tomorrow was wednesday

after waiting for 22 years, i got to see howard jones in concert.

wish i could stop watching

it is so, so evident that they're keeping santino on project runway so they have a personality to lure viewers in. at this point i think he could fling poo on a model and he'd be darn close but not out.

it bothers me

that the library is closed today.

i realize that the county observes MLK Day, and that's great. but as a cultural institution i wish the library would remain open and that we could host teach-ins on social justice issues.

on the other hand, i would gladly bust my butt to get a symposium together, and the only people coming into the building would be there to check their email.

patrons are always, always right.

patron: where's the book, my first share?
me: (looks in catalog by title): we don't have a book titled 'my first share'. do you want something on investing, or...
patron: no. my firsts, by sher. s-h-e-r.
me: hmm, not by that title. let me check by author. do you mean barbara sher? we have some books by her, but nothing by that title, we have -
patron, interjecting: NO! sher! i know you have the book, i've read it twice already! sher, from sonny and sher!
me: oh. cher. we have 'the first time' by cher, it's a biography.


later:
patron: i'm looking for a book that was one of oprah's bookclub books.
me: okay, let me check the list.
patron: it's the newest one.
me: "a million little pieces"?
patron: no, the one after that.
me: that's the current book, the next one is being announced tomorrow.
patron: oh. it must be older then. it's "what i know about the world".
me: there's no book close to that title on oprah's bookclub list.
patron: oh. hmm. what is on the list?
me: here's the list. are you looking for "i know this much is true"?
patron: no, it's "what i know about the world."
me: that's not on the list, and we don't own a book by that title. "a map of the world'?
patron: no. (looking at computer screen, which has oprah.com's bookclub archive up.) is that the whole list?
me: yes.
patron: well it must be the next book then.
me: they are announcing the next book tomorrow. there's no information about it on the website yet.
patron: well i'll wait until they announce it. then you'll get copies of it.

(later, i look at the 'books mentioned on oprah' section and realize that he's talking about 'the known world', which is not on the bookclub list. however, the patron has disappeared.)

i'm pretty good at the 'i need that book about that guy...' kinds of questions, but when the patron insists that their information is right despite evidence to the contrary.... if you allow me to use my brain, i can help you. if you cling to your misinformation, i can't find the answer. gaaaaargh.

he said this

"i cost too much money. i am expensive." - boo

why do i watch this??

project runway, or project subject-us-all-to-santino. so evident that they're keeping him so there's a love-to-hate personality.

isaac. just looove this, clap for this. he told nancy o'dell that he was going to try to score a date with the cute blue-eyed guy in the audience until she said it was her husband. and then he kept flirting anyway. has a great sense of humor, especially about himself. also, gave away secret to fluffy matzoh balls - club soda! who knew?

okay, really, that's about it. isaac's timeslot has put an end to watching girlfriends reruns, and i haven't had enough energy to stay up for craig ferguson so often lately.

HEADLINE: VA DELEGATE BOB MARSHALL WOULD OUTLAW JESUS

Thanks, Bob!

Your new proposed bill, HB187, would make it illegal for an unmarried woman to become artificially inseminated. If it ain't the natural way (missionary position with MALE spouse), it just ain't right, eh Bob?

So... I'm assuming if an unmarried woman gets pregnant and can't claim to have had sexual intercourse, she should of course be thrown in jail. (Didja run out or flunk out of Catholic seminary, Bob? I mean, anything but sexual intercourse would be an artificial method of insemination....)

Please stop basing your political activities on other peoples' genitalia. Here's a list of what you proposed last session: http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?051+mbr+H57C ** I count 10 out of 37 that are based in legislating reproduction and sexuality, and that's without looking at the text to see if there's anything in the bodies of the sponsored bills that have anything lurking within beyond the title. And get some therapy, you have fixations that are clearly disturbing for someone who has passed adolescence.

** sorry, the linking function seems to not be working. highlight, rightclick, etc.

logistics, leaving, la la la.

amazingly, i wasn't in too much pain on jan 2. but i do know i made a number of 'i love you maaaaaan' emails and calls on the first. well, at least they were well-intentioned.

spare time is now spent planning the move to portland. this means doing a number of things to our current house that i really wish we had done before, so we could enjoy them for a while. also, drooling over real estate listings that we can't jump on yet, trying to figure out the packing/moving/bringing cars and cats, dreaming about job listings, etc. meanwhile, both my husband and i are having dreams at night about this - last night i dreamed that we were driving around manassas pointing out what sucked. it was a long, long list.

today at work i wanted to look for books on relocating and all of the copies at my branch are gone. this means that either other people are aware that this place is starting to suck eggs, or someone is hoarding away them from me. as i do not want to kickstart the rumor mill that is only in low drive right now, i had to put my requests on via computer so i didn't have to ask my colleagues to find these books and send them to me.

add to the list of things that suck - a housing law in manassas that attempts to define family and works just fine if you're the cleavers, but may not work so well if you're the de la cruzes, the huas or the mr and mr smith-kingstons. this is to combat overcrowding. isn't overcrowding better solved by limiting the number of people in house by number of square feet, rather than by bloodlines? the aclu has threatened a lawsuit, and the city has declared it is holding off on enforcing the law. outraged letters to the local paper pretty much scream 'move back to mexico', which shows that since those letter-writing residents have had their heights shortened by having their heads in anatomically improbable places, they may be the ones who could fit a few move folks into their square footage.

a dear friend called me last night to say he's been thinking about me since sharon had a stroke, and wondering if i was upset about it. um, not particularly. just kind of resigned to it, as there is nothing i can do about it or the fate of the kadima party either way. he recalls how upset i was when rabin was assasinated. in the years since, hope has been assasinated many times over.

mango mimosas

once the seemingly harmless effects of mango mimosas have lessened their grip (one bottle friexenet. ome bottle mango juice, add to one low alcohol tolerance and WOOOHOOO and nap), perhaps i will write more.

whither portland oregon?

always rollerskates!

since i keep having to refind my cell phone, and it's next to my mouse, happy new year and i'll see you after my nap.

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.