I Got 27 Problems (But This Blog Ain't One)

Spa Day!

2012-02-17T16:50:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite pastimes is shopping. I’m good at it, plus it means I’m not at home about to half-strangle my teenage nephew for wearing that same gross sweatshirt I want to burn for three weeks straight to cover up that tattoo he got. If you don’t have teens at home, here’s the scoop: when children are toddlers you count to 10. When they are preschool age you count to 3. And when they’re teenagers, you just keep counting and hope that by the time they are 25 you’ll have stopped counting and your hair will still be its original color without the help of dye.

So while I’m out mumbling numbers to myself throughout the aisles while wishing my sister had a job that didn’t require travel, I buy gifts (already started on Christmas!), clothes that look familiar because I already own similar items, and items for future programs. After Christmas is a good shopping time. Others see red, green and stars and think of Christmas. I see red and think of Valentine’s Day; I see green and think of St. Patrick’s; and the stars have me thinking of pretty much every federal holiday between May and November. Thus when I was out after Easter one year, I didn’t simply see colorful baskets with a 90% of tag and think of delicious boiled eggs smeared in Miracle Whip; I thought of Mother’s Day…and how my brother made me look bad by buying Mom a Movado watch when I simply took her out to dinner and gave her a scarf.

Since he paid for that trip to Aruba I guess I’ll forgive him.

This basket is fairly easy to make, so a good pairing for it would be the Felted Soap box program. It’s also fairly cheap. That said, if you want a lot of baskets at a decent price, please call the store manager to make arrangements beforehand.

Spa Day Program Supplies:
Felted Soap box program
Easter baskets (or on sale gift bags if you can’t find them)
Mini body scrubbers (5/$1.00 at the Dollar Tree)
Bath salts (scroll for instructions and supplies)

Optional basket items:
Face towels (I found some bulk at Big Lots)
Mini bubbles (found in the wedding section in Target and other stores)
Tissue paper
Ribbon
Card
1. Make bath salts and felted soaps.
2. Arrange in the basket. Tissue paper at the bottom will make this look nicer. So will tying on a bow and inserting a card.

Bath Salt Supplies:
Epsom salts (bulk, or at the Dollar Tree)
Food coloring
Essential oils (Can buy at GNC for $5-$6 dollars)
Small containers for scooping (I use the containers from individual applesauce packages)
Ziploc bags (if this is for kids I let them just keep them in this)
Plastic baggies (NOT Ziploc) and ribbon (for teen and adult programs)
Volunteers

Optional salt containers:
Glass baby food jars or yogurt jars (from Trader Joe's---put out your feelers)
Rubber bands
Fabric squares (purchase at Joann’s)

The instructions are really straight forward. I print them out on 3 sheets of paper using 85 point Times New Roman font, set them out in a row on a table, and let people go down the line:

1. Place 1 scoop of salt inside a zip-top bag.
2. Place 2-3 drops of food coloring inside the bag. Seal and shake.
3. Add 1-2 drops of essential oil (see volunteer). Seal and shake.

Afterwards teens and adults can transfer their salts into plastic bags and tie it with ribbon. It you have glass jars place fabric squares overtop of the lids, secure with a rubber band, then tie on a ribbon.

Your finished product will look failry impressive for a "mere" library program, so if possible make up a basket beforehand and put it on display.

I'm still trying to let the death of Whitney Houston sink in. I got the text between discovering my nephew's tattoo and going to a party. At first I thought it was a joke, since I turned on the radio and, thanks to a lack of live DJs, the folks were talking about Chris Brown (at whom my nephew screams, "Woman beater! Woman beater!" whenever he sees him) and I figured my friend got it all wrong. Apparently she didn't. This is completely horrible, and I guess I'll spend some time watching the copy of The Bodyguard I bought last month, and continue singing "I Will Always Love You" in the shower (which I was I doing even before her passing).

We Like To Move It, Move It!

2012-02-11T15:16:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow or Monday (or before the Mayan Apocalypse) I’ll post my personal feelings on The Help. But for now, you’ll have to be satisfied with tips on advertising.

Ever pass by those poor, unfortunate souls whose job it is to hold signs while dressed like inanimate objects? Simultaneously you think, “I wonder how many calories that burns…” and, “Wow, cell service for only $9.99 a month!” It’s catchy, but you won’t find any librarian dressed as a hot dog while doing the Running Man on the corner to advertise a cooking program.

At least not outside the Elk Grove Library.

Yet sometimes you feel as if you need to wear a sandwich board to get people into your programs, which is almost as unflattering as dressing as a questionable meat product. Programs are listed on Evanced, in calendar, but when you see stacks of flyers collecting dust you wonder if only you and the crickets for your event. However, you can get these flyers out the door in a method that doesn’t involve you tossing them in the recycle bin, cutting them into note paper, or standing at the door like a bouncer at a night club.

The reason many flyers are sitting about is the white and mint green bookmark that list tax prep info blends with the white and mint green bookmarks you set out last week that lists storytimes, which blends with the ones on some writing contest sponsored by professional wrestlers, which means none of them get moved out the door. But if you draw attention to them, about every 3rd person who asks about them will pick them up, and maybe, just maybe, take them home.

Moving the Bookmarks

Supplies:
Decorations
Library Bookmarks
Crayons
Pens
Ribbon and/or twine
Hole puncher
Scissors

1. The Eye Catcher
I brought this glittery red tree to the library several years ago after I bought it for myself but my family looked at me as if I needed an intervention. Yet it goes great with these flyers for our Dr. Seuss program featuring Chicago Bear Lance Briggs that happens on Friday, March 2nd from 1-5 pm.
2. The Post-Story Craft
I know, kids’ crafts are supposed to be interactive, but have you ever tried interactive with 80 people? Doesn’t work too well. So I give them bookmarks of upcoming events, chat up the event, then have them decorate the back with crayons, (washable!) pens and stickers. Kids love stickers. Even if you run out you’ll come over and see they’ve adhered the sticker outline to their forehead and are having fun running around, ‘cause that’s what you do when you’re 2 years old.
3. The Official Bookmark
This is the best one because it gives teen volunteers something to do (quietly, at a table far, far away from you), and it makes the bookmarks so attractive that people will spot it, pick it up, then come to the front desk to ask, “Can I have this?” Which is when you say, “That bookmarks for our Friday Stitch and Chat program, and we would love for you to keep one of those bookmarks.” Simply punch a hole in the top of the bookmark and tie on a ribbon or twine. (I colored the twine with a pen because I was desperate to use up stuff we already own.) Tapering the side with scissors is optional.

Hopefully these ideas will get the flyers flying out the library!

Let Me Help You---Part 1

2012-02-04T16:06:00.000-08:00

I could seriously talk for hours about my opinion on The Help---and I will...well I won't talk for hours, just write something you can read in 5 minutes before moving on with life. And I'll do that. Next week...I think. Right now I’m getting ready for Chicago Bear Lance Briggs to read at Elk Grove Library for Dr. Seuss Day on Friday, March 2nd at 3:30 pm, and that prep takes precedence over my opinion. For now you’ll have to be satisfied with info on how to prep book-t0-movie programs.

The Help

Supplies:
Advertisement
The DVD
The book
A copy of the book discussion questions
A copy of movie discussion questions (see below)
Popcorn (food is always good)

1. Advertise. Since we’re not allowed to actually say the title online, this can be tricky. In the past I’ve called Movlic.com for clarification, and their guidelines DO change from time to time, but in general you can mention the movie’s year, the main actors, and a general summary of what the movie is about---plus put in the Telis phone number for those who can’t figure out that the latest animated feature with the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen is Toy Story 3. (If you have kids around you probably can’t even remember where you set your keys.) Put flyers up around the branch, and push programs at other programs. Example: I’ve set out flyers for programs in the meeting room while they’re doing tax help. I also pressed more flesh than a politician in hopes I wouldn't be talking to an empty room.

2. Read the book. Seriously. It helps when it comes to discussing things. Otherwise you sound like an ill-prepared high school student. (“I love The Chocolate War because I love chocolate. Chocolate is the best thing in the world. Don’t you love chocolate, too? I ate some this morning.”) With 15-20 programs to deal with per storytime month, I set aside storytime-free December to read it before I was once again bombarded by toddlers.

3. Go over the book discussion questions. There are others online, but I started with these.

4. After watching the movie be prepared to discuss the book and the movie for a loooooong time. The meat of our discussion lasted for over 40 minutes. It was nearly 4 pm when the last people straggled out of the room---the movie had started at 12 noon! But, the plus side of viewing The Help is that everyone feels guilty about leaving you to clean up by yourself, so you suddenly have all these people putting away chairs and asking if they could sweep.

Before doing this program I was concerned patrons might come in upset about the movie. Then I realized that most people hate trying to park in our parking lot and wouldn't come here unless it was for something good. The people who showed up in general had read the book and they were ready to articulate their feelings without beating one another with sticks. I started out with the book questions, and we continued on from there.

My made up questions:

What was your favorite scene in the movie?

What book scenes would you have liked to have seen included in the movie but were omitted?

What parts of the movie/book bothered/disturbed you?

How do you feel the movie could have been better?

Describe your reaction to hearing Skeeter’s mother, who did not work, cook, clean, run errands, raise her own children, or even provide her own food items for fundraisers denigrate African American domestic workers as “only being in it for the money.”

Upon finding Jim Crow literature in Skeeter’s bag, Hilly confronts her and states, “There are some real racists in this town.” Did you see this as Hilly being a hypocrite, or did you take this as a veiled threat? Please explain your reasons why.

What type of stereotypes did you see in the movie?

Minny mentioned that the maids were afraid to ask for minimum wage and their employers were not doing Social Security set asides. What are the implications of such practices today?

What do you feel would best describe your interactions with “The Help” of today?

Do you feel, in regards to today’s domestic labor, that our interactions with them are fine or are they tinged more with racism, sexism, classism, or something else? Explain your answer.

Motherhood is described as the “toughest job in the world.” People say if mothers were paid they would receive anywhere from $40,000 to over $100,000. Yet the median wage of a child care worker in 2008 was $9.12, or less than $19,000. Why do you feel there is such a large discrepancy between the two numbers?

Are you the help? How do you feel you are treated?

What are some things we can do to better our interaction of those serving us today? (Hint, if you come into the library and don’t get your way, don’t scream, “My taxes pay for your job!”)

General topics discussed:

Hypocrisy. The white employers were raising money to feed African children yet were demeaning their African American employees. Was it that they just didn’t get it, or that fundraising was all part of the show?

Race. That actually took up a lot of our time.

Mothers as being universal figures. (Skeeter’s mom sounded like half of our mother’s---“You’re eggs are dying!”)

Other movies that had unsettling relationships between employers and domestics. (Crash stood out.)

Redlining and segregation. I learned in one college class that upper class blacks actually live in neighborhoods with greater poverty than lower class whites due to segregation. One a neighborhood reaches about 12% black, white flight takes place. My hometown (Chicago) was recently declared the most segregated city in America. When you look around your neighborhood, what color faces do you see? Have they changed dramatically?

Female roles and sexism. Skeeter wanted a career. Elizabeth Leefolt was clearly not cut out for motherhood. Yet during this time period women were not only expected to get married and have children, women were commonly fired once their pregnancies started to show. One patron discussed how not only did potential employers ask her if she was pregnant when applying for an interview, they asked her for the date of her last period!

For my opinion on The Help, stay tuned…

Happy Super Bowl!

Rose Red (Or Pink)

2012-01-28T16:27:00.000-08:00

This shorter blog will soon be followed by a longer blog because last Saturday I showed The Help. Seeing as this library gets so empty on Saturdays I’m surprised I don’t see tumbleweed rolling down the aisle, I was shocked when people not only came for the movie, they stayed for the discussion.

We talked.

And talked...

And kept talking.

Forty minutes later I wound the discussion down; some people stayed until almost 4 pm. They asked, “When’s the next movie discussion?” To which I thought, “Can I recover from this one?” Program prep translated into reading the book, watching the movie, creating questions, reading reviews and criticisims, and, of course, finding someone to operate the popcorn machine because I really didn’t feel like cleaning it.

So…

For those who want to know about “The Help” and get discussion questions, come back next week.

About that craft…

By now everyone knows how much I love paper and its dehydrating effects on my hands. So when I saw construction paper so old it gets a pension, I thought why not use it for Valentine’s postcards? It’s simple, you can’t tell the paper was bought during Regan’s first term, and it uses up our old flyers. This is good for drop in crafts.

Heart-Shaped Roses Postcards

Supplies:
Kiddy scissors (even if they beg for the sharp kind)
Tape
Construction paper---full sheets
Scrap paper---assorted colors
Old half-sheet bookmarks
Valentine’s postcard templates
Glue stick
1. Cut the full sheet construction paper into quarters; cut the postcard templates out. Cut the half-sheet flyers in half. Trim about ¼ of an inch off the top and one side.
2. Glue the template to one side of the postcard.
3. Glue the old flyer to the other side of the postcard.

4. Using scrap paper, cut out 5 heart shapes and stems. Tape the stems to the back of the flowers.
5. With the flowers face down, place arrange them in a bouquet and tape them to one another.
6. Tape the flowers to the front of the postcard, preferably with double-sided tape. If you would like to keep one as a sample, I recommend laminating it.

Someone got me thinking of old school R&B, so I hope you like Boyz II Men. Enjoy!

Easiest. Craft. Ever.

2012-01-21T10:45:00.000-08:00

It’s nearly Valentine’s Day---time for chocolate, cards, and/or burning all of your ex’s stuff. It used to be you only hosted parties for happy events. “Look, I’m getting married/having a baby/cured my bad case of hangnails!” Now you can celebrate Anti-Valentine’s Day or throw a divorce party with a “Bring Your Own Bottle” note in the invitation. (Though technically speaking, many would say divorcing someone you loathe is a happy event, too.) Honestly, I was ready to leave that one after the cops showed up, but I was vetoed and had to stay until I crawled out to the car at 2 am while complaining, “I went to work today! Or yesterday! What day is it? Why did you have to put ‘no kids’ in the invite? What kind of crappy parent would even think to bring their kids to this type of party anyway?”

Don’t answer that.

Typically we make cards for Valentines, but depending on whom you send cards to (males), it can be a complete waste. My mother was ready to strangle my brother through the phone when she discovered he’d tossed her beautiful $6 Christmas card. In his defense he said, “What else did you want me to do with it?” Survey says: she wanted you to keep it. Not forever. But at least until January 1st. “From now on he gets the cheap cards!” Another relative didn’t even bother to open his card. His response: “Oh, I threw it away. Thanks for the gift.” I wish I had been there to see him digging through the dumpster when he discovered I’d put money in it. Had he not found the envelope I was completely ready to lie and say, “There was $500 in that envelope! I can’t believe you threw away $500! I should be reimbursed!”

That would have made it the second best Christmas ever.

So it is officially established cards are off the list for men, but what’s an alternative? The following is an easy craft perfect for children to give to their parents, broke teenagers to give to each other, and women to give that special someone that screams, “I like you, but you’re not particularly useful and your FICO score is too low for this to go to the next level.”

Decorative Mugs
Supplies:
Ceramic mugs from IKEA
Sharpies---assorted colors
Rubbing alcohol
Paper towels
A watchful eye
Chocolate (optional)

1. Number the Sharpies. Honestly, the hardest part of this craft is keeping track of the pens.

2. Give each person 1 mug and 1 pen. Explain that when they are done they have to return the pen.

3. If they complain about the pen's color and, “I want purple!” tell them whining is not attractive and they need to switch with another person because you’re not giving them 2 pens and that’s life.

4. Let them decorate the mugs.

5. After they are finished decorating (which takes a lot longer than it seems possible with all the talking) get back 1 pen from each of them, not letting them leave until every pen is accounted for.

6. If a teen tells you they don’t have a pen, explain they’d better make one materialize out of thin air or prove there’s a ghost in the room.

7. Realize that despite all your hard work, you will always be 1-2 pens short of what you started with. If this makes you feel bad, eat some chocolate.

8. Use rubbing alcohol and paper towels to clean up the tables should any ink get on them. If you can’t find rubbing alcohol use hand sanitizer.

This craft is so easy, I wish there was an IKEA right in Elk Grove, and I’m not just saying that because I like to mindlessly wander through the store while eating cinnamon rolls.

Honestly!

And now, time for the perfect Valentine's Day song...

Waiving the White Flag

2012-01-14T16:04:00.000-08:00

Don’t you just love princesses? This Halloween my home was inundated with young girls hoping to live in the lap of luxury, marry rich, wear beautiful clothes, and have people wait on them hand and foot despite having few useful skills and zero talent whatsoever. Gee, does that remind you of anyone…

…I just can’t think of who that reminds me of.

Oh, well. I’m certain it will come to me later.

A good 30 princesses (and some adults who knew better) showed up on my porch before I got tired and poured enough candy into that last trick-or-treater’s pillow case to send her into a diabetic coma. I wasn’t feeling the whole royalty thing. Maybe it has something to do with that when a 5 year old boy dresses up as Spiderman, he won’t want to be Spiderman at age 18; but when a 5 year old girl dresses up as a princess, there’s a 1 in 3 chance she’ll be on a cable wedding show at age 30 throwing a tantrum over tiaras. Plus, if you really pay attention to the plotlines of any Disney movie, you’ll realize the message they send out, for lack of a better term, sucks.

See what I mean?

That said, this past summer reading we made princess flags.

Okay, they were really birthday flags, but I found all these crown stickers in the storage room that I needed to get rid of. Old craft material is like pencils---if you keep putting off using it one day you’ll take it out and discover the eraser is so old it’s hard enough to fly across the room and poke someone’s eye out, and then you’ll have to do paperwork. How awful! The birthday flag idea came out of the SR2011 binder. You know what they say, if all else fails, read the manual/directions/street sign. The thing is, if you look through your old binder (if it’s not buried in a pile of recycling) there are no actual directions on how to make them. So here it goes:

Birthday/Princess/Pirate/Dream Flags

Supplies:

Paper (old letterhead anyone?)
Scissors
Stickers
Chopsticks
Stapler (hopefully with staples actually in it)
Colored pencils, crayons and/or pens
Volunteers OR music to make the time go faster (Craft prep can be tedious...)

1. Wash your hands and wipe the inside of the stapler.
2. Fold paper in half lengthwise. Cut along the fold two make two sheets. Set one aside for later.

3. Fold your half sheet in half. If it’s used, make sure the writing is on the inside.

4. Wrap the paper around the narrower end of the chopstick (to prevent the paper from falling off).
5. Staple the top and bottom near the chopstick. You may have to (gently) fold the paper in half to do this. Place on staple in the center right-side opening.
6. Rinse and repeat.

The nice thing about this craft is you can have volunteers prep the flags weeks ahead of time, set them in a box, and have everything ready for label. Just be sure to label the box, so as not to forget and leave the box laying around until 2014.

Enjoy!

The Teen Lantern

2012-01-07T09:40:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while since I last blogged---I was preparing for the Iowa Caucuses with my “Election Season Should Only Last 6 Weeks Because We’re All Sick of You” platform.

(For those of you non-news watchers, I came in second behind Romney.)

Anyways, I recently opened an e-mail discussing summer reading program ideas, reached back through my pecan pie-induced brain fog and remembered that yes, this was discussed at the last Youth Services meeting. And all I could think is, “Nooooooo! It’s too early! I just barely remembered to block off the meeting room for April programs!” Because prepping for summer reading is like going to the mall right after Christmas and discovering that management is already merchandising the bikinis---it’s a reminder to drop the mouth-watering, succulent turkey drumstick out of your hand and dust off your gym membership.

Or at least buy some workout clothes.

Whatever the case may be, I decided to do lanterns. It’s something that all age groups can make. Besides, libraries may be low on money to buy, say, books, but we’re not running out of paper any year soon. Just the accidental one-line prints patrons leave behind are enough to keep our areas decorated with paper snowflakes for decades. And paper crafts seemed safer than doing anything on dream interpretation. Adults have issues, teens have issues, and think about all the issues kids must have, especially babies. Every night all babies likely dream about is people’s giant heads being right up in their faces and saying things they don’t understand like, “Goo goo, gaa gaa,” and “You’re going to have to figure out your own way to pay for college.” Still, lanterns seemed a little boring, and I needed to jazz it up a bit, hence, the Starry Night lantern. It combines the best of my creativity with a pre-made program listed in the summer reading binder, and it's fairly easy.

Supplies:
Paper
Colored pencils
Washable markers
Safety scissors
Rulers
Stapler

Tape

1. Color the Starry Night coloring sheet linked on the Enchanted Learning site.
To format, go into Print Preview. Turn off the headers, change the orientation to Landscape, change the custom enlargement to 215%, and set all margins to 0.3.

2. Fold the paper in half along the long side, picture-side out. Reverse the fold, turn it picture-side in.

3. Follow the lantern making instructions.

But why limit it to just Starry Night? You can color Sponge Bob or Dora the Explorer, or use Twilight coloring pages---yes, they do exist. (Scary, isn't it?)

Some call it love. I call it pedophilia. Everybody calls it a cash cow.

Stay tuned for more craft posts to come!

Learning From Elmo, Blue, and That Annoying Dora Girl

2011-07-18T20:30:00.000-07:00

I love TV.

I watch a lot of TV. In fact, this entry was delayed because I was waiting to see if Nancy Grace would implode on live television with not-so-pent up rage. Then yesterday I spent the evening watching True Blood. Twice… …for the plot, of course. It’s soooo hard to keep track of the humans, vampires, were-people, witches and fairies, with people screaming, “You ate my fairy godmother!”

As a child I learned tons from TV. Like when General Hospital’s Frisco and Felicia got married, but they were too broke for a honeymoon so they went to his brownstone apartment and pretended to go places. (“Today we’re in the Middle East! Just don’t open the curtains…”) Deluding---sorry---pretending you’re elsewhere because you’re too broke to go there is a valid lesson for today.

This isn’t to say I spent most of my childhood watching a demon-possessed Marlena levitate. The great majority of what I watched was on PBS. I got the see my favorite person in the world, Miss Piggy, view Wild Kingdom, and witness Bob Ross paint happy little trees everywhere. Reading Rainbow, Schoolhouse Rock, many educational shows made up my viewing schedule. I thought I had a pretty good childhood…

Then I heard how horrible TV is for kids.

This I didn’t get. TV couldn't be all bad. After all, at least one child would have been strangled had I not been able to park him in front of Barney while I dismantled the VCR in order to repair the damage he’d done to it. True, if the only thing your child views is Maury Povich telling a man, “You are not the father!” while the mother runs off stage, this is not a good thing. But is TV necessarily bad? When I heard about the class “Learning from Elmo, Blue and Dora: Applying the Science of Children's Educational Television to Storytime,” I figured I needed to see what was up.

The presenters, Jennifer Bigheart and Maria Cahill, neither demonize or endorse television watching for children. One did not allow her children any screen time and the other said, “Go for it!” Fine, those were not her exact words. However, they discussed key elements of educational television that we can incorporate into our library programs:

Relevant themes
“How many story hours on teddy bears have you done?” one presenter asked. Answer: probably too many. We use colors, numbers and ABCs as themes. But when was the last time we did calendar, manners, weather or seasons themes? My season themes usually involve orange hand cutouts or snowflakes. They don’t exactly go into why we have season. That’s being corrected. Find more themes that are relevant to a child’s educational needs.

Non-fiction has a place
I love books in which frogs talk and eat bowls of flies. Pictures books are fine, yet we need to augment them with non-fiction material. Parents have a difficult time finding appropriate non-fiction materials for young children, so try reading the funny story during story hour and setting up a display of non-fiction books on the same topic.
Teachable moments
Our motion sensor lights were constantly turning off during programs. One time a toddler asked, “Why are the lights off?” I said the first thing that came to mind: “We are conserving energy.” Turns out, according to the presenters, this is the right thing to do. If something happens during your program, don’t ignore it; acknowledge it and talk about it for a while. Yes, it may lead to other questions and going off topic. This is a good thing.

Repetition
Did the kids really get into the story? Read it again! Okay, I won’t be doing that---it would drive me nuts. However, now that things float, you can order a few extra copies of a book and let the parents decide if they want to read the story over and over (and over) again without you unduly suffering.

Discussion
At the end of the story feel free to ask the children about the plot line. Establish that books have a beginning, middle and end. Ask, “What happened at the start of the story?” “Do you remember the main character’s name?” If there was a moral ask them what they thought it was. Was there bad behavior in the book? Ask them if it is appropriate to write on the bathroom wall with lipsticks and lotions like in 10 Little Lambs.

Variations
Pull an aspect out of a book and use variations of the word base. For example, when reading a book in which they drove a car, use the words drive, driving, drove, and driven. Reading a numbers book? Go over once, twice, thrice, first, second, third, etc.

Since I love Sesame Street, there is no way I am ending this without showing you my favorite clip ever!

ALA Wrap Up Q and A

2011-06-27T21:31:00.001-07:00

Having attended several conferences (with the credit card bills to prove it), some of my fellow attendees have been texting and calling me with conference related questions. I thought I might share with everyone the answers to put your mind at ease if you, too, were wondering the same things but had no one to ask without fear of retribution. This is where I step in. Tabin to the rescue!

Q: How do I explain that I skipped a session?
A: If your supervisor asked you to attend a session, the only acceptable excuses for your absence had better involve copious amounts of blood, your water breaking, or alien abduction, and I'm not talking about the friendly aliens. I'm talking second head descends from major head, acid for blood, need-to-implant-something-in-your-belly aliens.

But if you've attended other sessions (bar sessions withstanding) and you are just plain worn out, you weren't doing anyone any favors by dragging yourself into a crowded room while looking like you had Ebola. With TSA rules we're unlikely to have had hand sanitizer handy, so you just placed visions-of-co-pays-dancing-in-our-heads. Not appreciated! If asked why you were absence, explain that you were in your hotel room recovering, or tell them you fell into the horse poop I almost stepped in on Bourbon Street, and that you had to decontaminate yourself.

Q: What if I didn't learn anything from my sessions?
A: Oh, you learned something all right. It just won't hit you for days, weeks or decades---take you're pick. Should you need to immediately present to your co-workers, select the session that stood out most to you, go over your notes, and fill your presentation with lots of words and pictures, etc. Everyone will be too distracted with your random use of bunnies and hot dogs to notice you babbled for 15 minutes.

Q: What if I threw away something important by accident?
A: Class notes are available on the ALA website, and everything else can be recreated. Believe me when I say the vendors will be more than happy to send you more. Check your e-mail. There's probably 20 duplicate copies waiting for you at this very moment.

Q: My co-workers and I were supposed to present separate PowerPoints, but we both attended the same sessions. What should I do?
A: Type faster than your co-worker.

Q: What do I do if I forgot my business cards? Does this mean my whole conference experience was a waste?
A: In my 5 years of attending conferences I have passed out hundreds of cards, yet I could count on one hand the number of people who called me, and half of them were part of a bachelor party that was flying on my plane. I wouldn't be overly concerned.

Q: What do I do with the business cards and flyers I did receive?
A: Before you toss everything into the recycling bin, try to remember not only what the vendors told you, but what your co-workers said they needed. Example: I don't need book carts. Why would I? I spend my day singing songs about pink pigs, directing people back to the first floor where the bathrooms and holds are, and telling teens things such as, "These are stairs, not chairs," and "In or out!" However, one of my friends needs book carts, thus when I saw them on sale (my favorite word in the world behind "chocolate," "free," and "massage") I texted her and saved the flyer. Maybe you had a good conversation with someone about storytime. Perhaps you will only contact one another once or twice over your career, but their offered info could save you a ton of time and effort, so go ahead and put them in your address book.

Q: I'm tired but my family is still bugging me. What do I do?
A: Toss them some packets of ramen noodles, a few Disney DVDs, and lock yourself in the bathroom until July 5th.

Okay, it's time for me to go recover.

Recently someone came in to get this CD, and I suddenly remembered how much I loved this album and after I hear I I'm suddenly not so tired. Enjoy!

And We're Off!

2011-06-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

ALA New Orleans is right around the corner and I have been packing my bags---sans more than 3 ounces of liquid per containers that can fit in a 1 quart plastic bag, of course. It's a joy and a pain to go on a trip. First I had to make storytime arrangements and clean at work. Thanks to Stephenee, the Pink Piggy Song is already on YouTube, so that was one less melody I had to repeatedly sing to the other staff members. Then I had to clean at home. Though I don't live alone, it's nice to return to a nice clean haven. And if it's not clean, I have someone to else to not only blame for this mess, I can make it seem like they are responsible for all other messes created in my vicinity since the Reagan administration. Packing was actually the easiest thing, except for the part in which I poured my hair care products into tiny unmarked tubes. Thankfully I’m flying Southwest, the only airline that seems to realize people don’t wear all their clothes on top of each other like Shirley temple did in that movie I saw on TCM.

This is my most favorite time of the year: dress up time! I try to wear nice things to conference because, hey, I’m a librarian. Chances are slim to none for librarians to meet famous people once in their lives, let alone twice. Must make a good impression the first (and only) time around. It’s a time of year in which I get little sleep because I jam pack my schedule. It’s soooo exhilarating to run from one overlapping class to another and another while sweating profusely in nice clothes. And it’s also a time of year in which I just might get to see my family, only this time I’m doing on purpose and I won't screech at my mother, “You weren’t suppose to tell them I was in Chicago!”

This here is my niece. Isn’t she gorgeous? She looks even better without the lamination reflections. I’m looking forward to seeing her…if my brother can get the logistics together. After all, this is the brother I was supposed to see last week but didn’t. (His fault!) He also sent us to the wrong airport for his wedding, then tried to convince me that it was my idea. (It wasn’t!) So while I look forward to seeing her (and the high school graduation pictures he took of me but never gave me), I also signed up for a free cocktail party that night to avoid anyone seeing me crying in a bar. Alone. By myself. With no one. (Yes, I've learned guilt-tripping from my mother.) And I’d be crying because I want to see my family, and not because alcohol at non-library functions comes out of my pocket instead of a vendor's.

I used my niece’s cute little picture for our Mother’s Day placemat sample. If you, too, would like to make a this craft, it’s fairly simple.

1. Put up your sample work 2 weeks before the program and encourage people to bring adorable pictures from home.
2. Print out words on card stock (Mommy’s Little Angel, Baby’s First Christmas, Toddler’s Third Tantrum, etc.)
3. If you do not have a die-cut machine, have teenage "volunteers" cut out cute little flowers/3 leaf clovers/make homemade confetti with the hole punch.
4. Set out glue sticks, stickers, etc. and let people create their own piece of art. (Word of advice---don’t make the mistake of leaving a stray foam sticker or two in the mix.)
5. Have a volunteer laminate the placemat.

Hopefully, if I'm not too busy roaming in search of free food, I will blog from the conference instead of saving it up. Have fun---I will!

M. Butterfly

2011-05-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

I haven’t blogged in a loooonnngg time.

No, it wasn’t just because I was busy watching the final season of the Oprah Winfrey Show. (My chances of winning a free trip to Australia have drastically plummeted…) Blogging is like exercising. When you’re into it, you’re into it. You have your cute gear on, your hair is up in a bouncy ponytail, your lipstick is on but your foundation is off--- it’s pretty hard to work out with L’Oreal running into your eye. When you’re not into exercise, you’re lying on the couch eating sugar cookies and channel flipping while wondering why that Nora Roberts' movie you swore you were going to watch last year is taking up valuable space on your DVR. What usually gets you up is either you realize you’re expected to fit into a swimsuit---a real one, not a string-one-size-fits-all-bikini. Or someone says, “Hey, did you know you’re morphing with the sofa?”

So when someone recently pointed out that I hadn’t blogged in a while, I thought, why not? There are plenty of books and crafts and TMI things I have to share, and not just with SPL librarians on SharePoint. All the adult participants of my craft programs want to know how to do some of the cooler crafts without having to comb through 15 books filled with impossible to make cards that require wire clippers, blow torches, and 2 weeks of planning.

I came up with this card after going online and realizing a lot of kids card crafts are ugly. Yes, I said it. Ugly. Hideous. Just plain wrong. You smile when they give them to you, but part of you wants to go all Tiger Mom and scream, “This is garbage! But I only say that because I love you…” I started thinking of how to jazz things up when my inner-Martha Stewart took over. The thing is, Sharpies and White Out are not items you want to turn over to a group of children, thus the butterflies were made beforehand. It’s not as difficult as, say, making the Four Season’s duck recipe (takes four days), but there is a learning curve. Sad to say, I can now turn out a butterfly in about 90 seconds, which means I surely have brain damage from the fumes.

Materials:
Card stock
Orange paper
Black sharpies
White out
Colored paper---yellow, plus colors of your choosing
Scratch paper
Glue sticks

Nice to have:
Volunteers
A room with ventilation (or a rock to throw through the window since ours don’t open)

For the card base:

1. The writing.
There are several ways to go with this. I printed “You are the sunshine of my life” directly onto my model card, but for the program I printed out cute sayings on colored paper to allow the kids to pick from. For the inside, I printed out poems to glue inside.

2. The flowers.
Find your desired flower template. Create two flowers using this template. Then take the second flower and trim the perimeter so that it can one flower can sit atop the other. Use these two different sizes to create masses of flowers. (Or e-mail me for some leftovers.) I traced a glue stick onto yellow paper for the center of the flower. (Please don’t tell the kids you are making the ovary of the flower---this will bring up questions you don’t want to answer.)

For the butterflies:

1. Make butterflies using orange paper.
We didn’t have a die cut machine, so we used Elk Grove High School students desperate for volunteer assignments that didn’t involve picking trash off the side of the road. If you need a template Central has this die cut shape, or I can send something over via inter-office mail.

2. Place the butterfly on scratch paper. Fill in the body and outline the shape with a black sharpie. Draw lines in the center bisecting lines.

3. Begin drawing in the other lines.
This is something you might not want to hand over to a sophomore who needs 10 hours of community service by tomorrow. If you don’t have time to closely supervise this work, only let trusted volunteers do this part.

4. Dot the lines created in step two with White Out.
Err on the side of stingy dots. You can draw over your mistakes on the black lines, but you can’t “white out” orange paper. Afterwards go outside and breath fresh(er) air.

5. After it is dry, flip over and repeat.
I only did the middle and right side of the other side, since the left part of it will not show.
6. Bend the butterfly in half.
You don’t want a crisp fold because the butterfly will look less perched-on-a-flower than it will look squashed-under-a-shoe.

7. Remember that perfection is the enemy of Getting Things Done.
Yes, it would have been nice if all the butterflies turned out perfectly. They won’t. Some staff members helped out and said, “I’m sorry, but mine doesn’t look like yours do.” My response: “So? They’re kids. I’m not worrying that an 8 year old might complain that the line’s not perfect.”

Putting it all together:

1. Do the inside of the card first, so as not to mess up the outside.
This is the time to glue in poems, love letters, baby pictures, ultrasounds, etc.

2. Glue the saying and flower(s) onto the front of the card.
Some kids will go all out and layer 3 dozen. Whatever floats their boats is fine.

3. Glue the butterfly atop the card.

And there you have it. I really don't know how long this craft takes because I broke it into many different parts, but the kids loved it and were really impressed. Of course children are also impressed by the magic of jello and finding pennies on the ground, but I take what I can get. Enjoy!

Disco Inferno

2011-03-01T19:37:00.000-08:00

I’ve avoided creating a will and trust. Why, do you ask? Because in my pathetic, convoluted way of thinking, creating one means you’re going to die. Yeah, as if not creating one means I’m going to live forever, have thin thighs on a diet of French fries and soy ice cream sandwiches, and grow rich simply by thinking it so.

But this morning I had a bit of a wake-up call. I’m heading towards the north staircase practicing “Where is Thumbkin?” while reminding myself to keep all fingers up while asking, “Where is middle?” so as not to teach the kids to flip anyone off when I noticed flames shooting out the top of the building right across the street. This would have been okay as in not completely horrible if this were a normal building…

It was the gas station.

Gas station + flame= UPTO

So instead of setting up my flannel version of “Old MacDonald,” I’m running into the staff room screaming, “Gas station on fire! Gas station on fire!” while wondering, Why wasn’t I the librarian who resigned? I could be lying on a beach getting naturally exfoliated while drinking a margarita! I was out the door, my purse in one hand, and, unbeknownst to me, my stuffed moose “baby” squeezed under my other arm. The fire department cleared staff to return but I asked, “Can I go work at Valley today?” Translation: “I want to die an old woman warm in her bed, not a relatively young librarian with a pink piggy puppet in her hand!” I got a big fat no as to heading towards safety, and by safety I mean someplace without road blocks. To make matters worse, there were firemen around yet I couldn’t even appreciate them because I was too busy wondering if something would explode. It wasn’t until 1:30 that a colleague and I looked at each other and said, “Firemen! Yeah!”

As the day went on several things sunk into my brain:

1. Pilates in the morning is a good warm-up before running for your life.

2. No gas station means I’ll have to eat the healthy snacks in my work cubby instead of goo-filled cupcakes.

3. I need a will and trust.

SPL has wills, trusts, and power of attorney forms on our website. We all know this. They even have samples. One sample states that the signer wants no electric shock treatments. I’m like, “WTH? I hadn’t thought about electric shock treatments. I don’t want electric shock treatments either!”There are a lot of things I want to happen that everyone should know:

1. I want my hair dresser and a manicurist to tend to me should I fall into a coma.
When my friend woke up from her coma I did her nails, but we had to shave her head.

2. Cancel the cable should I be knocked out for more than 1 week.
No more overpriced Triple Play service!

3. No creepy medical personnel can be near me. Think Kill Bill Vol. 1…

4. I get a private hospital room.

5. If all I can do is blink my eye in some form of Morse code, feel free to accidently step on my oxygen tube for 10-20 minutes.

6. In case of my tragic demise, my nephew can have my PS3 on the condition that he do more than lay on the floor playing “Call of Duty” and eating pizza all day.

7. My mom gets my home but there is a 10 ugly-fake-plant limit---I’m not completely heartless.
8. If I die in an exercise related incident my brother will be disinherited if he states, “I told you so.”

9. My skinny friends can have all my accessories.

It’s going to likely take me a while to work out all the kinks, but the sooner I do it, the less I have to think about it, right?

If you have any suggestions on what I should include in my will and trust, feel free to leave a comment.

Toy Planes

2010-07-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

I don’t sleep on planes.

I’m a face sleeper. Not only will I need Botox because of this, I can’t handle an upright position. Since sleep isn’t happening I settle for ignoring those around me, especially if I’m flying with family, and/or screaming children. In order to facilitate this, I have my personal item. No, not the first personal item that was so heavy the straps almost broke. My second one contains a book, a pillow, ear buds, thick socks, a drink, and an eye mask. If you check the fine print, as long as you don’t cart on Bleach Volumes 1-379, these items don’t count towards restrictions. With hours to kill I meander through the airport and look at the exhibits.

The vases weren’t as cool as the one they had the last time I flew out of there---I love sci-fi stuff, so I took a million pictures back in 2009 of the exhibit---yet all we have at Sac International is a lovely Chili’s Too “exhibit.” I board the plane in the last group, which I think is a joke. Do you know who should really board last?

The first class passengers.

Don’t you hate how they look at us, like we’re nothing but petty pathetic peons who don’t deserve to share the same airspace as them? Sure, in an emergency landing they’ll be on rafts instead of huddled on the wings, yet they look so smug I’m tempted to scream, “Might I remind you the Pets.com people flew first class, too, and where are they now? Oh, yeah, that’s right, it no longer exists, just like American job security.”

But I’m too classy to do that.

Settling into coach, I took off my faux feather earrings, wrapped them in the 3 toilet seat liners I lifted from SFO, and waited for something to annoy me, which didn’t take long at all. Instead of finally reading Devil in the White City a whole year after no fewer than 3 librarians recommended it to me, I’m so nauseated by the constant movement of the plane that I give up and put on my eye mask. Big mistake. My eye mask is just a little too tight, something an ophthalmologist wouldn’t recommend, but hey, it was free with purchase. As we near our late landing at O’Hare, the flight attendant begins reading off the list of connecting gates. Mine is not read. Looking at my printout I discover I only have 20 minutes to get off the plane and get to my gate. Bringing the paper up front, American Airlines give me a reason to write yet another letter to company head quarters.

The flight attendant doesn’t know how to read the ticket.

That’s right. This nincompoop (and I don’t say that lightly) tries to convince me that the time on the ticket is actually the date (“It’s June 6, 2005? Really?”) and that my boarding time is 6:50. To which I ask, “How can board at 6:50 when my flight leaves at 6:20?” Instead of arguing with her, I race off the plane into Concourse H and latch onto the first person in an airline uniform, who correctly directs me to Concourse K. Problem is, I can’t really see. Everything past 15 feet is blurry, meaning I’m walking, as fast as one can in heels---they were easier to wear than to pack---and hoping its in the right direction since I couldn’t read the signs. I shouldn’t have worried. Being so late meant I could have simply followed the voice. That’s right, I am so close to missing my flight that my name is being paged. Badly, of course, but paged none the less. I ‘m limping as fast as I can thanks to the earlier ankle injury, and when I get there they grab my bag, place a valet tag onto it, hustle me into the plane and shut the door.

Having booked a completely different flight, I was assuming I was going from one big plane to another plane. OMG, nothing could have been further from the truth. This was some American Eagle you-should-have-flown-Southwest-teeny-tiny itty-bitty 34 passenger plane. The plane was so small it looked like a 747 gave birth to it. While I'll admit to dreaming about being in a plane that small, the dream involved me owning it and having my own massage room, not sharing the space with 33 other doomed people as we fall smack dab to earth. The flight attendant aboard told me they had changed my seat assignment and, “You’re now on an exit row. Should you not be able to perform your duties we can reassign you.” Which made me think, “Exit row? Can I exit out of it now and board a real plane?”

Of course not.

I strap myself in and start my inner dialogue which went something like this:

“I’m going to die!"

"This plane is made of tin foil and Betamax parts and I’m going to die!"

"They'll have to use dental records to identify my crispy corpse! Let it be quick and easy!"

"Maybe I should buy another drink. Then it really won’t hurt when we crash. Or maybe I’ll even survive. In car crashes drunks always survive after ruining everyone else’s life. Didn’t they have a crash where one person survived? Wait a minute, I should have cleaned my house! Now everyone is going to know I haven’t straightened up since I signed for a short sale. Short my inner thigh! How was I to know it wouldn’t close by now? I gave them a June 24th deadline! This is horrible! People are going to pick through my belongings at a garage sale and offer fifty cents for my cashmere sweater that retailed for $150. I should have written an extremely detailed will. Stephenee always liked that sweater. I should text her and let her know she gets first dibs on my clothes, and Amy can have my books since she's my only non-library friend who actually reads, and April can have my exercise DVDs, and Margaret can have dibs on any accessories my mother doesn't want, and no, she can't send my things to my oldest sister because she has no taste at all. She draws her eyebrows into a near unibrow. How many times have I explained the side of nose, corner of eyebrow equation to her? At least she's not as bad as that one woman who looks like her brows take after McDonald's golden arches but it's embarrassing to be in public with her! And what’s my mother going to do? Who will tell her how to use the remote when she insists its plotting against her? Who will stop her from answering the phone when annoying people call? If she goes to live with any of my brothers they'll tell her to get rid of all her stuff because, "There should be white space. A man needs somewhere to rest his eyes." Don’t they understand that if we didn’t want something we wouldn’t have bought it in the first place? I'm glad I didn’t leave them any money. You can have all the white space you want with my $0 contribution to your net worth. What am I saying? I don't want to die! Oh lord, please don’t let me die! How unfair it would be to die when I haven’t even had time to enjoy my life post student loans!”

About 5 minutes later I realize I’m getting hot. My calf is against the emergency exit door, and it’s hot outside, therefore I’m hot, and after studying the seat in front of me I realize it's simply a floatation device and there’s no parachute attached. Then we hit turbulence, the captain told us to stay in our seats and I started thinking:

“I’m going to die! For the love of God, please, someone get me off this plane! I shouldn't be able to tell the weather by feeling it on my leg! If you let me live I promise to be nice to people and eat green stuff other than parsley and Jello and clean my house...or hire someone to clean it, and I'll lie more because telling the truth all the time is plain mean, just let me live!"

Suffice to say, we landed safely.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

2010-07-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

You can have the best laid plans, but if an airline is plotting against you just forget about it.

At noon I jumped into a Blue Van 2 hours before my flight to DC for the ALA conference. Remember back when you could arrive 30 minutes before a flight with a Big Gulp while your family stayed with you at the gate while they left their car parked out on the curb? I remember being fed real food with real utensils and even getting invited into the cockpit. Today you go the airport prepared to be strip searched, your drink confiscated, your carry on bag packed to the gills and your "personal item," i.e. big-bag-o-stuff, almost breaking from the weight of everything in it. You used to have 2 carry on bags and a personal item. Now if you want to bring a laptop you'll need to place panties in a manila envelope and slip it in your case. I skipped the laptop and took a real bag because I like stuff and I like choices. Yes, I took 5 pairs of shoes with me on a 6 day trip. By day 2 I'd already worn 4 pair.

But back to the story at hand.

I arrive at Terminal B early. If you haven't been to Terminal B it's because you booked on a better airline. Terminal B is an after thought. Terminal B is the equivalent of thinking you're giving birth to 5 kids and they find another kid in their during deliver, meaning you're in such a scramble to find a name the kid ends up stuck with Epidural or Invitro. Complete. After. Thought. No massage bar. No cute stores. That's Terminal B for you.

I slide through security with my bag-o-liquids was still inside my bag-o-stuff. Yes, the official packing program lecturer says you're supposed to get liquids on the other end of your flight, but she's white. The rest of the world can buy conditioner at the airport kiosk. Blacks have to go to the...how shall I put it...questionable side of town to get products, meaning I spend the night before a flight squeezing shampoo into Barbie sized bottles. Anyway I get through, I have lunch, some nice miscellaneous military man heading to Mississippi pays covers my tab (how thoughtful!) and before we even exchange names we get the news...

The flight was canceled.

Yeah, my thought exactly.

An AC unit broke, meaning they'd have to fly at a lower altitude, meaning if they did so they'd hit a mountain. (BTW, what a pleasant thought to put in the minds of passengers who are about to fly over mountains, thank you very much.) They sent us downstairs to the counter. Too bad they didn't tell the poor woman behind the counter what was going on before they did so. While she was staving off a panic attack my fellow passengers were saying things like, "It's always American Airlines!" and "I knew I should have taken Southwest!" Then a woman passes out the airline phone number as we stare at her because how fast can we really get through to a live person when there's 180+ people calling at once? And what good will it do us when they hadn't officially canceled the flight? So after they cancel the flight we call and are all told, "Oh, we are so sorry, and we'll get you on the same flight tomorrow," which, in airline speak means, "Didn't you learn life sucked way back in kindergarten?"

I'm ready to burst into tears, knowing I can't do anything unless it involves a time machine and booking on Continental instead, when I get a great idea and call back and ask, "Is there anything leaving SFO to DC?"

"Which airport were you going to?"

"Whichever one that has a plane flying to DC."

"I can get you on flight 1522 to BWI tonight. It leaves at 11:45 pm."

I do a mini happy dance, run out the airport, and catch a Blue Van to Amtrak following a call to the KP desk for their number in which I am told, "you really need to get an iPhone!"

I arrive, meet some nice people, take the train to Emeryville, the bus to the Ferry Building, and taking the Embarcadero station BART to SFO.

I get there, bash my ankle with my carry on bag which weighs about 300 pounds, and head up. I go to the check-in line, slide in my card, and outcomes something unexpected...

A notice saying it was too early to check in because my flight wasn't scheduled until the following night.

This is about when the internal meltdown started.

Ever dealt with a screaming toddler and when you go to pick them up they lift up their arms, slide out of your hands, and start bawling on the ground? Just pouring their little 2-year old hearts out on the carpet you just steam cleaned because, "Mommy says I can pee in my pull up!" and no matter how you try to convince them that not letting them watch Dora the Explorer/eat chocolate cake/pry the electrical safety cap with a fork is not the end of the world they're still upset?

That was me.

The person behind the counter said, 'We're not supposed to do this, but you came from Sacramento, so I'm going to put you on this flight." I had to stop myself from screaming, "WTH? Your fellow employee booked me on the wrong flight but you risk getting in trouble for fixing his mistake? What's wrong with you people?" Instead I just told her what anyone in my situation would tell another person.

"I need a drink."

Honestly I could have had a massage instead. A massage is therapeutic. Alcohol, on the other hand, can get you into a bit of trouble. But a 30 minute massage at SFO runs $80, versus $10 for a drink. I'm frugal. I had the drink. While I'm certain the whole restaurant heard me screech, "What do you mean you're out of Mojitos?" and "What do you mean you're out of chocolate cake?" I settled for a top shelf margarita and a vanilla cupcake. As one fellow librarian put it, "A margarita massages your insides." I felt a lot better after I swallowed half in one gulp before slowing down.

All was well.

At least for the moment...

PTS---Conference Style

2010-06-28T19:43:00.000-07:00

ALA is coming to an end. I can still here the sounds of the crowds stories above me as they eat cake and down as much alcohol as possible following the Michael Printz Awards reception. What should I tell you I have enjoyed the most. Is it running into amazing librarians from all parts of the world, including one from Bangladesh? Is it doing the author version of speed dating? Was it simply making it here after the chaos of travel, which I will walk about later?

For all of you who have never gone, a national conference can be a real PITA. You're there, everything you want to go to takes place simultaneously at spots across town, it's crowded, and there aren't enough hours in the day. That being said, there must be a reason why I've gone 4 years straight, paying out of pocket the last 3 times. (If any of you want to contribute to my Visa bill, please e-mail me. I'll take it all---dollars, pennies, pesos, whatever.)

It's...magical in a way. This week I spoke with Toni Morrison, if only for a second, sat down next to Laurie Halse Anderson, taken pictures of John Grisham, and sat on my knees in the front aisle to sing along with Natalie Merchant. There were old friends to have lunch with, new friends to make at breakfast, lost connections made at parties thrown by vendors in an effort to intoxicate you enough to sign a binding 5-year contract you won't remember until the invoice arrives on the director's desk. It's wonderful, yet it's awful to know I have to go back to work and rejoin Library Land after going to truly innovative programs and no one telling me their child just peed on the multi-colored furniture.

But most of all, it's just plain fun.

To be continued...

PARC and Wreckreation

2010-04-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

Was I the only one to breathe a sigh of relief when the PARC system temporarily went down?

After weeks of, “OMG, I don’t know what I’m doing!” and an hour long training that made me certain that yes, I was completely clueless, there was a part of me---I believe it was my brain---that made me grateful to have a bit longer to figure this out. Who would have thought I’d be nostalgic for the old paper system? Let’s see, 1 hour spent on my 2009 evaluation vs. months spent pulling out my hair trying to determine the meaning of life. And it’s not even the unwanted hair I’m pulling out, so we really have a problem.

Honestly, do I really need goals? My job consists of telling people where to find Magic Tree House books, avoiding paperwork, pointing out where the bathrooms are, telling teens lower the volume on their iPods if they hope to have any hearing left by the time they hit the old age of 25, playing movies, telling stories to classes, and making crafts, mainly paper bag puppets, with toddlers. So far we have made a pig, a cow, a dog, a cat, a bunny, a lion, and even a Christmas tree complete with presents and bows. Go figure. After looking at my schedule and discovering I’ll put on over 130 programs over the next year (movie nights, toddler times, class tours, DCA, summer reading) I think maybe my goal should be to stop looking at craft sites and other library systems’ events calendars and saying, “I wanna do that!”

But a person has to have real goals, right? So I thought about it and created a few that should do the trick:

1. Lose the inches I’ve put on since I started working here.

Time line: By my class reunion.

Is it measurable: Very!

I’d feel better if I went down a size. In turn, I would treat people better. In time this kindness would trickle down to actual patrons. In order for this to happen, an hour of my shift should involve hitting the gym, with another hour devoted to taking a shower and doing my hair. Since I’d feel more comfortable showering at home, where I have all my products and won’t tell a fellow bather, “Those are fake,” I need another hour for travel time, plus one more to get a massage at Mellow Me Out to relieve the tension.

2. Not strangle anyone.

Timeline: Ongoing

Is it measureable: Yes, by number of incident reports.

Adults are not too happy that they can’t use kids’ computers. I get so many complaints. The majority of them boiling down to they are ~~doing their kids homework for them~~ helping their kids out, or the reservation sent them downstairs because they’ve been using their kids’ cards to avoid paying the $700 fine they owe. Then I get the stray adults who want to sit in the purple chair, lay on the bean bags, and are most upset that they have to take the elevator up to the 2nd floor to get to a bathroom when it’s so much easier to walk down a flight of stairs and to the ends of the earth to use ours. Whatever it is, they’re not happy with me, and the feeling is reciprocal. I’d hate to hurt one of them and end up in jail while waiting for my lawyer to get me off scot-free. Jail may have worked out for Martha Stewart, but I’ll take a pass.

3. Stop buying things from patrons.

Timeline: Ongoing

Is it measureable: Yes, in the amount of money I save.

Whether it’s candy or pizza, somehow I am guilted into buying items I don’t need, don’t want, and can’t use in order for some kid to get to Sly Park, Sutter’s Fort, or some other miserable, God forsaken middle-of-nowhere, don’t-know-why-they’d-want-to-go-there place. Can’t anyone go anyplace nice with air conditioning, indoor plumbing, and something entertaining to do? I have yet to have a child say to me, “My class is doing a spa retreat in Carmel and we could really use your help getting there.” Instead I’m wasting my (sometimes) hard earned money so a kid can get frostbite while panning for fool’s gold in the dead of winter.

4. Read more juvenile books.

Timeline: Ongoing

Is it measureable: Quiz me.

The only time I seem to have to read kids’ books (discounting board books and Where’s Waldo) is when I’m on a trip. I read The True Meaning of Smekday during a Thanksgiving gathering at a vacation resort, and The Lightning Thief on my flight to Florida. Seems to me it is in SPL’s best interest to send me on as many trips as possible to enhance my reader’s advisory skills. I’ve always wanted to go to the French Riviera. Just think of all the books I can read on the way over!

I’d write more goals, but I have to be realistic. These four will be hard enough to accomplish.

LH Has Left the Building!!!!!

2010-04-01T13:16:00.000-07:00

This is for LH. I can’t believe she’s ~~escaped~~ deserted us! Because she’s a great worker with the organizational skills of a 4-star general, she’ll most likely be replaced with a person who is one step away from an amoeba and couldn’t make chocolate soy pudding to save his or her life.

LH said her old town frowns on dancing---while it’s not a sign you’ll burn for eternity, Satan was reserving you a spot. I find this sad because dancing was one of my pastimes and it keeps teens out of trouble. After dance rehearsals even if you could muster the strength to rob a 7-11, you stunk so bad they could smell you a mile off.

At one time my friends and I all knew this complete dance. It is my greatest hope that by the time LH finishes her library degree and returns to Central (this is not an option---you have to return!!!) she will have learned this whole dance and can perform it for us at Training Day. The rest of you, feel free to join in.

Off to Florida

2010-03-18T16:39:00.000-07:00

It’s time to head out to Florida.

It’s interesting to fly in this age. When I was 8 years old and flying to Chicago, the pilot invited all us kids into the cockpit to show us all the really cool things. We ate food. Real food. Not sample sizes and vending machine packets. With metal forks and knives.

Fast forward a few decades.

We can’t have liquids. If you pump, be willing to drink your own milk. They wouldn’t give us blankets last time because of swine flu, you can’t bring on more than a pocket protector without paying $25, and the last time I was really fed on a flight was when I wore my bikini top under a cardigan and the male flight attendant asked twice to see what I wearing beneath the black knit and me, being me, showed him both times.

That’s it, I’m getting my mid-twenties body back by May 31st.

While I was told (gleefully) by the SPL safety person that I would most likely be subjected to embarrassing search techniques on my way back home, I figure I’ll be tired to care…

Because I’m going to have fun!

My Big Fat Visa Bill For This Wedding

2010-03-10T18:00:00.000-08:00

I am not a wedding person.

My brother IC had a destination wedding. I got a free week in Florida and one in Aruba.

IC is my favorite brother.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have said this on camera because another brother, NC, won’t even bring me a cup of water from across the room. (“Why don’t you ask your favorite brother for a glass?”) And now NC’s getting married, and he’s shown me why he’s not my favorite…

Let’s just say there will be no subsidized massage in a beach cabana this time.

Yes, I know they can’t pay for my travel expenses. Yes, I know they want a nice wedding. Do you know what I want? A house and thin thighs. But do they care that their wedding is costing me half of a liposuction procedure?

There are days in which I hate weddings.

Sure, sometimes wedding hoopla is fun, like when I helped someone plan their wedding. She told me, “I want everything to be perfect. After all, how many times does a person get married?”

Then we laughed.

It took a few minutes and telling each other, “Girl, you’re soooo funny!’ and, “That was a good one!” before we could return to the task at hand. There were interesting incidences, such as when we went to one venue and I asked, “Didn’t you get married here before?”

Yes, she had…

Then there are times I’m completely fed up with the wedding industrial complex telling everyone their union is doomed to fail without the aid of ice sculptures. They seem to forget many of these unions were already doomed. It’s not like commitment and love are marriage requirements. More than likely one night you looked over at the person with the frozen feet lying next to you, realized they had better health insurance, and decided the next logical step was marriage.

New Law Would Ban Marriages Between People Who Don't Love Each Other

Some folks are against gay marriage, which I don’t get. After all, everyone should have the right to lose half their worldly belongings if they do something stupid. I, on the other hand, say we would be better off banning weddings.

Weddings are mostly about money---who has it, who doesn’t, who’s faking having it, and who thinks their guests must be loaded. They’re also about making other people jump through hoops to prove their love. They’re a venue to show off your creativity and entertainment expertise. But more than anything, they’re a place for us to suffer through.

Things That Get Me About Weddings

1. Invites:
Doesn’t matter if you send an e-mail, a postcard, or a twenty page $80 floral-embossed certified document; either we’re coming to the wedding or not. Perhaps you consider e-invites tacky. Just remember, one way or another, your invitation is likely going into the trash. I got one which was a message in a bottle with sand and shells. Because this was 2004, as soon as I saw it I screamed, "Anthrax!" before remembering I'm not important enough for someone to send a bio hazard to me.

Also, if I’ve bought a plane ticket to get to your wedding, believe me when I say I’m going. Don’t follow my “I’m going and I bought the ticket” sentence up with, “When are you going to mail the RSVP card?”

2. Parties and Gifts
Brides used to have bridal showers. Now they have a bridal shower, a lingerie party, a bachelorette party, a Jack and Jill, a bridesmaid luncheon, a Pampered Chef party, the wedding itself, a post wedding day breakfast, and all these other events no one has ever heard of before. Brides make up parties like Hallmark makes up holidays. This whole set up must have been created by the same people who brought us payday loans because you think everything is wrapped up, but it's not. If I as a single person threw a party for myself it would be considered tacky, but once a ring is on her finger, she can have as many parties as she wants. You’re expected to bring a treasure trove of gifts, and then when you ask about a thank you card they say, “I’m busy planning.”

One woman (who I barely know) sent me invites to her gazillion “gimme” parties. Included were her sizes. Because I am a sweet, demure, tactful person, I didn’t call her and say, “Hey, Heifer, you two have lived together for a decade and you quit work to stay at home with the kid. Seeing as I’m not impressed with the home schooling skills of a person who barely made it through high school, perhaps instead of sending me a wedding registry list longer than my leg, you should get a job. And are we really supposed to believe you wear a size 6?”

3. Food
Low end: Paris (name has been changed to protect the guilty) threw a wedding in the middle of summer…

And didn’t provide us with any water.

It was 100 degrees and there was 4 gallons of punch, a the tepid red concoction housed in what appeared to be an industrial-sized mayonnaise container with a spigot at the bottom, to be shared amongst 150 guests. Chatting up the bartender (which scored me a free bottle of water) I discovered the bride was given the option of bringing in non-alcoholic drinks free of charge…

But she chose not to.

Skank.

High end: Okay, what’s up with the spoons of food? I don’t want a spoon of food. I want a spoon in a bowl of food. With all the Barbie-sized portions I’m not certain if I’m at an upscale wedding or sample day at CostCo.

Food reality: Men kept staring at me at my sister’s wedding, and it wasn’t just because my bridesmaid dress was cut three inches from my navel. I was eating the kids meal---fruit salad, chicken strips, and French fries. After seeing it, they asked the servers to bring over any spare kids’ meals. That’s right, you’re dropping a boatload of money on people who’d rather have a #7 at McDonald’s.

4. Kids:
I don’t like kids at weddings. Being a children’s librarian means folks think it’s okay to dump a bunch of kids at my table with coloring sheets and few boxes of crayons. I don’t get it. My sister’s a cop. No one puts criminals at her table and tells her, "Keep an eye on Uncle Steve. Sometimes he likes to take things."

But if kids are excluded, there inevitably will be a parent throwing a hissy. “Why Madison loves everything we do together! Like when we go to Mommy and Me play group, or get crazy at keg parties, or tour nuclear power facilities, or when she asked the technicians all those questions while I was getting my yearly mammogram. Madison would be crushed if you didn’t invite her to your evening wedding with its open bar!”

But there are reasons why people have a child free wedding:

a) We hate Madison.
She’s a snot-nosed, tantrum throwing brat. Because of a quirk of fate (co-worker, shared DNA) we have to invite you. If we could get away with it, we’d only disinvite Madison, but then we’d have to finally tell you that you’re a crappy parent with boundary issues. Most likely you’ll bring her anyway and ruin our night out.

b) Kids are expensive.
Certain wedding venues treat kids like “Horton Hears a Who”---a person is a person no matter how small. Even if there is a kid’s meal at your venue, you’re in for an ugly surprise. An adult plate will be $70, a kid’s plate $35. But that doesn’t include beverages, which are $15 per person under 21. Or the chair cover, the sparkling cider toast, the extra cake, or the cutting fee, all $2.50 each. Or the tax and gratuity, which is 8.75% and 21% respectively. Suddenly you’re paying $80 so a preschooler who should be home sleep can regurgitate mashed potatoes on your rented organza overlays.

4. Shades of Blackness.
Brides are really into fake tanning. It’s like being black but without the racism. It doesn't matter that many look less like blushing brides and more like Senator Boehner. Speaking on behalf of all the black community (as I had to do in college), we'll let the tanning slide…

What we won’t let slide is having a gospel choir at your wedding but no black people in attendance.

I was watching Platinum Weddings. You know, the show in which couples spend more money on favors than you did on house payments over the last 5 years. I watch the show because I'm waiting to see some, I don't know, shock and awe maybe from the bride. Because they're rich nothing phases these women. Doesn't matter that daddy spent $4.5 million wedding venue because she didn't like the other ones, or that the flowers were flown in from an outer ring of Saturn, these women will just display the same polite smile I do when a crazy person is chatting me up on public transit.

Maybe the Botox has something to do with it...

Anyway, in this episode the bride and groom decided they wanted a gospel choir to sing when they were pronounced husband and wife. And there was not one black guest. How do I know for sure there were no black people there? I asked someone who worked the event, “Were there any black people there?” Nope. Which I find quite strange, seeing as there are plenty of black people around. I scanned the crowd for blacks, Latinos, Native Americas, Indians, and other natural shades of brown, red and yellow, yet the only minorities I could spot was two Asian people who were probably seated at the same table because, “You have so much in common!”

New Rule: If you want to listen to a live gospel choir, you must either a) sit through a 4 hour church service in which the collection plate will be passed no fewer than 3 times, or b) invite twice as many black people to the wedding that there are in the choir.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “When it’s your day you won’t hate weddings!” Maybe not. But I live on Earth not on Planet Bride. I know it's not my day. It's a day, one of 365 days that happen every year. And I’m fairly practical. When I marry either it will be to a man loaded with money (possibly a former executive at AIG) or I will use the many books available at the library to keep costs down without driving everyone crazy. There’s “How to Have an Elegant Wedding for $5000” and “Cater Your Own Wedding” and “Let’s Elope” (and put everyone out of their misery). I likely won’t go as far as making the $10 wedding dress out of extra large men’s T-shirts. It’s a cool idea, but there’s a little something called Macy’s discounts which are made for these events. No matter what the scenario, I will feed the guests recognizable food in pleasing portions and not force any of them to drink out of a water hose to quench their thirst. And despite not being engaged, I already know the perfect day to get married:

Training Day.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to get out of this event. Someone in HR (who shall remain nameless) about strangled me when I suggested we use the day to catch up on all our work, but hey, I liked Training Day a lot better when we had money. Remember the massages and yoga and author visits? Now I have to console myself with bringing Ziploc baggies and Tupperware containers and making off with the next day’s lunch and all the cookies and brownies they were going to toss. (Is there a reason why we’re not putting the extra stuff in the 5th floor staff lounge?)

Either I can marry right before Training Day because I can’t be denied a honeymoon, or I can marry that day at the courthouse. Better yet, why not just hold the ceremony in the Galleria during break? Talk about multitasking! Everyone would be happy. I’d be happy because my co-workers would get to see me get married. All of us would get paid to be there, parking would be covered, and the meal is already catered. Plus we can wear our regular clothes.

But why stop at weddings? JP and LP, since we never got to see your ceremony, how do your feel about having a vow renewal as the second session of the day?

Just a thought…

Sunny Side Down

2010-02-25T23:00:00.000-08:00

My house search has lasted well over a year. (See what happens when you do short sales?) Yesterday I got news from the bank. I could have the house…if I was willing to tack on $20,000 to the asking price. They said other homes of its size in the area are selling for that much. I wanted to protest, “But those homes are attractive! They’re 5-year-old open floor plan homes, not 20-year-old tri-levels with brass fixtures. No one wants carpet in their bathrooms! No one dreams of vacuuming around a toilet bowl or laying down plastic because it's potty training time! And by the way, who was your decorator, Rainbow Brite? Every room is a different color!” Was the house horrible? Of course not. Seeing as I have about as much fix it know how as your average 3 year old, I wasn’t about to move into the moldy house or the house that looked fine save for the gigantic hole in the bathroom floor that led, for all I know, to Narnia. The home was move in ready...

As long as you were willing to move into a semi-ugly house.

When I went through with a clip board I thought I wouldn't have to change much---it just needed painting, new light fixtures, new faucets, different shower surrounds, to have the bathroom carpets replaced with tile, to have the kitchen counters replaced since there was a built in blender, create direct access to the deck, fix the garage door, install closet systems, seal the garage floor, stain the cabinets, seal the counters, and tame the back yard.

Or as the bank would put it, a weekend project.

The $20,000 extra the bank wanted from me already had plans. I was going to spend that money over three or four years to de-uglify the house, putting my own touch on it while also removing the punch hole left in the master bedroom door which was probably put there when the owners realized they could no longer afford the place. That, and I was going to use some to pay for my trip to Ireland.

But that’s another blog.

All the way home I was sad. I couldn’t decide whether or not to eat the contents of my fridge or do kickboxing. Since eating everything would require cooking, and, as my friends pointed out, I have a wedding to attend in a few weeks, I chose kickboxing. I got a great work out. Every time I punched or kicked I pretended I was fighting one of those bloated, bailed-out bankers. When I got into the library this morning I tried to distract myself from my sadness by actually working. It didn’t help. There's not a lot of thought involved in planning summer reading. I don't know why we bother to categorize programs by subject matter. Honestly, most of us are just looking at the price, and there should only be three price levels:

Free
$150

Programs that will only happen at COO

It took me a whole 5 minutes to click on each individual entry to see who cost what. Afterwards I had to ask myself, "Should I go with Art Works, or should I go with Art Works?" It's a good thing I like Art Works because they're going to live at CEN this summer.

And with that out the way, I started thinking about the house again and wondering when they would return my cashier's check.

Maybe I should change my approach to house hunting. Instead of looking for a home, perhaps I should instead be searching for a man. After all, in most every fiction book written since 1950, the cure to all of a woman’s problems is getting married. Thus I have crafted the following ad:

"SBPF seeks (legally) employed SM with no criminal record who likes to drive and owns a <15>home with 4 bed/3 bath, 2+ car garage, and tile roof in the EGUSD. No HOA, underwater mortgages, pools or facial tattoos. Must not say anything when I suddenly decide to go on big, expensive trips at the last moment, stain the cabinets black or insist on my mother visiting for long periods of time. In exchange I will pretend you're surfing the Internet for news when you lock yourself in your man cave, will keep my mouth shut when you replace our dining room table with a pool table, will be nice to your friends, even the stupid ones who will eventually get you killed trying to win a bet, and let you play sports without fussing about you getting hurt, though if you play rugby you will need to install an outdoor shower and buy an additional washing machine."

Think I'll get any answers?

I wondered if this was my fault. To a point, yes, it is. But then I started thinking back to all the homes I've loved before. There was my initial short sale home, the one I just had to have. It's still on the market, though now it's a foreclosure. There's the nearly identical yet in much better condition short sale across the street. It, too, has also been on sale over a year. There was the home I was outbid by $30,000 that I didn't get. There was the home I overbid by $36,000 that I didn't get. There were homes I don't even want to think about anymore, yet I feel bad because some members of my family (the guy members) are saying I'm just not trying hard enough. When my brother I.C. was in Japan he sent me a postcard: "I threw a coin for you into a well so you could get a house. The well threw it back."

I love my family.

So here I was thinking that everything was my fault. Then I remembered a book by Barbara Ehrenreich called "Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America."

The premise: we're told the key to success lies in being happy, cheerful and positive. (That, and a perfect toe touch while wearing a 14 inch skirt.) But instead of cheerfulness being something we choose, it's become mandatory. You must be happy at all times. If something bad happens to you, if you don't get what you want, it must be your fault. Somehow you brought it into being. Because you can bring anything into being just by focusing on it. Why, if I really tried, I could overcome my snowballs chance of winning a gold medal in men's hockey, an NBA championship, or a Heisman trophy. I just need to put it on my to do list and create a story board on my wall.

And when it fails to materialize, it will be my fault, too, LOL.

Ehrenreich doesn't believe the hype. She states, "I never think delusion is OK." She wrote this book following a diagnosis of cancer. People kept telling her that she would emerge from her experience a better person if she would be upbeat and work on her attitude. Which I really don't get. It's cancer, not a winning lottery ticket. Why would she be better for it? (And if I ever get sick with something bad, before any of you tell me I'll come out at the end of it acting like Mother Teresa or the Flying Nun, you might want to make sure there's nothing within my reach that I can easily pick up and throw at your head.) Ehrenreich got treatment, and far from being a better person, she says the experience made her nastier. It probably had something to do with being smothered in a sea of pink ribbons, bears and races. The incident got her thinking about American pop culture in general and how it promotes this idea of optimism. The flip side---forced optimism has the power to blind us from facts. How can you not buy a home if you're told you were meant to be a home owner? Why won't you invest in the stock market when it can only go up? Why is it that you're just not patient enough to wait for what is coming to you?

Whatever.

My realtor, she was optimistic about me going through with the house deal. Me, not so much. Maybe this has to do with math being one of my top subjects (as long as it wasn't taught at 8 a.m. or after a heavy meal). The figures told me I could afford the house...as long as I cut out vacations, buying clothes, buying books, cable, Internet, phone service, eating out, and I traded my dream of getting a dog to owning a pet rock. Possibly I would have to forgo having two kidneys at once.

I really like having two kidneys.

On the bright side of things, but the time I buy a home I can skip the mortgage and just pay for it cash...

Or just marry a stranger like women on reality TV.

I figured if someone can post the Calle Oche video on Grand Central, I can post this video. I love Tamia's music. She was diagnosed with MS in 2003, but that has not stopped her from making great music, and I felt this was perfect since there is now a stranger in my house. (My house! Mine!)

Enjoy.

I Heart Valentines

2010-02-11T20:35:00.000-08:00

It’s almost Valentine’s Day. Either you’re extremely happy because you’re getting something, extremely agitated because you’re buying something, or extremely nauseated due to the overwhelming onslaught of jewelry, lingerie, chocolate and flower commercials, pop-ups, and tie-ins. Yes, this is a delightful pseudo holiday, and if you mess it up, you could pay for a long time. For years. On the Chris Rock Show, one of his old girlfriends was still complaing how he gave her a horrible Valentine's gift. His response: "You didn't even bother to tell me you were pregnant when we met!"

For those of you who saw your shadow and snuck back in for the next few weeks, here are a few Valentine's highlights for you:

1. Valentine’s Crafts

One of my duties as a children’s librarian is to find post-storytime ~~crap~~ crafts. That’s easy. There are lots of useless things I can have your children create for you. But for toddler crafts I have to focus on things that are a) easy and b) pose no choking risk. With b) being of utmost importance, the attractiveness factor tends to fall by the wayside and you end up with things like the item below.

Is it just me or does this look like a crime scene photo?

This craft was likely created by a mother trying to wiggle her way out of a double murder charge. The woman had successfully managed to bury the nubile 19 year old nanny, her cheating husband and the bloody hatchet in the backyard by the swing set. But when the cops showed up because the neighbors heard the hubby yell, “Hide in the closet!” before the screaming ensued, the mother had a bit of explaining to do.

“Well, you see officers, that’s not really blood. My 18 month old just decided to make something special for me for Valentine’s Day. Isn’t that nice?”

2. Romantic Movies

This is the time of the year in which the media coverage of love gets overbearing. Sappy Hallmark commercials coming on the screen. Nicholas Sparks’ films in the theater. The Lifetime Movie Network pauses for a week to show you all the happy films of people in love…before returning to its usual blitz of movies focused on women and kids on the run from abusive ex-husbands or worse, women nursing their estranged spouses back to health. Because why leave the cheating jerk and tour Europe when you can spend the rest of your life feeding him through tubes and arranging for oxygen tank delivery? Seriously, whoever does the programming at that place needs therapy so they can learn there are more than 2 categories of men besides Prince Charming and Norman Bates.

Because TV movies are powered by actors best known for roles as the mother in some 80s sitcom, they’re not nearly as bad as the guy films disguised as comedies. Hello, I’m supposed to believe Katherine Heigl would go for Seth Rogen? So what if she was drunk? There is the drunk girls night out code, which goes like this: we’ll let you do something stupid you’ll regret in the morning, but we’ll at least make sure the something stupid happens with an attractive guy in nice clothes who might own a car and doesn’t live like a teenager whose mom is away for the weekend. Even if I suppose Izzy from Grey’s Anatomy decided to have a baby by a couch surfer, this is where lies come in. Tell everyone the father is a doctor or lawyer, or governor of Virginia, and things just didn’t work out. Tell them you picked the father from a book at the clinic. He’s in the Peace Corp and loves his mother. Telling everyone this will allow people to assume your pregnancy was well thought out instead of something that happened with the guy from the mail room that lives in his parents’ basement.

But the movies that take the cake are the ones in which the best friend decides they love the best friend. There are only two ways this can end:

Woman in love with her best friend: The man will let his female best friend know she means essentially nothing to him. While he’s worried about her hooking up with another guy, he’s more concerned about its effect on his life instead of his feelings stemming from authentically caring about her well-being. He’ll marry his fiancée and his best friend will end up dancing with her gay friend at the reception. But only because the test audience thought the original ending was too sad, and what gay man doesn’t want to spend all his time and frequent flyer miles propping up his straight female friend with witty comebacks?

Man in love with his best friend: He’ll do everything in his power to break the couple up. Some of these acts will be downright criminal, yet he won’t get caught, and if he does, it will be laughed off instead of taken for the serious act that it is. He’ll finally confess his love at her wedding, a 6-figure event someone mortgaged their house to pay for. She’ll gleefully dump the handsome, attentive, super rich man who would make a great husband and father in order to marry her best friend instead.

To summarize, male best friends get to marry their female best friends. Female best friends get to eat rocky road ice cream while watching Beaches or The Color Purple. Got it?

3. Dating Advice

If you’re married you’re lucky enough not to have to read dating books.

At least not until the divorce comes through.

Right now you're still married, meaning you have other horrible things to read; books on sharing your feelings, potty training your toddlers/preschoolers/pre-teens, or finding your moved cheese because the kids need college money. There were those of us who weren’t interested in marriage when we were younger, focusing more on a person’s ability to give a good massage than to be a good provider. (Hey, my neck and back get tense.) Now I’m older, and all the married people in stained clothes and toy strewn houses are telling me how miserable my life is without marriage and kids. They say spending my money and time on buying beautiful clothes, impossibly high heels, tax deductible vacations, fine meals, good books, DVDs, and doing exactly what I want is a plea for help. Not help outside with my purchases. True help. I don't do what I want because I'm fulfilled and have disposable income. I do these things because I’m lonely, which is really a surprise, especially for me. And to help me end this loneliness I’m soooo not feeling, "Wouldn’t you like to watch the kids this weekend? They love you so much ~~and we really can’t afford a babysitter~~ and the kids have tons of fun with you…Perhaps we can hook you up with my brother-in-law. Since he’s unemployed and living on our couch, he’s always available for a date. Please? Will you marry him? I swear we’ll hire him and kill him off in a work place accident since OSHA will only fine us $500 for that, but for the love of God I want to see my couch again!”

No thank you.

Yes, all single people are glum and depressed. Single men would starve to death if it weren't for Carls Jr., and they'll still die because they don't have women to drag them to the hospital when they get colds or have kitchen accidents. Which they shouldn't have anyway since they can't cook, hence the dependence on fast food. Single women will be found dead in their homes eaten by cats, because only single women have cats. No one else is allowed to have a cat. Not families, not single men. Cats are the mascot of single women, and if you get one it has nothing to do with you liking cats and them being independent. Which means everyone is trying to get you to marry.

This is doubly true if telling you you'll die unless you marry can sell you a book.

Some of these books are so horrible they’d be funny...if we weren’t talking about people’s lives being ruined. Don’t believe me? Browse through some in Central Express like I did. God forbid I check one out and have it forever on my record should I turn it in late. (Hey, I’d be willing to pay twice the fee amount if the titles wouldn’t be listed. Just a thought…) Flip to any page and read 5 lines, which will tell you all you need to know. One of them was Make every man want you : how to be so irresistible you'll barely keep from dating yourself. It claims to be written by a woman, but I have my doubts. Somewhere in there it said something (stupid) along the lines of, “Traditional dating books tell you things such as not to call a man constantly or not to sleep with him on the first date. There are lots of people who slept together the first date and it led to meaningful relationships.”

Uh…

Well…technically speaking, sleeping with men on the first date is one way to make any man ~~temporarily~~ want you and may lead you to a meaningful relationship ~~with the doctor who supplies you with Valtrex~~. However, I’m sure if you follow this advice, instead of finding your dream person you’re twenty times more likely to look stupid when you run into your neighbors as they’re heading to church and you’re coming home in the slinky black dress they saw you in the night before. And you’ll feel even worse when the guy in question files a restraining order for your obsessive calling. Because unlike movies in which the cops don’t show up until the killer has slaughtered 3 of your friends while you were babysitting some rich people’s kids, the cops take phone stalking seriously.

Then there is Steve Harvey’s book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like A Man. Even if you don’t follow a thing he says, he’s pretty funny. This one I actually checked out, but only because he was on Oprah. I was rolling, and I actually checked this one out and read it all the way through. Yes, what a crack up. What I find even funnier is him telling women on a radio show to marry down. And by down, he doesn’t mean short, or a man who makes less money because he does something meaningful like teaching in inner cities or searching for the to cure cellulite. He means marry the man with the part time minimum wage job, if that. Currently 43% of black women have never been married, and 70% are currently single, mostly because we refuse to use the dumpster diving theory when picking a mate. You know, find him on the street, fix him up, he’ll be as good as new. Works great on end tables, not so much on humans. Harvey is not stupid enough to tell us outright that he feels we should write to convicts and troll halfway houses in search for person of interest number one, but it’s what he means. He just couches it in other terms to make women feel greedy and petty for asking to be equally yoked. He asks, “Does a man really need to make more than you?”

Do I hear crickets?

Seeing as men statistically still make more, we have no national maternity leave policy, you’d have to sell your kidney on eBay to afford child care, and a cleaning service can add up, yeah, his making more money would be helpful. I have friends who married the type of man Harvey is discussing. These women bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, pour up the grease, clean the pan, clean the plates and forks the bacon was eaten with, mop the floor they stood on while making the bacon, wash the cups that held the drinks they also bought, wipe down the microwave which heated up the pancakes, launder the kitchen towels and disinfect the counter. Meanwhile their husbands take out the trash and tell them how lucky they are to have a husband considerate enough to scrape the plate he ate off of before dumping it into the sink for someone else to scrub. Then one day you come over to her house and say, “I haven’t seen your husband in a while,” and she responds with, “Neither have I. Want a margarita?”

The dating book that takes the cake is one I haven’t read, nor will I read because I already read the article the book stemmed from and frankly, it’s stupid. The title: I'm Pathetic. The author, who I won't bother to name, is a miserable and desperate 40+ single mother with rescue fantasies who wonders why the best men just aren’t that into her.

Maybe it’s the whole miserable and desperate thing that scared them off.

The fact that she just told every literate person that the guy she marries will be beneath her and not what she really hoped for doesn't help her much, either. I'm sure he'll get tired of people coming up and saying, "So you're the loser she settled for." She tries to warn younger women to take any man they can because that’s what she would do. This woman would marry a coma patient. Honestly, she should read Harvey’s book, where he tells women than men like standards and you should get some---

Just as long as those standards don’t extend to having a job, an education, or the ability to support you while you recover from your C-section.

The best dating book in Express was by the Millionaire Matchmaker. I like her. Enough to read her Be Your Own Matchmaker from cover to cover? No. That’s not the point. The point is she tells women if we want to meet men we should wear low cut tops to steak houses and eat at the bar in order to be picked up on by lonely out of town men.

At least that’s what it seemed like to me.

So, to recap our Valentine’s Day lessons:
1. Send your child to daycare instead of having a nanny.
2. Doing stupid, risky things is the key not just to having your picture featured on Nancy Grace, but it’s the key to finding true love.
3. Have standards, just not ones that mean anything.
4. Remember that as a female best friend, you won’t get the man you want unless you stop wanting him.
5. Keep reminding yourself that, according to miserable, single, bitter people, misery comes from being single and not from other bad lifestyle choices.

I'm just going to sleep through Valentine's Day.

***About the video in my last post…
I was sick a few weeks ago. Heck, I’m sick all the time, and because I’m taking a day off, I’ll be sick again then just because I have plans, even if those plans include a pillow and eye mask. I was on allergy pills for a few days. Unfortunately they weren’t the really good kind that make me clean. (Remember that time I cleaned all of Kids’ Place and there wasn’t a single book left to shelve or anything to dust because I did it all?) Instead I got fixated on 80s rock, and when I decided to practice my piano, imagine my delight when I discovered I had a lot of the sheet music. I know my family was simply thrilled to hear my rendition of Sweet Child of Mine and every song by Journey I could get my hands on. This time I’ll leave you with something different.

Clear Your Desk Edition

2010-01-29T12:30:00.000-08:00

Okay, who sent me the old library magazine?

Last Thursday I decided to stop being lazy and check my mailbox, something I hadn’t done since that Tuesday. Some of you may be wondering why I don’t check it everyday. It’s a logistics issue. I dwell ~~under the stairs like the mole people~~ on the lower level and my mail box is on the 5th floor. The regular elevator doesn’t go up to the 5th when we’re open, and Murphy’s Law dictates I never have mail when we’re closed. And when I do have mail, I have so much I need a cart. Technically I could use the freight elevator, but that elevator freaks me out. It’s padded. No, it’s not as bad as it used to be---remember back when it had ripped dark blue padding, as if someone had tried fruitlessly to claw their way out of there? Still, it’s pretty bad. Whenever I’m in there it makes me think someone is going to lower a bucket from its roof and say, “It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.”

But that’s another story unto itself.

I go upstairs, check the staff room to see if there’s anything to eat, look around for free movie passes, get my mail, see it’s full of magazines and start sorting. One is from December 2009. Half the staff has already seen it. Two are from October. I’m the last person on those lists. Then, in an envelope, I spot the Library Journal dated May 15, 2008.

WT%????

Do you know what how much has changed since then? In May of 2008 I was still wondering if it would be Obama or Clinton, I could truthfully tell people I was in my 20s, and I had the full spectrum of cable channels because, like a drug dealer, they were getting me hooked before upping the price. May 2008 was over a year and a half ago. An elephant’s gestation doesn’t last that long. This magazine has been sitting around someone’s desk, then they sent it to the next person who, in turn sent it to me. What was the point? Giving me a magazine this late completely disrupted the Library Magazine Ecosystem Chain! This how it’s supposed to go:

Receive magazine. Skim over the library/librarian/architect/award-you’ll-never-get-because-you’re-just-not-that-dedicated of the year section. Skip pages having to do with professional development or the department you work in. Discover an author you like is coming out with a new hardback in 5 months.

Check catalog for the new title only to discover it is not there. Put a reminder in your calendar to check the catalog in another two months.

Two months later, while watching a funny YouTube video involving talking animals and eating an entire box of crackers because some pop culture ~~quack~~ dietician said it was okay to eat as many carbs as you like as long as it was before 5 pm, a reminder pops up telling you to check MillCirc for your book title. You check it only to discover the record is SUPRESSED. Set another reminder for later that month.

Three weeks later you discover the title you want is officially in the catalog and the holds list is now wider than your rear thanks to time/the crackers. Become 301 of 301 holds.

Receive your hold request four months later only to realize you bought the book at CostCo for 40% off the day it was published. Chastise yourself for not having the patience to wait 15 weeks for a book you wanted 9 months ago. Try not to remind yourself that you could have conceived and given birth to a baby in the time that has passed since you first learned about the title.

Rinse and repeat.

So what should you do if you find an old library magazine under the pile of donated disintegrating National Geographic magazines at your desk?

1. Go over the list.
2. Cross off my name. (Trust me, it’s for the best.)
3. Cross off the name of anyone who has retired since the printing of the mailing list.
4. If you’re one of those OMG-there-might-be-something-important-they-need-to-read folks, AND someone has retired in the last few weeks, send the magazine out in a clean envelope. Hopefully the person on the receiving end will assume the retiree cleaned off their desk.

When I got the magazine, after I thought, ‘You’ve gotta-be-kidding-me,” and, “Why do some librarians think it’s okay to wear what they would wear while cleaning the litter box in a professional magazine?” I contacted CDV. They said for something that old they could just file it away. So for those of you who are upset that you have to read the “Going Green” article in Academic OneFile instead of in print form…

It’s all my fault.

(This time.)

I'll explain the video later.

Call Center Chaos

2010-01-26T12:43:00.000-08:00

Asking me what it’s like to work Telis is the equivalent of asking someone how it feels to get a bikini wax. While they are searching for a tasteful way to tell you about the excruciating pain of feeling like someone set you on fire and then told you they had to do it again to even things out (“On a scale from 1-10, with childbirth being a 10…”) there is simply no way to convey what Telis workers go through. Many of our calls are straightforward, pleasant transactions with nice people who are happy to have a live person on the line and are easy to help. There are the people who want answers to crossword puzzles, need you to settle a bet between them and their spouse, want an audio edition of an older popular title...

And then there are the other calls.

Everyone gets the other calls. People who are upset that we don’t do court appointed community service, provide fax machines, proctor tests or give foot rubs.

I made the following other call up.

(In other words, don't write me letters.)

It’s completely fabricated, melding several common Telis situations, yet it so matches the calls we routinely get so much, a co-worker didn’t know the difference. When I showed it to him he said, “I got that person on Saturday. They must have called back.”

No, they didn't.

If only it were one person...

Here it goes:

Me: “Good (morning/afternoon/evening), Sacramento Public Library, may I help you?”
Them: “Yeah, what are your hours today?”
Me: “Which particular library branch do you need the hours for?”
Them: “Your branch.”
Me: “This is telephone reference. We answer all calls for all branches in the Sacramento Public Library System. I need a name of the branch you’re looking for.”
Them: “I need the hours for the Sacramento Public Library.”
Me: “That’s the name of our system, not a library branch. I need the name of an individual library.”
Them: “I need the one on the corner.”
Me: “Which corner would that be?”
Them: “Your corner.”
Me: “What’s the name of the street?”
Them: “I don’t know. I think there’s a McDonald’s and then you turn the corner and go down a few blocks and it’s right there.”
Me: “Sir, there are about 60 McDonald’s in Sacramento County. I need a more exact location. What part of town are you talking about?”
Them: “You know the one I’m talking about.”
Me: “Actually I don’t. Can you remember the street name at all? Is it by a mall or in a high school?”
Them: “Never mind…Know what, I’ll just go to something downtown.”
Me: “There are three downtown branches, Central, McKinley, and McClatchy. However, all of them are closed on Mondays.”
Them: “Closed on Mondays? That’s ridiculous. I went to the big one a few months ago and it was open on a Monday. When did it start closing on Mondays?”
Me: “Central Library hasn’t been open on Mondays for about 5 or 6 years.”
Them: “Oh. Well, I need this book like now.”
Me: “If you give me the title of the book I can look it up, see where it’s located, and have it sent over to the library of your choosing.”
Them: “That will work. I have the ISBN.”
Me: “Hmm…I’m not seeing this. Is this a textbook?”
Them: “Yes. I need it for class.”
Me: “While we have the occasional textbook in our system, we do not purchase them.”
Them: “Why not? I need it.”
Me: "We do not carry it. What’s the name of the book?”
Them: “Calculus and Analytical Geometry, 9th edition.”
Me: “We don’t have the 9th edition. The only one I see is the 6th.”
Them: “Well how do you expect me to get the 9th edition?”
Me: “Usually your campus textbook store will carry the item if it was assigned by your professor.”
Them: “You want me to buy the book? Do you know how much that would cost me? It’s $160!”
Me: “Amazon has a used copy available for $8.29.”
Them: “I’m not buying it. Where’s the old edition at?”
Me: “Okay, the computer shows the book you want is at the Norman R. Siefkin Library in Folsom.”
Them: “Never heard of it. What town is that in?”
Me: “Folsom.”
Them: “So it’s not the one on Folsom?”
Me: “No, the one on Folsom Blvd is Rancho Cordova, which is closed for renovations. Norman R. Siefkin is in Folsom. But I can have it sent over to one of the open Sacramento Public Library branches if you give me your library card number.”
Them: “Can I have it sent to the one on Folsom?”
Me: “No, Rancho Cordova Library is closed for renovations.”
Them: “But I was just there are few days ago and it was open.”
Me: “It’s been closed for several months; however, I can have it sent to a nearby branch such as Arden or Arcade.”
Them: “Have it sent to Arcade.”
Me: “Yes, if I can please have your library card number I can have it sent over.”
Them: “I don’t have my library card on me. Can you look it up by name?”
Me: “Sure. What’s your name?”
Them: “J. Williams. J is my first initial.”
Me: “I’m going to need more information.”
Them: “The last guy looked it up by my name.”
Me: “Sir, there are over 509 entries for J. Williams in this system. May I please have your phone number starting with area code?”
Them: “I don’t like to give out my phone number.”
Me: “Sir, your phone number was entered into the system when you applied for a card.”
Them: “How about I give you my social?”
Me: “Uh, we don’t use social security numbers. What’s your phone number starting with area code?”
Them: “000-867-5309.”
Me: “I don’t see that number in the system.”
Them: “Try 000-634-5789.”
Me: “The record is pulling up…Mr. Williams, it says here you owe us $465.”
Them: “For what?”
Me: “Apparently you have 15 items you never returned, plus a collection agency fee of $10 added onto that amount, plus late fees for 12 other items---”
Them: “You have to understand, my stepfather’s half-sister’s cousin was in the hospital and my hamster died, so I wasn’t able to get to the library.”
Me: “According to our records the items were due 9 months ago.”
Them: “I’ve been busy. But if you’ll let me check out this one book I promise to bring the others back.”
Me: “Your account fines have to be under $5 for you to check anything out.”
Them: “Maybe we can work out a deal.”
Me: “A deal?”
Them: “You know, I only pay part of that amount.”
Me: “But you still have our materials.”
Them: “Yeah, they’re around here somewhere.”
Me: “You may speak with an individual branch about making a deal on the late fines, but we need our materials back before we start any type of negotiations.”
Them: “I’ll return the things if you waive the fines.”
Me: “That’s not how things work. We also need to see what condition the items are in.”
Them: “Look, I was using them for school.”
Me: “You were using Scarface, 300, The Complete 5th Season of the-X Files, The Godfather DVD Collection, Alien vs. Predator, Cosmo Kama Sutra, Purple Panties, Sublime, Icky Thump, Zodiac, The DaVinci Code, Enter the Matrix Official Strategy Guide, Twilight, The Essential Bob Dylan and The Joy of Sex for school?”
Them: “Yes.”
Me: “Really?”
Them: “Yes.”
Me: “I don’t know what school you attend, but the semester we’re discussing should have ended in four months, meaning you could have returned them five months ago. We would like our things back.”
Them: “I don’t have time to bring them back. And it’s your fault for not reminding me when the books were due.”
Me: “My fault?”
Them: “Yeah, you should have sent me an e-mail.”
Me: “Sir, when you signed up for a card you acknowledged you understood the checkout period was 21 days. When you checked something out you received a receipt listing the item due dates. Receiving an e-mail is a courtesy, and when you didn’t return the materials on time, you received several notices before we billed you for the items.”
Them: “Oh. Then I want to use my wife’s card. Can you look up her card number?”
Me: “According to this there are no cards linked with your account.”
Them: “What does that mean?”
Me: “It means we cannot give you information on anyone else’s account, nor may you use their card.”
Them: “But she’s my wife!”
Me: “Is she home? If I can speak with her and her account is in good standing she may check this item out.”
Them: “She’s not here. How about I use my kids’ cards?”
Me: “Sir your account is not connected with their accounts either.”
Them: “But they’re my kids! You’re telling me I can’t check out things on the account I signed for?”
Me: “You signed them up for their own accounts for their use. If you return our materials in good shape and speak with staff there they can work out a payment plan and get you this book as soon as possible.”
Them: “I don’t want a payment plan.”
Me: “I have to take the next call. If you have any other questions---”
Them: “You’re hanging up on me?”
Me: “Your time is up and there are people waiting in the queue for us to answer their calls.” Them: “I want to speak to a branch. What’s Arcade’s phone number?”
Me: “Those numbers are not available to the public. We take all calls for all branches, including Arcade.”
Them: “You won’t give me their number?”
Me: “No, sir. We transfer calls on a need basis if we cannot answer the questions here.”
Them: “I have a question.”
Me: “What is your question, sir?”
Them: “My question is for them.”
Me: “We have to take your question before transferring calls to them to make sure it is not something we can answer.”
Them: “Do you know who pays your salary?”
Me: “I’m hanging up now.”

To be continued...

BTW, I saw this video and had to add it. I enforce a strict dress code policy in Kids' Place and have kicked teens out who repeatedly wear sagging clothes. Now I think I'm just going to yell, "Pants on the ground! Pants on the ground!" while security drags them away.

Unplugged

2009-08-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, I was going to finish up 27 Things, but something called vacation happened, meaning I didn't get around to it. I thought about it. Really, I did! I did! I had visions of nanos dancing in my head. However, I had to go visit my family, which was surprisingly relaxing. Maybe it was because I was staying with one of my brothers. It's so much easier to stay with my male relatives than with my female relatives. It likely has something to do with me feeling free to change what I wanted while I was there. My sisters might have gotten offended had I come to their homes and changed their decor (though I am invited to come clean whenever I'm in the mood), but my brother barely blinked when I explained that his bath mat didn't match his shower curtain, and therefore I had bought him a new coordinating one and proceeded to fill his house with other accessories I deemed necessary for my stay, such as matching kitchen towels, the Animatrix and the Matrix Trilogy. (The whole set was on sale for only $10! Who can beat that?)

So I didn't finish up on time. My brother, newly moved into his apartment, had no Internet connection (which I only advise you try out if you like the people you are staying with). I barely even got close to any electronic device unless you count the times I tried to pry the cell phone out of one of my nephew's hands. But I figured since I can't complete my assignments until next week, I might as well use this blog to discuss an important topic that has been bugging me for a while:

Horrible books.

I am not what one would call a book snob. I can't afford to be because I'm a Sci-Fi fan. And Sci-Fi fans can get really, really weird. But there are some books and movies that I hate, hate, hate! (Tyler Perry better hope he never runs into me in a dark alley because it is on!) However, there is one book I completely loathe, and lately it's been bugging me that people ask for it, so I have chosen to use this forum to get my feelings off my chest.

The Giving Tree is the worst book in the world.

For those of you who have never read the Giving Tree, don't check it out. It will just give it more circulation. I'm not even going to link you to it.

I hate it that much.

I'll save you the time and give you the summary: it's about a (female) tree with low self-esteem who so wants affection she is willing to let a male literally cut her down if that's what makes him happy. I'm surprised the tree doesn't just flat out ask, "Why won't you love me?" The male is dissatisfied with life, and instead of realizing he needs therapy (or a personality transplant), the tree keeps offering things to keep him appeased. Which was fine when she was just offering him apples. But he wasn't satisfied with only the apples. He needed more. At this point a smart tree would have told the male, "Maybe you should go play inside for a while." But, like a lot of naive women out there, she's offering him her branches ...

And the keys to her car even though she knows his license is suspended and he has no insurance.

Still, he remains unhappy. This was the perfect time for the tree to tell him, "You know, this just isn't working out," or "Perhaps you should see other shrubbery." Even a not-so-smart tree would have said, "We need to talk," which will scare off 9 out of 10 men (or 999 out of every 1000 if you combine this with shutting off the TV). Instead the tree offers the male even more of herself. She gives, and gives, and gives. He takes, and takes, and takes. Why? Because this is what we do when someone offers you something with no strings attached. Don't believe me? Observe the sample table action at CostCo. At the end, the tree is nothing but a stump, abandoned long ago by the male she gave everything to, and then the grumpy troll of a man comes back, and for some stupid reason, she's happy. I don't know why she's happy...wait, I do know why!!!!!

It's because she's pathetic.

When I see the guy who almost blew up my house and me along with it, do I jump for joy? Heck no! I look at him and think, "He tried to kill me! I hate him! I hate him! And I still don't have a microwave over my stove!" Do I invite him over and say, "Look at the big empty spot you left in my kitchen! Isn't it great how I can hear outside without opening the patio door? Oh, and PG&E was nice enough to patch that leak in my gas line." Nope. We're on waiving terms, meaning we waive when there are witnesses around while I secretly plot his death.

Okay, now it's no longer a secret.

But this tree...it's like she's suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. "There he is! The guy who completely destroyed me! How wonderful!" She welcomes him with open arms...

Oh, that's right.

She can't.

Because he cut them off.

I know, there are some of you out there who think this is a wonderful book, or that I'm reading too much into it. And most likely if you think it's a wonderful book you probably have a Y chromosome. Several men have told me they just love this book. Which is great to know up front, because this is my cue to leave while I'm ahead. It's on my list of questions to ask early on along with, "Do you think Hawaii is part of the United States?" and, "What's your FICO score?"

Now that I have gotten this off my chest, it's your turn. What is the worst book you have ever read? What makes it so freakin' horrible? Here's some 80s music to listen to while figure out which book gives you nightmares or makes you so mad you wish they could reimburse you for the time it took to read it.

Michael Jackson and the Future of Libraries

2009-06-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

I was in Telis, listening to a patron claim SPL should not have sent his account to collections because we had neglected to send him a certified singing telegram to remind him his book was due in December, when I read the news.

Michael Jackson was dead.

At least that’s what TMZ said. When it comes to gossip, TMZ is your top source. After all, unlike media outlets with scruples, TMZ is willing to lower a cameraman from the roof Mission Impossible style if it means getting the scoop twenty minutes earlier than everyone else. So it was official. The King of Pop was dead.

And then things got a bit nuts.

Hundred of (likely unemployed, nonvoting) people swarmed the hospital. All the radio stations started playing his songs. Some songs I had never even heard before. I think they just pushed a CD in and let albums play straight through. Twitter crashed. TMZ crashed. Perez Hilton crashed. The LA Times site crashed. CNN almost crashed. Nancy Grace remembered that more than one person had died in the past year. MTV was so shocked they interrupted their regularly scheduled marathon of reality TV to show actual music videos. Michael Jackson was the top story in England, Australia and New Zealand. The whole freakin’ web slowed. MSNBC reported that even Iranians had taken time out to discuss his death. Most everyone was talking about Michael Jackson.

This didn’t make some people happy.

Columinist Tim Rutten stated, “Newspaper editors and TV producers undercut the value of serious news media when they let website hits and social media volume dictate their coverage.” Yeah, don’t pay attention to tags and clouds. Other people talked about how we need real news.

WTH?

Okay, who is this we these real news people are talking about? Maybe they, the minority, wanted real news. Though I do not understand how the death of a cultural icon we have watched for 40 years, who broke through color barriers, who had the best-selling record of all time, who singlehandedly kept half the lawyers, plastic surgeons and paparazzi in LA employed is not considered real news. To me that’s pretty freakin’ real. The way they went on about it, one would have thought seeing news other than Michael Jackson was more difficult than unclicking the entertainment tab. While the real news people were pouting, the majority of us were watching pre-freakish behavior Michael Jackson and pre-tax-dodging Wesley Snipes successfully end gang violence through singing in falsetto voices and pirouetting around a garage structure. (Because nothing says you’re really, really bad like a pas de bourrée-plie-jete combination.) Or we were trying to figure out the dance sequence from Remember the Time. Or we were watching Filipino prisoners reenact Thriller. I was copying the choreography from Beat It so I could avoid another grueling workout with The Firm, when it suddenly dawned on me…

Librarians are the real news people.

Okay, we’re not them…

They dress better than us.

Well, better dress than most you. I’m snazzy 95% of the time.

Dressing aside, too often librarians’ attitudes are that in order for libraries to remain relevant we should only have real items. We get upset with people for not wanting what we want them to want, for not reading the books we say they should read, not watching the movies we say they should watch, not listening to the music we say is appropriate. No one ever goes into depth about what exactly real items are, though we know what they are not---not Manga, or comic books, romances, horror, westerns, science fiction, mysteries, fantasies, pop culture items, or anything involving vampires, werewolves or shapeshifters. In other words, 99.44% of what people want to read is trash, and the only fiction we should carry should involve serious heartache, torment, suffering and longing, and should have passages such as, “Then he touched my inner arm, the barest skimming of a single digit, lightly tracing my blue vein down to the erratic pulsing at my wrist. I flushed, blood racing to pale cheeks, infusing them with color. It was the only touch we would ever share, yet to this day I still shiver in the remembrance of the heat which flashed in the inky darkness of his eyes. In all my years with my husband Henry I never felt anything like it, Henry lacking the full capacity to feel this deeply, and yet I was content with the knowledge that I was loved.”

Should you not want to throw yourself off a bridge after reading a book, it does not belong in our catalog.

We shouldn’t purchase DVDs or CDs---we should only purchase non-fiction books, for movies and non-classical music are an abomination. Yeah, because despite the fact that knowledge doubles every 18 months, we all know that non-fiction books last forever. At least that’s what it looks like when you look on our shelves, where you can find:

---Useless real estate info. (“No money down!” Really? In 2009?)
---New York books from 1999 (Because nothing big happened in 2001.)
---Résumé guides from 1986
---Internet books written in 1994
---Business books from 1987
---Books stating Pluto is a regular planet
---Cookbooks so old the recipes make you nauseous just reading them.

When we talk about it being okay to keep old books, we should have clarified we meant keeping the dribble college students are forced to read like War and Peace and Macbeth, not the space book describing how one day man may go to the moon. Why do we still have Y2K items on our shelves? Why do we have 2005 California Driver Handbooks on our shelves? I can pick up a free 2009 edition at the DMV, but we’ve kept the 2005 editions? What, is there a time machine in the backroom I don’t know about? I was embarrassed to go through Kids’ Place and discover brand spanking new Eyewitness books sitting next to editions from 1989. Forget the weeding list of shelf sitters that allow us to override them and keep items as we see fit, lists that overlooks out of date yet checked out items we rarely see on our shelves to know to toss them. We need a these-are-so-obsolete-you-don’t-have-a-choice-we-will-tie-you-to-a-chair-and-remove-them-by-force-if-necessary list. On June 25th there were 500 corrections to Michael Jackson’s Wikipedia page alone because everyone else in the world realizes updated information is a good thing, yet librarians can decide to keep outdated shelf sitters because someone in 3012 might want need it???

Don’t give me this it’s-a-real-book garbage when it comes to keeping items no one checks out. Yeah they’re real all right…real old. Stop freaking out because there might be empty spaces on the shelves. We need empty spaces. What do we do whenever we need more money for the library? We send out a bunch of polyester-blend wearing librarians to talk to news crews, hair hanging lanky around our unmade faces, and we talk in front of a gazillion books about how we need more money for…books. Then we wonder why no one gives us money. If we really want money we need a well dressed person to stand in front of empty shelving and tell reporters, “You know all those books you thought we had? They were beauty guides written in the 1970s.”

And while we librarians talk about how we should put real stuff on the shelves, meaning something insightful and intellectual, are we actually bothering to check out all this real stuff? Because I sure as heck don’t, and to be honest, I don’t know who does. The people I know are singing Crazy For You on break and discussing how SPL copies of Zack and Miri Make a Porno are missing the Make A Porno line on their covers. We’re checking out Dean Koontz, Linda Howard, Mary Higgins Clark, and our sole reason for reading East of Eden was because we were hoping Oprah would invite us on her show. The only trash we're not checking out are dating books and items so trashy we won't put them on hold because the circulation staff would find out. We fuss at the public for wanting us to buy more copies of Scary Movie, but when we want to check out Paul Blart or Get Smart or Transformers we claim, “That’s different!”

So do I think the future of libraries is in making wikis when the public already has them? Do I think it’s in gaming or telling them to read all the boring books I pretended to read in college? Nope. The future is in realizing it’s okay to want popular items because popular is typically a synonym for up to date. The future is realizing everything we buy is trash and should be trash simply because the world is changing so quickly nothing published is going to last, meaning in the long run, it doesn't matter if we purchase some DVDs. It’s in understanding that entertainment can coexist with intellectual pursuits.

The future is in librarians getting over ourselves.

Deceptive Images

2009-05-17T12:23:00.000-07:00

I'm buying a house.

Or at least I'm trying to. But the market is just not making it easy. Do you want to know what the average (i.e., normal, slightly broke, yet hopeful) buyer goes through on a daily basis? This is what happens: Your agent sends you prospects. You find the perfect house. Then your agent calls and tells you there is someone in line ahead of you. You say, okay, that's fine, let's bid. That's when your agent breaks the news that the people you're up against have suitcases full of cash they'd stashed offshore for tax avoidance purposes and there is no way you're getting the house. So they advice you to start looking at your 2nd and 3rd (and 89th) choices.

Thus I've been spending my off days looking at ugly homes.

I'm officially a bottom feeder.

These real estate agents, they're more imaginative than a romance novelist. (Rich, handsome, ripped men with no annoying relatives marrying plump, plain women with no jobs, personalities or self esteem? Really?) Agents are just plain fanciful (desperate). Example: Listing # 90030952. The agent states, "Great opportunity for a kitchen designed and put in by you! The last owner liked the kitchen so much it went with them!" Wow! Who doesn't want to cook off of a hot plate for 6 months? But those are just words.

You know what they say about pictures.

One house showed pretty well online. Here are the pictures the agent posted:

Here are the pictures I took:

When I walked into the house I looked around, looked at my agent and asked, "Are you @#$%ing kidding me?"

This house, which is priced at $187,000, looks like they'd used it as a set for the Saw movies and The Last House on the Left.

My first inclination was to flee and take a shower. Not just any shower, but one of those Karen Silkwood I've-been-exposed-to-radiation kind of scrub downs in which yellow suit clad workers come in with brushes and lye soap. My agent assured me she'd seen worse, much worse, yet this did not make me actually feel any better.

It was freakin' horrible! You should see the pictures I didn't take. (There was no way I was going into that garage.) I started flipping out, my mind screaming, "I'm never going to get a house! I might as well spend my savings on cosmetic surgery and then marry a rich guy who already owns a mansion but is looking for a plastic trophy of a wife to complete his collection!"

After I disinfected and calmed down a bit, I decided to have a little fun with my pictures and fd's Flickr Toys.

And I bet you thought magazine cover generators were only for happy images.

Getting Back Into the Groove

2009-05-13T16:44:00.000-07:00

27 Things is kinda like a diet.

You start out all gung ho, talking about how you’re only going to eat things that taste like tree bark (it’s good for you!) and drink 10 glasses of water minimum, this despite the fact that your bladder is the size of a thimble and you’re not supposed to have liquids after 7 pm. (At least not if you want to sleep.) The old exercise clothes get blamed for your lack of fitness---who wants to be seen at the gym in a number 23 Bulls jersey and sweatpants that have holes up and down the inseam? You're too old to pretend they're for ventilation, meaning new clothes are in order for the new you! You send the food pantry your stash of Top Ramen, Snickers bars, fudge brownies, and frozen lasagna and buy a bunch of heads of lettuce and low fat dressing to kick it all off because you’re getting into shape.

Fast forward to a month later.

You’re sitting on the couch eating cookie dough while watching Dancing with the Stars. Sure, you spent a ton of money on yoga pants, but no worries. They’re soooo comfy and stretchy, and since they’re long and black, you figure you can get away with wearing them to work with a tunic without anyone noticing. You’d like to salsa dance like you see them doing on TV, but since that would require actual movement of something other than you’re right thumb, you’re fine with just staring at the LCD screen. Though you didn’t actually accomplish your goals, you got off to the great start (at the mall) and that’s what counts, right?

I’ve been busy. Really busy. I knew I should get back to 27 things between hosting a job fair, putting on movie nights, doing Toddler Time, timesheets, and constantly disinfecting between touching icky children’s materials (and riding public transit, LOL), but honestly, I didn’t feel like it. And I didn’t feel bad about not feeling like it, because neither did you.

Feel like it, that is.

Don’t lie. (Not that you would---it requires too much thought.) I saw the links on the 27 Things blog. Some of you haven’t posted in 4 weeks. Instead of it making me feel bad, it made me feel better to know, not only was I not the laziest person here, I was better than some of you by default. (Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling right where my heart should be.) Though it’s a bit off (by like 6 days), it stated I last posted 1 week ago. I kinda did the assignments for the last two weeks, but since I haven’t digested them enough to come up with something really snarky to say, I’m going to wait until Sunday or Monday (or July) to tell you all about it. I just didn’t want to go 2 whole weeks without posting something.

Don’t want to look bad, right?

No News Is Good News

2009-04-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

I'm tired.

Madeline Kahn tired.

Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's seeing the Facebook updates of others and realizing some of your friends have better lives than you and they can prove it with pictures. (Though some of those photos could be Photoshopped...) Whatever it is, I really didn't feel like going to work this morning. But then I realized if I stayed home I'd have to deal with my family, making going to work the obvious choice. (Is it just me, or do sweaty children smell just like wet dog?)

Since I had to be at work anyhow, I figured I might as well...work. And since I'm working and enrolled in this continuous learning environment, I figured I should have a close look at all of our assignments less the blog police rule me ineligible for the fabulous prizes that, should I win, I can sell online for a tidy profit. My mind was a bit fuzzy about which week I was on. Then I remembered barely stopping myself from writing a letter to Geek Sugar to let them know a NYC laptop carrying case is an accessory, not a gadget, and laughing at Gizmodo's reviews (World's Crappiest Projector (as reviewed by Gizmodo) On Sale Now at Woot), so that meant it was week four. Time for RSS feeds.

Here is what I learned from RSS feeds:

We're all going to die.

In foreclosed homes.

While wearing a paper mask like Michael Jackson wannabes.

Unlike traditional news sites, RSS feeds allow us to learn about the pending collapse of our country without those pesky Netflix ads distracting us from our feelings of hopelessness.

Personally, I prefer the distractions.

Flickr Fun

2009-04-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking of marriage lately.

Maybe it has something to do with the Miss USA pageant and Miss California’s answer to Perez Hilton’s question on Prop 8. When I saw her answer on the news I know the same thing went through your head that went through mine:

“They still have beauty pageants?”

Seriously, I thought these things were canceled once women discovered they could become celebrities simply by eating live insects or group dating on TV. And don’t believe the paying-for-college hype. Having been in a pageant, they’re expensive once you throw in a gown and “minor” cosmetic enhancements, which is why you see women selling their eggs on Craig’s List for tuition.

But apparently, pageants still exist.

Thus upon looking at the news and wondering if they’d forgotten the true definition of news (Suri Cruise turned 3? Really?) I got to see the saga unfold. It goes like this: a tall, skinny, blonde with veneers and a slight fake tan who was asked about the stimulus package (Miss North Carolina) won the title over a tall, skinny blonde with veneers and a deeper fake tan asked about same-sex marriage (Miss California). When they showed the close up picture of the top five contestants I was reminded that, while cloning may be illegal, it apparently exists…

As does extreme dieting.

People wonder how a contestant could be asked about politics. To which I say, did you think the judges were going to ask, “Which do you like better, puppies or kittens?” There's a name for a pageant without political questions: Miss Hawaiian Tropic. In the pageant I entered we were asked about Clinton cabinet members, Bosnia, affirmative action, abortion, domestic violence, the Rwandan genocide, gay rights, you name it, they asked. My final question was to give my opinion on whether or not the Republican Party should spend $4 million to investigate the Democratic Party. (Since I knew I wasn’t going to win due to thigh issues, I gave my actual opinion, which is pretty funny looking back.) Right now Miss California states she would have won if she answered the question differently. To which I say, maybe. Because I wonder about people who have such faith in their accomplishments and greatness that they cannot fathom that anyone else could be better than them. Hey, even Tiger Woods lost the Masters. Does it even matter? If the top two contestants were placed in a police line up no one would be able to differentiate between them. Besides, what does Miss USA actually do? Cut ribbons at supermarkets? Smile for the camera and wave? So maybe, just maybe Miss California would have won had she answered differently, if by differently she means:

1. Not stumbling. (How many times did she say "in my" in 30 seconds?)

2. Moving her forehead instead of giving us a vacant, Botoxed stare.

3. Using existing terms instead of making one up on the spot. (Opposite marriage???)
4. Answering the question she was asked.

Lost in the hype is the fact that she didn’t actually answer the given question. But her non-answer got me thinking about “opposite marriage.” Such as, what is opposite marriage? Is it when spouses decide it’s best if they live on opposite sides of the country? Is it like the couples I know who don’t believe in divorce and thus they’ve divided the house War of the Roses style while trying to convince their kids it’s perfectly normal? Then I thought, "Maybe I should get married soon. I don't have anyone in mind as of yet, but I've had my eye on a few kitchen appliances. Perhaps I could pull a Carrie Bradshaw get-married-to-yourself thing and make a huge gift list. Didn't I put that on my to do list last year when I wanted to buy that BowFlex Treadclimber?" And, with all these thoughts of marriage, I was soon thinking about something that all of us, both opposite and same, can loathe together:

Ugly bridesmaid dresses.

Unfortunately, I am not able to state I’ve remain unscathed by horrible bridesmaid dresses, but the day I give birth to quadruplets is the day I will post unflattering pictures of myself online. However, there are plenty of people online willing to showcase how they love their friends so much they're willing to dress up like killer klowns from outer space.

Going into the Creative Commons portion of Flickr, I discovered this picture taken by Haundreis. His comment to the bridesmaids: "Someday, it will be your turn." My question: your turn to what? Corner the bride in a dark alley? In my world, friends don't dress friends in fuchsia leather bustiers, lime green shawls, and bizarre colored corsages. (Are those seed pearls I see hanging out of the flowers???)

This is just one of many hideous dresses one can find on Flickr, though there aren't nearly as many found in the Creative Commons portion. To find more, go to Flickr and type in "ugly bridesmaid dresses." Have fun (but don't get any ideas, got it?)

7 1/2 Suggestions

2009-04-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

Since I completely skipped over the first few assignments, I had to backtrack a bit and do some 7 1/2 OMG-not-another-power-point-presentation-say-it-ain't-so thing. I have speakers at my desk (the better to hear Robin Thicke with, my pretty) thus I also skipped having to use the yellow earphones we lend out to small children which are likely infected with something even Lysol won't kill. Here's what happened:

1st Slide: What is learning?
If you can read that slide most likely sometime, somewhere in your life, you've learned something.

Next: How do we learn?
They give us a bunch of choices, like TV, movies, books and from socializing. Well here are some of the things I've picked up from all that:

---Don't stay in room 1408.
---Don't have more than 4 kids. Ever.
---Don't have more than 2 kids unless you have a nanny.
---Don't have any kids if you like vacations and enjoy getting a full night's rest.
---Unattractive slacker men can easily land attractive women with futures.
---Rich people aren't happy because money doesn't buy happiness.
---Unless you were a hooker who is picked off the streets by Richard Gere who cleans you up, takes you to the opera, and forgets about all the non-trashy women he could marry.
---Poor people are happy.
---But only if your definition of poor includes home owners with live in help.
---Nice white ladies can do anything.
---People with bad hair and ugly clothes are outbreeding the rest of the population.
---Liquor before beer, all in the clear.
---"Oh, she won't get pregnant that way."

(Yes, because you can always trust what your social circle tells you, LOL)

Then there's some other slides, followed by things/items/suggestions/orders.

Official Rule #1: "Begin with the end in mind."
You mean like lose 30 pounds in 30 days?

#2: "Accept responsibility for your own learning."
Especially since we're too old to get our parents to co-sign for student loans.

#3: "View problems as challenges."
"This I no buy." Sometimes problems aren't challenges. Sometimes problems are just problems, and that's what makes them suck so much. Got it?

#4: "Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective, learner, yada, yada, yada."
Cue the music. (To dream the impossible dream!)

#5: "Create your own learning toolbox."
Junk drawer. Check.

#6: "Use technology to your advantage."
Yesterday I used my ATM card to pay off my Visa. I think that counts.

#7: "Teach/mentor others."
I already do that. I've discovered trying to mentor a teen is the perfect way to get him to put down the Xbox controller, get off my couch and actually go home.

#7 1/2: "Play"
Yeah, like that's not going to end up in our evaluations.

Okay, let's be honest, just for a moment. (If you're not used to being honest, pretend you're hooked up to a polygraph machine.) Reading this made me feel like I was on one of the touchier Oprah episodes, only without the keys to a brand new car under my seat to make me feel better. Especially when it talked about making a contract with (as opposed to on) yourself. (Am I on the Clean Up Your Messy House Tour or something?)

Because I've done this before.

Haven't we all done this before?

We've all written contracts to ourselves on how we'll lose weight, save money, and stop making fun of our family members while they're in the room. And most of the time it doesn't work. Why? Because we like cookies, shiny new objects, and some of our family members are dopes we wouldn't be caught dead with if it weren't for some minor genetic quirk that makes us related; picking at them is a form of combating insanity.

So what IMO should we be doing with our time?

Eat That Frog!

A few weeks ago I picked up this book by Brian Tracy. Here's the Readers Digest version: figure out what's most important for you to do in life and focus only on those things in order of importance until they are done. I can write contracts until the earth is swallowed by the sun. My bathroom looked like a bulletin board, it had so many contracts/morning mantras/lies-I-tell-myself posted. But nothing matters if I don't JUST DO IT! Thus, while I appreciate someone saying I should write a contract with myself, I'm probably skipping it.

Think of it this way---I'm not avoiding doing an assignment.

I'm saving a tree.

This has nothing to do with the blog, but I just love this video.

Pimp My Blog

2009-04-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

I spent 4 hours in Telis yesterday.

It could have been worst---last Monday it was 5. Way back then I had flannel boards to create, meaning Old MacDonald's farm animals decorated the cubicles and felt scraps covered the floor. I was too lazy to make Old MacDonald himself. I figure if any of the toddlers ask, I'll pretend he's one of those big agra-business conglomerate farm owners who never sets foot on his land. So I didn't have anything to do (since I actually did everything---which is a blog entry onto itself) when we started getting the calls.

The dreaded tax calls.

All day long, all day long, what do we get? People calling, pretending to care about filing their taxes. Yes, they're pretending. Had they cared that much, wouldn't they have called, say, a week ago? My family fussed me out for waiting until March to complete my return, and here some person is telling me some sob story about how an ingrown toenail prevented them from limping into Rancho Cordova Library last Thursday to get free help. So after the third caller told me how they just woke up out of a coma and evil zombie Kaiser employees refused to print them out an extension form I thought, "Will it be too obvious if I call in sick every Monday until I win the lottery?" Probably. Plus Geoff would kill me. Besides, I only call (e-mail) in sick if I can't talk---why be home sick for free when I can get paid for it? Then I thought, "Isn't there something else I could be doing?"

I didn't have a nail file (though I doubt Nina would appreciate workers giving themselves manicures, even on Mondays). Eddie, my hair dresser, doesn't work Mondays so I couldn't call and beg him for the love of God to squeeze me in sometime in the next two weeks. My real estate agent is likely sick of me ("What's with you and these short sales?"), I'm sick of huge sections of my family (another story), and even if this all weren't true, I wasn't about to start texting at work. (That's what lunch is for.) But then I remembered.

I had a blog.

My very own personal work blog.

And this time, I actually remembered the password to it and my e-mail account address, meaning I wouldn't have to abandon it.

So I went on the blog and realized it was freakin' ugly. Something had to be done about it, but I didn't know how. Then I wandered over to Library Learning because I saw someone had figure out blog beautifying. Lori mentioned something about creating a jpg in Paint, which made me happy...

Until I realized I couldn't find the paint program.

Ever since they did the upgrades I can't seem to find anything. So as I mentally screamed, "WTH is with this stupid paint program! Computers are plotting against me!" I realized I could do a few things in Word. Only I forgot about the upgrade. Thus the things I used to do in about 30 seconds weren't so easy. Which got me back to mentally screaming, "I hate you! I hate you stupid computer! I wish you would die! Die! Die!"

But as you can see, I finally figured it out.

Now if I can figure out these instructions on how to put music on your blog...

If you hear screaming, don't bother calling the police.

I just have to remember, each day gets better, and tomorrow, this will be a cinch!

I have to what?

2009-04-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

SPL is doing something called 27 Things.

I don't know much about it. I started to read the postings, but then I got distracted when I discovered there was a sale at Macy's. Sorry, but things fall by the wayside when clothes are marked down 75% AND they give you a $10 coupon AND they allow you to combine it with a 20% off savings pass.

So when I finally got around to reading what it was all it was about I had a WTH moment.

Someone somewhere thought it would be a good idea for SPL staff members to create blogs to show our progress. When I read this, I broke out of my why-aren't-I-on-my-own-private-beach-getting-a-massage-by-my-live-in-staff fog to say, "Huh?"

Creating a blog isn't a problem.

Reading a blog is a problem.

My first question: "Does this blog have to be on 27 things?" Because I prefer to make stuff up. Making stuff up gives a person a lot of freedom. But I was told it has to be on 27 Things.

Which brought on my next question:
"Really?"
Answer: Yes

Next question:
"Does it have to be on the 27 things provided to us?" Because I can think of 27 other things to blog about:

1. The book I'm writing
2. The state of the union
3. The state of my diet
4. Why houses should have more closet space
5. Why I will never layer my hair this short again
6. How short sales take a long time
7. Why I'm building a house one day (soon!) and getting a maid
8. The 4-day work week we should adopt
9. All the reasons Mondays suck
10. Removing the word cellulite from the dictionary
11. Why Kelvin should stop telling me, "You're a mess girl."
12. How Armando and Maria should really learn how to cook
13. Creating a Department of Fun
14. Home lipo suction kits
15. Why Neva should clone herself and take over story time for me
16. Why Gerald Butler should clone himself
17. Why that one guy on that commerical I saw should clone himself
18. How equipping Telis with massage chairs would improve morale
19. Why we should pipe in music like Borders
20. The impossibility of my family living without cable
21. Why teeth whitening should be covered by insurance
22. Getting a mascot for Kids' Place (I prefer a golden retriever)
23. Universal Health Care
24. Universal personal shoppers
25. Why spiders should not exist
26. Why kids should automatically come with (unattractive) nannies
27. Why I will one day move to France

Apparently these 27 things were not interesting enough because I was told it had to be on the 27 things they instructed me to write about.

Which brought me to my final question"
"Who the heck wants to read a bunch of blogs on 27 Things?"

This is going to be like watching Shrek. I love Shrek. Let me take that back---I loved Shrek. Then I was forced to watch it 30 times in a 6 day period (I won't mention how many times I had to watch the Karaoke in the Swamp scene). Suddenly Shrek wasn't the greatest film on earth.

So to anyone reading this, I created a blog. It took about 1 minute to add it to my other 2 blog accounts. I guess we'll see where it goes from here.