Sunny Side Down

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

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

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.

6

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.

6

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.

6

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.

6

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.

6

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

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

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

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

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.