tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59986032008-05-11T12:51:55.855-07:00Elizabethnoreply@blogger.comBlogger583125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-62763479703648867432008-04-30T13:52:00.000-07:002008-04-30T14:12:29.399-07:00

The New York Times recently reported that IM chat slang is creeping into school reports, driving teachers crazy. It also seems to be making its way just as inappropriately into pregnancy scare letters. Look at this gem that E found in a newly returned book, a note in which some young lady contemplates the future direction of her relationship after a potential pregnancy crisis. dear Simon, Since

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-35037468824624059482008-04-12T13:49:00.000-07:002008-04-12T13:53:08.702-07:00

I have a soft spot for the misunderstood creatures of the world, the spotted hyena in particular. They are an evolutionary oddity, a chimera, with snaky long necks and strangely shortened rear legs that give them their comical, awkward gait. Although they resemble a bear/dog/lion mixture, their closest relative, and not a close one, is the mongoose. But here’s where spotted hyenas get really

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-30232020076874662592008-03-25T19:02:00.000-07:002008-03-26T12:26:20.131-07:00

Last Sunday E was at the sketchiest Burger King in the city, which, naturally, is located right across the street from the library. A seedy looking man leaned in the door and called to his lady, who was standing next to the food pickup station, clutching a grimy receipt. “Oh, honey,” he said in the stilted, carefully enunciated words of a bad liar, "We're going to be late for…church, so you

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-61030760862985373812008-03-23T13:21:00.001-07:002008-03-24T11:00:56.272-07:00

We're going to have our own Easter egg hunt in the stacks of the the library today and by "Easter eggs" I mean human feces. David Sedaris did a hilarious segment on This American Life about this phenomenon, although he focuses mostly on the goings on at large retail chains. His theory is that it is an acting out, a fecal uprising, against faceles corporatation, like throwing a rock through a

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-44315480441790482942008-03-21T21:07:00.001-07:002008-03-23T13:19:17.280-07:00

Or puts the unborn in its place. Although this cannot be comfortable for Billy, and it certainly is not for me, my ever expanding abdomen has become his new favorite perch. I suspect he senses that there's a rival in there who must be told his place in the pack. Or perhaps he is trying to help me incubate it in his own special way. According to the Dog Wheeesperer, some of the ways dogs exert

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-83524123775352185822008-03-13T19:08:00.000-07:002008-03-13T19:30:33.723-07:00

During my last hour on the desk some workmen were jackhammering stonework that had become a tripping hazard not 20 feet away. The noise was deafening and made meaningful reference work or even conversation impossible. As frustrating and nerve rattling as the conditions were, I was reminded of my all time favorite Snopes entry. Fun fact: More than a quarter of pregnant West Virginians smoke! You

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-45928367442543344712008-03-13T13:18:00.000-07:002008-03-13T19:26:05.030-07:00

I am completely disgusted. Your pregnancy is ridiculously long and the results unimpressively small. I myself gestated a brood of six puppies in just 63 days. By the time you reached your fourth month I had my puppies whelped, weaned and sold off to good homes for a tidy profit. I also had my figure back.

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-80988725557030455012008-03-11T19:34:00.001-07:002008-03-15T10:50:41.204-07:00

Here is a photograph that really showcases the infamous Key head. Doesn't it make you wince? I imagine my poor, dear great-grandmother is gazing down upon her baby (either my grandmother or great-aunt) in disbelief that she survived childbirth. Such an immense, disproportionate head doesn’t even seem evolutionarily possible. Has it really been over a month since I posted last? This pregnancy

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-75439236774715334342008-02-01T14:50:00.000-08:002008-02-01T15:26:48.728-08:00

I do apologize for dropping off the face of the earth, but I've just feeling too sick to write. For the past few months I have been whipsawing between nausea and voracity. The cruelest part of the whole situation is that it's like being carsick, in that reading makes it so much worse, which is a special kind of hell for a librarian. This stage should have ended weeks ago, and I do feel a slight

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-91053675633432014432007-12-08T13:44:00.000-08:002007-12-08T14:03:59.966-08:00

I so hope that this is not going to end in "The Yearling" style heartbreak, but I'm adoring the photos for now: http://dailycoyote.blogspot.com/ A cousin was telling me how when he lived in Jackson Hole he saw a coyote slink up in broad daylight and snatch and carry off a 15 pound pug that had been sunning itself on his neighbor's porch. And not to be its bride, I'm afraid - no trace of the

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-32206561044674475542007-12-06T16:53:00.000-08:002007-12-07T09:35:57.793-08:00

Dateline: front of the library, 8:45 AM. A seedy looking couple waiting for the doors to the library to open so they could begin their morning toilette bickered. The woman, clutching her breakfast Colt 45, began to upbraid her companion. She pointed her finger at him and declared, “You need to shape up and start getting your shit together!” I believe those in the field of psychology would call

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-45230604716296992922007-12-04T17:50:00.001-08:002007-12-04T17:52:30.287-08:00

I deeply apologize for falling off the face of the earth. I have been working on a creative project of a different sort lately and it has completely kicked my ass. If things go well, we'll be expecting the little pitter pat of feet in June. More details soon, I promise.

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-15241836640938617332007-11-10T14:53:00.000-08:002007-11-10T20:26:43.388-08:00

A colleague from San Jose sent us pictures of the mess the latest earthquake out there caused. Life in earthquake country... When I was in library school, I visited a friend in San Francisco for spring break. He was a first year medical student, and he gave me a tour of his classrooms and laboratory. There was one lab that had all of its shelves lined with glass jars of fetuses in all the

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-49073045967691730172007-11-02T11:01:00.000-07:002007-11-02T11:05:05.108-07:00

In The Know: Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough? Panelists discuss ways to care for the nation's paranoid schizophrenics, such as hiding cameras in their homes or audio transmitters in their ears. "We have to give them practical advice, too, like tell them which bus drivers hate them, which manholes are covering up underground government prisons, which statues don't

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-51387512616675543632007-10-30T13:14:00.000-07:002007-10-30T22:09:14.622-07:00

Hello, I need a publisher’s contact information. For a magazine. No problem. What is the name of the magazine? It’s a…uh…an adult magazine. Is that O.K.? “Go ahead,” I replied using the weary, flat affect of one who’s heard it all, a tone I’ve been really cultivating lately. Mandate. One word, I think. I turned to Ulrich’s, the venerable, authoritative reference source of bibliographic and

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-83562926133225566812007-10-20T13:06:00.000-07:002007-10-20T15:59:00.621-07:00

"I didn't RTFA, so I'm just guessing gangs of wild goats ate the homeless. Once goats get the taste for human flesh, they'll never go back to tin cans again. This is problematic." Goats destroy homeless habitat. I hope these goats famously indiscriminate digestive systems can handle all of the hypodermic needles. Billy, Spoon and I pass by an overgrown hillside on our morning walk each day.

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-15338219992126644992007-10-15T11:45:00.000-07:002007-10-15T11:50:14.623-07:00

A woman called on Saturday and wanted to know if she could bring her cat to the library. "Is this a" clearing my throat "service animal?" "Nah. It's just that my cat gets lonely if I leave it at home for too long." "I'm sorry, only service animals are permitted in the building." Lolcats.

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-61585408218883677472007-10-10T18:29:00.000-07:002007-10-10T18:54:27.796-07:00

One of the most delightful and wondrous literary creations of late are the daemons in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. In the somewhat parallel world where the books take place, humans have a visible animal spirit called a daemon accompanying them at all times. The daemons speak and serve as both conscience and beloved companion. Children’s daemons shape shift until puberty, then

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-79165410514078662922007-09-29T15:33:00.000-07:002007-10-10T19:00:32.505-07:00

A brood of drag queens dressed to the nines in marabous and high heels, chiffon negligees and diaphanous nightgowns spilling out of a bar to smoke on the sidewalk. The sidewalk glowed with them. They raised their champagne and martini glasses to me as a biked by. At 8:45 on a Tuesday morning, an unexpected benediction. It felt like grace.

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-41477563059226826162007-09-22T14:17:00.000-07:002007-09-22T14:57:47.597-07:00

Billy has been recuperating from kidney issues resulting from the heat prostration he suffered in Texas. To his embarrassment, sometimes he cannot make it through the entire night without a trip to the yard, and will apologetically scratch the door for me to take him out in the middle of the night. The other night I awoke to a thud as he jumped from the bed and ran to the door. I staggered out

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-56877693499239282372007-09-20T16:53:00.000-07:002007-09-20T21:21:43.146-07:00

While I was poking around for Big Love Youtube clips of my new favorite character, Rhonda, I stumbled across some of little Daveigh Chase’ earlier work in Donnie Darko. Sparkle Motion! Sparkle Motion’s little dance routine pretty much sums up everything that was wrong (and yet so right) about the 80s. Which then led me to the Donnie Darko scene that contains one of the greatest lines in

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-33579673734908948282007-09-19T12:58:00.000-07:002007-09-20T09:27:39.916-07:00

Ever since I watched the movie Mildred Pierce, I’ve always had a soft spot for fledgling femme fatales. Even though they’re on their way to being conniving, hard as nails and utterly ruthless adults, there is something adorable and vulnerable about them at this age, like a panther cub with clumsy, too big paws. Veda Pierce, as scheming, spoiled, grasping, and murderous as she may be, is just such

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-39572206468593803892007-09-15T14:40:00.000-07:002007-09-15T14:42:52.129-07:00

A patron presented the manager of circulations and fines with what looked like a legal bankruptcy document discharging the costs of some books he had never returned. Although the document had a judge’s signature on it, the document looked doctored, like several different pieces had been laid out on a single page and then photocopied together to make it appear as if they part of the same letter.

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-29100024022539084232007-09-13T18:07:00.000-07:002007-09-13T18:08:11.669-07:00

I can't return my seriously overdue books because... For religious reasons, I have taken a vow of silence and cannot leave my apartment. (via email) My landlord will have all of the locks changed if I leave my apartment. I can’t leave my house! The last time I did the power company demolished my back bedroom with a bulldozer. I loaned them to a friend and my friend's house was condemned by

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998603.post-63223679125627726532007-09-08T14:45:00.000-07:002007-09-08T14:51:34.242-07:00

I apologize for the lack of postings. I’ve been at another family funeral, and have been preoccupied with all of the attendant obligations. Besides being a co-executor of the estate, I had to write yet another obituary, a duty at which I’ve become a reluctant old hand. It’s all made me weary. E thought that the Microsoft should configure the coy little paperclip avatar/help agent “Clippy” to say,

Foxyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12245439523028114944noreply@blogger.com