because that's where you'd play Bloody Murder at dusk.









You still couldn't pay me to go in there at night.

See, it looks nice, don't it? It's not all drab gray factories and such like. My town my have eyesores aplenty, but it also has my parents' house. And my parents' house, as you can see from the hammock and grassy photolio, is a getaway to end all getaways. They have always had a heapin' help of hospitality for my whole life, but ever since they had grandkids? It's like a freakin' wonderland of recreational goodness. You've got the picturesque yard with lots of space for running amok, a cool front porch for watching the passersby while sipping a tonic, a crackling fireplace for late night hot chocolate consumption, a basement room with a dart board, a foosball table, and a ping pong table, every board game known to the free world, croquet, lawn bowling, a library room chock full of any kind of book you would care to read, and two refrigerators crammed to the gills with delicious sweets and savories, mostly made with organic ingredients grown in their own goddamn garden.

If I woulda told you that paradise was in Flint, Michigan, you never would have believed me, would you?

Well, maybe it's not your idea of paradise, but it sure as hell is mine.

My favorite cousin and one of my top all time favorite people in the world, Sweetie Pie, came to visit while we were there. Sweetie Pie and I grew up together and I love her to little shiny pieces more than I can really say. When she and I get together, the fun just keeps on coming. And over the years, she and Nordic Boy have gotten ever more sisterly/brotherly towards each other too, which rocks my socks. This time around, the two of them decided to play a friendly game of ping pong.

Before long? It was the most out of control slam fest you have ever seen in your life. Have you ever seen professional ping pong players? You know how they slam the hell out of that little white ball with all the force they can muster? That was Sweetie Pie and Nordic Boy. They were running around the room. As they were playing. I so wish I had a video to show you. It was like they had found their very own kindred ping pong spirit in each other. I have never seen anything like it. It wasn't competetive- they weren't even keeping score. They were just playing ping pong like it was the last day on earth and the minute they stopped playing the core of the planet was going to blow up. It was INTENSE.


It started out normal.





Then they started running after the ball and hitting it back over their shoulders while not even looking.




You know how it all ended? By Sweetie Pie volleying a ball across the table from the back of the room (they weren't even really taking the actual table into account any more) and Nordic Boy diving for it, across the table, and COLLAPSING THE ENTIRE TABLE.

You know how Mary Catherine Gallagher would always fall into tables? It was JUST LIKE THAT. The table was FLATTENED!

Nordic Boy even sliced his arm open. Oh yes. There was PING PONG INJURIOUSNESS.

How hard core is that???

We managed to fix the table, which was almost just like new. Sort of. Kind of.


Let's not mention this to mom and dad, ok guys?







I'm out,
Librarian Girl

Only Got Four Minutes, Four Minutes

Oh my word I am full. I think my mom sees Seattle as some sort of shiny, rainy, starvation camp or something because when I visit her she stuffs me like a...stuffed something.

I am too stuffed to think of the proper stuffed imagery. Just insert your own, if you would.

Either that or she thinks that Nordic Boy and I are hobbits, who have to eat every two hours or so. Or that we're newborns. I have been back in Michigan for four days and I have felt like I'm preggers with a food baby every damn day.

And now, here I am at the Flint Public Library, sitting at a computer with the damn minutes ticking down. It's going to log me off in 24 minutes! Type faster! FASTER!

Now I know what the patrons in my library feel like, and that's good I suppose, but it feels like librarian karma is biting me in the ass region right about now.

Please do not point out that I using my precious twenty four minutes (twenty two now, actually) to talk about food babies and ass-hungry karma, because I have thought of that already. I am one step ahead of you. True story.

Here is the thing, people. The city where I am from? The one that spawned me and made me who I am today, and that I love beyond all rational thought? The one that everyone else wants to feel sorry for me for, and that makes me want to kick them in the face because the pity is so unfounded because this town rocks out with its socks out? It's really...tired looking. Really, really.

Believe it or not, this has never occurred to me before. I have never noticed it. It's just something that...is, like your parents' faces or your best friend's laugh. It's like air. Accepted, completely.

But this year? I am noticing the cracks. Like, oh my sweet rattled brain, the state of the roads here! There are roads here, that if I was honest, don't deserve to be called roads. They are just patched up, ratty pieces of concrete all cobbled together in a post-pothole universe. It would be a much better ride on these roads if they just tore it out and we reverted back to straight up dirt. Nordic Boy and I were driving around the other day, and our teeth almost rattled out of our heads it was so bumpy. I couldn't BELIEVE it. The roads just didn't all the sudden get assy this year. They have always been like that. I just accepted it before. That's what roads are like at home. Whatevs. But now, I am all SHIT you have got to be kidding me.

There are more examples of this, but I only have 14 minutes left and email to check and such and besides that you get the picture. There's something about this train of thought though, that makes me uneasy. It makes me feel a little more distant from this place that means so much to me than I like to feel. It's like I am starting to look at it with the eyes of an outsider, and I don't like that feeling. You know?

Despite the way this post is coming out, I am indeed having a lovely time here. I have many photos to show ya'll when I get back, and tales of thrills and spills (quite literally) to go with them.

Ok, I only have 9 minutes left, and besides that I am sure it's time to strap on the feedbag again soon. Ha. I just said strap on.

I'm out,
Librarian Girl

Reception's Jumpin'

I went and saw my two beloved friends (and superhero librarians), Hopscotch and Rambo get all hitched up and legal-like married this weekend. A grand time was had by all. It was rockin', which was wholly appropriate since that's what they are. I wish I could show you all the photos I took of Hopscotch looking all Grace Kelly hott in her wedding dress, but that would be overstepping her privacy so you all will just have to glean it from this backend photo and then take my word for it. Girl was smokin'.


Rambo was pretty too.


The ceremony was touching, the toasts were full of love, the food was delish, the cake (in this case, a tower of donuts) was loverly, the company was to die for. I could wax poetic about all of them in detail. But what I want to talk about right now? Is the dancing.

I am a BIG FAN of wedding reception dancing. Always have been. It is one of the few things that I immediately list off when asked about what my favorite things are. It is, I am convinced, the best venue for getting your booty in a groove. It's just... awesome. There are a few things that make it particularly sweet.

1. Intergenerational dance moves. Where else in your life are you going to be dancing around with every age demographic? Granny is busting a move! Look at the toddler over there, kicking it pogo style! There were parents with babes in arms, feeling the beat to "PYT" by Michael Jackson. There were preteens learning why "Kiss" by Prince is worth dancing to. Everyone. Together. Acting silly as can be. I love it.

2. Celebrating the cheeze. I love cheezy music. And for some reason, people at weddings let go of all pretentions and let the music play no matter where it falls on the velveeta scale. They don't try to play it cool with only the songs that indie insiders know. They play Heart, and MC Hammer, and Chubby Freakin' Checker. They just put songs on and let it rip. No one rolls their eyes, no one is too cool for skool. (I have to throw in the caveat that Hopscotch and Rambo are not pretentious anyway, in any part of their lives, so this part was kind of moot for them. I'm just speaking in general).

3. All styles of dance welcome. No one cares if you're not looking cool. NO ONE. I busted out the ROGER RABBIT, people. Yes, I did. Multiple times.

4. True testing of universality of music. One thing I love to do at wedding receptions is to see which songs make everyone stop dancing and which songs bring everyone out on the floor. There is always a few clunkers but usually just one mega hit, and you can never tell what it might be. At this wedding? The hit was Bust A Move by Young MC. No one could resist it. NO ONE. Ok smarty, go to a party...

I have a rep in my circle of friends. That rep is that I close down the dance floor at wedding receptions. You know how, at the end of the reception, there are still like, two or three people that REFUSE TO STOP? They dance their hineys off long after everyone else is so over it? I am so that girl. Don't hate. Congratulate.



I'm out,
Librarian Girl

Boo!

Here's what's new with me lately.

People have been saying weird stuff to me this week. Like, on the street. Living in an urban environment, getting weird stuff said to you by strangers is not necessarily a new thing, but the quantity this week? Has been high. For instance, the other day I was walking along with my iPod in my ears. I happened to turn my head to the right, and caught this dude looking at me as he was riding his bike in the bike lane. You know what he says? "BOO!" Like a Casper the Too-Friendly Ghost thing. How is that something that you say? Then, I had a patron who I was doing some lengthy research for thank me by saying "I appreciate it, snickerdoodle." This person had acted totally normal up until that point, and then busts out with snickerdoodle. Who DOES that?

I was flipping channels the other day, and I expended angry emotion at Bret Michaels. And it wasn't for overuse of pancake make-up either. For some reason, in that moment, I was supremely insulted that Bret was trying to convince me that he was really truly LOOKING FOR LOVE. Like he is really looking for love! Come on! Is anyone on earth buying the premise? Jeez. Now why this all of a sudden made me mad I cannot tell you, but what can I say? I'm just feeling my feelings, people.

In other news, my beloved Nordic Boy was sick this week. Selfishly, this was nice for me because he didn't have to go on any biznazz trips. I'm not saying that I want him to be sick, because that would be evil. And you know what else? Nordic Boy, when left to his own devices and in control of the remote, watches Brainy Television. Hours of it. I mean, I watch my share of things that will enrich my brain, but let's face it, lots of times I am watching reruns of the Munsters or something. But this week, every time I turned around it was science and history and shit. Now I feel bad for the hours of Beauty and Geek I have made him watch.

At the library, there are little kid behaviors that I find myself extremely envious of. Like how kids will just lie down on the floor, like, whenever they friggin' feel like it. And how some of them wear capes in public. And how they get transported around in strollers or red wagons. So jealous.

Also! I am going on a trip back to the Midwest next week. I have to get some sun, and this spring has been CRAP on the west coast. Anyone want me to send them a postcard? I totally will. Email me your mailing address and I will try and find the cheeziest Michigan postcard that you can imagine. I don't think they make postcards of my hometown, but I'll come up with something.

I talked to Alli today. She reminded me of this post I wrote a while ago. I cracked myself up with that one. Mainly because I didn't really have to write anything. The photos alone were enough.

That's all that's in my brain today, fellas.

I'm out,
Librarian Girl

Prompty Dance is your chance

Have you ever used a writer's prompt book? I haven't. Sometimes people ask me for them at the reference desk, and I am always curious about them, but very skeptical. I read one once about blog-writing and it really didn't make me think any better of the idea of a prompt book. So today, while at work, I decided to go over to the shelf and pick one out. At random. Just one that looked like it was, you know, on my level.

Here's what I picked.




I know what you are thinking. GRADES 4-6? I am young-ish, yes. But grades 4-6? Is that really on my level?

Come to think of it, if you have ever read this blog before, maybe you're not thinking that at all.

I just liked the title. Write away! So punny! If I do these prompts, will I be punny like that? I also liked the book cover. Look at that kid! He is so obviously expressing his angst over the fact that his parent made him wear that Tommy Bahama getup like he was an Older Dude instead of the young gangsta that he probably really is. I can almost make out the words on the page he is writing. "Moms just don't git it G..."

Ok, so let's try this and see if it yields any results. Because, you know how I like to just spew it forth with no thought at all? I need to branch out from that.

Exercise 1. Freewriting.

Excuse me, but I think I just said that I need to branch out from spewing it out. One thing I do not have a problem with, is freewriting. NEXT.

Exercise 2. Discovery.
This exercise basically says that you should take something that you freewrote and focus on it and keep on freewriting. Is it just me or does that sound like almost the same thing as Exercise 1? NEXT.

Exercise 3. This one says to write a little note to your teacher about something you are having trouble with in school or with learning. Got it.

Dear Writing Prompter, So far I am having difficulty with these exercises as they are telling me to do what I normally do anyway. Could you start expanding a little bit please? I am easily bored and distracted so you might want to hurry up. I'll give you two more chances.

Exercise 4. Choose a picture and write something about it.
I totally already did that! About the kid in the Jimmy Buffet shirt! SO AHEAD OF ALL THE 4-6 GRADERS OUT THERE. In your face!

Exercise 5. My Life So Far.
What? A whole autobiography? As an exercise? What do you think I am? A person who hasn't lived lots of years? Like a ten year old? A fourth through sixth grader or something? Oh. Oops. Yeah.

This writing prompt stuff is just not my thing. Maybe I should try something that is actually for my own age group, but a lot of what I am seeing on the shelf seems to be of the New Age Woman Let Us Journal About Our Moon Cycles or Let's Write a Heartsong to Our Ex-Boyfriend and Then Burn It In Sage Grass type of deal, and I am so not about that.

Oh well. Prompting books. It doesn't make me want to write. It just makes me want to sing the Humpty Dance with the word "prompty" plugged in.

Stop what you're doin' cuz I'm about to ruin, the image and style that you're used to...

I'm out,
Librarian Girl

turn and face the strange

Hmmm, there's something different around here. Have I packed on a couple extra pounds? Is it a new outfit? Have I started using the gradual coloring of Just for Men products? What ever could it be?

Oh, my yes. It's a new look for this little blog of mine, which I am gonna let shine. How nice of you to notice.

You know what I did, after realizing that I wanted a little blog lift? Did I get off my Hillary Duff and do something about it? Brainstorm, make something, start with the re-designing? No I did not. What I did do was whine just a tad about how I wanted my blog to be more a reflection of me, but that I didn't actually want to DO anything about it, and my whining reached the ears of my two lovely and talented friends. I kind of knew this would happen, as all of my friends are lovely and talented, and helpful to boot, and so when talents are needed, I send out the whiny Bat-signal and they come to my rescue.

First of all, Neighbor J mentioned while we were hanging out last weekend that she just might like to design me a header. This made me really ecstatic cuz in my opinion there ain't nobody more genius at illustration and graphic skeelz than Neighbor J, whether I know them personally or not. And, within 24 hours (and that is saying something because she has her own actual paying graphic design to be doing with deadlines and stuff plus oh yeah she is taking care of a teeny tiny cute as a button baby girl so um, she's kind of busy) she had whipped up that hunk of deliciousness up there. And it is so awesome, because it is SO ME, and only someone who knows me the way she does could have come up with such a thing.

Then, my whining beacon reached the ears of my friend Josh over at Berg with Fries. He also had contacted me right away after hearing of my blah-ness and offered to help. So he (within an hour) did the rest for me. He took time, out of his day being the co-boss-man of the most awesome and super Boys from Jupiter (you should totally hire them for all your design needs) to help me out. Because he is a superstar like that.

I realize that what this whole post is revealing to you is that my friends are Class A ridiculous great people who help their friends out no matter how annoying they are and that I am a Class A lazy effer who relies on said great people. But I have to call it what it is. They are awesome and I am lazy. And as you can tell from the beauteousness of this blog, this set up TOTALLY WORKS FOR ME.

Oh, and also? I have another talented and lovely pal, Neighbor B (hubby of Neighbor J) who has started his very own tech blog where he outlines tech DIY type goodness. I will be the first to admit to you that it is a blog that I have very little understanding of, as it goes way over my head with the smartyness, but if you are a tech type and a DIY type, Neighbor B is your type of peeps and you should go read his blog. He's good people, and way brainy.

My friends rock, dude.
I'm out,
Librarian Girl