Boredy boredness

Um, hi!

This is going to be pointless because I'm just doing it to kill time. But hey. It's a frigging blog. Pointless is the name of the game.

Well let's see. Earlier this week I got to work the reference desk solo for an entire hour; that was the first time I've ever been scheduled for an official reference hour. And it was sweet. I think I answered everybody's questions successfully. It was funny because I always say that I know how to use the "official" sources and answer the scholarly questions but that if somebody wants a bus schedule I'm stumped. Well guess what my first question was: "I live up on 161 and my girlfriend works down on Neil and we don't have a car..." Damn! The one time I tried to take a bus, I ended up walking 4 miles from Bill's apartment to Red White and Boom. But, you know, a trip to the COTA site and repeated disclaimers that "I really don't know anything about how the bus system works" and the guy left happy and grateful for my help.

I hope it's not TOO horribly long before I get to get an actual, adult-type job (like, not five years hopefully). I know that I shouldn't complain about work, and things are a lot better than they have been at other times, but still. It gets so, so tedious put things in alphabetical order for hours and hours on end. Sometimes if I'm working and I think "I'm shelving reserves this hour, and next hour I will be pulling off old reserves, and then the hour after that I have to shelve a couple of carts..." it's just like...I just want to lay down on the floor and stop. Other people don't mind and can do work like that day in and day out, but I don't know. I guess I would like something more challenging, something more creative.

I made cookies just now, from this pre-made dough that my mom bought from one of her kids. They turned out kind of weird but they taste pretty good.

Are you looking forward to Christmas? It still seems kind of far off to me, even though I know it is not. I would like to go see Wildlights and do a couple of other Christmasey type things but I think I may end up being too busy for any of that. I hope not!

It goes down easy

HEY KIDS!

Well I had a kick-ass weekend. Friday I really did nothing during the day, which was awesome. Then later that night was my Chasegiving/Quarterlife Crisis party. It started out kind of lame-ish due to a bad bar/restaurant selection on my part, but it was still a good time and it was much less stressful once we got the hell out of Stripperton. It was really good to hang out with everybody...thanks a lot to those who came, and thanks for the cards/gifts/free food/free drinks as well. Y'all rock it out.

Saturday Bill and I kind of just hung out and watched the game and stuff, then in the evening we went to Pei Wei for dinner (which I LOVE) with Becky, Dan, Jared, and Erica. Then it was over to Casa Jamerica with the above crew (sub Miranda for Becky) for games, gossip, and campfire s'mores. I had forgotten how good real s'mores are. Saturday was really a perfect blend of relaxation and casual fun.

Sunday was busier; I was running late in the morning, but Erica and I still hit up the Tiny Canary indie craft show in Grandview. I actually almost hate going to those things because I want to spend more money than I have, and also because I feel bad chatting with the vendors and then not buying anything from them; sometimes I really love their stuff but it's just out of my price range or not practical for me or whatever. If anyone is shopping for art I would like to suggest Yumi Yumi, who Erica and I are totally retarded-fangirl over. Erica also bought me a birthday t-shirt which I just now remembered to try on (it fits!). After that we clothes-shopped at Target and met up with my mom for dinner at Cap City--delicious. I then hauled ass to get to Bill's so we wouldn't be late for the Feist concert, which gets its own paragraph.

Boys and girls, the Feist concert was amazing. I probably need to get out more, but I will say that it was probably the best concert I've ever been to. We were like in the third row at the Wex's Mershon Auditorium. Jason Collett opened up, and he was great. During one song Bill and I both went through the same thought process of figuring out that his drummer was a girl and then, eventually, that it was Leslie Feist herself. I mean, we couldn't see her face, we're not that dumb. Feist came out and started the show with When I Was A Young Girl, which is a.) my favorite song of hers EVAR and b.) even more totally amazing in concert. I can't even describe the whole thing, I realize that, but just trust me that the concert was at all times both totally cracked out and perfectly perfect. At one point Feist asked for a certain girl in the audience, and then the girl's boyfriend proposed to her. She said yes, everyone cheered, and the band played Sarah Harmer's "Open Window." It was so strange and exciting. I've never seen anything like that happen before. I could go on and on, and really I think I already have.

Today was back to work as usual, but that's OK. It will be a nice 4-day week, and I still have my actual birthday and Thanksgiving to look forward to. I hope you all had equally wonderful weekends, or will soon.

Reading is sexy

Oh man, I don't think I ever posted this. Let me say that this is 100% real and that I actually saved it from Amazon:



Ignoring the fact that this makes it look like I was shopping for crotchless French knickers (I wasn't, I promise), I find this unbelievably hilarious. I mean, really? 6% of the people on Amazon who were searching for racy lingerie were like, "Mmm, nah. I'll just get a copy of Harry Potter instead." Maybe they meant to search for Hairy Pooter. Eww, sorry.

This is not how I imagined my life

Sometimes, at my job, someone will come up to me and let me know that something is amiss in one of the public restrooms. About half the time it's not too bad: out of toilet paper, somebody left something in there, needs air freshener, etc. The other half of the time you're stuck dealing with a clog or an overflowing urinal or the like. The bad news is that there is no designated person to clean up these messes; if you're the one who gets informed of it, you're the one who gets to deal with it.

Today, just after lunch, I got notified by a customer that there was a "situation" in the women's handicap stall and that it was "disgusting." I trudged out there and opened the stall door only to be confronted by a literal shitstorm: a swirling cloud of diarrhea filling the bowl to the absolute top, with a clod of bloody toilet paper floating in the middle like an eye. This was not something that I wanted to deal with, and, more importantly, I wasn't sure how to deal with it. A plunger was my first thought, but I worried about breaking the delicate poo meniscus and trapping myself under a waterfall of excrement. I thought about digging around in there with a straightened-out hanger the way my mom taught us to do when we'd gotten a little Charmin-happy at home, but rooting around in feces when the library doesn't even provide me with health insurance just felt like an over-extension. The longer I stared (why couldn't I stop staring?), the less I could think of anything to do.

Now, people I work with are usually totally gung-ho about these kinds of things; I myself have picked up all manor of unsavory objects and even mopped up pee from the mens' room. I understand that we all need to do our part, but something about that gloppy, choleral toilet bowl was just too much for me. I felt bad. Does not wanting to clean up a strangers diarrhea make me stuck-up? Is this what I'm going to have to deal with for the rest of my life if I stay in this profession? Was the woman who reported the mess also the perpetrator? I may never know, because in the end, I did what I'd really wanted to do all along: I slapped up an "out of order" sign and taped the stall door shut.