T minus 10

There's a lot of stuff I need to be doing to tie up all the loose ends at work before my long vacation, but I don't really feel like doing any of it. Work is like, totally harshing my buzz right now.*

I've entered the period (e.g. T minus 10 days and counting) when people start asking me How I Am Doing. And the weird thing is, I'm actually doing great. I'm excited about the whole wedding thing. I do still get a shivery feeling all down my spine when I think about that room full of people turning around to stare at me as I walk down the aisle. That crap is scary! But otherwise I think I've adopted a healthy if-they-don't-like-it-they-can-lump-it attitude.**



*Not literally. Although last Christmas one of my coworkers gave me one of those airplane bottles of Baileys, and I still have it in my desk. In case of emergency.

**I say this with love. And also having spent a couple of months freaking out over whether my wedding was going to be too hard on the guests.

Baby librarians

I just spoke to a group of library school students, who were here at the library on a field trip. They were really interested in what I had to say because they don't often get the chance to talk to actual librarians.

I felt so sorry for them. They all looked so beat down and miserable, it made me remember how much I hated library school. Whatever sucks about being a librarian, it doesn't suck nearly as much as being in library school.

For one thing, most of what they teach you in library school is patently stupid. For example, book talking. Book talking is just what it sounds like: Talking to people (in this case, teenaged people) about books in an effort to convince them to read those books. It's true that this is something we teen librarians do all the time--in the library, at schools, wherever. The general gist of it usually is: "Look at this awesome book! And this one! And this one!"

But you know what we don't do? We don't put on a little one-person play about the book, involving costumes and/or sound effects. And do you know why we don't do that? Because any teenager worth his salt would EAT YOU ALIVE if you did that. You might as well walk into a classroom and say, "Hello kids, I am a giant asshat! Please begin to snicker at me now!"

And yet, the costume idea is the sort of thing they are just nuts about in library school. "So, I really liked the way you discussed this medieval fantasy about a king," the library school teacher will say, "but I think it really would have been better if you had been wearing a crown. And holding a scepter. And maybe if you had called for your fiddlers three!"

The soul-crushing thing is that these people, the teachers, they usually mean well. I don't think they actually have a vendetta against upcoming librarians or are trying to drive them out of the profession or anything. But they don't tend to visit actual libraries very often, and I'm convinced they've never met any teenagers.

Blarg

It snowed yesterday. It also rained, sleeted, hailed, and flarved,* but by the end of the day it had settled down into actual snowfall that was sticking. Not a huge snowstorm by, like, Minneapolis standards, but for Seattle it was significant. It's so late in the year now that it was snowing in broad daylight past 8:00 at night. I had spent the whole day at the garden store and planting stuff in the yard, all of which I'm sure is now dead.

Mr. Awesome was kind of excited for the snow--"Come on, it's cool! It's a freak occurence!" But I was not having it.

NO SIR. NO THANK YOU.

We might have to move to Detroit so I can get some sun.


*Okay, I made this up, but it's a needed vocabulary word. It means precipitation that you're not even sure what it is anymore, except that it sucks ass.

At the Reference Desk

Patron: I need the address for the House of White! And the Kennedy!

Me: Um. The White House? And President Kennedy?

Patron: Yes, President Kennedy at the House of White!

Me: Er. I don't think he lives there anymore.

Feats of skill

Everyone is fine (I have to say that before what comes next), but I spent today with my friend in the ER. She had an allergic reaction to some stuff called Quorn, a vegetarian health food product that masquerades as being made out of mushrooms but apparently is actually mold. Like penicillin. Don't ever say that this blog has never taught you anything! But anyway, they shot her up with benadryl and she is just fine.

I have spent long days in emergency rooms in both New Orleans and Seattle, and I'm here to tell you that the Seattle experience was far more pleasant except for one thing: poo on the toilet seat. I was struck by this because it was, well, gross, but also curious. I mean, I think we ladies have learned to accept the occasional peed-on toilet seat as an unpleasant fact of life, but--poo? It just seems like such a physical challenge!

grumble grumble

Oh my god. It is just. so. cold.

SO FRAKKING COLD!! Why? Why still so cold?

If the weather were a person I would stomp on its toe and give it a good pinch.

Okay, I probably wouldn't do either of those things. But I would give it a Very Serious Talking To. Cause this bizness suh-ucks.

Stripper Clown!

I know, I know--I promised you stripper clown, and got your hopes all up, and then I just went AWOL. And you were all, "Where the fuck is our stripper clown!? We have been robbed!" And I don't blame you.

So here goes.

My kind friends Annie and Lula* volunteered to throw a wedding shower for Mr. Awesome and me. It was a karaoke shower, actually--they rented the machine and everything--and it was fantastaic. But anyway, before the shower, Anie and I were talking about showers/bachelor/bachelorette parties, and their vast potential for being either boring or really, really creepy.

"Yeah, strippers are pretty creepy and stupid," said Annie. "The only thing creepier? Clowns!"

"For real. And the only thing creepier than clowns would be, like, some kind of stripper/clown combo."

Annie: "STRIPPER CLOWNS!!!"

And the idea of stripper clowns was born. For some reason, nothing is funnier to me than stripper clowns. I don't know why. Perhaps I am stunted in some way. Annie and I riffed on this idea for weeks:

"It would be great if the clown was like, a totally sad clown!"
"Yeah, with those giant pants and rainbow suspenders! And when the music starts, he removes one rainbow suspender . . . then the other rainbow suspender . . ."
"YES! All to the tune of 'Send in the Clowns'!!"

I talked about it to pretty much everyone I know. (Pop Culture Librarian asked if the clown would wear honkable pasties. HONKABLE PASTIES! That is comedy gold, people.) However, it never occured to me that Annie might actually hire a stripper clown for our shower.

So, guess what Annie hired for our shower?



Yup.





Sensitive readers may want to spare themselves the grand finale . . .








*Some names have been changed to protect the clown fetishists.

Sing* for book display on Level 3

"April is NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

. . . you've been warned."


*Uh, I meant SIGN. Although the idea of someone singing that in the library is also kind of amusing.

Guest Post in Pop Culture Land

Hey ya'll, I have a post in the works for you. And it's about STRIPPER CLOWNS! Are you excited or what?

In the meantime, here is a guest post that I did for the lovely and talented Pop Culture Librarian about teen librarianism. And stripper clowns!

Okay, not really. Stay tuned, though.