Forgot to mention...

We went to see The Decemberists here in DC on Sunday night. It was fantastic. Interestingly, I had always imagined the lead singer to be very thin and wispy, and maybe somewhat sickly looking, I guess because of his high reedy voice. In actuality he's not wispy at all and is quite down-to-earth. I had no expectations of the other band members, so can't say how they compared to my imagination. All in all, I had a great time, especially now that I'm off the blasted 8:45-5:30 schedule, which meant I could sleep in after my late night and still make it to work on time.

If you don't know who The Decemberists are, you should go to the web site linked above and then download their music from whatever entirely legal venue you prefer. They are from Oregon, which automatically makes them slightly cooler than they might otherwise have been.

Happy Halloween and shiznit like that

I'm a lamer. I can't think of much to say on this, the most hallowed of eves, because unfortunately I'm at work. Although to be fair, I probably wouldn't be able to think of anything even if I weren't. So the orginal plan for this evening, and believe me there was a plan, was to do something really wild and unusual tonight, such as watch The Shining on the DVD. But alas, my boss got sick and I graciously volunteered to swap evening shifts with her (read: saw which way the wind was blowing yesterday afternoon, and decided that if I didn't want to end up having to work an 11-hour day today I'd better offer to switch).

So pretty much all I have to offer are links tonight. But if you're reading this you probably don't have a lot else going on anyway, so I don't feel too bad for you.

• This one has been making the rounds. The yoda costume in particular makes me want to simultaneously laugh and give the poor dog a new home.

• My brother had the same clown costume made by my mother in the 70s. I guess it was the must-have clown pattern of the era.

I wish I had thought to scan some of my Halloween pictures from childhood, but who really cares anyway? It's an awful lot of work for a crappy blog no one reads (there I go, feeling sorry for myself again). However, the last link has given me an idea (you see how stream-of-consciousness this blog is? I don't even know what I'm going to say until I sit here and type it. Polished, professional writing is for pantywaists!) (And also, do you see how uncreative and unoriginal I am? All I do is steal ideas from other people.)

Oh, anyway, the idea is to make a list of all the Halloween costumes I've worn. I don't even know how many of them I'll remember but here we go.

Age 5ish?: Clown, I think. I'm pretty sure there was a clown in there somewhere. It would have been my brother's old costume that I wore.

Age 6: Cheerleader. I made my mother special order me a cheerleader costume from Sears (or possibly it was JC Penney). My early obsession with cheerleaders and cheerleading in general remains an embarrassing blight on my otherwise pro-feminist record.

Age 7: ?

Age 8: Was a freaky sort of Buckwheat-esque vampire. I really need to find the pictures for these. Wore an old wig my brother had.

Age 9: Flapper. Wore an old dress with flapper fringe my mom let me use for playing dress-up.

Age 10: Punk rocker. This was the Madonna era, in which dressing as a "punk" meant buying a can of pink glittery hair spray and wearing jelly bracelets and fishnet tights.

Age 11: ?

Age 12: I believe this was the year of Beetlejuice.

Age 13: Last year trick-or-treating; dressed as a jester, and made my mother sew the costume from scratch (with a pattern, of course).

I didn't really dress up for Halloween for the rest of teenager-dom. I resumed sporadically in the college and post-college years.

Age 19: Wednesday Adams.

Age 20: Dead prom queen. I don't know.

Age 21: Swing dancer.

Age 25: Butterfly.

Age 27: Pirate.

Last year I was going to dress up as a Canadian, but as it was 70-some-odd degrees outside I threw a mental temper tantrum and refused to celebrate such a clearly Autumnal tradition in such a clearly back-asswards non-Autumnal climate. This year I just couldn't be bothered with the whole thing in the end. Being an adult is so mind-numbingly dull. (And by the way, the high today was 75, in case you were wondering.)

Here I am

Sorry about the absence, oh loyal 2.5 readers. Unfortunately, I still don't have much to say...I'm back at the old job, which is still boring but soothingly so - at least so far. I don't have the urge to beat myself senseless with any computer machinery yet, which I think is a good sign, but I am currently in the midst of my second back-to-back six day work week, so maybe things will have changed by Saturday.

I'm trying to think of something cool and Halloween-esque to blog about, but alas, nothing is coming to mind. You know, Halloween has slowly evolved into perhaps my favorite holiday, probably because it's so refreshingly juvenile, has no current religious affiliations, has no real family aspect (I don't feel pressured to spend a month's salary to fly home and see my parents on Halloween), and is a holiday built around these three things: a) dressing up in costume, b) scaring oneself (or others) silly for no apparent reason other than that it's fun, and c) giving and receiving vast quantities of candy, again for no apparent reason. Yay! It's better than St. Patrick's Day, another basically frivolous holiday, because while yes, drinking vast amounts of green beer can be enjoyable, where's the creativity? Like it's really that difficult to find a piece of green clothing to wear. And there is no candy involved, so end of story. New Years' Eve, which is the only other real non-religious holiday celebrated in North America that has no solemn aspect to it, also comes in behind Halloween for the lack of candy.

OMG, get this. I just found a Halloween meme, yo!

Halloween Meme

1. What is your favorite work of horror fiction?
I'm trying to think of something more original than Dracula. How about Turn of the Screw, by Henry James? Freaked the shit out of me. I'm on the waiting list for Scott Smith's The Ruins, which I hear is poop-your-pants scary.

2. What is your favorite work of science fiction/fantasy?
Hmm, it's been awhile since I've read anything in either genre. I guess I would go with 1984, although I think it fits better into dystopia fiction, but whatever.

3. What is your favorite monster?
Well, if we're talking generically, I would have to say vampires. They are the shit. (I seem to be scatalogically-focused this evening. Sorry.) They sleep in coffins, they suck blood, and they can turn into bats, wolves, and mist. I'm sorry, what else can do that? Plus they're sexy.

4. What horror movie gives you the most chills?
Well, for sheer post-traumatic stress syndrome terror, I would have go with The Ring, which haunted me for weeks. I think it was because of the disconcerting images, which have a tendency to stay with me, particularly in the middle of the night when I have to pee. They have since been milked to the point of ridiculousness in all the Japanese horror remake movies, but I still avoid them for the sake of unterrified sleep.

5. Freddy versus Jason?
Whatever.

6. What is your favorite Halloween treat?
As far as things you can only get at Halloween? Candy corn.

7. Ghosts or goblins?
Ghosts, I guess. Goblins are basically little people with a bad attitude. How can they be scary?

8. What is your scariest encounter with the paranormal?
Do not have one.

9. Do you believe in ghosts?
No, although I still get creeped out thinking about them when I'm alone at night. I think basically I'm just a wuss.

10. Favorite Halloween costume?
One year I dressed up as the character Beetlejuice, from the eponymous movie. I bought a black-and-white striped prisoner outfit from a costume store, and had my mom cut up the shirt and sew it into a suit jacket. It was great, although I doubt very many people understood what I was supposed to be. I think I was in sixth grade at the time - one of my last years trick-or-treating.

A pointless post in which I really don't say much of anything

So now that my life is on a relatively even keel, I find I have very little to blog about. That's why I should probably buy No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for a Blog, but it cost $20 at Barnes and Noble, so I just flipped through it at the store instead. And of course now I can't really remember any of the ideas that were in it, so I'll just rip one off from Dooce.

This idea is to talk about your dealbreakers in regards to dating. Well, guess what. Apparently I have no deal breakers, because I'm still dating my first boyfriend. Before you start thinking I'm some creepy person who is still dating their high school sweetheart at the age of 29, let me assure you that I didn't meet the BF until I was 22 and in my last semester of college. How did it come to pass that someone as cool as me didn't have a boyfriend until the ripe old age of 22, you ask? Well, it is tragic, but I chalk it up to a unique combination of painful shyness as a teenager+basic Catholic fear of the opposite sex, based mainly on the larger Catholic fear of getting pregnant out of wedlock+a bad case of acne+a crushing inferiority complex. All of those have pretty much cleared up now, except for the acne.

Anyway. If I was single and back in the dating world, I think these might be my dealbreakers (patrons and staff at the library where I work, please take note):

1. Drunkenness.
2. Calling me honey, baby, sweetie, or gorgeous before we've even been so much as properly introduced.
3. Leering at me in a disgusting manner while drunk, high, or stinky, and muttering obscene remarks under your breath as I walk by.
4. Body odor.

But maybe I'm just picky.

Well, to change the subject completely, I saw The Queen last night and really enjoyed it. It's one of those movies that won't really change the world, but the great acting and interesting point of view made it quite enjoyable just the same. Also, I just finished a really intriguing book called Gilgamesh by Joan London (not the Joan Lundon of Good Morning America fame). The writing was excellent - tight, sparse, clean prose. I expect she will win the Booker or Orange prize one of these days (I say, acting all like I know what I'm talking about). But really, an excellent book - check it out. Now I'm on to The Night Watch by Sarah Waters, which was short-listed for the Booker, but I haven't gotten far enough to know how it'll be. Maybe after that I'll start on Bleak House.

Speaking of writing, I'm gearing up to participate in NaNoWriMo once again this November (National Novel Writing Month). I did it last year (don't remember if I publicized that fact) and churned out what can only be described as a piece of shit. However, try, try again, right? I really do want to get back into writing again, which I know is what I always say, but maybe I'll actually do it this time. I just need some discipline.

Anyway, I'll post again when either a) something noteworthy happens, which, it being my last week at the job from hell, is entirely likely given my patrons' penchants for having psychotic episodes and/or exposing themselves OR b) I start my new job, which begins Saturday, the day following my last day in Hell.

And so it is done.

I gave my two weeks' notice today - next Friday will be my last day at the Job From Hell. I still haven't gotten an official offer from my previous employers, but have been assured it will be forthcoming. I gave my notice now because last Friday was a hideous day - crazies yelling at me, stupid people trying to use the Internets (one woman asked me, when the computers automatically logged off at the end of the day, if she could use my computer to close out of her email account), and homeless galore, who stayed right until the dot of closing, then left all their newspapers, books, magazines, and various shit on the tables for me to pick up. So I decided enough was enough. I still don't know if this is a good move or a bad move; I'm happy to be going back to someplace where people care about me, but on the other hand I feel like a big loser - who goes through the pointless tediousness of getting an MLS just to work as a paraprofessional?

Fuck.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving

BWA-HAHAHAHAHA!

Guess what? I found a new meme, courtesy of the BF! I knew you'd be thrilled. But it's a book-themed meme, so it should be relevant in some way to the topics here. Or not.

Book Meme

1) One book that changed your life.

I've thought long and hard about this answer. And I don't know that I can point to just one book. But for the sake of time, I'll just say something lame, which is a book called The Introvert Advantage. It's not a well-known book or even necessarily a good book, and it didn't exactly change my life, but I felt like it explained a lot of things about my personality and made me feel so much better about myself. I finally felt like it was OK, and not somehow socially deviant, to be a quiet, contemplative, and somewhat cautious person. And I realized that people who make fun of me? Are just extroverted retards who can't wrap their mind around the fact that someone who is quiet is not somehow wrong or bad or plotting the death of the world (though in my case that may be true); they are simply just made differently.

2) One book you've read more than once.

Well, if you know anything about me at all, you know that there are tons of books I've read more than once. These are the books I read on an annual/bi-annual basis: Jane Eyre (although it's sort of fallen out of the rotation, since I've read it so many times and gotten a little sick of it); The Accidental Tourist; Bridget Jones' Diary; To Kill a Mockingbird. I never claimed to be deep or anything.

3) One book you'd want with you on a desert island.

I've actually given this one some serious thought unrelated to the meme, and I think I'd have to go with the Bible. Not for religious reasons, obviously, but because a) the Bible is long and b) it has tons of different stories. You could open it anywhere and start reading, or go from start to finish - either way, hours of entertainment. On the other hand, it might be better just to go with one of the Norton anthologies of English literature.

4) One book that made you cry.

Hmm. I was never one of those horsey-girls growing up, so I can't give the pat Black Beauty answer. (Or whatever one it is that always makes twelve-year-old girls cry.) And in fact I have cried while reading many books, and probably recently too, but I just can't think of what they are right now. So I'll go with a book that I know made me cry when I first read it (yes, I was twelve): Anne of Green Gables. And I don't remember what it was exactly that made me cry, but I think it had something to do with Gilbert.

5) One book that made you laugh.

Any book by Anne Lamott, particularly Bird by Bird and Operating Instructions. That girl is funny.

6) One book that you wish had been written.

There's really no better answer than Ezra Klein's (from whose blog I got this meme in the first place).

"...I'd go with What I Think About Things, In Simple, Declarative Sentences and Dark Ink by Jesus."

And I'll add one of my own: How I Learned to Walk, Talk, and Obtain Self-Awareness by The First Man.


7) One book you wish had never been written.

I'm one of those lefty types who believes in a little thing called "intellectual freedom", and therefore it's hard for me not to think there is at least some merit to every idea out there, if only to show us how absurd and fucking crazy some rightwing nutjobs are. However, since I must give an answer, I'll say something all politically correct like Mein Kampf. The world would probably have turned out just fine had that book never been written.

8) One book you are reading currently.

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. I bought it at the library's fall book sale. At least it's readable, unlike the last book I checked out, which shall remain nameless. (*cough* Poe's Shadow by Matthew Pearl *cough*)

9) One book you've been meaning to read.

The list could on forever. Basically I've been meaning to read every book that's been published, I just haven't found the time. But here's my answer: A Short History of Canada. If I'm going to be a citizen someday, it's something I should know about.

10) What book do you routinely recommend but haven't actually read?

Um. I don't know that I've ever recommended a book that I haven't read. Unless it's to say, "I hear such and such is a good book, but I haven't read it yet." I don't routinely recommend them, but I've been saying that a lot lately about Edward P. Jones' books (All Aunt Hagar's Children, The Known World), since he's a DC native and just published a new book that has been getting good reviews.

P.S. Still no news about the old job. Still toiling away at the horrible one.

My melancholy whores...i mean, woes.

Judging from my lack of email these days, I'm beginning to think that my depression and bleakness of spirit is driving everyone away. Therefore, this post will be devoted to counting my blessings, so as to show that I too can see the glass as half full. Or at least not as pointlessly empty as I had feared.

So. Ahem.

My "Blessings" (by which term I do not intend to mean "gifts bestowed by a higher power", but rather "ways in which I, for whatever reason, happen to perhaps be more fortunate than others.")

1. With the exception of a vast array of dental problems, various infections, a cold, and several moles that may or may not be cancerous, I am healthy.

2. All of my limbs are present and functioning.

3. I am employed, with a steady paycheck and medical benefits (notice I didn't say a high paycheck, nor great benefits, but that is a discussion for another post).

4. I am no longer overweight.

5. I can run three miles in 30 minutes, which I've never been able to do before, having hated running like it was the spawn of satan since childhood. Although even now my right hip aches for the rest of the day.

6. I have a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in at night, and plenty of food on the table (nothing funny about that, sorry).

7. I am not insane, or at least not so much so that I walk around yelling at the voices in my head, or at the librarians in my local public library.

8. I am in a steady, long-term relationship with someone who presumably loves me despite my often irritating habit of hating the entire world and everyone in it.

9. I have an adorable cat who, while maybe not quite understanding the concept of love, at least accepts with good humor all the pets, kisses, hugs, cuddles, and cat food I lavish upon her. (Except when she's in a bad mood, and then she cannot abide the sight of my fat ugly face.)

10. Umm, ten. Teeeeennnnn.....OK. I have fairly reliable Internet access, without whose fruits of popular culture and online bill-paying/shopping convenience I would not be able to live.

11. All of my immediate family members are still alive and are more or less on speaking terms with one another.

12. While violence is not exactly unheard of in this area of the world, I don't generally have to fear for my life walking down the street and going about my normal everyday activities. Americans only start wars; we don't live with the consequences of them.

Alrighty, then. I think that's enough blessings for one post. Don't expect me to keep up this Miss Mary Sunshine act, though.

P.S. No word yet on whether I will be able to go back to my old job. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that bureaucracies move at the pace of geologic time. It could be weeks before I know anything for sure.

First things first

My pirate name:

My pirate name is:

Dirty Ethel Vane

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You tend to blend into the background occaisionally, but that's okay, because it's much easier to sneak up on people and disembowel them that way. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Second, things at work have gone from really, really bad to OH MY GOD THAT SUCKS. Just playing a waiting game now, which actually I've been doing since I took this new job and frankly I'm getting pretty tired of it. I find it interesting that the library management seems to think it's perfectly acceptable to keep dicking us around, promising us that new and exciting jobs are just around the corner, then yanking the rug out from under us repeatedly. We've now been given "temporary" assignments, since they decided on Friday to officially cancel my department, starting now. Um, thanks. They seem to forget that each of us applied for this job specifically,not just for any old reference desk job in the library. So now I'm just trying to decide when to hand in my notice; I was going to wait until I had an offer in writing from my old job, but now I honestly don't know if I can stay at the other place that long.

Anyway, may this be a lesson to all of you: beware a change of library management. Actually, beware of jobs that don't deliver what they promise within 30 days of starting. The really sad part of this whole story is that I felt in my gut all along that this was going to be a huge mistake for me, and lo and behold, it was. But no, being the good little soldier I am always trying to be, I kept going, hoping that things would change when all the signs were pointing to a dead end road. So. The moral here: it's OK to change your mind if that's what your instincts are telling you. I didn't have a crystal ball; I couldn't know before accepting this position that it was going to suck ass through a straw. But after a couple of weeks I could see that very clearly, and I should have gotten out right then.

Bah. Humbug.

Chronicles of the ghetto librarian

A few points of order:

1. A man was kicked out of the area where I was working on the reference desk for masturbating at a public access computer. Prior to his being escorted out by a security officer, he called me over to help him watch a porn movie. I refused. A short while later the other librarian working at the desk said another patron tipped him off that the man was masturbating, and the librarian went and got security.

2. My division has officially been dissolved. I haven't been laid off, thanks in large part to the librarian's union, but I have no idea what I'll be doing or where I'll be going next week. Of course, no one has had the courtesy to tell me this to my face; instead it's all been meted out through rumor and innuendo. However, one of my coworkers did get official confirmation from someone present at the fateful meeting where this was all decided. The staff in my division were not invited to said meeting, by the way.

3. Points one and two have cemented my determination to leave this job and go back to the old one. Career-wise I am probably making a huge mistake, but I don't think I can live like this for much longer.

4. Despite points one, two, and three above, the BF and I spent a lovely weekend in Williamsburg, Virginia. On Saturday we went to Busch Gardens, where we rode every rollercoaster the park had to offer; some of them we rode twice. It was excellent, and went a little something like this. (Amateur video taken by BF while waiting in line.)

5. On the drive home, we saw cops pulled over on the side of the freeway with their guns drawn. Both the BF and I, driving in the right lane next to the cop cars, were ready to duck for cover lest we be caught in the line of fire. Luckily as we eased by, it appeared as though the person in their sites was surrendering, and thus we were not in danger of being hit by stray bullets, but it was tense there for a second.

Never a dull moment.

...And the suckage just keeps on coming

So more changes are in the works for me. I don't want to jinx it, so I'm not going to say what it is, but I bet you can probably guess from whence the changes spring. I am entering dark times. Or I guess I should say, the times are getting even darker than they were before. I am experiencing career/existential angst to an enormous degree; as in, if I have no career, do I exist? Or something like that. Or perhaps I'm merely pondering the lack of existence of a career. This is in addition to my turning-30 existential angst, which will happen sooner than I care to think about.

Oh, friends. At the risk of sounding like a downer ("You, a downer?" you say. "I am all astonishment!") I feel like not one good thing has come from this move to DC. Unless you count the gathering of self-knowledge that I can live on a pittance amidst people I hate, which I had already figured out from past experience, thank you very much.

I'm sorry, I hate to be so depressing. Here's one goo0d thing: I've just finished watching the Bleak House mini-series, which was excellent and I highly recommend it if you are into such things. You know what I love about the British? They aren't afraid to hire average-looking actors for roles that quite obviously require an average-looking person. I'm just saying. It's also great that they aren't afraid to hire hideously ugly people if the role requires it, which apparently several roles in Bleak House did. Anyway, the series has inspired me to reread Dicken's Bleak House book, but maybe I'll wait a little while so I can get a some distance from the show and really immerse myself in the novel. There, aren't you glad I told you that? I'm also thinking about lying in bed all day long for the rest of my life, subsisting on nothing but Godiva chocolates. But perhaps that's a less positive goal.

OK, I can't keep it a secret any longer since I want to solicit my dear readers' advice: I'm probably going back to my old job. Here's the deal: last week my co-workers and I had meetings with some of the management-types at the library. The outcomes of these meetings were not very encouraging, as it has become apparent that no one in management really full-on supports the mission and vision of our department. So here we've been doing nothing for two months, waiting on promises that soon we would be able to start doing the work we were hired to do. Now it looks as if that's not really going to happen, and while we won't be fired, we will probably be reassigned to different roles. Which means reassigned to different reference desks throughout the library. Which means working face-to-face with the crazy-ass patrons on a daily basis, something I never wanted to do in the first place (my originial job title would not have included desk reference), and for which I would have not taken the job in the first place had I known I would be required to do it. So I think I want to go back to a place where, if quiet and boring, at least sanity reigns supreme.

But the decision has not completely been made yet, and I am in a bit of a muddle. For one thing, I would be going back to mere subsistence pay (less, really). I would be going from a professional position back to a paraprofessional position. I would, in short, be setting my career back to square one. Can I afford to do this, either from a career-building standpoint or a personal-finance standpoint? No, I cannot. And yet going to work at the loony bin every day has me tied up in knots; I'm nervous and depressed all the time, and I dread going to work every morning. Not to mention that getting up at 5 a.m. so that I can go to the gym before work definitely has its downsides. So what do you think? Am I being completely moronic? Should I just suck it up and take it for nine more months until I can move? Or should I go back to my old job where I can be sane but bored and broke?

Somebody here is smoking crack, and it isn't you

OK, I'm back from whatever little self-delusion inspired me to think I could actually run a half-marathon. For one thing, I started looking at running blogs after writing that last post, and kept coming across a bunch of scary, baffling terminology that I'd never heard before, such as "training" and "long run." So then I saw the light and realized that maybe I should start off with something a bit smaller, like maybe a 5K. For now I'll leave the marathons and half-marathons to the people who actually know what they're doing (or like to pretend they do, for the sake of bragging about their finishing times to other runners).

In other news, my job just keeps getting suckier and suckier. Some new things have come about, some new, bad things. And I found out that one of my co-workers, the one I really enjoy working with and feel a solidarity with, is looking for other jobs. Oy vey. My entire being has been screaming OH SHIT!! for the past month or so, which is beginning to take a toll on me. Luckily my appetite remains undiminished. However, the rest of me has become one large knotted ball of stress. I'm just trying to figure out a way to hang on until next summer, at which point I am going to spin a globe and move to the exact spot which is farthest away from here. Well, that's a lie--actually I'll move back to the Northwest, which is as far away from here as you can get in the Continental United States.

In more other news, Tropical Storm Ernesto has my undying gratitude, for it is through him that we received lots of wind, rain, and temperatures in the --wait for it-- 60s yesterday. The entire day was gray and stormy, and while today isn't as cool or as tempestuous, it is also blissfully gray and unhot and unhumid and un-DC-like. Of course by Monday temperatures will be back in the stifling 80s with enough humidity to drown a small child, but what can you do.

Nothing new here

Sorry I haven't posted in so long, I was just waiting for something exciting to happen that I could write about, but I keep coming up empty so I'll just have to write about how boring my life is. My job is still the status quo. My stalker is still stalking; the sexual harassers are still harassing; the crazies are still crazying. I found myself pondering today whether sustained abject boredom could in fact drive someone insane. I think the answer is yes. But I also know that dwelling on the boredom and the listlessness and the OH MY GOD THE BOREDOM also courts madness. But I don't know what the solution is. I tried the getting-a-new-job route, to no avail. Should I just resign myself to my fate, which is that I will forever do nothing for a living and be doomed to live eight hours a day for the rest of my life in a lethargic stupor? Perhaps.

In other news, I'm playing with the idea of running a half-marathon. No doubt this is merely a giddy fantasy brought on by enduring hour upon hour of soul-sucking lassitude, but nevertheless, the idea is sitting there in my brain like a big giant lump of are-you-kidding-me? I don't know...I've been running about twice a week lately...which apparently in my mind qualifies me to run a half-marathon. But seriously, even though I've only been running on a treadmill, I've been enjoying the experience much more than I ever would have thought likely, and I've been wondering (fantasizing) about taking it to the next level. So maybe. We'll see. And I guess I should also admit here that a part of the fantasy involves me becoming very thin and toned in a long-distance-runner sort of way, meanwhile burning so many calories that I can eat burger after burger with nary a fat cell to show for it. Dream on, sleepy dreamer.

The only other thing that has been happening in my life is that I have been tearing through books like the library's on fire. That's the good and bad part of working mere feet from the popular fiction section of a large library. Bad because my reading has been very disorganized of late. Not that it ever is very organized, but as some of you may have noticed, I have a long list of books on my sidebar that have been there for quite some time now, that I can't ever seem to get around to reading. And every day I find more stuff that I want to read, and I start checking out books willy-nilly. There just isn't enough time in the day, dammit! Oh well, I guess there are worse habits to have.

Anyway, that concludes today's rambling thoughts. Carry on.

Like banging my head against a brick wall

So I'm sitting here at work thinking, "OK. Today's not so bad. My stalker has only been in once today (for a duration of three hours, but still) and he didn't even talk to me. Yesterday he didn't talk to me AND he didn't sit near me at all. Things are looking up. I am winning this war."

Then a perfectly benign looking guy comes up and asks me where the construction books are. I tell him where I think they might be and am just about to go back to the very important blog I was reading when he says, "You sure are purty." *SIGH*

I mean, OK, on one very small hand it's flattering and nice. He wasn't too gross about it or anything, and I think he genuinely meant it as a compliment and not necessarily as a stalker-esque come-on. But still. People. I am a LIBRARIAN. I am not some girl standing on a street corner handing out free information. WHY OH WHY do men think it's OK to say this to professional women (or any women really, but particularly women who are AT WORK AND CURRENTLY WORKING)? Would they say it to a woman lawyer or a woman doctor? Really, the sexism in this world continues to amaze me. Would I go up to a man sitting at a desk and say, "Wow, you sure are a hottie! And incidentally, can you tell me where the books on Hitler are?"*

All of which makes me come to the conclusion that some men seem to see any woman, anywhere, whether she is at work or no, as a potential screw. And I'm sorry to have to put it so bluntly, but there it is.

Here is the thing: a little flirting, if the woman seems OK with it, is fine. We all know this. But there are unacceptable forms of flirting WITH SOMEONE WHO IS AT WORK and not falling over drunk at a bar or advertising herself on a street corner (although in that case I guess she'd still be at work) which includes: telling them they are pretty, cute, adorable, gorgeous, or mentioning anything that refers to their physical being; calling them honey, baby, sweetie, or any term of endearment one generally saves for one's closest relatives (unless the man is old enough to be your grandfather and says it in a non-gross way, in which case it's OK); leering at the person; using any pick-up line whatsoever; and finally, asking the person questions of a personal nature. If flirting should get to such a level that both parties find it agreeable to partake in any of the activities mentioned above, the flirting should be taken outside of the person's workspace so that all other transactions with members of the public remain professional and so that one doesn't get fired. Otherwise, these things should be avoided at all costs. They just should. I don't know how I know this, but I do.

And I know you all know this, too, but I feel better for having laid out the rules for any of my fellow human beings who may have missed that day in Societal Relations class.

Thank you.

*The answer, by the way, is no I would not.

I know I shouldn't laugh

...but a woman came in to the library today who had a piece of duct tape over her mouth. It wasn't as though she had just been kidnapped and had run into the library wild-eyed and disheveled having escaped her captors in a frenzied chase, a la a Lifetime Television Movie. Nope, she was just sitting there calmly reading a book, pleasant as can be. With a square of duct tape covering her mouth.

Yep. It is sad for sure, but also a little bit funny. Because if you can't laugh at the psychos? Who can you laugh at?

Violent tendencies

Something has been eating away at me, and it pertains to the last post I wrote about sexual harassment.

A man has been coming into the library every day for the past week, sitting in the chairs next to my work station, staring at me for a long time, then approaching me, usually when I'm alone, and asking me personal questions, such as whether or not I'm married. I've tried to nip this stalker in the bud myself by being brusque with him, rude even, and making it plain that I want to have nothing to do with him. What worries me, though, is that while any sane mentally balanced man would have gotten the hint by now that I am not at all interested in talking to him, he continues to come into the library every day and perform this routine. It keeps me awake at night, and I am now actually scared of going to work. On Friday I spoke with one of the security guards at the library and he was very sympathetic - he told me that all I had to do was call security and they would remove him. On the other hand there are several security guards who work at the library, and I don't kow if they would all be so sympathetic. However, the larger issue here is that I'm worried about my personal safety, not really while I am at work, but rather while I'm travelling to and from work, and even while I'm in my home. I think about it constantly. My BF is going out of town for a week starting Friday, and I'm afraid something will happen while he's gone. I feel like I'm trapped in this little panicky world of fear, and frankly it's pissing me off that I have to worry and obsess over something as simple as being at work every day, just because some asshole is insane and won't take no for an answer.

And I worry that having this guy thrown out of the library will only make him angry, and will make him more focused on me as a target.

And I'm infuriated that I have to put up with all this bullshit because the administration at the library won't give us an office, so I have to sit in full view of the public all day long, subject to the passing insanities of whichever psychopath walks through the door.

I want to beat someone up.

It just keeps getting better

I have a dilemma (when don't I?). I've been getting what I casually refer to as "sexually harassed" at my job on a daily basis. Not necessarily by one person (though there are a few of those, too), but mostly from drive-by harassers. By this I mean men who leer at me as they walk by my "desk" in the lobby and say something along the lines of, "How you doin', baby?" It looks ridiculous when I type it, but I swear it happens.*

*I realize that I cannot adequately convey the lechery that these guys put into their eyes and voices. Reading it in print, it seems like I'm completely overreacting. However, I know what I feel and it ain't pretty, and it ain't harmless.

So my dilemma is: how do I react to these men, and in a way that won't get me fired? It's not like I can tell them to eat shit and die, which would be my normal response. So far I've been so taken aback by the casual lewdness that I barely have time to scowl and look away, much less say anything in response. The thing that really gets me is that I know these guys know that they're making me uncomfortable; in fact, that's the whole point of it for them. They know (don't they? they must) that I am in a public service position and that as such I must put on a happy face and appear polite and friendly to everyone, and that I'm not smiling and saying hello to them because I want to hook up with them after work.

What do I say? How do I respond? Usually they're gone before I can open my mouth so it's not like I can go off on some diatribe about respecting my authority or anything. My thought as I'm writing this is that there is really nothing I can do - jerks are going to be jerks, and unfortunately as a young-ish, not wholly fugly woman, this type of stuff is going to happen and I'm just going to have to grin and bear it, given the dregs of humanity that pass through the door. *Bastards* But in case any of you faithful readers have some helfpul advice, I'm putting this question out to you.

So yeah, about the heat

First things first, I would like to give myself a big pat on the back for refraining from talking about the heat wave the entire week. Thank you very much. All I have to say about the heat itself: it was hot; it was excruciating; I survived, as did millions of others.

Second, I would like to point out that air conditioning has been broken at my work since last Tuesday. Which, luckily for me, resulted in an early dismissal on Tuesday and a day off on Wednesday. However, we've been forced to work Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in sweltering conditions. Some of the subject divisions have been closed because the librarians refuse (as is their Union-given right) to work in such heat. But the end result of all this is that I, sitting near said closed divisions (and on a Saturday, no less), have now become the sounding board FOR EVERY SINGLE FUCKING COMPLAINT about the divisions being closed. Do I look like I give a god damn, people? NO. I myself would rather be at home lying in air conditioned splendor than sitting here listening to you lose your shit because you can't check out a library book.

This is all further evidence, of course, that I have chosen the wrong profession, the wrong city to live in, the wrong interests and hobbies, and the wrong personality with which to go out into the world.

Fun with Blogthings

Your Brain's Pattern

You have a tempered, reasonable way of thinking. You tend to take every new idea in, and meld it with your world view. For you, everything is always changing. Each moment is different. Your thinking process tends to be very natural - with no beginnings or endings.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

In a Past Life...

You Were: An Evil Chief. Where You Lived: Ontario. How You Died: Buried alive.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

Hehe. Excellent.

Your Pimp Name Is...

Silky Luv

What's Your Pimp Name?

Indeed.

Your Monster Profile

Cruel Fiend You Feast On: Fingernails You Lurk Around In: The Backseats of Cars You Especially Like to Torment: Priests

What's Your Monster Name?

I obviously don't have enough to fill my time.

Memes R Us

Before I get started on this week's meme, I would just like to mention that one of the perks of my new job is getting yelled at by crazy people on a daily basis. I quite enjoy it, and think that I have really perfected my skill at being a target for other people's psychoses. Another thing I'm really good at these days is getting eye-raped by every scumbag who walks through the door. So, I'm learning lots of new things at this job and should have quite the skill set to put on my resume by the time I depart.

That is all.

OK, the meme. I got this from the archives at Dooce, and while it closely resembles other memes I have done it is completely new and therefore I am obligated to do it, even though of course I was not actually tagged by Dooce (nor anyone, ever).

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over (the list is much longer than four in my case, but I'll try to narrow it down for you)

1. Office Space - this one is a given. I don't even think I need to extrapolate on its superb qualities of watchability.
2. Pride and Prejudice, the 1995 BBC version with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. This movie (all six hours of it) is like comfort food to me - whenever I'm nervous or depressed or just in the mood to watch a hunky man in breeches, this does it for me.
3. Strictly Ballroom. I don't watch this as much as I used to, but it's still a timeless tale of Australian ballroom dancers with really funky hair who dare to dance their own steps.
4. The Breakfast Club. I had to throw in an '80s John Hughes movie just for balance.

Four Places I have Lived

1. Boise, Idaho. I grew up there, as mentioned in another meme. I don't really miss it, but I do miss my childhood home and dream about it a lot.
2. Salem, Oregon. Yep. Not really much to say about that, is there?
3. Tacoma, Washington. A much better place than people imagine it to be, and a much better place to live than to visit. I do miss Tacoma, and its lovely aroma.
4. Ashland, Oregon. Everyone already knows that I currently live in D.C. and before that in Vancouver, B.C. so I thought I'd go for the wild card here. Ashland is lovely and I would live there again - a small town with a lot of culture and character (helped along immensely by the presence of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which despite being located in southern Oregon is actually quite renowned). I lived there during my freshman year in college.

Four TV Shows I Love

1. Little House on the Prairie
2. Six Feet Under
3. Cold Case Files/American Justice/City Confidential (they are all virtually the same show)
4. Daily Show

Four Places I've Vacationed

1. Bahamas
2. Europe
3. Crater Lake, OR
4. Arizona

Four of My Favorite Dishes

1. Burger and fries
2. Filet mignon
3. Beef stew
4. Pad Thai
(Obviously I am not a vegetarian)

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now

1. Oregon coast
2. Vancouver, B.C.
3. Alaska
4. Iceland

Four Sites I Visit Daily (or thereabouts)

1. Washingtonpost.com
2. Dooce.com
3. Anything Said
4. Go Fug Yourself

UPDATE: So I got my first paycheck today. It was sort of a punch in the gut to realize how much more the government rapes you when you suddenly become a middle-class wage earner. I literally feel as though I have been physically assaulted and forcibly separated from my rightful income. Long story short, I'm not bringing home nearly as much money as I'd counted on and am now contemplating becoming an illegal immigrant worker so that I don't have to pay taxes.*

*I realize this is an insensitive thing to say.