Patron: Blah blah I love the Bride of Frankenstein. I wonder where she gets her hair done. And her dress, I love her dress!
Librarian: Did you have a question, ma'am?
Patron: You're a stupid bitch! You're all stupid bitches! You are bad at what you do, and God's gonna send you to hell for it!
Librarian: ...Mom?
(It wasn't actually the librarian's mother, and the librarian didn't actually say that. Librarian just happens to have a good sense of humor and a notoriously unkind and loopy mother.)
Friday, November 1, 2013
Monday, October 28, 2013
Manic Monday: October 28 Edition
Back when I was a wee one, I used to do my homework every night before dinner. It was one of Crazy Elaine's rules that I followed so readily. So I'd haul home my math book and reading book and spelling book and try my hardest to figure out what all the numbers meant, and tear my way through the stories, and carefully, methodically work on my spelling. For some reason, spelling was my favorite--another memory: Crazy Elaine spelling the words with me before I left for the bus stop in the morning--especially putting the words in alphabetical order. Something about the logical order of it all (and yes, there may have been that in math, too, but it was lost on me) appealed to me.
So late this afternoon, when the Cap'n mentioned that we needed to merge 4 spreadsheets of donor names and get them into alphabetical order by tomorrow morning, Dorkface here was all over that shit. In fact, Dorkface had to do a little bit of battle over it with the Great Dustini, who apparently wanted the diversion of setting up all the names in an Access Database.
(Maybe I'm not the biggest Dorkface in the Library.)
Anyway, I promised Cap'n I'd have it done by 7 ("I'll just take a long lunch one day this week!"), and so I won out, and by 6:10 p.m. I was happily cutting and pasting and muttering over mistakes and duplications. And true to my word, I was done by 7.
Between that, and some of the librarians unable to work their shifts, and urgent press releases, by the end of the day, my desk looked like Hurricane Monday had torn through.
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In my world, a day in which I am too busy to clean my desk is defined as a very very good day.
Driving home this evening, I indulged in what feels like a daily ritual of finding some beauty in my desert and life. It wasn't hard; the weather has turned positively autumnal by our desert standards. It's been blustery all day, with a few obligingly grey clouds skittering across our usually-empty desert skies, and once the sun set, it got downright chilly. And I was driving home to Mr. Melissa, who had made dinner, and I had a little work project to tool about with. (In my world, the concept of taking home work projects that I enjoy is the height of awesomeness). What wasn't beautiful about this Monday?
Other than my desk, that is.
So late this afternoon, when the Cap'n mentioned that we needed to merge 4 spreadsheets of donor names and get them into alphabetical order by tomorrow morning, Dorkface here was all over that shit. In fact, Dorkface had to do a little bit of battle over it with the Great Dustini, who apparently wanted the diversion of setting up all the names in an Access Database.
(Maybe I'm not the biggest Dorkface in the Library.)
Anyway, I promised Cap'n I'd have it done by 7 ("I'll just take a long lunch one day this week!"), and so I won out, and by 6:10 p.m. I was happily cutting and pasting and muttering over mistakes and duplications. And true to my word, I was done by 7.
Between that, and some of the librarians unable to work their shifts, and urgent press releases, by the end of the day, my desk looked like Hurricane Monday had torn through.
Driving home this evening, I indulged in what feels like a daily ritual of finding some beauty in my desert and life. It wasn't hard; the weather has turned positively autumnal by our desert standards. It's been blustery all day, with a few obligingly grey clouds skittering across our usually-empty desert skies, and once the sun set, it got downright chilly. And I was driving home to Mr. Melissa, who had made dinner, and I had a little work project to tool about with. (In my world, the concept of taking home work projects that I enjoy is the height of awesomeness). What wasn't beautiful about this Monday?
Other than my desk, that is.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Freud-day Fun, Part 1
A few weeks back, my Life Guru advised me that I needed to get some spirituality. This was not advice that I necessarily disagreed with, but it did take me aback a little. Was this advice that she went around giving all of her clients? I actually asked her this, but she assured me that no, this wasn't the case.
So, then, why me?
"Why me?"
Her response:
"You tie your worth into all that you do, or try to accomplish, or your productivity. But it's important for you to know that you matter in the Universe, regardless of who you are or what you do."
Do I matter? Most days, I would say no, I don't believe so. I won't go so far as to say that one matters (I don't have the right to dismiss anyone else's existence, only my own). I feel like I'm insignificant, not a key player in anything, by any stretch. This isn't self-pity or self-loathing (although I do have both, in spades), but rather simply a weary world-view that I cannot seem to shake.
But, like many of the things I do, I shall try to "suit up and show up and act as if." Or fake it 'til I make it. Or something. Which is why I shall try to document my quiet little life, to show that I matter, if only to myself.
So, it's 11:30 at night, and I am perched on the loveseat in the sitting room, listening to "The Last Unicorn" by America, and my cat Austen is sitting right behind me, purring in my ear. I'm trying not to think of all the blogs I've started and abandoned over the years. I've paused in reading my 12th book of the month, This Book is Overdue. I'm thinking that I've had a very productive day--I went to the eye doctor and the therapist and I dropped off a library book and picked up prescriptions and did laundry and napped and watched Supernatural and I tried, though failed, to donate blood (and I have to start taking iron again), and I read and worked on my jigsaw puzzle. And now I am sitting here writing this and thinking, what's the point? Who will read it? And then thinking, The point is that it doesn't matter if no one reads it. What matters is that YOU are WRITING it, and may one day read it. That's enough, right there. This is your life, right now. This is you, trying to matter to YOURSELF.
So, then, why me?
"Why me?"
Her response:
"You tie your worth into all that you do, or try to accomplish, or your productivity. But it's important for you to know that you matter in the Universe, regardless of who you are or what you do."
Do I matter? Most days, I would say no, I don't believe so. I won't go so far as to say that one matters (I don't have the right to dismiss anyone else's existence, only my own). I feel like I'm insignificant, not a key player in anything, by any stretch. This isn't self-pity or self-loathing (although I do have both, in spades), but rather simply a weary world-view that I cannot seem to shake.
But, like many of the things I do, I shall try to "suit up and show up and act as if." Or fake it 'til I make it. Or something. Which is why I shall try to document my quiet little life, to show that I matter, if only to myself.
So, it's 11:30 at night, and I am perched on the loveseat in the sitting room, listening to "The Last Unicorn" by America, and my cat Austen is sitting right behind me, purring in my ear. I'm trying not to think of all the blogs I've started and abandoned over the years. I've paused in reading my 12th book of the month, This Book is Overdue. I'm thinking that I've had a very productive day--I went to the eye doctor and the therapist and I dropped off a library book and picked up prescriptions and did laundry and napped and watched Supernatural and I tried, though failed, to donate blood (and I have to start taking iron again), and I read and worked on my jigsaw puzzle. And now I am sitting here writing this and thinking, what's the point? Who will read it? And then thinking, The point is that it doesn't matter if no one reads it. What matters is that YOU are WRITING it, and may one day read it. That's enough, right there. This is your life, right now. This is you, trying to matter to YOURSELF.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Overheard on the Reference Desk, Entry 2
The patron: "I need to renew my teaching credentials from the State of ___ . But I don't know how to use a computer. At all. I'm very different, I'm a psychic, and I don't use computers. Is there anyone I can pay to do this work for me? I'm a very special person, a victim of incest, and so I've never used a computer."
The librarian (not me): "...............???"
Right then was one of those times when I swear to god someone hires people to come in and try to punk us.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Nights like these...
On nights when the praise of my patrons and bosses and colleagues seems faint;
on nights when my husband is remote and preoccupied
on nights when I wonder, yet again, how I ended up here,
on nights when it feels like I have never been further away from my kin,
on nights when I come close to learning just what regret tastes like...
My little cat Austen, my gentle-souled cat in a furry tuxedo, he perches up by my pillow or couch cushion, near to my head, and he purrs loudly, and he invites me to wearily lean my head in and remind myself that perhaps, after all, I have made a difference. That my presence, my sacrifices, my mistakes have benefitted someone, even if it's just a single domestic short-haired cat.
It's a strange sort of comfort, but on nights like these, I will take what I can get.
on nights when my husband is remote and preoccupied
on nights when I wonder, yet again, how I ended up here,
on nights when it feels like I have never been further away from my kin,
on nights when I come close to learning just what regret tastes like...
My little cat Austen, my gentle-souled cat in a furry tuxedo, he perches up by my pillow or couch cushion, near to my head, and he purrs loudly, and he invites me to wearily lean my head in and remind myself that perhaps, after all, I have made a difference. That my presence, my sacrifices, my mistakes have benefitted someone, even if it's just a single domestic short-haired cat.
It's a strange sort of comfort, but on nights like these, I will take what I can get.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
So I Guess You Call This Autumn: 2013 Version
I cannot believe I am saying this. But this is one of the most gorgeous autumns that I've ever seen out here in the desert. Sure, it's still in the mid-to-high 90s during the day, but the evenings and mornings are downright pleasant. And the sunlight is different--gentler, perhaps, and at a different angle.
The best part about this all? The weather turned on the autumnal equinox. When does that ever happen?
It's a good reminder that things are always in flux. Always changing.
Last week at work, we had a big change. Friday was the last day for our Senior Librarian, who has taken a position as second-in-command of an 11-library-system up towards Northern-Central California. She's going to do so well, I know it--in her time at our Library, she was an agent of change, she knew when to push back. She was tough--tougher than I ever have been--but she was fair. She was a damned good librarian and manager, and while we occasionally had our personal differences (I am as soft as she is tough) I always, always respected her, admired her, and valued the many things she did.
We worked together for just under five years. Almost 1800 days in which I took for granted the quiet routine of so many days surrounded by my colleagues and bosses, folks that I knew and trusted, and the various demanding duties and dotty patrons.
And now, tomorrow morning, it will be different.
Last year, when Boss-Lady left, I knew we would go through change. I hate change, let me just get that out there, because it provokes all sorts of uncertainty and anxiety. (At least it does for me. Because I am a crazyball.) But if you ride the change just right, it's a good thing--and so I adapted, and as a result, the last year has been simultaneously one of the most demanding yet fulfilling years for me, professionally. And with Senior Librarian's departure, perhaps I can transform and grow again.
But it won't make coming in tomorrow any less sad.
The best part about this all? The weather turned on the autumnal equinox. When does that ever happen?
It's a good reminder that things are always in flux. Always changing.
Last week at work, we had a big change. Friday was the last day for our Senior Librarian, who has taken a position as second-in-command of an 11-library-system up towards Northern-Central California. She's going to do so well, I know it--in her time at our Library, she was an agent of change, she knew when to push back. She was tough--tougher than I ever have been--but she was fair. She was a damned good librarian and manager, and while we occasionally had our personal differences (I am as soft as she is tough) I always, always respected her, admired her, and valued the many things she did.
We worked together for just under five years. Almost 1800 days in which I took for granted the quiet routine of so many days surrounded by my colleagues and bosses, folks that I knew and trusted, and the various demanding duties and dotty patrons.
And now, tomorrow morning, it will be different.
Last year, when Boss-Lady left, I knew we would go through change. I hate change, let me just get that out there, because it provokes all sorts of uncertainty and anxiety. (At least it does for me. Because I am a crazyball.) But if you ride the change just right, it's a good thing--and so I adapted, and as a result, the last year has been simultaneously one of the most demanding yet fulfilling years for me, professionally. And with Senior Librarian's departure, perhaps I can transform and grow again.
But it won't make coming in tomorrow any less sad.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Shit my Patrons Say
(The Scene: Reference desk, around noon. Patron is signing in to use one of our study rooms. He glances up at me, does a double-take.)
Patron: Wow. This is it the first time I've seen you looking pretty.
Me: (after a cold silence) Thanks.
Patron: I don't express myself very diplomatically.
Patron: Wow. This is it the first time I've seen you looking pretty.
Me: (after a cold silence) Thanks.
Patron: I don't express myself very diplomatically.
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