i sold my soul, it was an 'other duty as assigned'

i got videotaped at the liberry yesterday. our head of marketing wants our funky 70's-built branch to get on some mainstream home makeover show, and guess who got pegged to be spokesmodel.

how much my contribution to this project counts: i wrote a script which she said she was editing, since it called for a cast of thousands and wouldn't work with a sole person in front of the lens. this turned into "oh, you can wing it."

ugh. especially post-katrina, my feeling is that our branch may contain some fug but it's at least operational. we don't need this nearly as much as other libraries. we are also in a fast-growing county; we're soon trying to put construction of two new branches up to bond. in other parts of the country, hours and services and entire branches are shutting down. this is selfish to ask for, and it's also unnerving to allow - let alone ask - corporate america to take control of our building.

like most people, i don't enjoy seeing myself on video, so i'll have the additional horror of being present for some kind of 'screening party' when the tape is edited. (do i really have to return from portland??)

why did i do it: oh, i'm such a team player, yaa hoo. truth be told, i eventually want a higher position within the system. however, i would also like to be taken seriously at some point in my life. (yeah yeah i know, stop dyeing my hair two colors...) so i'll have to find out the answer to the quandary: would i look more like a fool in front of a camera, or running away shrieking from it as my instincts would have dictated?

here, rootkitty kitty kitty.... MEOW HISS SCRATCH

so it turns out that the elkland cd i've been listening to since june has the sony rootkit. i've been playing it on linux and mac, so supposedly no harm done, but OMG LOL 3733T 4AXORZ have taken over my car stereo!

seriously, sony, you don't expect to keep me as a customer, do you? i did everything right. i bought the cd at a show because i was that impressed with the band. i told my friends about elkland. i didn't burn copies and pass 'em out like candy. i didn't throw up the album on a P2P. thanks for not giving a shit about that. thanks for trying to punish me in advance. (it's the new american way, i guess.)

i read some comments by similarly-rootkitted trey anaphishface's manager that they were so very upset and surprised, and since his solo album came out right when the rootkit story became public, sales were small due to (rationally) wary consumers. okay. i just want to know.... somewhere in the small print, did these artists get a little more money for allowing this software on the disc? was any of it explained to them? were they offered a few more cents per cd sold in exchange for poorly defined "copyright protection"? i have a hard time swallowing that absolutely none of this happened without any artist's knowledge or consent.

confession

i am becoming obsessed with ham.

a few weeks ago at an art show, a neighboring artist had a ham and brie sandwich for lunch. it just sounded so good. since then, when i'm in a situation where a ham sandwich is an option, i'm so very tempted.

yesterday in swedish allen wrench wonderland, i grabbed lunch and there they were. ham and fontina sandwiches.

i didn't do it. i couldn't do it. even while alone, even without my suddenly "vegan" (amazingly, this does not prevent him from eating eggs, chicken or fish, but that's another story) husband.

what ran through my mind was the: what if i run into someone i know question, and the i'll bet this will make me sick to my stomach qualms. even though the only kosher-keepers i know are rabbis, and the rare slice of bacon i've sneaked in has not disturbed me one bit.

it's the line in the sand, or at least the line in the deli counter. i just can't bring myself to cross it.

i had the salmon. what a nice girl.

i do not wish to smell like...

paris hilton
jessica simpson
j lo
britney spears
sarah jessica parker
mary-kate and/or ashley olsen
elizabeth taylor
celine dion
shania twain
antonio banderas
carlos santana
mrs. russell simmons
naomi campbell

and please, guys, don't smell like:
donald trump
michael jordan
a hummer

the fun of librarianship

little things at work thrill me.

recently i've introduced one of our regular patrons, a hat-wearing gentleman who is a retired english teacher in his 80s or possibly 90s, to the wikipedia and to the recent book on google, _the search_. there's something really fun about slipping these tidbits of modernity into his searches on jonathan swift or eastern rite church cannon. and good on him for having the intellectual curiousity and openness to try them out.

preschoolers can shred!

in preparation to an upcoming trip to portland, and because he's growing, boo and i trekked to a local department store to get him a new winter coat. we found a nice one on sale - an orange and grey number that has a zip-out lining. when bringing it up to the register, i see that the tag shows snowboarders. because preschoolers obviously spend a lot of time snowboarding.

i got fired last night.

"i don't like you. i want a new mommy."
"oh, did you have anyone in mind for your new mommy?"
"yeah, christiana's mommy."
"hmmm. what if i miss you?"
"you can visit."

four year olds really know what they want.

same evening, in grocery store:
"mommy, get this wine. it has a train on it. i like this wine."
"oh really?"
"yeah, it tastes good."

i wound up getting a gerwurztrameiner, and found that it didn't taste right either when i got it home. that's when i realized, hmm, things taste wrong plus the sore throat and the raspy voice.... saw the doctor this morning, hello laryngitis.

w(h)ine part deux, duder

that wine in the sleek bottle was awful.too astringent.

i thought about the cute wines and think it's due to how monotonous most wines taste these days. it's about the only way to differentiate your brand. oh, and i forgot rhinos. how could i forget rhinos.

i've had a subscription of sorts to the bonnydoon vineyards wine club. problem is, with shipping the wine winds up being about $25-28 per bottle, and i only like about half of what they send. i'm dropping it, and will just go to my local gourmet shop and try things that strike my fancy.

not that i even drink very often, and here are two posts on wine already. maybe i'll take it up to lower my cholesterol.

wine zoo

spotted on bottles of wine in the store this evening:

monkeys - at least three brands, llamas - two brands, moose, several brands with cats and/or dogs, giraffes, whales, penguins.

non-animals: taxicabs, mafia dons, bicycles, old chevys with surfboards.

it is apparently uncouth to drink wine that is not cute.

i also realized that i've been legally able to drink for 13 years now. at least the checkout person said i didn't look 34.

my reaction to this birthday has pretty much been "i'm too old for this (expletive deleted)." i'm marching towards 40, heck nearly halfway to 70. it's probably due to being in a work environment where many of my coworkers are slinking past 50 and 60, but i'm tired of feeling like the kid.

in any event, the bottle that i picked up is this:




















which looked nice and sleek, although will not be able to be contained in a standard wine rack.


and it reminds me of a perfume bottle that i still have:























speaking of which, my sense of smell returned on thursday, much to my relief.

"it's like you're not really here"

weirdest side effect from the septoplasty: i can't smell anything.

supposedly this comes back after about 6 weeks, which brings us to thanksgiving. this year is a much smaller affair than the past couple of years: my extended family is staying in wisconsin and connecticut, my hub's coworkers who have joined us for the past 3 years are moving far away, and well, that's about it. it may very well be just us and my folks. last year we had 22 people. even so, it would be nice to be able to enjoy cooking and fully enjoy the food.

right now, food is reduced to basic sweet/salty/spicy/bitter tastes. we went out for indian food last week, and without the subtleties from the spices all i could taste was veggies-and-heat. there is a small positive to this: i'm really not eating much because it's not thrilling. i'm finding that i'm eating about half the portions i usually would.

sunday was the first day back to work. my coworkers have (for the most part) been pretty sweet, which i should pay more attention to than the things that are making me feel shattered. and then one of my supervisees, when i told her about the lack of smell, said "ooh, that's a weird feeling, it's like you're not really here." and she's right. i feel kind of suspended, not sure if i'm really returning or not.

up and running

well, not my physical self.

i'm finally getting around to setting up my etsy site:

http://gemsandpurls.etsy.com

there, now go drool.

no sleep

so after posting, i lay in bed for a couple of hours, enjoy the thoughts swooshing and swirling around in my head but unable to actually sleep. then i started to worry about becoming addicted to vicodin.

then i went to check my email. i knew my cousin was safe in that bus crash in chippewa falls, but i read an email from my uncle about how distraught the town is, and how vulture-like the media has been. he's speaking in a national morning news program tomorrow. it brought back memories of when kirsten and cori died, and the news cameras swarmed the high school the next day. how i can't stand to see conrail cars to this day. how i really wanted to smack most of the busload of kids who went to the memorial service, who had gone to get out of school and not because they felt a loss. (maybe that's uncharitable, or cynical, but naaah, i don't remember seeing much grieving on that bus.) how guilty i would feel when i ran into their stepmom, especially when i had passed some kind of growing-up milestone like getting into college and kirsten just wasn't there to do the same things. how i've never been able to accept other people telling me that their pot use didn't affect anyone else. how many years it took before kirsten stopped showing up in my dreams.

i tried to sack out on the sofa for a while, trusty lovey cat by my side. (he drives my husband crazy because he usually stomps on our bed indelicately, but tonight he managed to curl up next to me and not move a muscle.) i slept for a while but woke up in pain, took another vicodin, and now here i am. i have a refill of vicodin to pick up tomorrow, and i had thought about maybe toughing it out without it. reality is that the normal painkillers aren't doing anything, though.

my unc's on the news in about... 2 1/2 hours.

edit/add: just saw him. he looked like hell, like he hadn't slept. i didn't realize he was a chaperone on the bus trip. fucking cbs basically asked him to try to assign blame for the crash to the bus driver, and they got his name wrong, too.

vico-DING DING DING

so the septoplasty went okay, one guesses.

i expected to look like andrew wk when it was done. i feel like perhaps he's been bashing me on the nose, but i have nary a bruise and really just look like i have a cold. i went to a knitters meetup this evening, first real outing since tuesday, and nobody greeted me with 'what happened to you?'. i can't smell, which is kind of hard to grasp because my tastebuds are fine. i'm mainly tired, and my face hurts as if someone's been yanking on my schnozz, but not much to complain about compared to what i was warned about. i will say that vicodin is the only thing touching the pain, and now that i'm sleeping more than 4 hours at a time, waking up is really no fun - by the time i'm awake, all the vicodin has worn off.

i'll refrain from telling you about dried blood and gunky mucous.

i have the coming week off, and the hub wants to go somewhere for a small vacation, but i'm not sure i can handle it yet. or, he keeps mentioning daytrips to cities, and i keep googling nearby resort hotels with kids' activities and spas.

the lovely fuzzy feeling of vicodin is luring me to sleep.... today's the first day i've gone without a nap....

nose, job

tomorrow was supposed to be my last day of work for two weeks. i'm having a septoplasty on tuesday to straighten out my devious septum. (if you had a body part that made you sick this frequently, you'd call it devious too.) however, the two days of rain we've had has caused flooding in the library, and we may be closed tomorrow. as it is, we've rescheduled a workshop with an author that was to happen tomorrow.

my boss saw me yesterday after she'd been out on vacation for three weeks. "will you be looking differently when you come back?", she asked. ummm.... septoplasty, really. not rhinoplasty. it took me long enough to come to terms with my nose. (at first ct scan: tech - "did you have a trauma to your nose?" me - "um, no..." stifled back - i'm just jewish, you twerp.)

i have felt really ambivalent about my job lately, even wondering if i'd be returning after the surgery. that question got solved when the new librarian i was training resigned via email three days into the job, because she had been offered a full-time position elsewhere.... so i have the whole interview/score/hire/train fun to look forward to when i get back.

people have told me i'm going to look like my adoring husband has beaten me after this surgery.... great.

applesauced

so the mac mini arrived today.

two hours into playing with it, and it's been so long since anything's been this easy. jeepers. i'm already wondering if i should move it downstairs and make it my main computer, or if (already!) i should get a second one to use in the family room, since i wouldn't need a DVD player/burner on it.

aha, i see what was happening the other night - blogger is taking a little long to load all the editing things, and in linux/firefox it caused the entry to get dumped each time something else loaded.

i have avoided macs for a long time, since living with someone who would put the suitcase from the desktop to the trash bin because he 'needed the space', but apparently not the operating system.

what i was going to mention last post was how i go through a funk from time to time, and don't feel like engaging too much with boards that i've been on for years, and i wipe out most of my IM contacts except for family. i figure if the deletions were mistakes, they'd get remedied when someone contacted me. so i did this a few weeks ago, and i'm down to... family still. hrmph.

today not only did the computer get here, but so did the new issue of yoga journal, complete with article about loneliness. which in YJ's view is something to just experience and get through. i need to read it again, i'm distracted by having actual working technology right now. but it likened loneliness to a small death, and called it a primal human fear.

what i realized is that this is almost exactly a year since i quit one of the boards temporarily, and i hadn't joined the others at that point. there is something about the slowing down and returning to less verdant days that must bring this funk out in me.

ex communicado

i've tried this post several times, and it keeps wiping out while i type. i blame linux (why not, no proof but so many glitches that this might as well be one of them), and will resume when my mac shows up.

dear jerk in the bookstore....

you wouldn't have bothered to ask me why i was looking at linux books if i wasn't a chick, right?

and therefore you wouldn't have had to pull the "you shouldn't pay for linux information, just go to blah blah blah website and if you need it in print, then print it yourself..." crap, right? and completely discount the validity of some people just liking the format of books? (never mind if that person is, gasp, a librarian - something i just didn't feel like fucking telling you.)

and since i'm a chick, you're not going to listen to me telling you that know-it-all pompous shmucks like yourself are a big reason why newbies really dislike linux to begin with? or that, hmmm, maybe some of us want to learn the stuff on our own terms, and we're not in bookstores to chat with guys.

home for now, wherever that is

so i've driven myself and my poor husband crazy for the past week. with the idea in my head of moving back north, i looked for library jobs and found that there is a head of reference position available in my hometown library. with a deadline of next friday. enter wild fantasies of living the "professorial marriage" until he's able to move up north too. i have relatives who have done it with small children, but it's by no means easy, and probably not reasonable for us.

yesterday was my first day back at work. thanks to my smart and smart-ass coworkers, i left in a much better mood. also attended a political fundraiser bbq last night, which boosted the soul a bit further.

more politics today. and gardening. and making food and jewelry.

book ordered and waiting for: design of dissent, by milton glaser.
reading currently: what god had joined together?: a christian case for gay marriage.

flux is not bad

having one of those moments right now.

i'm up in my hometown in rhode island, to help my mom out while my dad's out of town. had lunch with an old friend. who, as it turns out, works for the competing company to boodad's company. and tells me that they're looking for people who do what boodad does, would he want to consider moving?

i call boodad in the evening, he's open to it, and has actually been looking at some other jobs in massachusetts.

so i start looking at housing and at librarian jobs and it all looks so feasible.... there's even a head of reference position open here that looks good. i thought we were going to have some decisions to make on whether or not i just did jewelry fulltime, as it's taking off, but now even bigger decisions to make.

i feel like i'm forgetting to panic. this is a lot of stuff. but it feels possible and not outrageous.

supreme court: poor people, please move over. now, roll over and play dead.

this just stuns me. now, if your state wants to cozy up to a developer, they can claim that your property just isn't providing the tax revenue that a new development would, claim eminent domain and seize your house. so says the supreme court.

“Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random,” [Justice Sandra Day] O’Connor wrote. “The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.” (and to think that Reagan put this woman in. wow.)

"The biggest crime in America is being poor." - Aunt Florence, Z"Tsl'V.

side notes: i know, i know, we are supposed to maintain 'balanced' collections in terms of viewpoint/opinion within public libraries. but it occurred to me the other day, as i helped someone checking out a michael savage book, that it's highly self-defeating for libraries and other public institutions to make this kind of conservative cut-everything-that-isn't-a-bomb mindset easier for people to access. (also, i'd like to play mischief and replace michael savage books with dan savage texts.) hmm, no wonder when i turn on PBS lately, there are documentaries extolling all things FDR.

the grunt

long time, no post. well, at least not here.

spent a chunk of time this evening reading Promises Betrayed, a book by NYT op ed columnist bob herbert. i'm devouring it, but having much the same problem as when i read nickle and dimed a few years ago: yes, it's important to document awful things and unfair policies that are escaping the attention of the mass public. but tell me what the hell to do about it. page after page, anecdote after anecdote, data and statistics and.... a profound feeling of helplessness. a deep wonder if any social action will ever be enough.

we had a primary in the state earlier this week. virginia allows you to vote in either the dem or repub primary without affiliating with either party. i actually voted on a repub ticket, mainly to block the more egregious candidates from reaching the ballot this fall. in our local race for state delegate, a 83-yr-old who has served in government for 54 years and is chair of the finance committee, and a moderate, was up against a 27-yr-old rightwinger who does not live in our district and is currently facing election fraud charges. the moderate won 55%-45%.... but if not for the city itself, the rightwinger would have won. (and the people who voted for him are my library patrons.) the rightwinger attempted to turn the primary into a contest of 'i hate gays more than you' and extreme prolife positions. the incumbent pretty much stuck to having experience and, say, being legally in the clear. (i did have an exchange of letters with his campaign when it looked like he was venturing into the rightwinger's game.)

so please... let's ask, why do the supporters of "the culture of life" care so little about the life of culture that they're seeking to end all public support of CPB/PBS/NPR. why don't we ask them to clarify why an embryo or a adult human vegetable is worth more than an iraqi civilian, or a member of our own military underclass. let's ask why the party of less government cares who you sleep with and what's in your uterus. let's ask why we can afford tax breaks on stock dividends but not tax expenditures on infrastructure, job training, extended welfare, etc. let's ask what the hell is in the heads of the narrow majority of people in this country who doesn't see these issues and don't see that they've been voting against themselves economically and socially.

then let's ask the democrats when they'll get someone who can actually win an election.

(this is why i should not post on politics at 2 am)

broadband over powerline v. lying over cable

i'm very lucky to live in a place that offers BPL - broadband over powerline. it works through a contractor with the utility service, and the modem can be connected to any electric plug in the house. it's a little slower than cable internet, but it is considerably cheaper. and, considering our cable internet has been out for 3 days and comcast has had two appointments missed - and then claims that i cancelled - well, my decision's been made for me, hasn't it?

we would try dsl, but thanks to the neighborhood-beautification idea of submerged phone lines, the phone service seems to go through an outage once or twice a year. i can handle no phone, but not no phone and no internet.

oh, and in other telecommunications news, i am lusting over the nokia 8801 which will have an expensive debut this fall. because of the camera? eh. bluetooth? whoopee. mp3 player? yadda yadda. ryuichi sakamoto ringtones? hell yes, sign me up. click for the video.

"what happened to, 'i'm fine with a cell phone that takes calls, voicemail, and sms?'?" - dad
"but da-a-ad...." - my inner 15-yr-old

value

i just realized that in the last post and the previous one, i've mentioned problems with people not paying me.

money makes me feel petty. more specifically, having to ask for what i'm owed makes me feel petty. i know it's stupid, especially since i'm not asking for anything that isn't actually owed. i hate being in the position of having to ask the other party - repeatedly, even - to fulfill their side of an agreement. i don't understand how the other person remains comfortable while they know they haven't done the right thing. is the balance in your bank account more important than the balance in your life? why choose to run at a continual integrity deficit? (wow, congrats to me, i have written the whiniest emo-economics statement in blogland.)

also: a pet peeve. the spacebag commercial. this is the product with which you put in a bed comforter, attach your vaccuum cleaner, and compress the comforter until it looks like a tortilla. "the perfect solution for overstuffed closets," claims the ad. um, what about just getting rid of your crap?

says the woman with too many shoes and counting, and a pile of clothes to go to the thrift that i just never get out the door.

where's my cape?

i'm in a remarkably good mood today, especially considering that the erasure concert i was supposed to be at last night has been postponed until june. might have been due to wearing a very, very orange linen dress today. i'm a rajneeshi fashionista!

after some reflection i realized that what i'm missing from ner shalom is the social justice work i was able to do. but, i'm still on the board of equality prince william, there will be plenty of work to be done there. virginia legislators seem bent on turning this state into a backwater bible camp. had a great email exchange with one of the other board members - we're still in the structuring process, and i had some questions about the directions we're taking, and frankly, some questions about the appropriateness of me remaining on the board as sole straightie. somehow the term "epw superjew" was used. i want a cape, dammit.

there is a higher position (L3, right now i'm a part-time L2) opening up in one of the other library branches. i don't want it, yet, but i have decided to interview for it just to get the interview experience. besides, i kinda expect my officemate to get it, and if she does, i would be interested in that. discussed all this with my boss, and she's more than supportive but thinks i would have a hard time saying no if i was offered the L3 job. i really don't feel ready for it yet. maybe my officemate's job, which is essentially head of info staff at our branch, and that's mostly because i'm comfortable at my branch. there's a corner of me that wonders if i'll ever feel ready.

i bailed out of the gallery i had my jewelry in. owner decided to monkey with payments. this was far from becoming a profitable venture for me, but i was willing to give it a little more time until this "oh i don't have your address.... oh but i mailed it early last week.... oh i'll have to do a stop payment and issue another check" rubbish began. brenda, darling, are you aware that artists talk to each other, and we know you've pulled this on a few of us now?

from a conversation with another artist about brenda: "her email address mentions zen gardens, and her cellphone ringtone is chirping birds. you know from that alone that the woman needs to calm the fuck down but has no idea how to do it."

so i have my jewelry back, which means i don't have to panic about upcoming shows. between this and having the temple off my back, i'm starting to feel a little freer.

in with the old

np: howard jones, like to get to know you well.

had a big urge to hear howard jones today. needed something positive after feeling sick, and just feeling... cast out? dislocated? after deciding to quit my congregation. howard's still at it, and a new album is supposed to be out this year according to his website. he has a blog on it, in which he writes about performances and recording. i wish he'd write about his inner life a little. one thing i appreciated about howard when i was growing up is that his music never got into to morbidness-for-morbidness's sake that several of his peers wallowed in. (not that i didn't wallow myself, my high school-era walls were covered in morrissey.)

tonight is the first night of passover. i'm gonna eat a bigass bowl of pasta when i'm off. most years i've struggled through the whole eight days on matzah matzah potato matzah, and this year, besides still being sick, i feel so hollow. the final straw on my congregation was two shabbats ago, when i brought a blind woman and her guide dog to services, and my 4-yr-old son. we sat in the back, the dog was perfect, my kid sat next to me or on my lap. he talked, but quietly, and was reasonably behaved for a 4-yr-old who knows there's a table full of cookies in the next room for after the service. certainly, i've seen other kids wandering around the temple during services. normally, if i have my kid with me, i take him to the kids' room - which is pointless, because then i can look through a window at the service but that's it. so i typically stay home unless my hubster can get home in time for me to go solo - rare rare rare. but, with a blind person new to the building and potentially needing my help, i stayed with her and therefore my kid stayed with me.

somebody decided to complain to the temple president about my kid. he tells me this, without saying who (and i truly don't want to know), during the oneg after service. it doesn't hit me until i try to sleep that night.

i have asked, for 2 years, for a babysitting schedule with parents of youngsters rotating duty. or the youth groups sitting. have been told, for 2 years, that it won't work. meanwhile, tot shabbats are not designed for tots, they're designed for kids already in temple school. i take on this role and that role, hoping that by contributing there will be some spirit of cooperation. (this list includes: providing and serving meals at shelters, serving on rabbinic search committee despite feeling that the board had screwed the previous rabbi and getting no accounting for their action, getting involved with a social justice cause that the new rabbi was too chicken to associate her name with, preparing a member's corpse for funeral, trying to start a reader's group - in vain, editing the newsletter, organizing blood drives - in vain, tutoring kids for bar/bat mitzvah and then having the family turn around and screw me out of payment.) but no, last straw was whoever this member was complaining and the president not responding with, "her kid wasn't disruptive, there's nothing to be concerned about" or even "we tolerate children in this temple."

so i told the pres to find a new editor, i'm done. he kicked himself, verbally, and the rabbi wants to talk it over with me. but i truly feel that if i stay, i will be walked on again. i need to go.

woah woah woah, woah woah woah woah woah. things can only get better.

sniffle

oy vey, i start again.

i'm ten days into a sinus infection that is just starting to feel like it's loosening its grip. it's acting differently than my usual annual sinus infection, so it kinda caught me by surprise. i thought i just had a cold until i realized i just wasn't shaking it.

if you found this, you're either lucky or know me. (oscar wilde-ism screams to be in there: if you know me, of course, you're lucky anyway.) i've done blogs before, one that i shared with some other library staff that just didn't work out, and one i just ignored to death on msn. i participate in a couple of boards and sometimes i just want somewhere else to post. things i don't want scrutinized by the boards, things i want some reflection time on but don't want to converse about. that kind of thing. brain sniffles.