Lost

This morning a little boy, about 6 years old, came up to me at the desk and timidly told me that he couldn't find his dad. His eyes were all big, and his lip was all trembley, and I could tell that he was on the verge of totally losing it. He was in a total panic, and I could see in his eyes that he was trying his hardest, his best, to be brave. People, my keyboard confessional for today is simply this: this kind of shit KILLS me. I can't take it, honestly. It's so friggin' saaaaad. This is one of my major problems in life- my empathy goes amok. I am the type of person that sees an elderly person running after the bus and missing it, and I think about it all day. I can see a dog that is waiting outside a store for its owner, and the doggy-cries can make me mist up. People don't really know this about me, as I am a lass full of mirth and cheer. But seriously, Deanna Troi can feel other people's feelings, and so can I. I pulled it together and put the lost kid at ease, walked him around the library, gave him a sticker, and found his papa, but whoa. Now I really need a shot of V-8 or something.

I remember what it feels like to be that little kid. My parents were awesome, loving, and attentive, but losing a kid here and there is bound to happen to anyone. One time, when I was about five years old, I got lost in the mall. My brother and his friend Robert wanted to go look at gerbils in the pet section of Woolworth's, and my mom had to go to the department store at the other end of the mall. In typical tag-along fashion, I wanted to stay with the boys. So she left me with them, with strict orders for them to keep their eye out for me. That lasted for about a half hour, but the gerbil fascination was just too much for them to watch me AND Alvin, Simon and Theodore (yeah yeah I know they were chipmunks, not gerbils, but just let me get on with the story, ok?), so I wandered off into Woolworth's and couldn't find my way back to where they were. Thus began the first Odyssean journey of my young life.

I remembered my mom saying that she was going to be in Hudson's, and I knew that Hudson's was all the way on the other side of the mall from where I was. So I started walking. People, I walked the length of that mall all by myself. At FIVE YEARS OLD. Does this strike anyone else as strange that no kindly adult saw this little trekker and tried to help? What the shit is that all about? I walked the length of a large mall. I mean, it's no Rabbit Proof Fence or anything, but sheesh.

So once I arrived at Hudson's, I had no idea where my mom would be. So I decided I needed to think about what to do next. This memory is so crystal clear, people. From beginning to end, I remember everything. My thought process, what I did, where. In my mind this journey takes days, although I'm sure it was about an hour or two, tops. At this point, I was moving beyond scared, into one heartbeat away from a full on bug out. I needed to regroup. Where did I go to do some thinking? I went into the women's clothing section, and found a nice, big circular clothing rack. I pushed aside the clothes, climbed through them, and sat cross-legged in the middle of the circle. I was perfectly hidden in there, amongst the skirts and shirts. I sat there, and tried to figure out what to do. I knew I should try and find some sort of authority figure, but I hadn't seen anyone obviously dressed in a policeman outfit, or such like. So, who could I ask? What should I do? As I thought, I absently started pulling the paper tags off of the clothes, and throwing them out of my little circle of safety. This, as you can imagine, attracted some attention. Suddenly, my dark and cozy lair was invaded by a shaft of light from above. I looked up. A wrinkled old woman's face peered down at me through the parted hangers. "Oh my!" she said. "How ya doin' punkin?" That's really what she said. How ya doin' punkin. Lemme tell ya, lady, punkin ain't doing so hot. Punkin is having the worst day of her god damn life.

This lady went and got a saleswoman, who came over and coaxed me out of my office. She led me over to one of the counters, and asked me my mom's name so she could page it throughout the store. I remember my mood brightening at this. Oh-KAY, now we are getting somewhere! Things are happening, moving, shaking! We waited a few minutes, but nothing happened. This saleswoman beckoned to another saleswoman, and told her to walk me around the store and see if I could spot my mom.

This woman picked me up and started walking me around the store. She was grumpy and exasperated by this task, and her negative energy, like, really started to harsh my mellow, dude. THIS is the point where I started to cry. I'd HAD it. Wit's end. I started to cry this silent cry, tears rolling down my face, and I started to ask her, over and over, "where's my mom? where's my mom?" Now, I know that this probably annoyed her. She was probably already tired after a long day at work, and now she had a blubbery, soggy-faced kid to deal with. But do you know what this lady said to me? I'm sure you won't be ready for this one, not in a million years. Brace yourself. This fuggin' lady said to me, a five year old kid lost in the mall who was asking "where's mom? where's mom?".... "Maybe she went back to AFRICA, because she SHOULD."

Let's pause here for a second. Just ruminate on that for a moment, if you would.

Ok, so in my young mind, I didn't know what the heck this nutter was talking about. I knew what Africa was, and I knew that my mom had never been there, and had no plans to go. This did nothing but confuse me. Why should my mom go to Africa? Africa??? All I could think was this lady was completely loco.

It was at this moment, my mom spotted us. I still remember her look of confusion, and her arms outstretched to take me back. I did not tell her about what the crazy white lady had said to me. I was just happy to have found my mom again, and too excited to get my brother in some mammoth trouble.

My vivid memory gets me many things in life, not the least of which is the ability to transport myself back to some situation that is similar to the ones that I see around me all day, every day. I know the panic in that young boy's face, and in some ways I make it my own. It's my own version of looking at the world and always wanting to ask: how ya doin' punkin? How ya doin'?

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Rejuvenile

Am I a Rejuvenile? Let's consider the evidence. I pay my taxes on time, don't let my dishes pile up in the sink, eat dinner at my dining table with real plates and silverware, and I don't sleep past 8am but about once a month. I love broccoli and can find a dessert "too sweet." I don't bite my nails and I read the articles in the paper, but hardly ever the comic strips. I now even have a mortgage, and the need to "catch up on some yard work." Sounds pretty grown-up, right?

Well, maybe not. I think that perhaps I am, at heart, a young one. I'm not talking about Nigel Planer and his ilk. Wow, I just used a Young Ones reference and the word "ilk" in the same breath. I guess I even confuse myself when it comes to adult-town and teen-ville, especially when I have to choose which place I want to hang my hat. Or my skateboard. I suppose I commute from one to the other, and there's really nothing truly wrong with that, is there? I can still rock out to some Sleater Kinney but secretly think that it can be a bit LOUD sometimes. It's just how I roll.

Oh, who am I kidding. This whole post is just a fancy-dance way to tell ya'll about my kick ass kickball team. The Is-Librarian-Girl-a-Rejuvenile debate will cease here immediately. I am on a kickball team. In a league. Pass the Peter Pan Pixie Dust.

So, last night the K-ball team showed up with limber toes ready for kickin'. We made such a valiant effort, I can't even tell you. We started out strong, with Jenny getting on base with a powerful grounder into left field. Then Nordic Boy got up to the plate and pounded it out into the far outfield, and both he and Jenny rounded those bases and brought it all home. First time out, and we are up two runs. Delicious. I felt bad for the other team, who almost had to forfeit due to lack of players. They squeaked through with a minimum of 7 people, and I felt like we overwhelmed them with sheer numbers. It's the kickball deluge, dudes. We are swarming all OVER you!

Well, the swarm didn't last long, because they were hungry. Despite some heroic plays on our part (including Nordic Boy turning a full somersault after catching the ball in mid-air, like some kind of kickball Pele), this other team started to cream us. Whipped, frothy, Cool Whip cream. No matter. We forged on. I'll say this for our team. We are not ones who want to walk to the bases by balling each pitch. We do not want to let those puppies go by. What's the name of the game, after all? Are we here to kick or not? Our team, whenever given the chance, even when the ball wasn't rolling exactly over the plate, friggin' WENT FOR IT. It was awesome. Timid little peonies, we are not.

On the car ride home, Nordic Boy and I talked about how much fun we had, and that everyone else seemed to have a blast too. "Too bad we lost, though," I started to say. "Oh no," he replied in that zen way he has. "Losing is much more...noble."

Just when I think to myself what an adult thing to say, he adds: "plus, our team was way more BALLS OUT!"

Rejuvenile. Hells yeah.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Madam, I'm Adam

Time for a birthday shout-out, friends! Today's birthday girl is Ms. Palindrome. Pal and I met as first-years in college. I don't remember the first time we actually met, but I do remember the exact moment when we became friends. She lived on my floor (or I lived on her floor, or we lived on the same floor), and one day, I was having all sorts of 18-year-old, juicy, angsty drama over the boyfriend that I had left in my hometown, and so for some reason, like a friendship divining rod, I just marched over to her room, knocked on her door, invited myself in (I was a bit pushy back in my youth) and told her the whole sordid story. I have this memory of her sitting in her bed, legs under the covers, reading her homework, and me sitting right on her bed with her, pouring my pathetic story out, like a sad, sorry bedtime story. When I think about it, I can't help but think of how potentially obnoxious this behavior was (as was much of my behavior at that age). I can't recall what made me approach her this way, but I must have known, must have sensed in my short interactions with her, that she was good peoples. From that night forward- insta-presto- we were buds.

Pal was my first friend that I allowed to get all in my business. I mean all of it. She knew everything about me, and I felt like I knew everything about her. I had friends growing up that knew all of my business, but they had to, because they shared in it, their business WAS my business, they were THERE. But Pal was the first person that I purposefully, willingly, decidedly piled my shit onto. Here's all my crap! Let me show you every piece of it, shall I? Lookie, some of our crap matches! It was a beautful thing, truly. The trust that we built up, from strangers to best friends, was so impressive, especially in the midst of the most distrustful period of my life. I'm so proud of us for doing that.

There was a house in our college town that was known as The Castle. It's more of a mansion, I think, but judge for yourself. I don't remember why, but one day, Pal and I were on a walk and we decided to march up the lonely hill to the front door of the Castle and knock on the door. Just because. I think about this and am all agog at the ballsyness of this act. We were eighteen, and didn't know what sort of reception we would get, but hey let's just go aknocking because we are so rockin.

The owner of this house opened the door, and we probably said something along the lines of "cool house!" and he was very gracious to us and introduced us to his wife/fiance/girlfirend or some such, and told us that there was to be a party at the house (which he rented out to organizations for partying purposes) that weekend, and hey, you guys should come.

We said something to the effect of "hells yeah" and skippity hopped back to our dorm. We got ourselves gussied up in our finest, and we went to this party, which forever after we referred to as "The Soiree." It was either a theatre party or an opera-company party or something, I don't quite remember. There was some gathering around the piano for loud showtune-singalong-time, and there was a small fountain of champagne in the living room. A fountain! This blew my young brain. The owners of the house let us look around, and although the guests at the party were not allowed to go upstairs, they took us up. I wish I could remember more details about it, but the gist of it is that we were so excited that we didn't even know enough to feel out of place. We giggled a lot and as we walked up the winding staircase, we held hands.

After The Soiree was over, we went back to our dorm, and although we kind of told people about what we had done, we didn't go into too much detail. It was our Soiree, and we kept it close.

Happy Birthday, Ms. Palindrome. I love you from way back to way forward, the same in both directions.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

I Heart This

I'm not sure why this is, but something memorable always happens on my Independence Days. Maybe not every year, but almost. There was the time that I somehow got myself into a date on the 4th that included a small yacht off the coast of my city, which was very exciting, but the people I was with were so hipster cool that they didn't even come out from below deck to watch the fireworks, and I was too young and wishy washy to tell them that was so lame and walk up to the upper deck myself. That was a stupid 4th. Then there was the time in high school when I was riding into downtown in the back of my best friend's pick up truck with some other girlfriends and some drunk dude decided to try and run after our truck with his, ahem, "bottle rocket" out, just POINTING it at us, and my friend A.K. threw her coke can at him as we drove away and it hit him, well, just exactly right, if you get my drift. Now, I'm not one to encourage littering like that, but in that case, it was fine.

The best 4th memory I have is from about five years ago, and I think about it every single year ever since then, and I will probably think about it every year from here on out. Biology Girl, Jenny, and I all walked the fifteen blocks or so from my apartment to a street that overlooks the city skyline and the lake above which the fireworks would go off. The place where we stood wasn't a park, and it wasn't designated for the large gathering of pedestrians that filed in at dusk. It was just a city street like any other, except for its vantage point. The crowds drifted out of their apartments, condos and houses, and stood in the street, waiting for the display to begin. It's times like these that I love living in the city so much. There are so many people, and none of us know each other, but there we all are, standing close and, for the most part, acting all neighborly.

Once the fireworks began, there were the usual sounds that rippled through the crowd. The older kids going "whoa!" and the little kids screaming with excitement over the bigger fireworks. The tipsy adults let out some whoops, and the sober ones said "cool." The fireworks in my city are the fanciest I've ever seen anywhere, choreographed perfectly to piped in music and showcasing crazy patterns and colors. There are ones that burst into geometric shapes, like hearts, and squares, and others that burst into wobbly pictures of smiley faces and planets with rings around them.

After the show had started for just a few minutes, a scraggley-voiced woman in the back of the crowd started yelling out what can only be described as...requests. She was obviously three sheets to the wind, this one, and she tipped her head back and screamed into the sky: "SHOW ME A HEART!!!!"

The fireworks went on, and so did she. "SHOW ME A HEART! C'MON! SHOW ME A HEART!" A minute went by, and there it was: an explosion of red that glittered a big bedazzled heart in the sky.

"SHOW ME A PLANET! HOW ABOUT A PLANET??" She went on. I looked back over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of her through the crowd. She had a look of complete faith on her face, as she shouted to the heavens. As soon as the planet glittered in the sky, she went on to the next request. I almost wanted to shout back "FREEBIRD!" or "STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN!" to mock this request-a-firework format, but then I didn't. Biology Girl, Jenny and I all smiled at each other, and had a good laugh about it on the walk home, but we (and no one else in the crowd as far as I could tell) didn't hinder her from the task at hand. The one that she requested most, yelled for the most, was the heart. "SHOW ME A HEART!" I found it to be so poetic, so heartbreaking, so funny, such a lonely-yet-jubilant plea to the sky.

Every time I see fireworks now, I think of this woman. And although I don't yell it out, I look up and I always, always think: show me a heart. Show me a heart.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Friends in the Trenches

This Saturday night, I spent the evening at the book store/cafe down the street from my house chatting it up with Sweetbraids. She's a librarian too, and one that I get to work with often, so we have lots of work-related fodder for the gab-mill. We also have grown into good friends on non-librarian turf, which got me to thinking about the work-friend.

I have made a goodly amount of friends on the job. Not all of them, but maybe half of my good friends I met through work. Is that true for everyone? Or at least everyone who has a job? Maybe Paris Hilton doesn't meet people in the middle of...whatever it is she does. Or perhaps being a socialite is sort of her job, so anyone she meets while falling out of her dress on a red carpet somewhere constitutes friend-found-at-work.

In any job I ever had, I always got along with people and got pally with them when AT work, so I'm not really talking about that. I'm talking about the people that you meet at work, where the friendship goes off the work-page and into the personal-life-page. What is this weird page-metaphor that I am trying to draw out of thin air? Just go with it, people. You get what I'm saying. People that you hang out with even when you're not at work, of your own free will, people that you call or email just for the heck of it, the people that you make an effort for.

There are occupations that lend themselves to making friends at work. When I worked in the theatre (please pronounce that "the Thee-ah-tah!" and make jazz hands while doing so), everyone was friends. That's because you're at work for 16-plus hours a day, and you don't come home from work until the wee hours of the morning, and the hours you keep don't lend themselves to ever meeting anyone outside of that circle, ever. (Unless it's guys that are in bands, which is a whole other sordid story that I'd rather not get into, because it doesn't come off making me look too smart). So when I was doing that, I was friends with everyone I worked with, and literally no one else. Not so healthy, and can lead to Burnoutus Incestiata.

Since that time, the only other place where I made a ton of work friends was when I worked at a boat rental place for the local University. This was a shitty student job, yes, and it was of such a shitty caliber that I am completely embarrassed to say that it was NOT the shittiest job I ever had. It really should have been. I had a crazy married boss who conducted a messy affair with one of the college student employees. Her husband and her lover both had an uncanny resemblance to Shaggy from Scooby Doo, as I recall. No accounting for taste, I suppose. We had to schlep these canoes in and out of the water for people (many of whom were angry, horrible, drunken devil spawn) amidst pounds of goose crap and dirty lake water. We also had to deal with the sailing crowd who would come in and hit on us while simultaneously insulting us (so attractive, those Tommy Hilfiger types), and all of this for the low low price of 6.50 an hour. I hated that job. And yet, somehow I made some of the best friends I've ever had in the middle of that filth. Biology Girl, Jenny, HVD-- all three of them I owe to that cesspool of smelly lifejackets. Maybe there's something about going through such an experience that bonds people.

Now, in Libraryland, I have found another context wherein cool people seem to just fall out of the sky in front of me. And this time it's not because we all have to stay here until all hours of the day and night, and it's not because we're bonding over slipping and falling in goose dookie. I don't really know what it is. Librarians just seem to have a high proportion of good peeps. No late hours, no geese, no red carpet necessary.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Blog Closet

When I started writing this blog, I was a total blog newbie. I started it at the suggestion of two friends who thought I had something to say out here on the Internets. I still don't really know what I'm doing out here, in the blog cyberscape, as I didn't think it would last long (my fatal flaw-- I never think anything is going to last long). But I started this, and I didn't tell anyone that I knew about it. Not because I wanted to write anything that would get me dooced. I knew I would keep it sassy but classy, as the Pussycat Dolls would say. (Yeah, I just quoted the Pussycat Dolls. Such is my lot in life). I figured I'd talk librarian stuff, life stuff, pop culture stuff. It would be for me. I told Neighbor J and Biology Girl and Jenny. Then I told Ali and Map. A couple more after that. But for the most part, I just kept it under my hat. Don't really know why.

After a bit, I discovered that there were people out there who had found me, and were reading my stuff, and being really kind to me about it. People I had never met. Most of my readers are in the Midwest, which I find so interesting because I am originally a midwesterner myself. I wonder if there's something about the way I write that appeals to my homies back home. I don't know how it happened, but these people (alla yous reading this) are so great, so generous, so smart, so ridiculously funny in your comments and emails. It made me want to keep writing and checking out your blogs and feeling the love out there.

I'm leading up to something here, and it's not just a Sally Field "you really like me!" moment. Now that I've been doing this for a bit, and I have you guys out there who listen to my blatherings and seem to understand them, I feel, well, strange about coming out of the blogging closet to people that I actually know, in person. I'm unsure about whether I need to. Maybe I should just keep it the way it has been, which is great. But there seems to be something so secretive about not telling people, especially at this point. And I am not a secretive person, by nature. For instance:

When the Whole Foods in my neighborhood first opened, I went there almost every day that summer to get a smoothie. I was having a serious addictive love affair with those god damn smoothies. They may as well have been crack flavored. So, into the Whole Foods I would go, to order up. At the counter, they always ask your name, so that they can call it out when your smoothie is up. I didn't give them my real name. Again, this was not out of some paranoid idea that anyone gave a shit about what my name was so I had to keep it a secret. It's just that I have a hard to pronounce first name. Let me re-phrase. I actually have a very easy-to-pronounce first name, but it is unfamiliar to most, so people butcher it. This gets confusing. I have been called "Brenda" and "Rhonda" and "Braillah" (the feminine of "Braille"?), none of which are anywhere close to my name. So I told the smoothie guy that my name was Jane. Because that's easy to say, easy to spell, and people are familiar with the name Jane, right?

Well, the next day, when I came in to get my smoothie, the guy who worked there remembered me. "Hiya Jane!" he said to me as I walked in. I felt embarrassed, but I didn't correct him. How could I tell him that my name wasn't really Jane? Wouldn't that have been too weird?

This went on ALL SUMMER LONG. Not only did this guy continue to call me Jane, all of the other people who worked at that counter also came to know me as Jane. They all greeted me warmly each and every time I walked in the door. It was like Norm on Cheers. "Jane!" they would say, all happy to see me. But it was too late. How could I go back now? How could I tell them, after weeks and weeks of so much niceness, that I wasn't Jane? I felt terrible every time it happened, and this ended my smoothie habit for good. At least until the staff turned over.

This is how I am starting to feel about my blog, people. How can I tell people that I see all the time, that feel like they know me, that um, hey, I have a blog and have had one for six months, and just sort of, um, forgot to tell you guys about it? Not because it's a secret on purpose, but just something I forgot to mention?

Jane, you're such a weirdo.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Discuss Amongst Yourselves

So tomorrow night I am leading a book discussion group for older teens and adults. I like the idea of book groups, but I fear, in my secret, private thoughts (that I am about to share right out here on the Internets), that I am not really a book-group kind of girl. Are you shocked? Are you going to report me to the librarian police and take my librarian-membership-card away?

I like the idea of book groups though. I really do. I think book groups are like marriages. I would always look around at married people I knew, and think "why would I want that? That looks extremely messy and dysfunctional." It wasn't until I saw people that I could identify with who were married that I could concede that it was something that looked kind of ok. It's the same with book groups. I don't think I've ever been a part of one that's good, functional, fun. So I can't really picture what that would look like. Does it exist? Sure, probably. But it's hard to achieve. Like marriage, it probably is a lot of chemistry and luck thrown in.

The first book group I was in was in college, where a bunch of people decided that they wanted to try it out, and none of us had any book-grouping experience (ah, college. So experimental). That one fell apart, as I recall, because I was in a phase where all I wanted to read was filmmaking books and one of the other members really wanted to read Hemingway, and yet another person wanted to read The Night of the Living Dead. So, a bad mix of people all the way around. It didn't last long.

Then, I was in a book group with friends in the mid-90s. (Wow- isn't that, like, a totally fogey thing I just did? Refer to a time in my life by the decade? Yikes). That was good, because we all read stuff that we liked, and also stretched our reading horizons beyond what we knew before. But, the thing was, we never really talked about the books. We all read them, and met, and basically just said "cool." Or maybe we said "not cool" if we didn't like it. But no real discussion. We had a de facto leader of the group (meaning the bossiest person known to humankind) and I recall we read "The God of Small Things" and she led a spirited discussion along the lines of "what was that whole twin thing about? Gross!" And because we were too nice to try and override her bossy powers, we didn't try to commandeer the discussion. "Yeah," we all said with a sigh. "Gross."

I was once also invited to a book discussion group by a professor I had back in the day. This professor is, I think, the smartest person I have ever met. I was continually blown away by the fountains and fountains of knowledge that she possessed. She said things on a plane of theoretical, abstract thinking that I knew I was only partially understanding, and yet even the small amount that I understood blew my effin' mind. She knew transnational economic deconstructionist shit, ya'll, and could spout it to you in whatever language you wished. She wrote those kind of books that you can read, one incredibly dense passage at a time (often reading the same passage over and over), and ruminate on each and every sentence for hours. So when she chose me--ME--to attend her private book club group with her friends...I was beyond flattered. It was like Mr. Miyagi had told me it was time to run with the big boys. I bought the book, and it was by Luce Irigaray. Fine, I thought, I can get down with some Irigaray. I know Luce. Bring it!

I got to the book group, and it was the definition of "out of my league," people. Now, I can get into an intellectual smackdown, no problem. You want to get into some theory, I'm there. My papers I wrote for my professor's class and the stuff I'd said in that same class must have meant something. I mean, she wouldn't have invited me, out of all the people in her class, if she hadn't thought I had the Right Stuff. But oh my dear Wittgenstein, I had the Wrong Stuff. The Completely Wrong Stuff. This set of people, in this book group, started to talk about this book, and I went all Lil' John on them, at least inside my own head. "Ha-what?" I mean, they were drawing out references to things, and quoting them in the original languages and shit like that. I'm thinking "umm. E Pluribus Unum? La Femme Nikita? Inna-gadda-davita?"

Since then, I have led some good discussion groups via my librarian gig. So I know it doesn't have to be like all those others. But still, I have those feelings beforehand like it's just probably not going to be that rewarding. Maybe that's just performance anxiety or something. I'm providing doughnuts at the next one, so that will make it worthwhile, just for that, right? Because everything is better with doughnuts. Just like marriage. Ok, I think I've pushed the marriage analogy a bit too far.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Cheeseless in Seattle

You always hear those stories about couples who have been together for a really long time, who have started to take each other for granted. You know what I mean. The husband and wife who don't attend to the daily, tiny kindnesses and who barely seem to notice that the other person is even there any more. Then, as the marriage falls apart, they both realize (if this is a Lifetime Original movie starring Lisa Hartman Black and Patrick Duffy) how much the other person really DID for them, and how unappreciative they have been all along, and if only they could have a second chance, they would never take that person for granted again. They would love them, cherish them, forever and ever, amen.

Well, I'm finally understanding what those feelings are all about, people. No, nothing is falling stale between me and Nordic Boy. Not to worry. The relationship that I am lamenting right now is the one I have with...a refrigerator.

I am currently without fridge. My new house did not come with a fridge, so I have to buy one. And in the days that lined up between moving in and today, I have resigned myself to living without a fridge for a week or two, because hey, I just bought a house and have lots of things to spend money on and I have to prioritize these things, and so how hard could that be, to live fridge-free?

It's hard. It's hella hard. How did I grow up not appreciating this fine invention? Why, when watching Little House on the Prairie and seeing Nels lugging huge chunks of ice out of the ice house, did I not say to myself "thank Petey Wheat that I don't have to do that?" Why, each time I had a nice, cold Izzy soda to quench my thirst, did I not give my fridge a little caress?

I don't know why. I just didn't. Took it for granted. Grumbled at it late at night when I was hankering for something and standing there with its door open, looking at my vast array of condiments (easily 40 or 50 different condiments in my fridge, I'm sure). Kicking its door shut as I made my milky Earl Grey tea in the morning. Kicking it! For shame.

So now I understand the error of my ways. I was blind but now I see. I want to be able to store cheese. And milk. And have cold beverages. And, oh sweet Theo Huxtable, some ice cream. Store them all, cold, chilled, in my very own abode. Right there. Close by.

I remember the only other time in my life that I was ever awed at the majesty that is refrigeration. When I was growing up, my friend Ali's house had the most mammoth fridge I had ever seen in a house. Ever. Still to this day that behemoth was impressive. Every time one of its gigantic doors swung open before me, I was agape. It was like a walk-in closet of a fridge.

I don't need a fridge like that, obviously. But I do need a fridge. A glorious, beautiful fridge. I have the one that I want picked out, and it is sexy. I can't wait to have it be a part of the family. I will treat it kindly, with reverence, and every spoonful of Ben and Jerry's that I consume out if its loving guts, I will say mea culpa, dear fridge. I am sorry that I didn't see the beauty radiating from within your little lighted interior.

And hopefully, my future ice box will hold no grudges against me. Cool forgiveness will be mine. It will all be water under the fridge, as Balki Bartakamous used to say.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

"Heapin' Helpin' of Hospitality"

Most houses have quirks, and the older ones are the quirkiest. There are the things people have left behind, and parts of homes that have been altered to suit a particular need. For instance, when Neighbor J and Neighbor B used to live next door to me in the duplex, they found someone's secret stash of foot fetish magazines in a crawl space. Someone was getting their foot fun on, and leaving the evidence in the ceiling rafters, ya'll. You'd think that a foot lover would, if they had any sort of poetic aptitude, hide that stuff in the floorboards instead of in the ceiling, was my thought on the matter.

When I was house-hunting, I saw a house that looked alarmingly amateurish in its construction, where each room was built oddly on a different level. So, from the entrance hall, you stepped two steps up into the living room, and then stepped four steps down into the kitchen. You proceed to the first bedroom (seven steps up) and beyond to a laundry room (three more steps up). What made this house even more odd was that the ceilings were all one height, and so sometimes your head would almost touch the top of the room, and other times it was a regular high ceiling.

My favorite house quirk that I saw during this whole endeavor was a two story 1920s era home. On the second floor, there was a nice bedroom with a closet. I opened the door to the closet, and discovered that there was a 2 x 3 hole cut neatly into the back of the closet wall. The view from this hole looked out onto the staircase that came from below. So, if this was your bedroom, you could stand inside your closet and peer out this hole to watch the other residents of the house traipse up and down the stairs, and they would probably not be the wiser. This hole was also curiously framed. As in, there was a picture frame encasing the hole, so the implication of this view was that you were looking out onto a picturesque tableau of stair-walkers. From inside a closet. Tres creepy.

Well, my new house has its own little quirk, which part of me loves and another part of me can't wait to get rid of. I have an unfinished laundry/utility room, which basically just has the washer/dryer, breaker box, and lots o' pantry-ish built-in cabinets. One of these cabinet doors is, well, a door. Like a full-size, entry-and-exit-for-people door that you have on your bathroom, with a doorknob instead of a handle. The only difference between a regular door and this door is that this door is built in to the wall sideways. So it looks like there is a sideways door running the length of one wall. How odd, right? Well, it gets better. When I turned the doorknob, the door folded out, and I discovered that it is a twin size, homemade murphy bed. It reminds me of the kind of beds they used to have in trains in old murder mystery movies. Not only is it a bed, but there is a rusty set of mattress springs affixed to this door. Just springs. Glued onto the door. No actual mattress, or space for a mattress. Like all you could really do with this is maybe tie a thin cloth pad to the rusty metal springs and curl up for some zzz's that way. Um, in the cement-walled unfinished utility room. Ahhh, relaxing. So cozy.

I can't help but wonder what this crazy bed was used for. Did prior residents actually think this was a suitable guest room? Did they make Grandma sleep in there when she visited? Poor Grandma. Although, I know Granny wanted a root cellar dug into the back yard on the Beverly Hillbillies to make her feel more at home and it didn't matter that she had a huge mansion for her, um, roots (?). She felt the most comfortable with her root cellar. So I can only hope that the karma in my new house doesn't include making Granny sleep somewhere she didn't want to sleep. Because that would be too sad. At any rate, the bed's got to go. I just can't abide.

Ya'll come back now, hear?

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

The Past 4,320 Minutes

Well, it's no dee-luxe apartment in the sky-hi-high, but it's mine. This weekend I moved into the new digs. On Friday evening, the truck-moving dude called to let me know what time he would be delivering our moving truck.

Him: Just calling to confirm that you ordered a truck.
Me: That's right.
Him: I will be there with the truck, 108 minutes from now.

One hundred and eight minutes. Not an hour-and-a-half, not two hours, but 108 minutes. When I told Nordic Boy about this, of course we had to set a timer at 108 minutes to see if the dude was serious. And we spent the rest of the evening announcing how many minutes each task would take. ("I'm going to pick up the take-out. I'll return in 17 minutes.") Because we're geeky like that.

By Saturday afternoon, we had moved everything in to the new place. Yippee! My enthusiasm was tempered a bit, however, by the fact that the yard resembled a rainforest. I mean, the type of landscape that you need a machete to cut yourself a pathway through. I wish I were exaggerating. I know that a big reason I could even afford this house was because the yard was in such bad shape that many potential buyers were scared off by it ("AHHH! THE TREES! SO MANY TREES! AAHHHH!"), which was lucky for me, but now that I looked at the green gone wild all around...yikes.

Luckily, I have my peeps who always, always come to the rescue when I need them. Hooray for my peeps! Saturday afternoon, HVD and JM showed up and practically did a tandem stage-dive into the wilderness that is my front yard. My yard is probably only about 25 feet long, but my house was literally not visible from the street because of the flowing flora between the sidewalk and the front door. We could have staged next season's Survivor from this little piece of greenbelt.

JM had brought with him a long, cutty pruner thingamading (see how much I know about gardening, people?) and went buck wild, Tasmanian Devil style. He cut back the entire front of the yard, with HVD in tow, pulling out roots with such gusto that I had to nickname her the Root Master.

On Sunday, Neighbor J and B showed up, along with Jenny. Now Jenny has long been reknowned in the art of weeding, and so I was sure glad to see her. She exhibited her usual weed-be-gone prowess, for which I am in awe of her. Neighbor J's particular talent was revealed to be the genteel art of plant-shaping like Mr. Scissorhands, which, with her artistic talents overall, didn't surprise anyone. Neighbor B had the very manly task of chainsawing some dead trees and stumps down (my yard sounds so classy, doesn't it?), and Nordic Boy's specialty was pruning the lower branches off of the really huge trees with this long-ass stick with a saw on the end of it. My contribution to this whole endeavor consisted mostly of bagging up all the crap that was being snipped, cut, pruned, and raked. May not sound like much, but we ended up with over 30 large bags full of yard waste. That's a lot of friggin' foliage.

So after all this effort, my yard is much more bald, much more pretty, and I actually get lots of lovely light in my windows to brighten up the place. And because the yard hadn't been loved like that for what looked like fifty years or so, we found lots of creepy debris among the mulchy goodness. These included: a rusty baton, a large rotted basket, a child's saddleshoe (we were relieved that the rest of the child was not found), some very old-looking beer bottles, a 1999 visa debit card, a car jack, and a small cow skull. Yep, I said a cow skull.

Maybe I should just throw in the towel with all this yard clean-up and be the scary, witchy librarian that the neighbor kids are scared of. Witchy Woman can be my new theme song. Gotta go dig that skull back out of the trash and practice my banshee cackle now.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Kicky & Boomer

I'm moving to the new house soon. And when I do, I will leave behind a cast of characters in my neighborhood that I will miss. Not because I have made life-long friends here, but because the folks that live in my current 'hood are a funny lot. Ha-ha-funny and peculiar-funny. So this post is paying tribute to the most memorable ones of the bunch.

I call them the Grumpsters. A retired couple who live down the street in a fancy mod house, I have literally never seen them smile. They take a walk around the neighborhood early each morning, sour expressions on their faces. They look like they can't stand anybody, including each other, as the man ("Kicky") always walks on the sidewalk and the woman ("Boomer") always walks on the opposite sidewalk or in the middle of the street. No sharing of sidewalk space! We are TOO GRUMPY for that! When Nordic Boy first saw Kicks and Booms, he made it a personal challenge to get them to break the Grump Face. So each morning (he often leaves for work at the exact same time as they take their walk), as he walks to his car, he calls out a hearty "'Morning!" at them as they walk by. Many times they are not two feet away from him on the sidewalk. People, they have NEVER BROKEN the Grump Face. Never! I have lived in my apartment for six years! And Nordic Boy has persisted. "'Morning!!!" Not only do they not return the greeting, they don't acknowledge that anyone is speaking. Not a shifted eye, not a turn of the head, not a faltering of step. Nada. One morning, I happened to be taking a walk, and I turned the corner to the surprise of almost running into Kicky. Like, we almost kissed because we were face to face so fast. In my surprise, I said "oh! hello!" and he was so surprised that he said "hello." Ah-HA! I got him to talk! It was still grumpy, but apparently full-body contact is needed to get Kicky to cough up a greeting.

Now you get why I call them the Grumpsters. But why "Kicky and Boomer," you may be wondering. Well, let me tell ya. Shall we start with Kicky? Kickster gets this moniker because, if you don't get your garbage cans off of the curb by the morning after garbage-pick-up day, he has been known to walk down the sidewalk, KICKING CANS over. Angrily. Cheery, no?

And Boomer. Dear, dear Boomer. Boomer who wears a jaunty raspberry beret in the winter and a Mary Engelbreit style straw hat in the summer. One of Boomer's favorite pasttimes goes like this. She walks under tree branches, stops, claps her hands, then waves them around her head (angrily of course), and makes loud sounds like Peter Boyle's monster in Young Frankenstein. "Aaaaehhhh! Aaaaeehhh!" she yells. What does this action mean? It means that Boomer is taking the time to (get ready people, I'm not making this up) SCARE BIRDS OUT OF TREES. Yes indeedy. Because why should there be birds in trees? Don't they know their kind ain't wanted in these parts? "Aaaaaeehhhhh!"

So there they are. Kicky and Boomer. The Grumpsters. After I move I will see them no more. Maybe , on my last day, they'll respond if we yell out "Goodbye!" to them instead of "'Morning!" Maybe we can offer to have him kick us right out of the neighborhood. Or have her scare me out of my "nest." Bye, neighbors.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Babyface

I don't look like I'm twelve. Seriously. For all my joking around about being a sweet young thing, I do not look like I am puberty-in-progress or anything. I'm grown, people. Not wrinkley, not gray, but definitely, certainly adult. So why do patrons sometimes treat me like I'm still pimpin' the Pampers? It makes me grumpy (note: "grumpy." A grown-up word. Not "crabby" or "collicky").

Here's what happened today. A dude in his 60s came up to the desk and asked for a book called "A Day In the Life." My two follow-up questions about this seemed to agitate him, and before I could say another word, his eyes lit up at the sight of my co-worker, a man who shares his same demographic. "You should ask HIM. He looks like HE would know."

Glaring subtext: you are obviously not a professional, and even if you are, you look like some kind of stunted-growth Emmanuel Lewis and I don't trust that you even have your driver's license, let alone your Master's learnin' papers.

The guy went on to talk at me, insisting that I should just KNOW what he was talking about, and that the reason I didn't was because I was "too young to remember good literature." After a few more prompts from me (and being twice interrupted by him admonishing me to "just go ask THAT librarian"), a light bulb went off and I asked "do you mean One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich?" and he grudgingly conceded, yes, that was it. It took all of my strength to not say "FACE!" and do a little end zone dance with that one.

Although this guy was not subtle, I have heard worse. I had a guy come in the morning after the 2004 Presidential elections, demanding exact numbers of voter turnout across the country. I tried to explain that getting an accurate number that early after the election might be difficult, to which he immediately responded with "how much experience do you have at being a librarian, anyway?" Listen. More than you, sucka, okaaay?

I notice that this happens much more often when I am at the reference desk with my male-in-his-50s coworker. Doesn't happen super often, but often enough. Almost makes me want to start with the bunhead hairdo and clodhopper shoes to age myself a bit to get that crap to stop. Ok, not almost. Not even a little, really. It just sucks.

Now I know how Doogie must have felt. How can I get across that I am indeed old enough? Play myself in Harold and Kumar Go to the Library? Worked for Neil, so it might work for me.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Unforgettable

I recently got contacted by a friend of mine who I was close with in the 10th grade. Just out of the blue. I pick up the phone, and my own personal blast from the past (totally different than my own personal Jesus) is on the other end. Semi-interesting on its own, maybe. But what's even more interesting than that is the fact that this happens to me ALL the time. All the time, seriously. Probably once a year, I will pick up the phone, and some random high school person is on the other end. Each time it happens, I tell my two childhood pals, Alli and Map, and each time they say something along the lines of: "what IS it with you?"

What is it with me, indeed. It's not like I was particularly popular in high school, so it's not like people are calling me because I was so damn influential that they need to reconnect with me to show me how great they are doing now or see how great I am doing or what have you. Alli is convinced it's because my parents have had the same phone number my whole life, and it's kind of memorable (like 867-5309 or 588-2300 or 555-NUTS or something like that) so when people think about me my old number is right there, burned on their brain. And my parents remember all of my old friends, so of course my mom is handing out my current number to any ex-buddy that calls her up.

It's odd to me that people would track me down like this, especially since I live so far away from where I grew up. But they do. And the results are mixed bag. When my ex (Luscious J) called, I was happy to hear from him and I now still keep in touch with him. But when Shari called a few years ago to fill me in on her fertility troubles when I hadn't seen her since she sat next to me in 7th grade choir, well, that was weird. Lady, I don't know you any more and all that sperm-count/discharge-check stuff is crossing my boundary right now.

So this time it was Gigi. She was my best friend in 9th and 10th grade, and she was awesome. Truly, a kindred spirit. I still have all the notes that she wrote to me, and they are still funny, witty, silly. In 11th grade, she started dating this guy and the friendship fell apart. She never wanted to hang out with her girlfriends any more and she became this serious, grown-up-not-in-a-good-way person. Looking back, I'm sure I didn't handle it well either. I seem to recall nicknaming her new boyfriend "foothead" behind his back. Not the best attitude, I'm sure.

So when she called me, we chatted about our lives, and then I brought up some of the old jokes that we used to have. Like, we used to have this character that we drew on everything. We drew it on walls, we drew it on our locker, we drew it when we signed our names on notes to each other. It was, like, our logo. His name was Mr. Renobber Gonad Brain. He wore a look of shocked surprise, and he was bubble-headed and skinny. Now, this will tell you guys where I am at in terms of emotional age, but I still think Mr. Brain is funny. What does it even MEAN? I don't know, and I co-created the guy. It's just silly, and comes out of a very unselfconscious 9th grade place. Well guess what? Gigi didn't think it was funny any more. She even acted like it was kind of...lewd. Well of COURSE it's kind of lewd. Renobber Gonad Brain. We were in 9th grade. Saying Renob or Gonad was enough to make us laugh. It still can make me laugh.

I don't know, ya'll. If you're calling me up in honor of some pubescent friendship that we had going, you gotta honor the pubescent-ness of it all, don't you? The part of me that you thought was so memorable had to be largely puerile. There's a big part of me that's still in 9th grade. What part? Ask Mr. Gonad. (Come on! Kind of funny? Ok maybe not).

Ok Mom. I think it's time to stop giving out my number.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

Sign o' the Times

When I was a kid, I spent lots of time practicing how to sign my name. I needed the practice, you understand, because I was going to grow up to be famous. I needed to perfect my autograph because my fans would call upon me to sign things for them, and I would oblige them gracefully. I noticed how famous people on tv, when shown amidst throngs of adoring people, would always sign their names with a sweeping hand. They seemed to hold their pens loosely, up near the top, not near the writing end, and they would always look like they couldn't possibly be writing anything other than large flowery spirals all over the page. I practiced it this way all through elementary school, thinking about who I would take with me to the Vanity Fair Oscar Party (Scott Baio or Prince, naturally).

After a time, I stopped practicing my autograph (not that I am conceding the fact that it's a valuable commodity, of course), and started to think of it as a way to creatively convey something of myself to whosoever may have looked at it. This was a dark and embarrassing time in my personal signature history, as I experimented with different ways of writing my name. I won't divulge the depths of cutesy that I went to in great detail. The bottom line is that my very first driver's license bears one of my attempts at expressing myself: my first name ending in a curly, artistic star (signifying something along the lines of "you're a STAR, baby, a STAR!), and my last name swooshing up into a semi-circle, into which I drew a (oh dear Jehosephat) a smiley face. Oh, and a couple of hovering hearts thrown in too. What can I say people. I was sixteen years old and I had a serious case of the cutes. People seemed to love me in spite of this.

I'm happy to report that not long after my sixteenth birthday, I ceased all that nonsense and starting signing my name like I do now, which is still a little curly, but long-ish, tall, messy but legible. It actually looks like a hybrid of my mom's signature and my sister's, which is apt because my girlitude is half and half created between the two of them. There was a time in my life that I knew actual famous people (well, maybe "knew" is the wrong term-- I was near them. In close-ish proximity to them. Adjacent, if you will) and I witnessed firsthand the signing of autographs. I always wondered whether this big, loopy, flourish-y gesture was really the way they signed everything. Like did their driver's license just have their signature across the whole damn thing?

All of this talk of signatures is merely because today was the single most-signatured-day in my life, so my signature got the workout that it has been waiting for since back in the day when I wanted Charles in Charge of me. Today, I signed for my new house. Librarian Girl has gone and done it. I was in Escrow. I never really understood why the preposition there was "in" until today. You are not for Escrow. You are not by Escrow. You are not on Escrow. It's definitely an "in" sort of feeling. Like in a pool. Or in over your head. Or insane.

So here's how it goes. You go to the Escrow office, and they take you to a special signing room. There is a whole room in this building just for the purpose of signing. There is an ergonomic chair in there, and a table, and a cup full of blue-ink pens, and there are even little placemat things on the table. What are those placemats there for? I thought to myself as I was shown in. Are we getting hotdogs and strawberry shortcake before we sign? Sweet! But these are not really placemats. They are leather signing-stations. It's what they put the papers on in front of you so that you can sign on a special smooth surface, not just on the table like an uncouth common signer.

So they sat me down at this table in front of my placemat (I almost wanted a special signing bib to go along with it) and they showed me the different options I had for pens. I am not making this up. The Escrow lawyer handed me three pens, and said I could pick whichever I wanted, but she personally likes the kind with the squishy spongy gripper on the bottom. I don't think she knew who she was dealing with. I have been practicing my autograph my whole life. I was getting ready to channel Johnny Depp and exorcise my inner Cameron Diaz. Bring on the paper and I will show you how this is DONE.

And for the next hour and a half (yes, it took that long), I signed. I signed like I have never signed in my life. I sang to myself as I signed: she's a maniac, maaaaniac! It was a blur. And I walked out of there with a home to call my own. Signed, sealed, delivered, it's mine. This time I kind of wish I'd put in some hearts and smiley faces.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

A Gesture Life

Is it just me or have games like Charades and Pictionary fallen out of favor? I feel like there was a time when those games were all the rage. Like when Win, Lose or Draw was on tv, and you could watch Bert Convy whip all your favorite celebrities into a tizzy over trying to draw phrases like "Broke Into A Sweat." Remember when it got so crazy on that show that Erik Estrada accidentally punched Bill Maher in the face? Oh my god, remembering that is making my day right now. Now THAT'S good tv, people!

I was a big fan of all of those games. I especially had a penchant for Charades. My sister and I would play that game for hours, and it would get pretty elaborate. Granted, my sister and I had the kind of relationship where we could basically read each other's minds, but that didn't take away from the brilliance of the Charades moves we busted. I particularly remember a game of Team Charades where we acted out "mousetrap." I got down on the floor on my side, with one arm flat on the carpet. She mousily crawled over my arm, faking the cheese-eating part of it better than Uta Hagen ever could have, and I swung my other arm up and over with lightning speed, scissoring her neck, after which she proceeded to twitch and "die" with rodent dignity.

These days, I hardly ever play Pictionary or Charades. The last time I did anything like that was two years ago when my peeps and I rented a beach house on the Oregon Coast. Memorable moments from that trip included Nordic Boy splaying himself out on the floor and miraculously getting us all to correctly exclaim "Kathy Ireland!" and Neighbor B showcasing his extreme economy of motion by drawing a square in the air and getting us all to say "toaster."

Perhaps my love of Charades is getting enough play out of being a librarian. I just recently noticed how much gesticulating I do during the course of my day. I don't know why I do this. I don't think I do this when I'm having a leisurely dinner conversation with my friends. Just at work. Some examples:

"I'll show you right where those cookbooks are. Right this way." (With a beckoning Mister Rogers hand gesture.)

"The baseball books will be on these shelves here." (Price Is Right model-hands).

"To print, you have to put your coins into the coin acceptor immediately to the right of the printer." (I'm pantomiming putting coins into the box. Why IS this?)

"Do you want information on how fireworks were invented, or...?" (With a two-handed, either/or, balancing scales motion).

Now if only Bill Maher would show up and whip everyone into a frenzy, I could punch him the the face. I'm ready, people. All warmed up.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

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

You're in My Space

Recently Josh posted on his blog that a fun thing to do on MySpace is search out random people from high school and see what they're up to. It's a way to catch up without actually having to talk to anyone. Unlike full-contact reunioning, it seems like a great idea. At least that's what I used to think. The problem is that sometimes, even though you don't want to talk to them, they may want to talk to you. This can be an issue. Here's my cautionary tale about just such an incident.

I started MySpacing last summer, and mostly kept my contacts amongst people that I knew. I hadn't thought of the voyeuristic-high-school approach, but I'm sure I would have eventually. I was just a MySpace neophyte, so I didn't know no bettah. One day, I get contacted by some chickie that says "Hey, didn't you used to go to X College? Because I did! And hey, I'm a librarian too!" or something less weird-sounding but containing that sort of message. Now, College X was the first college I went to, and I only stayed there for a year-and-a-half, and it was far from the best experience in my life, so revisiting it is not at the top of my list, if I had a list, which I don't, at least not that sort of list. But I don't want to slam this chickie with all my, like, baggage. So I write back and say, "Why yes I did attend X College, but I'm sorry, I don't remember you." This was maybe my first mistake, in that perhaps people don't like being told that you don't remember them. It's one of those faux pas that I don't really know how you're supposed to get out of. I can't really lie and say I remember her when I don't, can I? Is that what people do? Anyhoo. So she wrote back and said that her name was Kieferella (not really, but I can't remember what her name was) and that she was an english major and listed a bunch of people that she used to hang out with, some of whom I DID remember. "Oh yes", I wrote back, "I know those people. I never hung out with them, but I dated someone who did." Great, small world. After sending that email, I wondered what more we could possibly have to say to each other. Vague connection through ex-kiss-partner and that's about it. Well, let me tell you, she had lots more to say to me! She wrote back a really long message and said that not only does she remember my ex-kiss-partner, but she also remembered all kinds of other stuff about my 18 year-old-self as well. She then proceeded to list back to me lots of sordidity that happened way back in the day between me, ex-kiss-partner and the kissing he was doing with other girlies while he was supposed to be kissing me. And also lots of other thoughts, impressions, and ideas she had about me as a person and what I seemed like and all the whys and wherefores of what I was up to back then. And I mean DETAILS, people. This chickie was apparently the kissing police, and the social archivist, and the pinpointer-of-personality, because she remembered my business better than I remember it. It was cah-reepy. All up in my koolaid, for real. And not just my koolaid, but my old, cobwebby, moldy koolaid. I mean I know it's called MySpace, but she was SO in my space I could smell her stank breath. How does one respond to such a tirade of assy? What did she expect my response to that to be? I don't know what she was expecting, but I'll tell you what I did. I wrote her a message back with one word typed in. All it said was "Yipe." And then I took that MySpace page down. I couldn't deal. So beware of the random re-connectors out there, people. And when you get yourself in an awkward social situation, remember two things. Don't tell people you don't remember them, and when in doubt, say "Yipe" and get the hell out.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl