Surely you can't be serious!

I am. And don't call me Shirley.

It has been the longest week. I swear the hands on the office clock are rotating to the left. Of course time never "stops" when I need or want it to, say at 7am. No, it becomes sluggish at 10:09am and doesn't resume until 5pm.

I have a busy weekend ahead. Tomorrow, I'll watch 1000 folks do the Thriller dance. Then Baby G is taking me to some sort of mega meat restaurant for a date. (Salads be damned!) Sunday is our annual pumpkin carving party. This year I've decided to forgo the carving of flesh and instead paint a series of pumpkins with various designs. Ghay, I know, but easier on my wrists.

Okay, it's time for a coffee and a chex mix bar. Later Sugah!

In Search Of: _______________

I'm currently listening to Yo Yo Ma play Bach's Cello Suites I-III. "Play" is hardly a word I'd use to describe his craft. Ma's cello work is alternately heavy and emotional, light and playful, whatever Bach's score calls for. But Ma not only performs, he becomes one with his instrument. There are moments on the recording where a sharp intake of breath can be heard. In my imagination, I wonder if it is him or the cello.

This is what I listen to at the office to escape the banality of everyday life here.

Take 'er easy, Dude

The Dude abides.

I'm trying to; however, my proverbial hackles are up. I have the day off, thanks to working a full shift yesterday but I'm antsy and anxious...leftover feelings that sprouted up yesterday afternoon and haven't melted away. Great.

I don't have anything to be worried about. Perhaps it's the change in the weather? Maybe it's the 6 servings of caffeinated beverages I had yesterday? Maybe it's the fact that the two retarded dogs next door have been yapping ALL morning long? Who knows?

I'm gonna try to take 'er easy...but I can't make any promises.

Fuck You, Supreme Court

Yesterday the SC made it harder for workers to sue their employers for pay discrimination. Wow, so not only do I make 78 cents for every dollar a man does, I also can't do a damn thing about it (unless I can get proof within 6 months that someone else doing the same exact job is getting way more money). Gee thanks, Government!

Kittens!

I got to feed an adorable kitten a tiny bottle of kitty formula at work today. A coworker brought in the 3 kittens she's fostering -- a blue, a blue tabby, and a tabby mix. All super cute and chirpy. They smell like babies! Wow, we should have "pettins" time around here more often, talk about your morale booster!

Hump Day Tidbits

• I missed the new episode of I Love New York last night. "Sad," I know. The really sad part? I'm kinda disappointed. [It's not like VH1 won't show it every night this week.]
• The new HP cover has been revealed. It's so bright and happy looking...wonder what that means? Oh wait, I guess if you take the entire cover into consideration it's not that bright...
• I'm [this] close to selling my old car. Whew!

She'll be comin' 'round the mountain

A few things...

Tori Amos is putting out her 9th studio album in May. For those of you who may not know, I'm a big Tori fan; however, her past few albums have been kinda bleh to me, mostly because they've been heavy on the 'adult contemporary' and light on the traditional Tori. Her website features the new album artwork, and, it's wonderfully subversive. I'm hoping this is an implication that the music is going to be better than the soft mushy la-la stuff she put out on the 2 previous albums. I know the first 4 albums by heart --- but then things changed. Or maybe I changed? Regardless, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some good ol' angry, pro-girl, recovering christian, in-your-face Tori music! Is that too much to ask?

Home ownership is whirling around in my head. I'm addicted! I can't stop window shopping for housing. Real estate consumerism has me by the tail. Sure, I've investigated the realities of buying. I have good credit and a steady job. However, I can apparently afford house payments, but can't get a loan because I am "cash poor". This is sadly true. If I lost my job today (gods forbid!) I'd be out on the street in a month. So, I've gotta get this horse off my back. Stat. Or throw myself on the mercy of the FHA.

Trivia Night. Baby G and I are going with friends to play trivia tonight at some lesbo watering hole. Should be interesting. Hopefully the number of mullets and bois won't outnumber Baby G and I and our posse. We'll probably be the only "normal" looking mo's in the room. C'est la vie. It's just too hard to be a hipster these days. Too much attention to hair styling...

Oh! The Childrenz...

I sometimes wonder if my not having children has made me an 'outcast' in some circles. Luckily, my personal circle of friends neither contains any parents, nor cares that they have not reproduced. However, at work I am the only one of my colleagues who does not have children, and sometimes I either A) get left out of whole conversations, or B) don't get the same 'privileges' my colleagues do (staying home w/ sick kids, bringing kids to the office during work hours, leaving early to pick kids up from ballet/football/violin, soliciting for cookies or candy or band trips, etc).

Now I certainly don't mean to imply that I'd push out a kid simply to have a reason to chitchat at work or stay home [with a flu-ridden rugrat]. Oh contraire! But I do disdain the dichotomy between parents and nonparents. In an era where celebrity pregnancies are frontpage news and every f*ckin' place from the local restaurant or bookstore to Dirty Jim's Saloon* has to be "family-friendly," kids and their influence are everywhere. Is it wrong that I don't have kids and I want a break from all the people that do?!

What really bothers me is all these uber-pampered babies are growing up to be uber-pampered adults who only want to be rich and lazy. All these parents who are bff with their kids make me sick. My parents weren't my best friends when I was a kid; hell, they weren't even my friends! But that's the point --- they weren't supposed to be my friend, they were supposed to be my parent.

Woo! I don't know what inspired this particular rant this morning. Perhaps it was Cloying Girl's bragging about her daughter getting into some dance class or something.

CG: OMG! [Daughter] got into the highest level class! Oh! [Insert unspoken line here --- What did your daughter do lately? Oh wait, you don't have one.]

Me: Yeah, that's so great. I'm. So. Happy. For. You...

Eh, what can you do? I don't know. Not all kids or parents are bad. I know this...

I need some coffee.

*I totally made that name up, but doesn't it sound like a great dive bar?

Hazzards of the Job

Most folks think being a librarian is a fairly low-key kinda job. It is in most respects; save for the stalkers, bomb threat makers, urinators, book destroyers/thieves, etc. If Reference is the "glamorous" side of librarianship, Cataloging is surely the ugly stepchild. We catalogers do our thing behind closed doors*, classifying materials, making them accessible to the masses. However, today Gentle Readers, I experienced something of a shock in the course of my duties.

We received a used copy of a 1979 book about oriental vases. The book is in surprisingly good condition and I did my usual check of pages, title, and other information to make sure the book in hand was the one described in the record. Well at the back of the book there it was: a lock of hair. Whose [what's] hair, I do not know. It was gray/black and sat there on the page, motionless yet inexplicably "alive". Eww! Was it from a human head or a dog? How long had it been there? Why hadn't the previous owner thought to remove it before giving away/selling the book?

Lunch has no meaning for me now. You can bet chunks of hair found in books won't be covered in this ALA session.

*That would make for an excellent bumpersticker, no?

Special Day

Not only does Baby G turn one year older today; but she also starts a new job. Congrats!

J is for Jobby Job

Baby Guanaco just got hired for a rawkin' job! Yay! Congrats! Woot!

Hot Water Baby! And the Sizzle is On!

The gas was finally turned on at the El Rancho Relaxo (I'm working on a better name for the casa...give me time) yesterday. Yay! I baked a frozen pizza for dinner, swilled some beer, watched The Simpsons, and then went to Target to nab some sundries. I came home, washed dishes in scalding hot water (woo! clean!) and dutifully went to bed at 10pm. This morning, I took my first hot shower in 10 days. Ten days, people! I can finally say without hesitation it is good to have gas.

Mr Daxie still hasn't fully forgiven me for locking him up while the gas man came over yesterday. When I came home from Target yesterday, he was sitting atop the fridge, giving me the evil eye. The garbage truck also came by this morning. Daxie is flat-out terrified of the garbage truck. Let us hope he doesn't take out his anxiety on my duvet...

In other news:
Baby G and the furniture will arrive in ten days.

Whah? Where am I?

Seeing as how I stayed out late with the birthday girl last night (cheers, Mel-a-rific!), I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning. Getting to work was a touch of an adventure as every asshole this side o' the Missisip was out in force on the interstate. Yay.

Overall, the weekend went quite well. I had a lovely dinner with Nan and Barry Friday, a lazy coffeeshop afternoon with Mel-a-rific Saturday, treated myself to a stupid movie Saturday night, and after sleeping in yesterday, hung out with Steph and the birthday girl until 11:30pm or so. The stress of last week has mostly disappated, and things are slowly coming together. The gas gets turned on today, cable & hi-speed get turned on tomorrow, and Baby G and the furniture should be here next week!

P.S. Don't bother with The Breakup. Really. Don't.

I am the dorky underbelly of a modern major general

I bought myself a tiny telly with DVD player last night. It's a feather-light silvery contraption with a palm-sized remote control and front-AV jacks. It plays DVDs like a dream. Baby G is going to be "mad" when she reads I've been silly and bought another television, but I was going through tv withdrawal. Honestly, it's really cable withdrawal.

It's sad but true: I'm a cable nut. I love VH1, TLC, BBCAmerica, A&E, Comedy Central, HGTV, Showtime, and all the other zillion channels. TV is a source not only of domestic comfort, but of pop culture information. Sure, I read lots of magazines and books, but you can't turn on the book and fold laundry. It just isn't as multi-task-able as the tv.

The cable guy doesn't show up until next week. That seems like an eternity from now. My 300 digital channels are calling me... I hope Mr Cable Guy doesn't live up to the tardy incompetent stereotype set forth by thousands of others in his line of work.

Back on the chain gang

Hello, Gentle Readers! I am happy to report things are leveling out. I'm actually getting to do the work I like to do. There's no 4-6 week waiting period for work reviews, no research b.s., no required classes, and no homework. Working here is like being part of a little family, and I'm able to glance up and see green trees and birds flying by. Catalogling here is so much more efficient and practical than at my old job. I don't have to edit records as heavily as I once did, a contracted company verifies and adds authority records to our database for us, and I never have to coordinate another department meeting again (b/c there are only 3 of us in the whole dept anyway!).

So far, I haven't come across anyone like RTG or the Capn. Don't be dissapointed. I will try in earnest to divine the dorky underbelly that must exist somewhere around here.

I received news today another faculty from my previous institution has flown the coup. Officially, she retired, but I know that she probably just got fed up with all the long-building and cressendo'ing nonsense and decided sticking around while the sky fell down wasn't worth the paycheck. Speaking of folks leaving, I wonder if the Head Honcho did well at her interview last week? Wow, if she leaves, not only will the library lose its leader (hehheh) but it would raise the count to 11 people including myself, who have left the institution in the past year and a half. That's 10 percent turn over. Only two of those positions have been / will be filled, too. Hmmm...

Enough despair! Quite frankly, it's not my worry anymore but I can't say working there didn't leave some scars. I certainly know how NOT to run a library now. I can only hope that this new position will help me learn just the opposite.

I am a reed.Trouble flows through me and away.

News of my impending departure has slowly started to trickle out. I still haven't made an "official" annoucement to my department, mostly because a lot of them aren't here until next week and partly because of the Great Software Freakout of '06 that will undoubtedly ensue when the beans are freed from their proverbial container.

I've already discussed the transition with my supervisor and things (in theory) should flow smoothly; however, I know that some people in my department have a mental block against learning the software because they've talked themselves into thinking it's complex when it really isn't. C'est la vie. There's only so much hand-holding one can do before one is permanently attached.

It will be nice to go somewhere where someone can hold my hand for a while, where I won't be on "review" 18 months into my job, where I don't have to wait 6+ weeks for my work to be critiqued, where I don't have to teach the same person how to scroll over for the 14th time in as many days. It will be nice not to be isolated and ignored, left alone in a small gray casket office.

As our 'cheerful' pal Aqualung says, "Good times gonna come."

Monday Mishmash

St. Gorton's graduation went without a hitch. He liked the table I made for him. (See left.) I finally met his roommate and he's not as crazy as I thought he'd be. He's actually quite articulate and intelligent for being such a wild and wacky guy, much like St. G.

My only mishap occured at 11:30pm Friday night. I had to make an emergency run to the 24 hour MallWart because stupid me forgot an essential toiletry item. MallWart at 11:30pm on a Friday night is a frighteningly hoppin' place for being in the middle of bumfucknowhere. Guess when there's nothing else to do, why not stock up on cheap plastic crap?

Last night Baby G and I had some pals over to watch Desperate Housewives. None of us had any clue what was going on as none of us regularly watch the show. We just used it as an excuse to gorge on pizza and catch up on gossip.

D&M of Dogblog fame called last night and left a voice mail asking why I don't talk about my new job here at HN. Well, I guess I've been cryptic for 2 reasons: 1) I didn't want to jinx anything before I knew anything for sure, and 2) the whole situation honestly didn't hit me until Saturday afternoon when I was driving home from St. G's. Kind of an oh my god, life isn't going to suck so hard anymore! moment, ya know? There you have it, another very unglamorous secret revealed.

"I have lost control of my digestive system."

Yeah, I bet you thought that was a quote from me. Well, it's not. It's from Cap'n C -- he's out sick today and decided to call me (?) to say he would not be in. Um, thanks?

I actually woke up feeling fine after my evening of post-semester pre-move celebration. Now, after hearing the Capn utter such an odd sentence, I'm not so sure.

You've probably seen the post below by now. I have no idea where that came from. I did get in a few drunk dials last night but no one was around, save St. Gorton, who kinda talked to me but mostly paid attention to what was going on at his apartment. It's okay. If my sibling called me to tell me in a slurred voice how "great" Starship Troopers was, I'd probably pay attention to something else too. Thanks for putting up with me, G.

I am the model of a modern Major General.

Yay!

Yay!

That is all.

Slow Children at Play

Ever have a day where everything is in slow motion? Your head is kinda fuzzy? Your colleagues keep emailing you instead of the person they intend because they are dumb don't see that a group email requires a "reply all"? You've drank so much coffee your stomach lining is detaching? You're hungover because you drank an entire bottle of shiraz last night for fun while you made your mom's Mothers Day gift and watched 2 movies starring Jena Malone? You can't seem to blow your nose enough? You're waiting to hear some very important news, but you don't know when you'll hear it? You are experiencing post-camping trip blues? You want to shake RTG by the neck but you're too tired to get up from your desk?

Yep. Slow. Motion.

At least we've got a [rare] post from Baby G (see below) to cheer us. Viva la Baby G! I'm going to look at the record player and get my RPMs on the correct setting.