Recently in Life in general Category
Right now I'm sitting at the reference desk, not even two hours through a four-hour night shift. So I figure I'll write an entry for this thing. It'll kill some time, perhaps.
Earlier, I went into the public bathroom on the 1st floor, not wanting to waste my energy going to the locked staff bathroom downstairs. (Incidentally, I can never bring myself to call it a "restroom." Isn't "bathroom" euphemism enough?)
Not that the staff bathroom is an executive washroom with golden fixtures, but the public ones tend to be a little more lived in, shall we say. I walked in, and the fluorescent lights were flickering. I had a major flashback.
It's a little weird to work in the same place I went to college, let alone the same place in which I had my campus job.
'Scuse me, had to take a break from writing this to demonstrate my wild incompetence to a student doing her senior project on something I have no idea about. I have a hard enough time doing research for myself; how am I to be expected to do it for anyone else? Jesus God.
Back to the blog. I had a major flashback of working nights as a student. Sitting at the reserve desk with my homework, bored to tears. Bolting out at 10 (or whenever) to join the fun, only to find that my friends are nowhere to be found and/or busy with work themselves. College is supposed to be fun, guys. You're not supposed to do work. Mm.
It's that cold empty feeling I get in this place at night that brings back the student memories. Maybe it's the windows. It's pitch black outside, so the windows have turned into mirrors. This contributes to the cold empty atmosphere, but at least when I'm walking down the stacks I can look to my left and check myself out. I say, "DAY-amn," I say.
Cold and empty describes so much of the college experience. Or my college experience. So how is it that I look back on it all with such nostalgia? Fucking selective memory.
In closing, from National Geographic:
Kinda wish I knew what happened next.
Marry me, Mighty Steel Leg.
1. Hey, I miss my friends. Dave and Anna, if you should by some chance read this: when will you stop being so selfish with your "working on weekends" and "going to grad school" shtick and come visit me finally? Jesus. But, you know, give me some warning first, because my place looks like a bomb hit it.
Same goes for others. You're all so damn selfish.
2. I made a startling discovery recently. I am so... tired... of smart people. I can't stand them. The only ones I can stand are the smart ones that I'm already friends with. Other than these, no. Go away. I hate brains. Stop thinking! Talk about something dumb. I'll admire you so much more.
3. To quote Nina: "You've gotten so boy crazy ever since you became a librarian." And it's true. I told my mother this. Her response: "Everyone knows librarians are nymphos."
4. I can't write anymore. I don't know how. I read back to myself the first page of something I've been writing, and it sounded like a printer manual. The city was almost uninhabitable in August. The heat shimmered and shifted and baked the huts and highway the color of drab. There's no rhythm in that whatsoever. Maybe my mistake was reading it out loud to myself. My voice and my monotone are not nice to listen to. I don't even like to listen to myself. And then I get flak for not talking. Have these people, these people who give me flak, heard my voice?
Anyway, from now on I'll imagine Jeremy Irons reading my stuff out loud. See? Doesn't that instantly make those lines a tad bit better? Just a tad?
If by some grace of God I should ever get my act together, write novels, and get famous for my novels, then I should hope no one asks me to record any books-on-tape. (There's egomania for you, eh?) God no. Ask Jeremy Irons to do it. S.K.F. is unavailable. We don't even know if s/he's a man or a woman! That's so Victorian! Like George Eliot! and Georges Sands! and George Clinton! I'll keep the mystery of my gender safe and employ Jeremy Irons as my official voice. Just as long as I don't have to talk to him. He's a little creepy.
I just altered the user admin settings on ReserveWeb so that it says "Welcome to ReserveWeb Administration, Almighty Ruler!" when I logon.
Last night I did finish Jonathan Strange. It was 10 o'clock, and I felt I needed something to shake off the fairy dust. So I picked up my library copy of Strunk & White (incidentally, that link is to the full text on Bartleby.com--didn't even know Strunk was online) and read the first 25 pages. I had only ever flipped through this, never really read it. I am in love with William Strunk, Jr.
Through most of the first 25 pages, I can smugly pat myself on the back and think, "Yeah. I know that. Totally with you, Bill." But occasionally there is that terrifying moment when I come upon a rule that I forget to follow or that I remember having broken before.
If I'm going to drum up a writing sample for my application to grad school (still haven't pulled out my old floppy disks to search for an undergrad paper), I will need to beat my old self into shape.
Oh, who is this idiot? At the bottom of the page is "Anderson's addenda." I assume this is just a professor giving his students allowances, but really. Indefinite singular pronouns? Fuck that noise. Annoys me almost as much as when people say "between you and I."
God, I don't know how many pages I've scanned today. Classes start tomorrow, which means that all the professors come to me with their electronic reserves. (Never mind that the "deadline" was January 3rd. Some of them come in with apology upon apology, and I have to keep from saying, "It's all right. I fully expected all of you to ignore the deadline. This is, to be sure, Bard." Instead I leave it at "It's all right." Whatever, it's fine. It's what I'm here for. Also, as the daughter of a professor, I can appreciate the power of the ever-changing syllabi.)
I am horrified with how much paper the Reserve Office uses. Never mind the photocopies coming in to be scanned for ReserveWeb. Those are returned to the professors, and who knows whether they recycle. But then there are all the print-outs I have to make, and then toss. ReserveWeb forms, old archived reserve lists, the CD list, the video list.... I feel I should go to environmental confession. I try, God knows I try, to conserve paper as much as possible. That's why I've started printing our reserve lists to PDF and storing them on the hard drive, rather than printing them on paper and binding them, etc., at the end of semester as we used to. But still. I will blind myself with reading things on the computer screen. Help me.
***
I am 70 pages shy of finishing Jonathan Strange, finally. That's 790 (or thereabouts) pages of pure joy, there. And I don't even like fantasy. But then, fantasy doesn't usually take place in the reign of George III. Now I have to figure out what to read next. I do have a pile of Graham Greene waiting in a paper bag in my living room. Perhaps I'll finally finish Power and the Glory? That's an idea.
It's been extremely, extremely cold in the Reserves Office. I have been forced to wear my coat on a number of occasions.
Today, at lunch, Toni (AKA The Wonderful) told me that she found out that her heater in the lower level does not turn on automatically. When we got back to the library, she showed me how to turn it on. I went back up to the 3rd floor, removed the grate on our vent, and found the hidden switch to turn that bad boy heat ON. And now, for the first time in a long time, there's some hot air coming out of our vents. I love everything.
But this also makes me just a little annoyed. Who was the frigging genius who made turning the heat on so counter-intuitive? You have to physically lift up a grate (one of three, in our case) and then reach in to turn some moldy old dial to your setting of choice.
Anyway, I feel like a lot of time has been wasted shivering. Screw that.
Is it Studs TERK-el or Studs Terk-EL? Because I have always said Studs Terk-EL, and was once ridiculed by my peers for doing so. But, considering my peers are all 20-something little wise-asses, and I have heard it said my own way by much older and wiser beings, I take this with a grain of salt. But really, which is it? I am open to being wrong. I just don't want to be afraid anymore.
Toni and I left for Philly on Saturday and came back on Monday. It was fantastic seeing Patrick and Jaren again, after 2.5 years of nada. Figured out that the last time I saw Patrick was directly after commencement, when we said hi and bye and he met Nina for a moment. P & J are funny, funny people. Went to the Academy of Natural Sciences and looked at the stuffed animals in the dioramas. Their dead, dead eyes. Wise cracks such as "It's not right that they keep these in captivity, you know" ensued. Jaren got into the live animal show before P, T, and I wandered inside ourselves, and she was witness to a small boy raise his hand, while the keeper was showing them a type of duck, and say, "This show is making me sleepy!"
T and I drove home yesterday, but first stopped off at Target so that she could get new curtains and I could get a measuring tape and batteries. Because, you know, this is the most important thing for me to buy right now. No, not food. I LIKE being hungry in the morning at work.
When I came to my parents' house last night after Target, Nina and Lucy were there. They told me that Looch could now say Aunt Sara. This apparently involves her stretching her mouth out and saying, in a Danny-from-The-Shining kind of way, "Ah-yah-yah-yah-yah" or "Ah-ba-ba-ba-ba." It was cuter than everything ever. And then the blood came flowing out of the elevator and dad went nuts, etc etc etc.
- Joined Netflix, on a trial basis. This is my very exciting news. I may cancel my account if I find that I can't keep up with the movie watching. I barely have time to hammer NAILS into the WALLS of my APARTMENT in order to hang PICTURES because I never get to BE in my apartment. If this continues, no paying $18 a month just to watch 3 movies. The thing that does excite me about this is what I've put in my queue! The first thing I went for: the entire first season of Xena: Warrior Princess. Don't yell, I'm just trying to re-live a dear part of my past. I can re-create the golden days of yore, when I was fourteen and watched a helluva lot of the WB on Saturday. First Hercules, then Xena. Try to shut out the negative comments of those who would wander into the TV room. "Why do you watch this crap?" I associate Xena with Chef Boyardee and nights when Nina and I would have the house to ourselves while our parents were out at a dinner party. Actually, this was one specific night. Best Night Ever, in fact. We watched Xena, Buffy, and I forget what else, but the important thing is that every show was the Best Ever. And oh my god, when Callisto goes back in time to save her family from Xena, and she ends up killing them herself! Holy crap! That wasn't season 1, though. Probably season 18-- [This item cut short. Too much geek.]
- Going to Philly tomorrow with Toni to visit Patrick and Jaren. Road trip. Yeah! I'm bringing Monster Ballads. Tonight I have to pick out CDs.
