Oh Vancouver, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

I've been thinking a lot lately for some reason about how much better Vancouver is than the rest of the world. Probably because I moved from there to the Worst Place on Earth, and since then have been reevaluating my decision making skills and sanity. So, as per usual, I've compiled a top ten list of reasons why Vancouver is better than everywhere else, because I'm too riddled with ADHD and caffeine to write in coherent paragraphs.

Top Ten Ways in Which Vancouver Rocks

1. The mere existence of Stanley Park. The thought of it fills me at first with peace, just knowing it's out there in the world, and then with rage, knowing it exists and that I cannot enjoy it, nor anything like it, here in Urban Monuments and Office Buildings and Sidewalks and All the Brick You Can Handle.

2. English Bay. Water is good. Water is refreshing. It is nice to look at blue, blue water. Water equals life. Asphalt, on the other hand, equals death. So does the Potomac River, for that matter, so don't even go there.

3. It has a soul. Meaning, you can go to Vancouver and know you are in Vancouver because it has a certain aura, a certain culture. Also, everyone has a Canadian accent. Unless they have an accent from, say, India or Greece or France or China.

4. Good food at reasonable prices. I could afford to eat well in Vancouver (maybe a little too well), and there were many lovely restaurants within an easy distance of my apartment. Here I can afford only a handful of restaurants and the food quality ranges from "meh" to "I'd rather eat a can of soup at home." Even the high-priced ones don't really live up to Vancouver standards. We don't eat out a whole lot anymore.

5. Fruits and vegetables and bread, oh my! Fresh markets. Bakeries. We don't have these things here. We have Safeway and Whole Foods ("Choices" for hippies with an inheritance), if you're lucky. Oh, but not in walking distance. The amount of money we spend on wilty, half-dead produce in a week would make your hair curl. And forget about fresh bread. Just wipe it from your mind. It doesn't exist.

6. A city built with the option in mind of (gasp!) actually walking for here to there. Americans, as we all know, are lazy, obese bastards. No one walks anywhere if they have the money to own a car, thus the sidewalks here are narrow, crumbling, and mostly non-existent. If you choose to walk, you run the risk of getting mowed down by a motorist every time you cross the street.

7. People there, in general, are friendly and easy going. People here, since they are always in a mad rush to get from one place to another (and I don't discount myself from this), are pushy pushy pushy. In the grocery store, people in line stand so close to one another that the person behind you could easily memorize your PIN as you swipe your debit card. There is no such thing as a "personal bubble" here, or more to the point, respectful distance.

8. It's in Canada. Land of gay marriage, universal health care, and abortions as far as the eye can see.

9. The government, presumably, will not tap your phone nor really give a crap whether or not you are a terrorist.

10. Beaches. Vancouver has awesome beaches, and it's not even on the ocean. If there is anything more perfect than lying on the beach, gazing at the azure blue sky against the backdrop of green mountain tops on a completely cloudless August afternoon, I don't know what it is.

Why my parents = headache + ulcer

As I mentioned in my last post, my parents came to visit this weekend. A good time was had by all, especially me, especially the part where my mom told me she sincerely believes that I'm going to hell because a) I'm living in sin with the BF (and have been for several years; I had assumed she was over it by now) and b) I don't believe in God. After a few days of being incredibly hurt by the fact that my own mother would both think this about her child, who so far has not done anything particularly spawn-of-satanish, and then tell said child of her fervent belief of child's imminent damnation, I have gotten enough distance to find the humor in the situation. Ha ha. Well, if my mother is correct, I guess I'll probably see her there for being a judgmental bitch. Ha ha.

Anyway, let's move on. I know you all love memes as much as I do, so I thought I'd do another one for you all that I came across this morning.

A-B-C Meme

Accent: West-coastish. If that can be called an accent. I guess its most distinctive characteristic is its lack of distinctive characteristics. I like to think that I sometimes have a wee bit of a Canadian accent, but I know in my heart that I don't.

Booze: Sadly, I really enjoy me a Smirnoff Ice, although it isn't as popular out here. A rum-and-coke comes in at a distant second. Although lately I've been craving margaritas.

Chore I Hate: Cleaning the effing bathroom. Unfortunately it's something I make myself do weekly, because not cleaning the bathroom is too disgusting to contemplate. The only reason I dislike it so much is that the other person I live with claims they are "too busy" to do it, thus I must do it myself Every. Single. Bloody. Week.

Dogs/Cats: I have one cat named Easy (see sidebar). She is 13, and her hobbies include hammering, looking out the window, and meowing at the top of her lungs every night the minute I fall asleep.

Essential electronics: My computer. Obviously.

Favorite perfume: I like the smell of Chanel No. 5, but since that's a little out of my tax bracket, I pretty much just stick with Tommy Girl.

Gold/silver: I have one white gold chain. I am gem- and precious metal-poor. And also just plain poor, too.

Hometown: I reluctantly admit it is Boise, Idaho. It's OK if you laugh a little.

Insomnia: No, thank you. Haha. Yes, I have it all the time these days, which really sucks because historically I am not a troubled sleeper.

Job title: My "title" is Library Specialist. However, in reality I am but a lowly library assistant, with the salary to prove it.

Kids: No, thank you.

Living arrangements: Piddly dungeon of a one bedroom apartment in Arlington, which I share with my BF and cat.

Most admired trait: I don't know if this is supposed to be a trait most admired in myself or other people. I guess for both I would have to say a sense of humor, which I seem to be lacking more and more these days.

Number of sexual partners: As though I would say. However, I will tell you that it's a prime number.

Overnight hospital stays: None so far.

Phobias: Driving, getting hit by a car, and spiders.

Quote: "Fuck it, Dude. Let's go bowling." If you don't know what that's from, I don't think I care to be associated with you anymore. (Kidding. Sort of.)

Religion: None. Was raised Catholic. If I had a shred of faith left, I would still be Catholic.

Siblings: An older brother and older sister.

Time I usually wake up: 7:00 on days I go to the gym; 7:30 on non-gym days.

Unusual talent: None that I am aware of. I don't think I have any usual talents, either.

Vegetable I refuse to eat: Cucumbers. They taste like a fat lot of nothing, with maybe some talcum powder mixed in.

Worst habit: Being a gigantic pessimist, which apparently I get from my mother. Funny story: my mom had been going on and on about how the end times are coming, judgment day is near, I'm going to hell, yada yada yada. A little while later I said something about how I probably won't get a better paying job within the next year, and my mom says, "Oh, don't be such a pessimist!"

X-rays: I've had them for my teeth. That's pretty much it. I have incredibly durable bones.

Yummy foods I make: I can whip up a mean beef stew, and I make incredible no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies (which I realize need a sexier name).

Zodiac sign: Aquarius. Unfortunately I exhibit none of the usual Aquarius characteristics like artsy-fartsyness, a carefree spirit, and a go-my-own-way attitude, but rather am militaristic in my slavish obedience to rules, am anal retentive, and am decidedly untalented in any artistic field of endeavor.

There. I'm tired. And by the way, no word yet on the private school. Apparently hell's temperatures are well away from freezing at this point.

Stephen Colbert: A Man for All Seasons

In case you haven't heard by now, Stephen Colbert (of the famed "Colbert Report") gave a scathing, balls-out performance at the White House Correspondent's dinner the other night. I won't be able to say this any better than any of the other bloggers, but Oh. My. God. If you haven't seen it yet, you really need to watch it. The skit is really uncomfortable in spots but so worth it. He's basically doing the same thing he does every night on his show, only this time he does it RIGHT IN FRONT of the very people he satirizes. W. himself was sitting just a few feet away during the whole thing, and boy did he looked pissed off; the rest of the audience basically sat in silence throughout, apparently stunned that anyone would have the TRUTHINESS to actually say what the entire country is thinking, damn the consequences. You really have to give it to the guy. Oh yeah, and it was pretty damn funny too, even if much of the humor was of the "Oh my god I can't believe the Secret Service hasn't shot him yet" variety.

In other news, there is no other news. My parents are coming to visit this weekend, which should be a hootenany. Actually, I'm looking forward to it since I haven't seen them for a year and it will give me a break from the routine. Also, free meals (I'm hoping). Now I've become one of those blogs where I recount the mundane details of my day-to-day existence without bothering to wonder if anyone actually cares about things like my self-tanning incident-of-horror. (Don't worry, I won't bore you with the details except to say that no one, under any circumtances, should buy L'Oreal's self-tanning spray. It just isn't worth it.)

I will tell you, however, that I am currently reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, and it's one of those books where reading it makes you want to sit down and write. Or start of a book club just so you can talk about it with other people.

Which reminds me, going back to the mundane details of my existence, that I quit my book club recently. I just decided I wasn't getting enough out of it to make it worth my while to leave work an hour early once a month and make the trek into DC. I had originally started going because I thought I would be able to meet like-minded people and make some friends, but then the group got very large and stupid people started showing up, and the stupid people ended up dominating most of the conversations to the point where discussions devolved into the more intelligent members of the group trying to explain the finer points of literary criticism to the idiots. And plus the group kept picking books that I had already read or had no interest in reading, and one group member (albeit one of the club founders) kept pushing the Communist Manifesto and I'm sorry, I just don't want to spend my free time pouring over Karl Marx right now.

So I'm looking for another book club and thinking about joining a writing group, and meanwhile enjoying books of my own choosing, thank you very much.

Updates

Another reason why I love Canadians and all things Canada-related.

And Tab Energy? Tastes like crap.

Temps rise in short term, but will the cold snap return? Hell News at 10

Sweet Jesus, I'm tired today. I'm sitting here at work and cannot keep my eyes open. Seriously. I may have to go buy some sort of energy drink to make it through the day, even though I've already had about 30 oz. of caffeinated goodness so far. I was all jazzed up to try the new Tab Energy pink extravaganza-in-a-tin-can but they didn't carry it at the store I went to this morning so I settled for a Diet Dr. Pepper; obviously a mistake . My drowsiness might be from the allergy pill I took this morning, which for some reason doesn't seem to hit me until about mid-way through dosage cycle - in this case, 6 hours. I hope I don't fall over and injure myself somehow.

Anyway, this is the reason that I love Canadians and all things Canada-related.

Oh yeah, the headline obliquely (or not) refers to the fact that I haven't heard back from the school yet, but it's been less than a week since my interview so who knows. I will of course keep you updated as events warrant.

Underworld cooling trend continues

I went for an interview today at the private school. It was meh. Not the school, but my interview. Actually, it went much better than I could have hoped for, since I didn't get any sleep last night due to hideous allergies and my body's erroneous reaction to Benadryl (the well-known drowsiness effect? Didn't happen). My feeling is that they will ultimately go with someone who has a background in either teaching or young adult librarianship - the question I kept getting asked was, "Why do you want to work with high school students?" and I can't exactly answer that it's been my lifelong dream. It was a whim, people, a whim! A passing fancy. A thought experiment, if you will. I tried to subtly indicate that without saying it outright, but even I admit that you can't blame someone for not hiring me. Why bother hiring a candidate who may or may not fit in and who may or may not like working with kids when you can hire someone who specializes in hanging out with the teenagers?

The good news is that I called in sick today so I don't have to work till 10:00 as previously planned. The bad news is that there is probably nothing but crap on TV.

Cat blogging Sunday

I know that traditionally cat blogging is supposed to take place on Friday in the culture of the so-called, dare I say it, "blogoshere." But I forgot to do it on Friday and Saturday, so here it is Sunday already, and I'm just now getting around to the cat blogging.

But anyway, as you can see from the photo above, we finally put the lazy beatnik to work around the house. Here she's struggling to wield a hammer, but don't worry, she got the hang of it after a few tries, despite the lack of opposable thumbs. And she only gouged out that one eye, so it's all good.

This just in: Storm clouds heading toward Hell; cooler weather predicted

OK. I think you all know how I feel about children and all things child-like; i.e. scant to zero interest, particularly when it comes to avenues of librarianship.

However. There comes a point in the job search where you begin to take seriously career possibilities that would never have occured to you without the sudden clarity of desperation.

Namely, I have just applied for a position as a private school librarian (high school), and even received a call back about it. The thing is, I came to the decision last week that, after having worked with adult students in academic libraries for awhile now, perhaps working with kids wouldn't be half bad. And it isn't as though these would be little kids - they would practically be adults, but I would have the abilitity to tell them to sit down and shut up, something that is not within my power at my current job.

So we shall see where this leads. I am apprehensive and yet open-minded about the possibilities, and am already savoring the idea of 8:00 - 5:00 / Mon.-Fri. hours. No weekends!

Oh, life and things like that

Here I am at work again, on a lovely spring Saturday for which the projected high temperature is 82 degrees. And you all wonder why I hate my life. But the greater tragedy here is that my one-year anniversary of looking for a full-time professional position has come and gone, with little fanfair and even littler chance of finding said job. I am having a really hard time being positive at the moment (as though I'm so positive at others times), especially since I joined Weight Watchers a few weeks ago and am now in a constant state of semi-hunger. Which is fine and good, and as it should be. If weight loss were not painful we'd all be thin, right? There would be no "obesity epidemic" (although frankly I have my doubts as to whether or not there really is an epidemic anyway).

So, that being said about the gloom and doom and the weight loss and what have you, I'm just gonna do a meme for today, which will be nice and lighthearted and allow me not to have to work really hard to craft anything witty. This one is kind of lame, but you will just have to deal.

Top Five Must-Haves:

In My Fridge
1) Thomas' Light Multi-grain English Muffins - they're only one point on the Flex Plan! And reasonably filling, for an hour or so anyway.
2) Carrots - sad, but true
3) Weight Watchers Chocolate Sunday Cones - Technically these are in the freezer, not the fridge, but they are quite yummy for being a diet food.
4) Unsweetened applesauce - As BF calls it, babyfood. *Sigh*
5) Nonfat cream cheese - God I'm boring.

In My Closet
1) There are really no "must-haves" here, other than jeans, but at the moment I only have three pairs of those. Someday I would like to have nice clothes that I am not ashamed to wear out in public.

In My Purse
1) Various and sundry keys.
2) At least one breath-freshener, preferably of the gum persuasion.
3) A book or magazine to read on the subway - I just finished Lost in the Forest by Sue Miller, and it's a good thing cuz that book was heavy.
4) Lip gloss or lip coloration of some kind. Very important. Right now I have about five different tubes in my purse. The little pouch in there intended for a cell phone currently houses them. Alas, I am still cell-phone-less.
5) Change so I can buy sodas at work. Sodas (notice how I no longer say "pop"? I am becoming so cultured out here) are one of the few joys I allow myself, and they keep me from strangling myself with my mouse cord.

In My Car
1) Let's see: motor oil?
2) Gas.
3) Radiator fluid.
4) An engine.
5) Someone to drive because I sure as hell aint gonna. I don't drive a lot these days, see?

In My Netflix Cue (was orginally supposed to be "in my TiVo", but I don't have TiVo. How behind the times am I?)
1) Six Feet Under Season 5 - I am addicted to that show and it will always hold a special place in my heart. I only wish season five wasn't the last.
2) The first season of Lost. Like I said, behind the times.
3) Twenty-Eight Days - never seen it. Hear it's good. Zombies and shiznit.
4) The Ice Harvest - I don't know if I've spoken of my John Cusack love here, but I think he's pretty much The Man. Right up there with Johnny Depp. They are The Men. So anyway, Cusack is in this movie, hence its no. 2 spot in my cue.
5) The Best of the Best of the Electric Company - ah, the halcyon days of childhood, when learning how to say big words was the most difficult challenge we had to grapple with.

Well garsh

OK, I apologize for the shitty updating as of late. I know I've been slacking off, and I'm sorry. In other news, the move went well, if we are defining "well" to mean that no one was killed or seriously injured during the process or aftermath of moving, and the majority of our belongings made it across the parking lot without severe damage. If we define "well" to mean that all in all, we feel better for having moved and are satisfied with our new apartment and believe the effort of moving was in fact worthwhile, then no, the move did not go well at all. I guess it depends if you're in a glass-half-empty or half-full kind of mood.

Speaking of everything in my life totally sucking, I bought a $110 sandwich last night, and I have to say, it wasn't really worth it. I purchased said $110 sandwich because the BF and I decided, in a moment of wanton hedonism, to drive to the local Quiznos for dinner (yeah, we live the high life). Upon arriving at Quiznos, we had the sheer brazeness, the nerve, the big hairy cajones, to throw caution to the wind and good sense out the window; to park in the entirely-empty-but-for-us parking lot we naively assumed had been paved and painted expressly for the use of the customers of the three businesses located in the building for which the parking lot had seemingly been built.

Oh, how wrong we were. As it turns out, only TWO of the parking spaces in this completely empty lot were intended for use by Quiznos customers, and we being the obviously slapdash sloppy-vehicle-parking dunderheads we are, failed to realize this, and accidentally parked in a space designated for one of the other businesses which were closed by that time in the evening.

And by now I'm sure you can all guess where this is going. Yep, my car was towed. In the ten minutes it took to order and pay for a Turkey Lite and Turkey Ranch and Swiss, the thing was gone like whisper in the night. After much bitching and yelling and threats of litigation on the part of BF, we managed to locate the car and get it back, but we did not manage to retain our appetites for the fucking lousy sandwiches that caused all the trouble in the first place. And let me tell you something else: this type of thing is called predatory towing, my friends, and it is illegal. So, if ever you are tempted to park in the Quiznos parking lot in Arlington, VA, be warned! And also the name of the towing company was something like Advanced Towing, and they are shitheads. That's my PSA for the evening.

Anyway, in conclusion, we had to pay a taxi to take us to the towing place ($10), then another $100 to get the car. By this time of course we were furious and anxious and generally fed up with the world, and the god damn sandwiches were bloody cold and soggy by the time we were able to eat them. So the moral of this story: if you come home from work some random day and are kind of tired and don't feel like making dinner and decide on a whim to go eat at a restaurant, you better sure as hell shake off the exhaustion and WALK THERE because laziness will cost you. Big time.

Yeah yeah

...so it's been a whole week since I last updated. See previous headline. My excuse this week is that I'm moving on Saturday, plus I've been wicked tired lately. Probably the depression. Anyway, speaking of moving, as I was packing up my books in anticipation of the big move to the building next door, I realized how many books I own that I haven't read yet. Some of them are of the category where I'm like, "Crap, I really need to read this one", whereas others are of the category like, "Uh, why the hell do I have this?"

I'm looking at you, Memnoch the Devil. To be honest with you, I cannot even remember where or when this book came into my hands (surely a sign of evil), although I think it must have been during my misguided Anne Rice phase. At some point I had read Interview With a Vampire, which in my defense is actually a decent vampire read if you like the whole vampire thing, which I do, and I foolishly went out and bought The Vampire Lestat, during the reading of which I had to tape my eyelids open in order not to be bored into a coma. And thus ended my love affair with Anne Rice. Which really does not explain how a copy of Memnoch the Devil came to be in my possession, nor does it explain why I seem to have hung onto it all these years later. I guess what I'm saying is that this book is Satan.

Anyhow. I've gotten completely off track. So did anybody else read Library Journal's article on new librarian salaries? It came out in October so it's a bit outdated, but basically it says that I'm a big loser and everyone else is doing just fine with their MLS degree, so why don't I shut up and stop whining for the love of God? Don't bother reading it unless you want to anger yourself, because it reiterates all the same bullshit they told us in library school: be patient; be willing to move to the middle of nowhere, even if it means leaving your spouse and children behind or displacing your entire household to some God forsaken hellhole just so Mommy can live out her dream of earning a decent salary for once in her life; be willing to suck it up as a paraprofessional for several years if you foolishly attended library school as a twenty-something without substantial work experience because even though technically a master's degree is required to be considered a professional librarian, what no one will tell you while you're in school is that what really matters is having a shitload of experience. Oh, and if you can manage it, go ahead and move to the Southwest because that's where library jobs seem to be booming, but be prepared to live off of $33,000 a year, despite the usurous student loan payments you're making to pay off your pretty little degree and the thousands of dollars you spent to uproot yourselves and your loved ones.

What I'm saying is, don't read the article.

I suck at this updating thing

My apologies. Anyway. It's been 2 and a half weeks since my fantastic interview, so I think I'm gonna go ahead and pronounce the time of death - Wednesday, March 29, 8:25 p.m. EST.

Naturally when one experiences the death of a loved one, whether the loved one be a person or just a dream, or maybe even a whiff of desperate hope clinging like toilet paper to the bottom of one's shoe, one is bound to start questioning one's life. You start wondering things like, "What the FUCK?!?" I mean, I walked out of that interview thinking that I nailed it; almost positive I was going to get an offer. And then...nothing. How does that happen? And I think you all know, I am not a confident person by nature. Even if I do well I'm pretty sure I suck. So how the hell did I not get this job, considering that by some fluke, some weird astrological alignment of the planets or some shit, I actually left the interview feeling good about myself and the world in general (which is most definitely not in my nature)?

The only thing I can come up with is that, as I mentioned before, they already had someone in mind they were going to hire, OR they liked me, but decided to hire someone with better qualifications, more experience, someone more to their ethnic preference, etc. etc.

I guess it doesn't pay to dwell on it. Except that coming to work everyday is now a literally painful experience and the thought of idling away the first couple years of my career in this insanely boring paraprofessional position is almost too much for me.

But I feel like I'm being a downer, so let's end this post with a happy thought: the only place to go from here is up.

Links 'n' Things

Hi y'all (that's my nod to my current place of residence),

Sorry I haven't updated for awhile - as my life continues to be as dull as a cardboard box it becomes more difficult to come up with witty blog entries. So, first things first - I haven't heard back about that fabulous interview I had. Yes, it's now been two weeks. Yes, things look bleak. I'm not going to write it off completely for a few more days, although I get the distinct feeling I'm just kidding myself. Oh well. As time wore on between the giddy interview day and, well, today, I started to second-guess myself and began to think (perhaps correctly?) that maybe the reason the interview went so well was because the interview panel already knew who they were going to hire (not me) - thus their breezy, carefree manner and utter lack of gravity. This would explain why the interview went so quickly (about 30 minutes), and why they didn't grill me on my skills or experience. Or I could just be paranoid. Whatever. As soon as I hear anything, I will post.

So many interesting things in the news lately...Props go out to Cecilia Fire Thunder for saying that she would open a Planned Parenthood clinic on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, where she is president. Unfortunately, PP has said they have no plans to build a clinic there, but hey, she tried - Fire Thunder asserts that the reservation is autonomous from the South Dakota state government and thus the state's abortion ban would have no legal footing there. (Link to BoingBoing post here.) I think this is great - go President Fire Thunder! (And really, could there be a better name for a president?)

This is an interesting point of view on the whole pro-life agenda. And here's a great cartoon about Bill Napoli and womens' ability to make their own decisions.

And President Bush has unofficially declared himself Herr Commandant Lord Chancellor on High of the Universe, forgetting, as he is wont to do, that as an American citizen he is obligated to follow ALL laws passed by Congress, not just the ones he likes.

Ok, that about wraps it up for what I have to say today. Should anything interesting happen in my life, I'll let you all know.

The Hood, part III

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My neighborhood, part II

Welcome back to the walking tour of my neighborhood in Arlington. This is the Arlington County Courthouse, after which the neighborhood has been named. I quite like it because it doesn't look so much like a courthouse, whereas pretty much all the other architecture in this region resembles nothing but courthouses. That brick building you see in the distance is my apartment building.

This is the neighborhood Ben and Jerry's. To my credit, I have only been there twice. However, I have partaken of their product in pint form numerous times, so it is a hollow victory.

This is one of several construction projects going on in and around my neighborhood. They are freaking annoying, but I rest easy with the knowledge that the last laugh will be mine, since the condo market will soon be flooded and they'll be selling these puppies for a lot less than the current asking price. Hehe. I may have forgotten to mention that my apartment building is being turned into condos, thus the reason we are moving to a different building. The asking price for our current one bedroom, 805 sq. foot apartment with no view to speak of? $420,000. And no, I didn't add an extra zero by mistake. Join me in a hearty guffaw, won't you?

Rally round the whistleblower

I saw this on Boing Boing - apparently a whistleblower for one of those electronic vote-counting companies has turned over evidence regarding his employer's possible misconduct. As is the wont of evil Republican-controlled corporations everywhere, they are now trying to destroy him by charging him with "felony access to computerdata, commercial burglary and receiving stolen property."

So, since we know that my readership is vast and influential, I'm putting out a call to anyone who may be or know of an attorney who would be willing to offer this guy some pro bono legal help. Because even though Boing Boing has about 50 million more readers than I do, there is the remote possibility that they need some help from me to circulate the story.

Anywho. I promise that I will post more photos for my walking tour of Arlington soon (I know you love them so).

The third-world country that I live in, called Arlington, VA

1. A water main broke in Arlington yesterday afternoon, leaving us without water for about two hours. (This did not affect me, as I was at work.) However, when the water was restored, it was dirty and brown and therefore not potable, though I had several things I needed to do last night that involved the use of water, such as washing the dishes, doing laundry, and cleaning the bathroom. None of those things happened, since the water ran dirty and brown all evening.

2. Upon complaining to our after-hours maintenance number, we were told simply to let the water run for a bit before using, which did nothing but cake the bathtub with dirt.

3. Upon waking up this morning, I was cheered to find that the water, though not entirely clear, was at least clear enough that I felt comfortable washing my face and brushing my teeth with it (though of course it was still too dirty to drink).

4. However, about an hour later the power went out. As I was heading off to the gym, I made a snide joke to my BF about lighting some candles in order to take a shower (no window in the bathroom, you see) and left.

5. ...and returned about 40 minutes later, having arrived at the gym to find a sign on the door reading, "Dear Members: We are experiencing some problems. There is no hot water." Well, that was jim-fucking-dandy, since I'd just spent 20 minutes humping around a heavy backpack and shlepping up and down metro escalators to get there. I wouldn't have had enough time to work out and then come back home to take a shower before work, so I simply turned around and went back home (another 20 minutes).

6. I then spent ten minutes waiting for the one working elevator to take me up to my apartment, and proceeded to take a shower in the dark. When I was almost finished, the power finally came back on, but I was too steamed to really care by this point.

7. As a direct result of all this madness, I just consumed a king-size bag of Lay's Potato Chips and a Reese's Peanut Butter cup in the shape of a Christmas tree (both expired items gleaned from the bookstore where I work.)

Scroll down

...to see a post I created on Thursday but didn't publish till today (Saturday). I thought the date on the post would come up as the date I published, not the date I created. Guess I was wrong. And I can't seem to figure out how to change it. Stupid Blogger.

Finally, something good happens

This morning, for the first time since I began interviewing for post-library school positions, and possibly the first time ever in the history of my life, I actually had a good interview. I convinced myself beforehand that I had no shot at this position, and besides that, I didn't really want to work at the library anyway (very urban, very gritty). So with these low expectations in mind, I wasn't really that nervous going into the interview, figuring I would just blow it off once it was over and forget it ever happened.

But then. Ah, then. I had instant rapport with the interviewers, who were nice, relaxed and professional; I answered all their questions smoothly and intelligently, with nary a stammer; and, unexpectedly, the interviewers seemed charmed by my responses and genuinely impressed with my background and skills. See, you guys? It does pay to have low expectations.

Now you're saying, "Oh, Hack, you practical joker, you." This is all an elaborate set-up for the joke, right? About how awful it was? Nope. I swear to you, it went really well. And there's not even a second round of interviews - one forty-minute chat, and now I just have to wait a week to ten days to find out if I got the job.

The only catch? Ok, there's more than one. First, I haven't told my boss yet that I went on an interview (not after she practically cried the last time I told her I had one). Also, like I said before, it's a public library, and very urban and run-down. It would be a depressing place to work. And I would still have to work rotating evening and weekend shifts, in an area of the city where I would actually feel threatened for my safety walking to the metro station after dark. BUT. It would pay a hell of a lot more money. It would be an honest-to-god librarian position, with lots more responsibility and more interesting things to do than I currently have. I don't think there's really any question that I would jump at this opportunity if it were given to me.

So. Yay. I feel pretty good about this one. I'm crossing my fingers.

Where I live: Courthouse neighborhood, Arlington, VA

Alrighty, my peeps, here it is, as promised: my photo-rific walking tour of the 'hood in Arlington. The pic you see above is part of my apartment complex - the building there isn't the building I currently live in, but is the one I will be moving into very shortly. My building is just to the left of the courtyard. As you can see, spring has arrived. I predict we'll have about a month of mild, comfortable weather until the heat and humidity become unbearable. You'll get the next installment (photo) later on, since I can't get Blogger to do what I want lay-out wise. If I had more time and web development skillz and a place to host it, I would just make my own web page. But I don't. So here we are.

For the catalogers and anal retentive among us

Hey, I just found this cool new web service called Library Thing. You can use it to catalog your personal library, instead of paying thousands of dollars to buy your own cataloging software and hooking up an OCLC connection (notice how I sound like I know what I'm talking about when really I don't have the vaguest clue?).

Check out the new addition on my sidebar, which will now feature random books from my own collection (I'm doing this from work at the moment, so my collection is pretty tiny thus far - I smell a weekend project!). Unfortunately I need to work on the font sizing. But hey, a good thing is a good thing.

I will have my vengeance

To be specific, I already got it. You know that perv I told you about who sexually harassed me at work? Yeah, well, apparently he asked for and/or tried to give a couple other women (including my boss) their/his digits and they complained to security, so the guy has been banned from the building. Ah ha! Take that, creepy men of the world! 'Course, he hadn't really bothered me since I had to open a can of whoop-ass on him, but the man deserves what he gets. Hee hee.

OK, enough schadenfreude. Not much has happened since I last updated at noon today, although I have been contemplating the idea of boredom as torture. I mean, it is a legitimate form of torture (can torture be legitimate?) -- think of solitary confinement. But I say that solitary confinement has nothing on boredom at work. And I'm not talking about the occasional hum-drums, the "I-hate-filing-and-making-photocopies" kind of boredom; I'm talking excruciating, want-to-use-my-keyboard-to-bludgeon-myself-to-death-so-that-I-don't-have-to-be-here kind of boredom. Because that kind of boredom, the kind where you have to maintain a pleasant and professional demeanor while staring into the middle distance secretly hoping for an airplane to fly into the building, is the worst kind of torture. I can't listen to music or watch DVDs, I can't play games; I can't even sprawl out on the floor and take a nap or mutter to myself like I could if I was in solitary. All I can do is surf the web, which, believe me, sounds appealing but loses its sparkle after about twenty minutes. I can update my blog, but only when no one else is around which means only on the nights I work till ten. Which is torture unto itself, and is not something to desire or look forward to.

Help me.

Oh, there it is!

I rediscovered my moral outrage upon reading yesterday that the governor of South Dakota, the woman-hating bastard, went ahead and signed the abortion ban into law. It will stay tied up in court for years and will I'm sure inevitably end up before the Supreme Court, causing a revisit of Roe v. Wade. I'm sorry, but wasn't this issue ALREADY DECIDED THREE DECADES AGO?!?

OK. I'm done for now. I thought the years-long struggle (some may say centuries-long) for women's rights was nearing closure of some sort, but I guess I was wrong. Everything our mothers (OK, not my mother, the self-righteous anti-abortion Catholic who got married at the age of 19, but other people's mothers), fought for may be obliterated. It just makes me so sad.

OK, now I'm done for reals. I keep making resolutions with myself that I'm going to update the blog on a more regular basis, but then by the time I get home from work I'm so tired that I cannot think of one single interesting thing to say, and if I even turn my computer on it is only in order to watch a DVD. But I've had an idea for some time to take my 2.5 readers on a walking tour of my neighborhood here in Arlington, and last weekend I finally got around to taking the requisite photos. Now I just need to edit them, which is apparently more difficult than I had anticipated, since BF is not around to baby me through it. *Sigh* But I swear it will be coming soon.

On a happy note, we're supposed to have temperatures in the 60s here for the next few days, which I realize is not happy for anyone but me. Now if only I didn't have to drag my ass to work every day.

look at me i'm outraged

Well folks, The Man has finally beaten me down. I know that I should be all fired up and ready to kick some pro-life ass over the recent developments in this country o' mine, and yet, I just can't really get up the energy. Which is weird, because lack of anger is usually not a problem I have. I mean, there is some outrage swimming there under the surface - I sigh heavily whenever I see pro-life ads on the subway (and where are the pro-choice ads? Come on, NARAL, let's get on the ball, shall we?). But I'm sort of at the point where I'm just throwing up my hands and saying, "You know what, right wing nutjobbers? Do your fucking worst, because I just can't be bothered anymore. I'm too tired. Just do your thing, wreck the country for us and for our grandchildren, and be done with it. Let me get some sleep." Maybe my mind is just subconsciously resting itself for the big fight ahead in the next couple of years, I don't know.

Here's some depressing links for more on this topic, in case you aren't already depressed enough about your [potential loss of ] reproductive rights:

Post article about correlation between loss of funding for birth control and unintended pregnancies (gee, ya think?!?)

Editorial by former FDA big-wig Susan Wood about the politics behind Plan B

Just ran into this while looking for some good links:

South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds' address, so that you can send him vehement letters of protest:

Office of the Governor
500 E. Capitol Ave.
Pierre, SD 57501
605.773.3212

The poster said that S.D. is worried about potential loss of tourism because of this bill, so if you write be sure to emphasize that you will never set foot in S.D. if this bill becomes law. (Not that you would anyway, but he doesn't know that).

Baby Got Back(Fat)

OK. Here's the deal: I'm going to lose 15 pounds by June 1st. Now, don't worry, this isn't going to turn into a weight loss blog (and believe me, they exist), but rather I am just making this announcement public so that I can be accountable to myself for progress towards my goal. How does making my weight loss goal public information make me accountable, you ask? Well, for starters, if I fall off the wagon and somebody says to me, "Hey, lost any weight yet?" it will shame me into getting back on track (or perhaps just make me hurt you, but whatever). And if anyone sees me eating something like a bag of Chee-tohs, you can frown at me disapprovingly and castigate me with your eyes. Not that it will do any good, but go ahead and try if it makes you feel morally superior.

See, the thing is, it's long been my goal to lose about 20-30 pounds, thus putting me squarely at my undergraduate--and total babe-magnet--weight (pause here for guffawing). Since I moved to Crapville, aka Our Nation's Capital, I've lost about ten pounds, but then, as usual, I plateaued and grew complacent, and haven't lost any more weight. The next thing that generally happens is that my weight will gradually climb up again, until I become so disgusted with myself that I clamp down on the eating and the not-exercising and the french-fry inhaling marathon until I lose ten pounds again. And so the cycle continues. BUT, this time I am determined for once and for all to lose the final fifteen pounds and keep them off forever. So there you have it, in black and white. I WILL LOSE 15 POUNDS BY JUNE 1.

Which reminds me, I watched this grotesque TV show last night on Discovery Health about a morbidly obese man who weighed 759 pounds. It was really gross and very, very sad - it wasn't like this guy had a thyroid condition or anything; he just really, really enjoyed himself some good eatin'. I mean the guy looked like Jabba the Hut for reals, and he got so fat that he basically could not even move anymore - he had to be put in a long-term care facility where, try as they might to help the poor guy lose weight, he eventually died. I kept wondering a) how do you let yourself get to that point? (and immediately changed my mind about that bowl of ice cream I had planned on eating) and b) how do you let someone you love get to that point? (he was married). And also, how do you not seek help from someone at oh, say, 500 pounds, and not plead for some weight-loss pills or a stomach staple or SOMETHING? Of course he was poor, not that educated, and probably didn't have much health insurance to speak of, but still. My guess is the only reason his doctors at the facility didn't recommend a gastric bypass surgery was that his body wouldn't have been able to handle it. The creepiest thing of all was that, though I felt mortified for this guy to have his misery video-taped for mass consumption and I was disgusted by what I saw, I was glued to the TV. I kept thinking, "How dare they put this on television for viewers to gawk at mercilessly? Doesn't this guy and his family have enough problems without putting them on display to the world?" And yet I could not change the channel. But I really, really wanted him to lose weight and return to some semblance of a normal life, and thinking to myself, "It's TV! Of course he'll pull through; they wouldn't show it if he didn't!" I was astounded to learn that after a short while in the facility he died from a blood infection because his body was just too weak to fight it.

The moral of this story, boys and girls, is seek out some help BEFORE you get to the 759-pound mark. So yeah, I'm losing 15 pounds, everyone.

Oh, you know you want it

I've been racking my brain all morning (so about three hours), for a good topic to write about today but sadly, nothing has really come to mind other than to name my picks for the Oscars. Now, you had to know this was coming so it's no use complaining. But of course, when one makes these kind of predictions, there is always the pull between naming who we really WANT to win, and naming who we think will ACTUALLY win (I'm using the royal 'we' here). So I think I'll make up two lists--one for who I want, and one for who will really get it. If my predictions are right on the second list, someone owes me a Coke.

P.S. I don't predict the meaningless catagories like Best Animated Short. As if I care.

Oscar Picks 2006 - If We Lived in a Perfect World

Best Picture: Crash
BF and I had a discussion about this, and my argument went that the two most socially important movies of the year, out of those nominated, were Crash and Munich. And I'm speaking of globally important, not just important to Americans. Thus my elimination of Brokeback Mountain. While I think that is a lovely and haunting film, and very important and ground-breaking for stupid Americans who can't seem to understand that homosexuals might just be humans like you and I, I personally didn't come away from the film feeling like my opinions had changed on anything or that anything in the movie really made me take stock of my values and preconceived notions of the world (but then I'm a Commie bleeding heart liberal, so I realize it's just me). However, Crash and Munich did all of the above for me. And yet, being the stupid American that I am, Crash spoke to me a bit more than Munich, so I have picked Crash as best picture.

Best Directing: Ang Lee
I know the logical choice here would have been Paul Haggis for Crash, but you really have to give Ang Lee, a Chinese man from Hong Kong, props for capturing the essence of western/cowboy culture to a T.

Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman and Heath Ledger
I said this is if we lived in a perfect world. I can't choose between the two - they were both excellent in their own way.

Best Supporting Actor: Matt Dillon
Again, for Crash. The man just deserves some recognition.

Best Actress: I can't really vote in this one because I haven't seen all the movies, but I'd like to see Felicity Huffman win.

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams
She was hilarious, sweet, and stupid without being over the top.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Have only read In Cold Blood, so I can't really vote here.

Best Original Screenplay: Crash

Oscar Picks 2006 - Reality

Best Picture: Brokeback Mountain
I think it's one of the few all voters will have seen, plus it's gotten the most press and most awards thus far.

Best Director: Ang Lee
They rarely give these two awards to different films.

Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman
This was a toughie - I just deleted my first answer (Heath). But Hoffman's gotten a lot of accolades, and Capote is really his movie.

Best Supporting Actor: Paul Giamatti
Again, another toughie - I think Matt Dillon also has a chance, but Giamatti has a slight edge since many think he was snubbed for Sideways last year. Jake Gyllenhaal might be able to slip in as well, hard to say.

Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon
I think it's between Reese and Felicity Huffman, but I don't think as many voters will have seen Transamerica. Keira Knightley is too young, Charlize Theron just won a couple years ago, and Judi Dench has been awarded before (plus has anyone actually seen Mrs. Henderson Presents? I didn't think so).

Best Supporting Actress: Michelle Williams
I think Brokeback Mountain just has a lot of steam, plus she did a good job.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Brokeback Mountain, since it will sweep everything.

Best Original Screenplay: Crash

So everybody watch next Sunday and be prepared to laud me for my keen intuition and insight.

Hope springs eternal

Last week was kind of a downer, and for that, my two-and-a-half readers, I apologize. I made the dreaded return-phone-call yesterday, and the conversation followed my imagined script to an almost creepy degree. But then, how many different directions can something like that go? "We didn't like you, you're a loser, but good luck with your job search!"

Alas, when one door shuts another door opens, to be completely original. Yesterday afternoon I received an invitation to interview for a much better LIBRARIAN position, something I had applied for back in December and pretty much written off by this late date. I'm trying to keep my expectations low this time, and will just look at this interview as another step in the process towards achieving the Perfect Interview, and thus, in time, landing the Perfect Job. (Easier said than done when the base salary for this position is $11,000 more than I currently earn, but I'm really going to try hard this time out not to spend my new salary in my head before I actually go to the interview.)

So I joined the ranks of Technorati recently, only to learn that absolutely no one on the planet currently links to my blog. But I realize that what I have to say is of interest to...well, pretty much nobody, which is fine because it's just for me anyway, right? Right. But from reading other blogs, which I seem to do a lot of these days, I find that I'm missing out on something wonderful and extraordinary called the "meme." I assume this is pronounced "me, me", as in "it's all about me," and what is supposed to happen is other bloggers are supposed to "tag" you, and thus force you to waste valuable blog space answering inane questions about yourself. It's like those emails people used to send out with a long list of questions like, "What is under your bed right now?" and you were supposed to fill it out and send it to all your friends. I find that these irritate most people who have full and interesting lives, but as I am self-absorbed and generally bored off my ass, I love them. No one has tagged me for a meme of course, but I'm going to do one anyway for your reading pleasure.

Ahem.

What were you doing ten years ago?
Ten years ago I was 19 years old. That is fricking unbelievable. I was a freshman in college, and at about this time I would have been finishing up winter term at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon, and preparing to study abroad in Germany. I was terrified, because I didn't actually want to go to Germany. I had wanted to study in London, truth be told, but when I came home from Christmas vacation and handed the brochures to my parents, the German program was the one they gave me permission to do (probably because it was cheaper). Oy vey. Those three months in Germany were probably the single most mind-opening, innocence-trashing, grow-upping experience I could have had. It was my first time travelling outside of the United States, to a country whose language I had only the vaguest grasp of, and I was a very sheltered, painfully shy and naive girl going off by herself into the big bad world.

What were you doing one year ago?
One year ago I was looking forward to my graduation from library school...hard to believe it's been almost a year now. I was suffering through Subject Cataloging (huge debacle involving a change of instructors mid-way through the course), as well as Database Design (completely over my head), and Advanced Information Retrieval (that one was a cake walk, however). As of about April 7, it will be exactly one year since I started my post-graduation job search.

Five Snacks You Enjoy
Any fried potato product
Ben & Jerry's Phish Food ice cream
Chocolate covered pretzels
Dried cranberries (when I'm being "good")
Cheez-Its

Five Songs to Which You Know the Lyrics
In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel
Possession by Sarah McLachlan
Linger by The Cranberries
Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinead O'Connor
Blister in the Sun by Violent Femmes

Five Things You Would Do if You Were a Millionaire
Pay off my student loans and credit card
Start up a scholarship fund for creative writing majors at my alma mater
Buy a house in Vancouver
Buy a house on the Oregon coast
Become a Canadian citizen

Five Bad Habits
Whining incessantly about my life
Losing my temper over inconsequential things
Emotional eating
Becoming so bored at work that I forget I'm there to do a job
Not writing

If anybody reading this actually has a blog, consider yourself tagged.

The big black hole of despair, and other uninteresting musings

Is it wrong of me to be grumpy because the person who interviewed me for the Job I Did Not Get called this afternoon and left a message for ME to call HIM back? What is that conversation going to be like? (BTW, I found out I did not get the job through both a process of elimination and through a connection who works at the library who told me point blank that I did not get the job. The call I received today was supposed to be the formal rejection.) First of all, only once in my ten months of job searching has anyone ever made a personal phone call to reject me, and that was only because they wanted to ask if I would like to be considered for the same position at other libraries in the system (it was that lame 6 hours-a-week-on-Sundays job). Now, I know almost certainly for a fact that this man will not be asking me if I'm interested in another position.

So...do I actually need to call this guy back so he can tell me I didn't get the job? What is the protocol here? How awkward is that going to be? Here's what I think the call will sound like:

ME: Hi, this is So and So. I'm returning your phone call from this afternoon.

HIM: Oh hi, So and So. I just wanted to let you know that you didn't get the job.

ME: Um, OK. Thanks...I guess.

HIM: (Awkard pause). Well, have a good day!

Click.

I mean, who wants to go there? Why would someone want to subject themselves to that, on either end? Why did he not just leave a message, or better yet, not call me at all and just send an impersonal letter like everyone else? Because the thing is, he made it very clear to me, and I assume to the other people he interviewed, that if we were the top candidate, we would have heard back by a certain date. That date has passed (and also I have concrete confirmation from my inside source, but that's beside the point). The point is, those of us who did not get the job are all well aware that we did not get the job. So why add salt to the wound by MAKING US CALL HIM BACK so he can tell us we didn't get the job? I don't get it.

BOO. Plus, to add to my general depression I just found out today that my Plan B --becoming a permanent resident in Canada-- isn't going to work because it costs a buttload of money, to the tune of $10,000 CD. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. I am so frustrated and irritated and just plain hopeless right now. So yeah. Happy Friday.

Unsurprising news

Well, well. Wellity wellity wellity. Guess what. I didn't get the job I didn't think I was going to get! And now that it's over with and there's no chance in hell I will ever set foot in that place again, I think I can dispense with all the secrecy and come out and say that the place where I interviewed last week (you know, for the job I didn't get) was at the Senate library. Yes, the United States of America Senate. That one. I did not get the job there. And I think it's offically unanimous - I suck a big fatty! (Not literally, of course.) But oh well. Life goes on. I'm sure there will be many other jobs I will not get in the future, and some of them will probably also be jobs for which I am technically overqualified, and yet I will still not get them. And that's fine. Really, I'm fine with that. Yay for not getting jobs! In fact, there are very few things in life, I find, that are more satisfying than NOT getting a job. You know what I think is overrated? Financial stability. Financial stability never got anyone anywhere. So really, I should be thanking my lucky stars that I didn't get this job, because then I would be financially stable, and if that happened, what would I have left to worry about? Nothing, that's what! And then what would I do with all my free time? I would become one of those vacuous people you see driving safe, reliable cars, clogging the freeways and belching toxins into the air, on my way to some cultural activity such as a play or concert, supporting the arts in that disgusting, bourgeois, not-a-care-in-the-world manner they have. I would start wearing hip, fashionable clothes, instead of the threadbare togs I currently own, and become another mindless drone of the fashion mafia. Most gruesome of all, I would start putting money towards that piteous symbol of middle-class suburbia: the retirement fund. Ugh. It's better this way, it really is.

Somebody get me a career coach, stat

I didn't get an interview for a solo librarian job in Cheyenne, Woyming. Let me just repeat that for you: rejected for a job in Cheyenne, WYOMING. WY-BLOODY-OMING. Did anybody else actually voluntarily apply for this job, other than me? Does anyone live in Wyoming who wasn't born there or wasn't forced for some reason to live there at gunpoint? I know that I shouldn't feel so bad, considering that I myself do not actually want to live in or near Wyoming. But this does not bode well. Oh, and let's see: also apparently rejected for the humanities librarian position at U of O, and things don't look well for the job I interviewed for last week (which, lest anyone forgets, was a paraprofessional position). The more I think about the interview, the worse of a feeling I get. I knew at the time that some of my answers were just plain bad, and I could feel the words coming out of mouth, knowing that they were wrong and not good and wanting to stuff them back in again, but alas, it was too late. They were already out there.

I'm thinking now that perhaps, maybe, quite possibly, I have chosen to enter the wrong profession. Exhibit A: I do not actually like people, and in fact am of the opinion that most people deep down just plain suck. And quite frankly, I don't care whether or not they ever find the information they are looking for. I chose librarianship as a profession because I wanted to work with books and was pretty sure that the book-editor thing was never gonna happen. It wasn't until I entered library school that I realized the majority of what a librarian does these days does not have anything to do with books, and in fact librarians are the few people working in a library who actually do not handle books on a daily basis. And the technical services jobs are getting fewer and fewer by the day, as more of those duties are being done by library techs who do not have to attend two years of graduate school and thus do not have to waste their lives. Exhibit B: I am apparently not qualified to do much more in a library other than pick my nose, and let's face it, I can probably do that anywhere. It doesn't have to be in a library.

I am badly in need of a pep talk. Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?

Is there anything better than being old AND being unable to get a job?

So my little ploy to get more email didn't work, but that's ok. I had my interview at the undisclosed location yesterday but I have no idea how I did. My gut feeling is that I didn't make a very good impression. I barely got any sleep the night before because I was so nervous for some reason, even though I've never lost sleep before an interview in the past, and certainly not before as unimportant an interview as this one. I think perhaps I'm going slightly insane. So anyway, I was trying really hard to act like I wasn't about ready to pass out, and I'm just hoping I didn't seem stoned or drunk. I was trying really hard to keep a light tone as well and create some rapport, but I think I just came across as frivolous and unprofessional. That's me, frivolity in a fat suit.

Anyhow. I'm a little tense because they were supposed to make a decision by noon today, so at the moment I write this I either got the job or didn't, and there's no way I'll know until next week sometime. Oy vey.

So guess what else. I'm 29. That's the first time I've seen it in writing and I think I'm going to go cry in a corner and contemplate my mortality for awhile. I have exactly one year left until I enter miserable old age and become just another dried up spinster librarian (or should I say, library assistant?). Christ almighty.

Hahaha

OK, you guys have to see this - it's a "trailor" for Brokeback to the Future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfODSPIYwpQ

My favorite line taken out of context is: "Hell, I made it with you and even I don't understand it!"

And FYI: Apparently Brokeback Mountain was filmed entirely in Alberta. I thought it was too pretty to be Wyoming!

A query

Did anyone else apply for the University of Oregon humanities librarian position, and if so, have you heard back yet? The deadline was December 1, and while I didn't expect to hear anything in December I thought perhaps they might have started contacting people for interviews in January. If anyone out there has an interview, let me know so I can stop thinking I have a shot at this one. Thanks.

The new news

So now that it's official I can tell you my news, even though I've now built it up way beyond its actual importance. Anyway, I have an interview for a library tech position (no progress being made on that front) which pays better than what I make now and is at a much more prestigious library. I will not say in this medium which library, but if you email me I will tell you. Really, it's not that big of a deal except that maybe I have a shot at making a decent salary for once. You guys with your big fancy librarian jobs will probably scoff and roll your eyes, but alas, it seems that paraprofessional positions are the best I can do at this point. So, that's that.

The instruction session went so-so yesterday, and only sucked insofar as that none of the students were interested in anything I had to say and my answers to the few questions they asked me were either completely wrong or just wrong enough to make me look inept. Ah, life.

Corrections

Apparently I am an even bigger idiot than I had previously thought. The BF has informed of very slight yet somehow important errors in my description of Del.icio.us. I guess it too is a bookmark-sharing web site, but is in some way different than Furl. I do not claim to understand the nuances here, I am just reporting this.

More PSAs

Well, I finally saw Brokeback Mountain this weekend, after months of wanting to see it and then for some reason or another never quite getting around to it. It was worth the wait. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal (or whatever, too lazy to look up how to spell his name), were excellent. Superb. Delicious. I've never been a fan of Heath's acting or looks, but I was completely turned around on both counts after seeing this movie. (Of course, the cinematography made even Wyoming look pretty.)

So anyway. Back here in Reality Land there have been some interesting developments in my life, some of which I am not at liberty to divulge just yet (but no, I'm neither engaged nor pregnant). I can tell you, however, that I get the dubious pleasure of doing a library instruction class next week, which I'm not exactly looking forward to but which will look good on the resume. I just hope I don't end up looking and/or sounding like a retard, both of which are real possibilities for me when it comes to public speaking. If you went to library school with me, you know what I'm talking about.

But neither of the above things are the point of this post. The point of this post is to get the word out about some new FREE web services that are coolio (brought to my attention by BF.)

Last Fm
This thing is really cool - it lets you type in the name of a singer or band that you like and gives you a list of similar singers/bands. If you download the appropriate doo-hickeys (which I am aware are actually called plug-ins), you can then listen to a bunch of free music! How do they get away with that? You don't actually download any of the music to your computer. Also, near as I can figure, which isn't very near, you can't actually request any certain songs - you listen to "stations" whose content you don't have much control over other than by choosing a general genre. Eventually, the idea is that you build up a personal profile of music and then the smart little program will play songs in your station that you like. I haven't quite figured out how to make this all work yet, but it seems like a neat idea.

Del.icio.us
Lets you build you own little personal web space, with XML feeds, photos, etc. I haven't tried this one out yet, but it seems intriguing.

Furl
Called "communal bookmarking" - lets you share bookmarks with others, see what other people are bookmarking, look at most popular bookmarks, and search bookmarks on certain topics (I think).

Bloglines
This one lets you host your own blog, plus search other blogs and also acts as a "personal web space" typey thing. This kind of thing appears to be gaining popularity.

Vsocial
A video sharing site. Has some good stuff on it, including clips from SNL skits. I had fun with the Schweaty Balls one.

That's it for today, people. Hopefully I will be able to update you by the end of the week about things which may or may not be going on in my life.

Happy election day, Canada!

The polls are closed, but here's hoping no one voted Conservative! (I wish...)

This is the sound of a dream dying

So I'm reading White Teeth by Zadie Smith, which she wrote when she was 21-22 years old. Smith is 2 years older than me. She has recently published a much-ballyhooed book called On Beauty, which I believe has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and possibly also the Pulitzer. She is 2 years older than me. And I have come to the heart-sinking, dream-deflating, ego-crushing realization that never, and I mean ever, will I be as talented, articulate, creative and intelligent in all my years on Earth as she was at 21. And it sickens me. I feel like Salieri in the movie Amadeus - I have the passion and the desire to be an artistic genius, but unfortunately just not the talent. Why not me, Lord? Why not me?

*Sigh* So I guess I'll just go to bed (although not sleep, since I've been having the insomnia again), get up tomorrow, and plod off to my meaningless job at the peanut factory, where I will sit in mind-numbing boredom for 8 hours staring at my computer screen like a zombie because I'm too stupid, lazy, and/or talentless to do something interesting with my life.

Not that I'm drowning in self-pity or anything.

Best books EVER, part 2

OK, so I never finished my list of top ten books, not that its important or that anyone cares but its my blog, so what I say goes. (BTW, the post will be apostrophe-free today, since my computer freaks out every time I try to type one. Stupid computer.)

6) The Calvin and Hobbes comic books, by Bill Watterson. If you dont know the joy that is Calvin and Hobbes, I pity you.

7) Beauty by Robin McKinley (not one of the Black Beauty books). I started reading Robin McKinley books in 6th grade - she's a young adult fantasy author - and I still occasionally re-read this one (to my great embarrassment). It's a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, published before the Disney movie came out. Shut up.

8) Dracula by Bram Stoker. I love vampire books; this is of course the original. Yes, I am an unrepentant dork. What of it?

9) The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. I wasn't sure whether to include this, as I was trying to stay away from children's books - that's a whole nother list. But since I'm reading these as an adult and enjoying them in my own adult way, I think it's OK.

10) The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. I think perhaps the only book on the list I haven't re-read ten bajillion times (aside from H.P. books - they're too new), maybe because I enjoyed it so much the first time that I don't want to spoil that feeling. Also, it's long.

It has come to my attention through the making of this list that my reading habits are slovenly. Books I love I re-read over and over again, thus making it more difficult for me to discover new books. But I think I'm getting perhaps a smidge better at forcing myself to read something new, rather than grabbing the trusty stand-by off the bookshelf.

p.s. You may notice that my apostrophes started working about mid-way through the post. WTF?

Best books EVER

So I was pretty bored one day (you can guess where I was), and I decided to create one of those Listmania lists on Amazon. It's called List for Lit Lovers, and I would point you to it except that I don't know how Amazon assigns their damn lists to searches, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Anyway, that got me thinking about my all-time favorite books. (Can you feel another list coming? Yes, you can!) So forthwith, here is a list of my top ten favorite books ever.

1) This is a toughie. It could be about a 4-way tie but that's wimping out. So the first book that comes to mind when I say "my favorite book" is always Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, probably because it's the first book I totally identified with as a plain, lonely teenager who had never had a date. I've since re-read it about a bazillion times, and while I identify with Jane a little less now, I have to give it props for sparking my love affair with 19th century British literature.

2) I think this one goes to The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler. This was the first Anne Tyler book I ever read, and she's since become one of my favorite authors (if not the favorite). It's funny, sad, poignant. If you've never read an Anne Tyler book, I suggest starting with this one.

3) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Everyone has read this so I don't really feel much more explanation is necessary, although I will say that if the last time you read this was in ninth grade, you should consider picking it up again. It only gets funnier (and at the same time, more tragic) reading it as an adult.

4) Oh, how to choose. I'm going to go with Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen here. Sense and Sensibility may be the better book, but as far as favorites go it's definintely gotta be P & P. Elizabeth, Darcy, the Regency period....it's got everything.

5) Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding. This is where my snooty, high-falutin' English major facade breaks down. I'm sorry, it's just hilarious, OK?

My brain is getting tired now, so I'll finish the rest later on. (Plus I also need to go home and look at my bookshelf to refresh my memory on the books I've read). Stay tuned.

And now a public service announcement

If you haven't seen it yet, check out this Saturday Night Live video. (On the right hand side of the page, mouse over 'Videos' and click on 'Watch' for the first video, entitled 'Chronic(what)cles of Narnia.') Enjoy.

Hint: If it doesn't load in Firefox, use Internet Explorer.

You gotta be shitting me

And now for a completely boring news item brought to you by ALA, straight out of the pages of an A.S. Byatt novel:

London Librarian Finds Byron Manuscript

A University College London librarian has discovered the only known
original manuscript of a poem by English poet Lord Byron inside a book in the
library’s Strong Room Collections. Rare Books Librarian Susan Stead was
doing routine cataloging when she found the 12-line poem—which is dated
April 12, 1812, and begins “Absent or present still to thee”—inscribed in an
1810 copy of Samuel Rogers’s The Pleasures of Memory. “I just opened the
book and there it was,” Stead said in a January 3 BBC news report.
The poem was published in 1816 but there had been no known autograph manuscript of it until Stead’s discovery. The manuscript, which was later authenticated by Byron experts, will remain in the library’s collection, where it will be available to researchers, the Guardian reported January 4.

How completely fascinating. I have lots of things to complain about this week, but how to choose? Sexual harassment or slow-walkers (sort of like low-talkers)?

Sex is always more interesting, I guess. So although I am loathe to talk about my workplace, I will just say that there's this guy who comes into the library a couple times a week, doesn't speak English very well, and is in general very annoying. I made the mistake of trying to be very friendly and helpful the first time I saw him, so now every time he's here he acts very nauseating in a difficult-to-describe way, and either asks me for my personal information or tries to offer me his. I've made it quite clear (at least as I see it) that I have no interest in him whatsoever, but he persists. What creeps me out is that he keeps trying to give me his address, as though I would be stupid enough to go alone to his home, and last time he was here (after I had already refused the offer of his home address) he told me that he owned many businesses and wanted to talk to me about offering me a job. *Shiver* *Vomit* I of course told him that I was not interested.

So my defense against him has been to act as cold, unfriendly, and rude as possible in the hopes that he will eventually get the message and stop coming here, but I hate doing that in front of other patrons because it's unprofessional and sends a bad message about the library. And yet, isn't my personal safety more important? I think so. I don't feel exactly physically threatened by this person, at least not yet, it's just that he skeeves me out. I realize that every woman who lives and breathes on this earth and doesn't live in a cave fifty miles underground has to deal with this kind of thing at some point in their lives. It's just not fair, though.

Just some odds and ends

A lot of possible blog topics have been flitting around my brain, but I can't come up with any one thing that's long enough for an entry so I'm just going to mash them all up together. Enjoy.

First, I would like to propose legislation banning skinny mirrors. From the gym to the dressing room at the Gap, skinny mirrors have become a plague on society. Why is that, you may ask? Though logically you might think I would be in favor of skinny mirrors, I believe they are actually a blight on humanity. For one thing, they tempt you to buy clothes you really shouldn't. I have to admit, I have been hornswoggled more than once into purchasing clothing that I have been conned into thinking make me look svelte and lithe, but which in reality announce to the world, "Fat girl coming through! Make way! Make way!" And then, none the wiser because both of my mirrors at home are skinny mirrors, as are the mirrors at the gym, I go into society perky and confident, thinking I am the shit, when I accentally happen to catch a glance of myself in a realistic mirror. I am then devasted by what I see and utterly confused--which is the real me? The mostly fit and only slighlty overweight image I see in the dressing room, or the chunky and sadly delusioned woman staring back at me in the reality mirror, swathed in clothing much too tight for her protruding fat rolls? People, we deserve to see ourselves as we really are, not as clothing manufacturers and health club corporations would like to trick us into believing we are so they can sell more product. Please, talk to your local representatives about this urgent issue.

The next item on my list--telephones. How I loathe them. I was just reading a letter in Dan Savage's column from a woman who wants to know if all straight men hate talking on the phone as much as straight women love it. It gave me yet another example of how BF and I completely shatter stereotypical gender roles when it comes to relationships. Now, BF doesn't talk on the phone all that much but he does speak to his family on the phone pretty frequently, like more than once a week. I, on the other hand, only use the telephone in order to glean important information from someone who lives more than five miles away, or to make doctor appointments. I do not use the telephone recreationally. I don't know what it is about telephone conversations that I loathe, but I have a few theories. One of the most important is that telephone conversations are generally spontaneous, and no one hates spontaneity more than I. I plan everything, even my trips to the grocery store (this week it will be Monday evening), and I have no place in my life for unaccounted-for events, telephone calls being one of them. To me, recreational telephone calls are the equivalent of an unexpected visit, in the middle of the afternoon, of a relative who lives clear across the country, but who just dropped in to say hello and expects you to quit whatever it is you were doing to chit-chat with them for fifteen minutes. At the end of the conversation they leave as abruptly as they arrived, and you are expected to go on with your life without thinking anything of it. I'm sorry, I just don't operate that way.

The second reason I loathe telephone calls is that someone always calls you when you are in the middle of something else that you'd really rather be doing. So then you have to talk to this person who interrupted you for no good reason, all the while thinking about that other thing you want to be doing. And then invariably the conversation is filled with awkward pauses, which you both rush in to fill, tripping over each other's words, and then the next five minutes after that are filled with even more awkward moments of you both taking turns saying, "No, you go first." I just think I have better things to do with my time. One of them is writing emails. I much prefer emailing over telephoning, because then you can carefully craft your message, perfecting the tone and nuance till you get it just right, and then the recipient has a record of your dazzling words which he or she can then share with others, if appropriate. *Sigh* I'm such a dork.

No doubt you all pity me greatly now, but let me just tell you one thing: I don't need your stinking pity.

Cheers!

(Yes, that's my hand.) Sorry for not posting yesterday, but I was recovering from a wicked hangover (too many crimson drinks, apparently), and it was all I could do just to watch four episodes of The Simpson's, much less turn on my computer and type. So apologies for that. Welcome back - I know I've been gone for awhile, but hopefully you'll like the changes I've made to the blog, and if you don't...well, sorry. I did write one entry on December 24, but it's lame so if you haven't read it yet I wouldn't bother. For my first entry back, I thought I would do the obligatory Year in Review list o' crap. I was going to do a new year's resolution list, but all the things on my list are the same old boring shiznit on everyone else's list- lose weight, get a better job, do something meaningful with my life, yadda yadda yadda - so instead I'm going to unveil my picks for 2005's best books and movies. The books listed are taken from the books I've read in 2005, not necessarily books published in 2005, since I don't often read new releases. But since you all know that I'm an avid movie-goer, rest assured those will all be 2005 releases.

Best Books 2005
1. Blue Shoe/Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott (tie)
2. We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch
3. Murder on the Leviathan by Boris Akunin
4. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon

While I was making my list, I realized something about myself, and that is that I evidently read a lot of crap. My originial intention was to make a top ten list, but I cannot even think of ten books I've read this year that I would put on a ten best list, even though I figure I've probably read between 30 and 40 titles - just coming up with five turned out to be hard enough. Another thing I realized is that I should probably keep a list of all the books I read during the year, for no other reason than that it would be really cool to have a list of all the books I've read. Especially since the majority of my books come from the library, so I lose track from time to time. Hopefully the "What I'm Reading Now" section of my blog will help a little with that. Anyway, on to the movies.

Best Movies 2005
1. Crash
2. The Constant Gardener
3. Junebug
4. Pride and Prejudice
5. 40-Year-Old Virgin

The hard thing with these lists, especially the movies list, is picking between the most Important Movies/Books, and the most Enjoyable/Entertaining. Unfortunately for lazy-minded people like me, the twain do not often meet, so I tried to mix it up a bit. For instance, Crash was a very uncomfortable movie to sit through (I almost left during the first ten minutes, and if you've seen the movie I think you know why), and it's probably not a movie I would like to see again. But I think it's an excellent piece of art, and makes some interesting and provocative observations about American racial tensions. And then there's Pride and Prejudice, which does virtually nothing new with the whole Jane Austen thing, but it was one of those movies where it was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to see at the time and it wasn't horrible, so it left me with a very favorable impression. Actually, I doubt I would ever not put a Jane Austen adaptation on a top movie list, but that's just because I'm a brit lit geek.

Anyway, thanks for coming back to me, oh my wonderful readers, and I hope I won't let you down this year. (And if you want to put your own lists in the comments, please feel free. I'm also a list geek.) Happy 2006!

The Christmas that wasn't

OK, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. Here's the story: the BF and I decided to stay here on the East Coast this year instead of going to see relatives for Christmas, both for monetary and sanity reasons. This is the first time either one of us has not spent Christmas with one or both of our families. But we were both kind of looking forward to finally having the holiday to ourselves, rather than shuttling back and forth between families, worrying about the cat while we're away, waiting in crowded airports and on crowded runways, paying exorbitant prices for a bottle of water, etc. Oh yeah, and not having to put up with the more annoying elements of our respective relations. But we've found that Christmas on our own isn't quite as much fun as we'd imagined. Here's a quick rundown of how we've so far spent this much-anticipated holiday:

11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.: Bake "traditional" Christmas fare (BF=banana bread, me=apple pie, chex mix)

4:30 p.m.: Go for walk around neighborhood. Weather is clear and a balmy 55 degrees Fahrenheit, after weeks of cold-ass wintry conditions. Feels a bit non-Christmasy.

5:00 p.m. - Play rousing game of Trivial Pursuit. Decide to quit after 25 minutes.

5:35 p.m. - Eat dinner of canned soup. Watch surfing documentary (BF's idea, but is oddly amusing.)

7:00 p.m. - Turn off the TV. Try to think of something else to do.

7:30 p.m. - Turn to one another, amidst a metaphorical chorus of chirping crickets. "So. This is why people visit other people during the holidays."

We are now sitting in separate rooms, me writing a blog entry, and BF looking at other people's digital photos on the Internet. It's not that we're homesick, though I suppose maybe we are a bit. It's just that we've spent the better part of every day this week together, and frankly, we would gladly welcome the addition of a third (or fourth, maybe even fifth) party. We've watched all the movies we want to watch, we've seen the National Christmas Tree (not that impressive), and we've played every game that can be played with only two people (that would be Trivial Pursuit). Our neighborhood is shut down and locked up tight; I think we're the only people still left in our building, possibly in all of Arlington. We, in short, are bored.

Personally, there's a part of me that really misses going to church at Christmas (though this feeling oddly disappears the rest of the year); I feel a little lost without the Christmas mass to anchor me to the holiday and the season. When I was growing up, going to church on Christmas Eve was the final obstacle standing between me and Christmas morning. Once church was over, the real fun could begin. In traditional Catholic manner, we had to work for redemption (i.e. gifts), but the relief of the work being over was almost as sweet as the reward itself. As I got older, I liked going to church on Christmas for different reasons, but the most important was that it had become the cornerstone of our family's celebration of the holiday - buying a new outfit to wear to church, getting all dressed up, singing carols before mass, admiring the church all decoratedwith lights and flowers, listening to the Christmas story for the millionth time, and ending the mass with a jubilant version of Joy to the World, knowing that an abundance of presents lay in wait for me. To be honest, the religious messages of Christmas were never very meaningful to me, but now that I'm no longer a practicing Catholic I miss that element of the holidays a little bit. Without mass, Christmas feels much like any other day, and it disorients me. I thought about finding a Catholic church that I could attend for just this one evening, but for some reason I didn't. I guess now that I don't believe in the teachings of the church I thought it would be too hypocritical to attend mass just to satisfy my need for a little "tradition."

So the only thing left to do is drink.

Merry Christmas!

I'm back! (well, sort of)

Hi Everyone,

OK, I've been inspired to continue the blog but I'm going to make some improvements to the lay-out and whatnot during my Christmas break, and then posting will resume. Please don't leave me, my five faithful readers!

See ya

As my five readers are probably aware, my recent posts have considerably decreased in quality, so I'm going to take a few weeks off to regroup and decide whether or not to continue the blog. Now, before you all start getting weepy, I should tell you that I have an interview with the University of Maryland on Tuesday which may provide some good blog fodder. Hopefully not, but we'll see. Anyway, thanks to all of my adoring fans - over and out (for now).