The Wrath of Punky
The Feisty Old Broad told me the other day that Punky assaulted one of his buddies, Steve-o, in the park. Punky can be very dangerous because he is treacherously temperamental and does not fight fairly. The other day he approached and, without warning, sucker punched Steve-o, another park regular. He then struck him in the right eye with a heavy glass Jim Beam bottle. Now Steve-o has a black eye, brilliantly hued and swollen. It is quite breathtaking.
Punky has been in a very petulant and resentful mood toward Steve-o lately because Steve-o struck the homeless/residential hotel dweller equivalent of the lottery: he began successfully collecting SSI. After petitioning the system with the tenacity of the herpes virus, Steve-o was finally approved for disability by his exhausted caseworker for some vague psychological disorder, which I have diagnosed as chronic shiftlessness.
What I didn't realize about SSI is that you are paid retroactively to the date of your initial application, so if it has taken its sweet time wending its way in the system through all the various rejections, appeals, and red tape then you are going to receive a sizeable lump payment. Steve-o himself received $7000, which is $2000 dollars more than earned marrying a Chinese woman in the immigrant scam ring he freelances for. In something straight out of Catch-22, the maximum amount you can keep in a checking account if you are on SSI is $2000, so you have to either keep the rest of the money in cash or money orders or some commodity like collectible stamps or heroin. Since Steve-o doesn't have a mattress to squirrel any valuables away in, he immediately squandered the entire amount on very lavish solo methamphetamine binge. Now he doesn't have one dime left, but at least he has a steady source of income courtesy of the taxpayer.
As Steve-o's friend, Punky felt entitled to a cut of this windfall, but as soon as Steve-o cashed his check he sensibly vanished before lampreys like Punky could suction themselves on. When he reappeared, jittery and 15 pounds thinner, he didn't have any money or drugs left to share. Punky had been brooding and stewing about Steve-o's lack of generosity and selfish extravagance until he finally erupted and assaulted Steve-o in a fit spiteful rage when he saw him strolling through the park. Punky will not be denied.
Not to sound all Reagan, but is this really the best use of our tax dollars? I'm grateful that we don't in our own small way contribute to the problem by keeping a copy of the DSM IV at this branch. When I work at the branches that do, I see hopeful welfare scammers poring over it, intently searching out information to build their disability case. That way, when they meet with their case agent they can be all prepared to recite verbatim the definition of whatever diagnosis they're after.
My friend who is a social worker would sometimes have up to 4 patients a day tell him exactly,
"I'm having flights of fancy and feel as though my thoughts are racing. My attention is too easily drawn to unimportant or irrelevant external stimuli," which is straight out of the DSM's definition of bipolar disorder.
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Monday, April 26, 2004
This is your life
We’re having an unusual spell of gorgeous weather in the city. On my daily morning walk with the dogs we pass through a bench lined promenade next to the bay. This morning, every single bench was occupied by a homeless character I recognized from the library, including the kicker, who has been disturbingly dark roasted by sun, grime, and exposure. Each one was stretched out with a breakfast 40, sunning him/herself. They were all lined up, just like intoxicated turtles on a log, or like deceased, beloved relatives beckoning you by in the tunnel that leads toward the white light in a near death experience.
It was like a stroll down memory lane, and as a couple of them recognized me and waved I thought to myself, “I really need to vary my walking route.”
We’re having an unusual spell of gorgeous weather in the city. On my daily morning walk with the dogs we pass through a bench lined promenade next to the bay. This morning, every single bench was occupied by a homeless character I recognized from the library, including the kicker, who has been disturbingly dark roasted by sun, grime, and exposure. Each one was stretched out with a breakfast 40, sunning him/herself. They were all lined up, just like intoxicated turtles on a log, or like deceased, beloved relatives beckoning you by in the tunnel that leads toward the white light in a near death experience.
It was like a stroll down memory lane, and as a couple of them recognized me and waved I thought to myself, “I really need to vary my walking route.”
This is your life
We’re having an unusual spell of gorgeous weather in the city. On my daily morning walk with the dogs we pass through a bench lined promenade next to the bay. This morning, every single bench was occupied by a homeless character I recognized from the library, including the kicker, who has been disturbingly dark roasted by sun, grime, and exposure. Each one was stretched out with a breakfast 40, sunning him/herself. They were all lined up, just like intoxicated turtles on a log, or like deceased, beloved relatives beckoning you by in the tunnel that leads toward the white light in a near death experience.
It was like a stroll down memory lane, and as a couple of them recognized me and waved I thought to myself, “I really need to vary my walking route.”
We’re having an unusual spell of gorgeous weather in the city. On my daily morning walk with the dogs we pass through a bench lined promenade next to the bay. This morning, every single bench was occupied by a homeless character I recognized from the library, including the kicker, who has been disturbingly dark roasted by sun, grime, and exposure. Each one was stretched out with a breakfast 40, sunning him/herself. They were all lined up, just like intoxicated turtles on a log, or like deceased, beloved relatives beckoning you by in the tunnel that leads toward the white light in a near death experience.
It was like a stroll down memory lane, and as a couple of them recognized me and waved I thought to myself, “I really need to vary my walking route.”
Saturday, April 24, 2004
Friday, April 23, 2004
Dear Porn Seeker,
Thanks to Nedstat, a website traffic monitor, I can see what search terms people have used to find this site on Google. When looking to get your freak on, here's a tip: using proximity connectors will really help you with your searching precision and rate of relevant returns. Otherwise, Google's algorithm, powerful but by no means perfect, will return some results that might surprise and baffle you. I'm sure the person with a very creepy fetish who used the search string: heroin addict lesbian goth girls cutting themselves in the bathroom was highly disappointed to see this website, which has nothing to do with the subject he/she was looking for, as one of the top returns.
Here are some other good searches that lead to Foxylibrarian:
ethiopian prostitute san francisco herald
young asian boy guy man men smoke smoking cigarette -blowjob -pussy
I don't seem to have near the misdirected traffic that my comrade at Sex and the Library has, though.
Dear Porn Seeker,
Thanks to Nedstat, a website traffic monitor, I can see what search terms people have used to find this site on Google. When looking to get your freak on, here's a tip: using proximity connectors will really help you with your searching precision and rate of relevant returns. Otherwise, Google's algorithm, powerful but by no means perfect, will return some results that might surprise and baffle you. I'm sure the person with a very creepy fetish who used the search string: heroin addict lesbian goth girls cutting themselves in the bathroom was highly disappointed to see this website, which has nothing to do with the subject he/she was looking for, as one of the top returns.
Here are some other good searches that lead to Foxylibrarian:
ethiopian prostitute san francisco herald
young asian boy guy man men smoke smoking cigarette -blowjob -pussy
I don't seem to have near the misdirected traffic that my comrade at Sex and the Library has, though.
MAGIC REALISM?
From an interview with Isabel Allende in the 1994 May/June issue of Common Boundary entitled, “Writing from the Belly.”
I recall a story you told about one of the accounts in one of your books. You wrote about a mine where peasants had been murdered. There was a kind of psychic thread that moved through your writing process.
That story is from Of Love and Shadows…The story you are referring to is of a political crime that happened in 1973. Fifteen peasants were murdered, and their bodies were never found. Five years later the Catholic Church opened an abandoned mine and found the bodies. No one knows how they got the news and how they opened it before the police could stop them. It was in the media, and there was a trial; that is how I learned about it.
When I wrote the story, I had some partial information, but only what the Chilean government released. I had to fill in the gaps with my imagination. When I finished the story, my mother read the book and she said, “This is totally unbelievable. The fact that a priest learns in confession that the bodies are in the mine, takes his motorcycle, goes to a place that has been closed by the police during curfew, opens the mine, finds the bodies, photographs them, and brings the photographs to the cardinal – that’s impossible!” And I said, “Well, Mom, it’s a literary device. I have no other way of solving the plot”
The book was published in 1984. In 1988, I was able to return to Chile. While I was there, a Jesuit priest came to speak with me, and he said he had learned in confession that the bodies were in the mine. He had gone there during curfew on his motorcycle; he opened the mine, photographed the bodies, and took the photographs to the cardinal. That’s how the Catholic church opened the mine before they were stopped by the authorities. He asked me how I had known, because the only people who knew about this were the cardinal and himself. I said, “I don’t know. I thought I had made it up – but maybe the dead told me.”
MAGIC REALISM?
From an interview with Isabel Allende in the 1994 May/June issue of Common Boundary entitled, “Writing from the Belly.”
I recall a story you told about one of the accounts in one of your books. You wrote about a mine where peasants had been murdered. There was a kind of psychic thread that moved through your writing process.
That story is from Of Love and Shadows…The story you are referring to is of a political crime that happened in 1973. Fifteen peasants were murdered, and their bodies were never found. Five years later the Catholic Church opened an abandoned mine and found the bodies. No one knows how they got the news and how they opened it before the police could stop them. It was in the media, and there was a trial; that is how I learned about it.
When I wrote the story, I had some partial information, but only what the Chilean government released. I had to fill in the gaps with my imagination. When I finished the story, my mother read the book and she said, “This is totally unbelievable. The fact that a priest learns in confession that the bodies are in the mine, takes his motorcycle, goes to a place that has been closed by the police during curfew, opens the mine, finds the bodies, photographs them, and brings the photographs to the cardinal – that’s impossible!” And I said, “Well, Mom, it’s a literary device. I have no other way of solving the plot”
The book was published in 1984. In 1988, I was able to return to Chile. While I was there, a Jesuit priest came to speak with me, and he said he had learned in confession that the bodies were in the mine. He had gone there during curfew on his motorcycle; he opened the mine, photographed the bodies, and took the photographs to the cardinal. That’s how the Catholic church opened the mine before they were stopped by the authorities. He asked me how I had known, because the only people who knew about this were the cardinal and himself. I said, “I don’t know. I thought I had made it up – but maybe the dead told me.”
Thursday, April 22, 2004
I'm from the government and I'm here to help you
The library tech at the branch I'm working at today gave me a head ups about a patron who has become a bit of a problem. Imagine if Lenny and Squiggy had a baby - and by Lenny I mean the lummox from Of Mice and Men.
Characteristics he shares with Squiggy:
Characteristics he shares with Lenny from Of Mice and Men:
Whenever I'm here he always comes in and asks for books about careers in the FBI. There is only one FBI vocational book in the entire system, and it is a reference book down at the main. Each time I print it out the record for him and tell him that he has to go down to the main library if he wants to look at it.
Well, now it was reported that he is impersonating an FBI agent in the neighborhood. He has really become emboldened and will go so far as to whip open up his jacket like he's flashing his badge and gun when he is trying to enforce random citizens to do things like pick up a piece of litter on the street. The other day he told a frail, elderly Asian patron that he was with the FBI and he was going to arrest her if she didn't stop that man immediately, a vagrant who was urinating outside the library window. She was terrified, and cowered in the children's area until he left when she then reported him to the tech.
Now we're supposed to tell him if he comes in that falsely identifying yourself as an FBI agent is a federal charge. I'm hoping that I will be on my dinner break.
I'm from the government and I'm here to help you
The library tech at the branch I'm working at today gave me a head ups about a patron who has become a bit of a problem. Imagine if Lenny and Squiggy had a baby - and by Lenny I mean the lummox from Of Mice and Men.
Characteristics he shares with Squiggy:
Characteristics he shares with Lenny from Of Mice and Men:
Whenever I'm here he always comes in and asks for books about careers in the FBI. There is only one FBI vocational book in the entire system, and it is a reference book down at the main. Each time I print it out the record for him and tell him that he has to go down to the main library if he wants to look at it.
Well, now it was reported that he is impersonating an FBI agent in the neighborhood. He has really become emboldened and will go so far as to whip open up his jacket like he's flashing his badge and gun when he is trying to enforce random citizens to do things like pick up a piece of litter on the street. The other day he told a frail, elderly Asian patron that he was with the FBI and he was going to arrest her if she didn't stop that man immediately, a vagrant who was urinating outside the library window. She was terrified, and cowered in the children's area until he left when she then reported him to the tech.
Now we're supposed to tell him if he comes in that falsely identifying yourself as an FBI agent is a federal charge. I'm hoping that I will be on my dinner break.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
The library where I was stationed last week is in an industrial, toxic wasteland of old shipyards, petrochemical refineries, and munitions factories: a case study in environmental racism. There is not much around the library now but projects, liquor stores, and Nation of Islam temples.
Aside from the depressing and carcinogenic surroundings, it is actually a very pleasant place to work. The stern old African American librarians who work at that branch brook no nonsense and have all the patrons, especially the children, walking the line. After the rowdiness and insolence I have faced at some of the other branches, it's really a welcome change. While I was there a little boy actually raised his hand like he was in some English public school and asked in a quavering voice,
"Mrs. Lieberrian? May I please have a turn on the computer?"
While I was there, one of the support staff, a teenage boy, told me with gallant delicacy, "Well, ma'am, see, that gentlemen over at the far table. Well, well he sometimes does things with his er... man parts that can be quite offensive. But I'll keep an eye on him for you."
I feel very safe there. Another librarian,a small and gentle rabbinical man who also floats at different libraries, was stationed there one time. He doesn't drive so after the library closed the two librarians escorted him to the bus stop and waited with him until his bus came, glowering like German Shepherds at anyone passing by. No one messed with them.
Aside from the depressing and carcinogenic surroundings, it is actually a very pleasant place to work. The stern old African American librarians who work at that branch brook no nonsense and have all the patrons, especially the children, walking the line. After the rowdiness and insolence I have faced at some of the other branches, it's really a welcome change. While I was there a little boy actually raised his hand like he was in some English public school and asked in a quavering voice,
"Mrs. Lieberrian? May I please have a turn on the computer?"
While I was there, one of the support staff, a teenage boy, told me with gallant delicacy, "Well, ma'am, see, that gentlemen over at the far table. Well, well he sometimes does things with his er... man parts that can be quite offensive. But I'll keep an eye on him for you."
I feel very safe there. Another librarian,a small and gentle rabbinical man who also floats at different libraries, was stationed there one time. He doesn't drive so after the library closed the two librarians escorted him to the bus stop and waited with him until his bus came, glowering like German Shepherds at anyone passing by. No one messed with them.
The library where I was stationed last week is in an industrial, toxic wasteland of old shipyards, petrochemical refineries, and munitions factories: a case study in environmental racism. There is not much around the library now but projects, liquor stores, and Nation of Islam temples.
Aside from the depressing and carcinogenic surroundings, it is actually a very pleasant place to work. The stern old African American librarians who work at that branch brook no nonsense and have all the patrons, especially the children, walking the line. After the rowdiness and insolence I have faced at some of the other branches, it's really a welcome change. While I was there a little boy actually raised his hand like he was in some English public school and asked in a quavering voice,
"Mrs. Lieberrian? May I please have a turn on the computer?"
While I was there, one of the support staff, a teenage boy, told me with gallant delicacy, "Well, ma'am, see, that gentlemen over at the far table. Well, well he sometimes does things with his er... man parts that can be quite offensive. But I'll keep an eye on him for you."
I feel very safe there. Another librarian,a small and gentle rabbinical man who also floats at different libraries, was stationed there one time. He doesn't drive so after the library closed the two librarians escorted him to the bus stop and waited with him until his bus came, glowering like German Shepherds at anyone passing by. No one messed with them.
Aside from the depressing and carcinogenic surroundings, it is actually a very pleasant place to work. The stern old African American librarians who work at that branch brook no nonsense and have all the patrons, especially the children, walking the line. After the rowdiness and insolence I have faced at some of the other branches, it's really a welcome change. While I was there a little boy actually raised his hand like he was in some English public school and asked in a quavering voice,
"Mrs. Lieberrian? May I please have a turn on the computer?"
While I was there, one of the support staff, a teenage boy, told me with gallant delicacy, "Well, ma'am, see, that gentlemen over at the far table. Well, well he sometimes does things with his er... man parts that can be quite offensive. But I'll keep an eye on him for you."
I feel very safe there. Another librarian,a small and gentle rabbinical man who also floats at different libraries, was stationed there one time. He doesn't drive so after the library closed the two librarians escorted him to the bus stop and waited with him until his bus came, glowering like German Shepherds at anyone passing by. No one messed with them.
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Loretta Graduates from Rehab and Immediately Resumes Drinking
The travails of the taxpayer and Loretta continue. The neighborhood street socialite was spotted in the park yesterday, fresh out of rehab, stinking drunk. She was raising hell and spewing filthy invectives because she thought some woman was making a move on one of her admirers. Loretta can be a real wildcat when she perceives a threat from a female rival.
My manager also reported that not only is Loretta's foot not healing, it looks like she has broken her arm as well. Now she has two limbs in casts. I don't see how she remains mobile, since she needs both arms to use her crutches properly. Maybe Medicaid or some other social services agency will issue her a Jazzy or a Rascal, so it can be immediately stolen from her. Or maybe her entourage will carry her about on a litter like Cleopatra. She did fatten up grotesquely on all of the institutional carbs while she was in rehab, though, which might make that an impossibility.
I was walking by the park today and saw a long line of men in the park and thought for a moment that Loretta was feeling up to entertaining gentlemen callers in one of the stalls again, but then I realized that it was elderly Chinese lined up for information about senior citizen services. I'm sure I'll have a sighting of my own soon.
The travails of the taxpayer and Loretta continue. The neighborhood street socialite was spotted in the park yesterday, fresh out of rehab, stinking drunk. She was raising hell and spewing filthy invectives because she thought some woman was making a move on one of her admirers. Loretta can be a real wildcat when she perceives a threat from a female rival.
My manager also reported that not only is Loretta's foot not healing, it looks like she has broken her arm as well. Now she has two limbs in casts. I don't see how she remains mobile, since she needs both arms to use her crutches properly. Maybe Medicaid or some other social services agency will issue her a Jazzy or a Rascal, so it can be immediately stolen from her. Or maybe her entourage will carry her about on a litter like Cleopatra. She did fatten up grotesquely on all of the institutional carbs while she was in rehab, though, which might make that an impossibility.
I was walking by the park today and saw a long line of men in the park and thought for a moment that Loretta was feeling up to entertaining gentlemen callers in one of the stalls again, but then I realized that it was elderly Chinese lined up for information about senior citizen services. I'm sure I'll have a sighting of my own soon.
Loretta Graduates from Rehab and Immediately Resumes Drinking
The travails of the taxpayer and Loretta continue. The neighborhood street socialite was spotted in the park yesterday, fresh out of rehab, stinking drunk. She was raising hell and spewing filthy invectives because she thought some woman was making a move on one of her admirers. Loretta can be a real wildcat when she perceives a threat from a female rival.
My manager also reported that not only is Loretta's foot not healing, it looks like she has broken her arm as well. Now she has two limbs in casts. I don't see how she remains mobile, since she needs both arms to use her crutches properly. Maybe Medicaid or some other social services agency will issue her a Jazzy or a Rascal, so it can be immediately stolen from her. Or maybe her entourage will carry her about on a litter like Cleopatra. She did fatten up grotesquely on all of the institutional carbs while she was in rehab, though, which might make that an impossibility.
I was walking by the park today and saw a long line of men in the park and thought for a moment that Loretta was feeling up to entertaining gentlemen callers in one of the stalls again, but then I realized that it was elderly Chinese lined up for information about senior citizen services. I'm sure I'll have a sighting of my own soon.
The travails of the taxpayer and Loretta continue. The neighborhood street socialite was spotted in the park yesterday, fresh out of rehab, stinking drunk. She was raising hell and spewing filthy invectives because she thought some woman was making a move on one of her admirers. Loretta can be a real wildcat when she perceives a threat from a female rival.
My manager also reported that not only is Loretta's foot not healing, it looks like she has broken her arm as well. Now she has two limbs in casts. I don't see how she remains mobile, since she needs both arms to use her crutches properly. Maybe Medicaid or some other social services agency will issue her a Jazzy or a Rascal, so it can be immediately stolen from her. Or maybe her entourage will carry her about on a litter like Cleopatra. She did fatten up grotesquely on all of the institutional carbs while she was in rehab, though, which might make that an impossibility.
I was walking by the park today and saw a long line of men in the park and thought for a moment that Loretta was feeling up to entertaining gentlemen callers in one of the stalls again, but then I realized that it was elderly Chinese lined up for information about senior citizen services. I'm sure I'll have a sighting of my own soon.
Saturday, April 17, 2004
The Sorrow and the Pity
I intentionally took April 15th off, because after suffering through the past several April 15ths at the reference desk, I finally wised up and now avoid working that day at the library at all costs. April 15th at the library has the same desperate air of panic and confusion as the Fall of Saigon. All of the procrastinators pitifully running around clutching forms, wretchedly pleading and demanding tax advice from us (which we're prohibiting from providing) is too much for my fragile nature. Sometimes in those situations I feel hyper-sensitive to other people's energy, sort of like a Precog. I can just feel my body being bathed in cancer causing stress hormones.
Inevitably, after we discover that some egregious jackass has stolen all of the the most commonly needed reproducible forms out the IRS notebook, the IRS site crashes so replacement forms can't be downloaded, and the level of panic rises to DEFCON I levels. I wish there were enough inter-agency government cooperation for us to request that anyone who files on a form with punch holes in it be automatically audited, because if they steal from the library in such a contemptible and low way, chances are they're cheating on their taxes.
Please remind me to take Aug 15th and Oct 15th, the extension deadlines, what Elizabeth calls the 'new' April 15th, off as well.
The Sorrow and the Pity
I intentionally took April 15th off, because after suffering through the past several April 15ths at the reference desk, I finally wised up and now avoid working that day at the library at all costs. April 15th at the library has the same desperate air of panic and confusion as the Fall of Saigon. All of the procrastinators pitifully running around clutching forms, wretchedly pleading and demanding tax advice from us (which we're prohibiting from providing) is too much for my fragile nature. Sometimes in those situations I feel hyper-sensitive to other people's energy, sort of like a Precog. I can just feel my body being bathed in cancer causing stress hormones.
Inevitably, after we discover that some egregious jackass has stolen all of the the most commonly needed reproducible forms out the IRS notebook, the IRS site crashes so replacement forms can't be downloaded, and the level of panic rises to DEFCON I levels. I wish there were enough inter-agency government cooperation for us to request that anyone who files on a form with punch holes in it be automatically audited, because if they steal from the library in such a contemptible and low way, chances are they're cheating on their taxes.
Please remind me to take Aug 15th and Oct 15th, the extension deadlines, what Elizabeth calls the 'new' April 15th, off as well.
Friday, April 16, 2004
Papa's got a brand new gun
Since I don’t particularly enjoy reading about carnage and butchery I am not a big Hemingway fan, but I really did enjoy A Moveable Feast, his autobiographical account of the time he spent in Paris as a young writer in the twenties. In this memoir, he is as gossipy and catty as a schoolgirl. He dishes about many of the famous expatriate literary figures he consorted with in Paris like Gertrude Stein and James Joyce, but reserves the most acid for F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, who come across as alcoholic loons. At one point, Hemingway recounts how F. Scott sheepishly showed Hemingway his penis and asked Hemingway if it were as abnormally and inadequately small as Zelda is constantly telling him it is. The couple was always trying to enmesh Hemingway in their dysfunctional, alcohol fueled bickering, and Hemingway finally tires of it and gives F. Scott good and matter-of-fact advice despite the risk that it might strain their friendship.
“Forget what Zelda said," I told him. "Zelda is crazy. There’s nothing wrong with you. Just have confidence... Zelda just wants to destroy you.”
He should have added, "But I will destroy you (or at least your reputation, for you will have drunk yourself into an early grave by then) more when I, your supposed friend, reveal this embarrassingly intimate confidence about you and your wife to the world." (In Hemingway's defense, this book was pieced together and released posthumously without his creative control.)
Hemingway also offers us the most awe-inspiring example of passive aggression I have ever read.
Hadley, his first wife, decides on a whim to to pack up every single unpublished manuscript (and all of the carbon copies) in a suitcase to bring to Hemingway as a surprise when she joins him late on a ski trip. She ‘accidentally’ leaves the suitcase on the train station platform where it is stolen, never to be recovered. In essence, his life’s work is lost.
Here is Hemingway’s description of how Hadley breaks the news to him.
“I had never seen anyone hurt by a thing other than death or unbearable suffering except Hadley when she told me about the things being gone. She had cried and cried and could not tell me. I told her that no matter what the dreadful thing was that had happened nothing could be that bad, and whatever it was, it was all right, not to worry. We could work it out. Then, finally, she told me. I was sure that she could not have brought the carbons too…
It was true all right…”
Hemingway was most likely carrying on with her best friend at the time, the one he eventually leaves Hadley and their young son for, and this was indirect revenge at its finest. My hat’s off to you, Hadley Hemingway, for your non-balls.
Papa's got a brand new gun
Since I don’t particularly enjoy reading about carnage and butchery I am not a big Hemingway fan, but I really did enjoy A Moveable Feast, his autobiographical account of the time he spent in Paris as a young writer in the twenties. In this memoir, he is as gossipy and catty as a schoolgirl. He dishes about many of the famous expatriate literary figures he consorted with in Paris like Gertrude Stein and James Joyce, but reserves the most acid for F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, who come across as alcoholic loons. At one point, Hemingway recounts how F. Scott sheepishly showed Hemingway his penis and asked Hemingway if it were as abnormally and inadequately small as Zelda is constantly telling him it is. The couple was always trying to enmesh Hemingway in their dysfunctional, alcohol fueled bickering, and Hemingway finally tires of it and gives F. Scott good and matter-of-fact advice despite the risk that it might strain their friendship.
“Forget what Zelda said," I told him. "Zelda is crazy. There’s nothing wrong with you. Just have confidence... Zelda just wants to destroy you.”
He should have added, "But I will destroy you (or at least your reputation, for you will have drunk yourself into an early grave by then) more when I, your supposed friend, reveal this embarrassingly intimate confidence about you and your wife to the world." (In Hemingway's defense, this book was pieced together and released posthumously without his creative control.)
Hemingway also offers us the most awe-inspiring example of passive aggression I have ever read.
Hadley, his first wife, decides on a whim to to pack up every single unpublished manuscript (and all of the carbon copies) in a suitcase to bring to Hemingway as a surprise when she joins him late on a ski trip. She ‘accidentally’ leaves the suitcase on the train station platform where it is stolen, never to be recovered. In essence, his life’s work is lost.
Here is Hemingway’s description of how Hadley breaks the news to him.
“I had never seen anyone hurt by a thing other than death or unbearable suffering except Hadley when she told me about the things being gone. She had cried and cried and could not tell me. I told her that no matter what the dreadful thing was that had happened nothing could be that bad, and whatever it was, it was all right, not to worry. We could work it out. Then, finally, she told me. I was sure that she could not have brought the carbons too…
It was true all right…”
Hemingway was most likely carrying on with her best friend at the time, the one he eventually leaves Hadley and their young son for, and this was indirect revenge at its finest. My hat’s off to you, Hadley Hemingway, for your non-balls.
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Lost Patron, Part Deux
Like so many people in this city, you had no visible means of support. I suspect you lived off of the income from a small trust (rumor had it you were from an old, well to do family) or maybe disability for your borderline personality disorder. The amount was not enough to keep you in style, but enough for you to subsist, as long as you kept your expenses and expectations low. Having a rent controlled apartment in one of the most desirable areas of the city certainly helped you get by.
In your fitful attempts at finding a job, you thought you would impress your potential employers by putting, "Hello, this is X, and I am DESPERATE for employment!" on your home answering machine. Did you really think that would help you sell yourself? I wonder if you used a similar tact on your Craigslist Men seeking Women profile, because certainly there is nothing women find sexier than desperation. Your more direct approaches, like telling me that I had a killer rack while you leered over the reference desk, certainly didn't get you far, although it did almost get you banned from the library, you smooth talker.
Since you couldn't find legitimate employment, you invented a 'job' for yourself, which was to ruin mine. Each day you would skulk around the reference desk and ply me with a constant stream of wild goose chase reference questions about any flight of fancy that happened to strike you, like
Especially charming was your hatred of children, and how you would invoke the sunshine laws in your demands for user studies that determined how we allocated resources. You acted like the children were maliciously poaching your resources, like your competition with children over library resources was some kind of zero sum game.
What a tool you were.
My colleague who for some reason that I cannot fathom attended a party you threw appreciated how you put your guests at ease by screaming without warning, all Norman Bates, in your elegant mother's face,
"MOTHER, are you TRYING to ruin my party?"
Recently you were ousted, much like former Haitian President Aristide, when you came home drunk and got in a fist fight with your roommate and broke your front door. Finally, the landlord, who had patiently waited for so many years, had reasonable cause to evict you from your rent controlled residence.
That was when you decided to give up on the United States and relocate to some very lucky third world country to stretch your dollar and make foreigners hate Americans more. I overheard you tell another patron with a smirk on your face that the reason you chose that particular country was because the average age of the females there was 14. You make my skin crawl. Stay lost.
Like so many people in this city, you had no visible means of support. I suspect you lived off of the income from a small trust (rumor had it you were from an old, well to do family) or maybe disability for your borderline personality disorder. The amount was not enough to keep you in style, but enough for you to subsist, as long as you kept your expenses and expectations low. Having a rent controlled apartment in one of the most desirable areas of the city certainly helped you get by.
In your fitful attempts at finding a job, you thought you would impress your potential employers by putting, "Hello, this is X, and I am DESPERATE for employment!" on your home answering machine. Did you really think that would help you sell yourself? I wonder if you used a similar tact on your Craigslist Men seeking Women profile, because certainly there is nothing women find sexier than desperation. Your more direct approaches, like telling me that I had a killer rack while you leered over the reference desk, certainly didn't get you far, although it did almost get you banned from the library, you smooth talker.
Since you couldn't find legitimate employment, you invented a 'job' for yourself, which was to ruin mine. Each day you would skulk around the reference desk and ply me with a constant stream of wild goose chase reference questions about any flight of fancy that happened to strike you, like
- the exact number of drinking establishments in the neighborhood in the year 1945
- the name of some obscure muralist you saw in the Yucatan, or maybe Nicaragua, or was it Peru? You weren't quite sure.
- the address of some quack doctor in Tokyo
- A list of all dog groomers in the greater Chicago area
- the reason why flamingos are pink
Especially charming was your hatred of children, and how you would invoke the sunshine laws in your demands for user studies that determined how we allocated resources. You acted like the children were maliciously poaching your resources, like your competition with children over library resources was some kind of zero sum game.
What a tool you were.
My colleague who for some reason that I cannot fathom attended a party you threw appreciated how you put your guests at ease by screaming without warning, all Norman Bates, in your elegant mother's face,
"MOTHER, are you TRYING to ruin my party?"
Recently you were ousted, much like former Haitian President Aristide, when you came home drunk and got in a fist fight with your roommate and broke your front door. Finally, the landlord, who had patiently waited for so many years, had reasonable cause to evict you from your rent controlled residence.
That was when you decided to give up on the United States and relocate to some very lucky third world country to stretch your dollar and make foreigners hate Americans more. I overheard you tell another patron with a smirk on your face that the reason you chose that particular country was because the average age of the females there was 14. You make my skin crawl. Stay lost.
Lost Patron, Part Deux
Like so many people in this city, you had no visible means of support. I suspect you lived off of the income from a small trust (rumor had it you were from an old, well to do family) or maybe disability for your borderline personality disorder. The amount was not enough to keep you in style, but enough for you to subsist, as long as you kept your expenses and expectations low. Having a rent controlled apartment in one of the most desirable areas of the city certainly helped you get by.
In your fitful attempts at finding a job, you thought you would impress your potential employers by putting, "Hello, this is X, and I am DESPERATE for employment!" on your home answering machine. Did you really think that would help you sell yourself? I wonder if you used a similar tact on your Craigslist Men seeking Women profile, because certainly there is nothing women find sexier than desperation. Your more direct approaches, like telling me that I had a killer rack while you leered over the reference desk, certainly didn't get you far, although it did almost get you banned from the library, you smooth talker.
Since you couldn't find legitimate employment, you invented a 'job' for yourself, which was to ruin mine. Each day you would skulk around the reference desk and ply me with a constant stream of wild goose chase reference questions about any flight of fancy that happened to strike you, like
Especially charming was your hatred of children, and how you would invoke the sunshine laws in your demands for user studies that determined how we allocated resources. You acted like the children were maliciously poaching your resources, like your competition with children over library resources was some kind of zero sum game.
What a tool you were.
My colleague who for some reason that I cannot fathom attended a party you threw appreciated how you put your guests at ease by screaming without warning, all Norman Bates, in your elegant mother's face,
"MOTHER, are you TRYING to ruin my party?"
Recently you were ousted, much like former Haitian President Aristide, when you came home drunk and got in a fist fight with your roommate and broke your front door. Finally, the landlord, who had patiently waited for so many years, had reasonable cause to evict you from your rent controlled residence.
That was when you decided to give up on the United States and relocate to some very lucky third world country to stretch your dollar and make foreigners hate Americans more. I overheard you tell another patron with a smirk on your face that the reason you chose that particular country was because the average age of the females there was 14. You make my skin crawl. Stay lost.
Like so many people in this city, you had no visible means of support. I suspect you lived off of the income from a small trust (rumor had it you were from an old, well to do family) or maybe disability for your borderline personality disorder. The amount was not enough to keep you in style, but enough for you to subsist, as long as you kept your expenses and expectations low. Having a rent controlled apartment in one of the most desirable areas of the city certainly helped you get by.
In your fitful attempts at finding a job, you thought you would impress your potential employers by putting, "Hello, this is X, and I am DESPERATE for employment!" on your home answering machine. Did you really think that would help you sell yourself? I wonder if you used a similar tact on your Craigslist Men seeking Women profile, because certainly there is nothing women find sexier than desperation. Your more direct approaches, like telling me that I had a killer rack while you leered over the reference desk, certainly didn't get you far, although it did almost get you banned from the library, you smooth talker.
Since you couldn't find legitimate employment, you invented a 'job' for yourself, which was to ruin mine. Each day you would skulk around the reference desk and ply me with a constant stream of wild goose chase reference questions about any flight of fancy that happened to strike you, like
- the exact number of drinking establishments in the neighborhood in the year 1945
- the name of some obscure muralist you saw in the Yucatan, or maybe Nicaragua, or was it Peru? You weren't quite sure.
- the address of some quack doctor in Tokyo
- A list of all dog groomers in the greater Chicago area
- the reason why flamingos are pink
Especially charming was your hatred of children, and how you would invoke the sunshine laws in your demands for user studies that determined how we allocated resources. You acted like the children were maliciously poaching your resources, like your competition with children over library resources was some kind of zero sum game.
What a tool you were.
My colleague who for some reason that I cannot fathom attended a party you threw appreciated how you put your guests at ease by screaming without warning, all Norman Bates, in your elegant mother's face,
"MOTHER, are you TRYING to ruin my party?"
Recently you were ousted, much like former Haitian President Aristide, when you came home drunk and got in a fist fight with your roommate and broke your front door. Finally, the landlord, who had patiently waited for so many years, had reasonable cause to evict you from your rent controlled residence.
That was when you decided to give up on the United States and relocate to some very lucky third world country to stretch your dollar and make foreigners hate Americans more. I overheard you tell another patron with a smirk on your face that the reason you chose that particular country was because the average age of the females there was 14. You make my skin crawl. Stay lost.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Lost Patron of the Day
For years you appeared each day outside the door 15 minutes before the branch opened, ensuring that you would have first dibs for the newspaper. When the doors opened, you would hustle in, take possession of the paper, and disappear inside the bathroom for 20 minutes. You would while away the rest of the day reading or staring contemplatively at the wall, with frequent breaks to go outside and smoke your pipe. I found the smell of the maple flavored tobacco you filled your pipe with distasteful, and would shoo you away from the windows when the smoke would waft in. One day you abruptly stopped coming, and I haven't seen you since. You were as constant as that maroon Members Only jacket you always wore, as dependable as the U.S. Mail used to be.
What has become of you?
For years you appeared each day outside the door 15 minutes before the branch opened, ensuring that you would have first dibs for the newspaper. When the doors opened, you would hustle in, take possession of the paper, and disappear inside the bathroom for 20 minutes. You would while away the rest of the day reading or staring contemplatively at the wall, with frequent breaks to go outside and smoke your pipe. I found the smell of the maple flavored tobacco you filled your pipe with distasteful, and would shoo you away from the windows when the smoke would waft in. One day you abruptly stopped coming, and I haven't seen you since. You were as constant as that maroon Members Only jacket you always wore, as dependable as the U.S. Mail used to be.
What has become of you?
Lost Patron of the Day
For years you appeared each day outside the door 15 minutes before the branch opened, ensuring that you would have first dibs for the newspaper. When the doors opened, you would hustle in, take possession of the paper, and disappear inside the bathroom for 20 minutes. You would while away the rest of the day reading or staring contemplatively at the wall, with frequent breaks to go outside and smoke your pipe. I found the smell of the maple flavored tobacco you filled your pipe with distasteful, and would shoo you away from the windows when the smoke would waft in. One day you abruptly stopped coming, and I haven't seen you since. You were as constant as that maroon Members Only jacket you always wore, as dependable as the U.S. Mail used to be.
What has become of you?
For years you appeared each day outside the door 15 minutes before the branch opened, ensuring that you would have first dibs for the newspaper. When the doors opened, you would hustle in, take possession of the paper, and disappear inside the bathroom for 20 minutes. You would while away the rest of the day reading or staring contemplatively at the wall, with frequent breaks to go outside and smoke your pipe. I found the smell of the maple flavored tobacco you filled your pipe with distasteful, and would shoo you away from the windows when the smoke would waft in. One day you abruptly stopped coming, and I haven't seen you since. You were as constant as that maroon Members Only jacket you always wore, as dependable as the U.S. Mail used to be.
What has become of you?
Monday, April 12, 2004
Miracle of Easter
This was my 4th straight weekend of solid Ultimate, and my body is starting to hate me. I feel like I stepped on a nail with my right foot. I must have pulled a muscle, or I have a stone bruise, or maybe it’s some sort of stigmata miracle in honor of Easter. In any case, I’m having difficulty walking because it hurts like hell. That's what I get for treating my body like the girls at Car Stuck Girls treat their cars.
The fields we played on have a landmark bridge as a very beautiful and dramatic backdrop but there was so much fog that we couldn’t see 30 yards around us. It was eerie and bone cold. I felt like any minute undead sailors inexorably bent on revenge would appear out of the mist and interrupt our games. All the bitter, nipple aching cold was worth it, though, because, mirabile dictu, our team won the tournament! Not bad for a non practicing team.
Miracle of Easter
This was my 4th straight weekend of solid Ultimate, and my body is starting to hate me. I feel like I stepped on a nail with my right foot. I must have pulled a muscle, or I have a stone bruise, or maybe it’s some sort of stigmata miracle in honor of Easter. In any case, I’m having difficulty walking because it hurts like hell. That's what I get for treating my body like the girls at Car Stuck Girls treat their cars.
The fields we played on have a landmark bridge as a very beautiful and dramatic backdrop but there was so much fog that we couldn’t see 30 yards around us. It was eerie and bone cold. I felt like any minute undead sailors inexorably bent on revenge would appear out of the mist and interrupt our games. All the bitter, nipple aching cold was worth it, though, because, mirabile dictu, our team won the tournament! Not bad for a non practicing team.
Sunday, April 11, 2004
A while back I went through a memoir phase and read a couple written by significant women in the life of reclusive literary icon J.D. Salinger: Dream Catcher, by his daughter Peggy Salinger, and At Home in the World, by Salinger’s waify ex-girlfriend, writer Joyce Maynard. Whether they were seeking retribution, or this was a healing act on their part, or one of raging spite, these women were definitely kicking him where it hurts. Salinger, in case you don’t know, is the Greta Garbo of letters. Since retreating at the height of his fame and success to a cabin in the New Hampshire woods, he has pathologically guarded his privacy, refusing to interview or publish (although he has been writing steadily, locking all of his work away in a fireproof house safe) or answer most of his fan mail. Well, unless it happens to be from a nubile fans 40 years his junior, like Joyce Maynard. He seems to be kind of a creep in that regard.
It's a little sad that someone who is so obsessively guarded about his privacy has had not one but two tell-all memoirs published about him in the space of two years.
You have to feel a little bit sorry for the guy (but not too sorry to read them, of course). Whatever he is like, he sure did something to provoke the wrath of not one but two women, because they set out publicly to hound him like Furies and destroy what he treasures most: his privacy. My theory is that he is suffering from a permanent case of battle fatigue caused by the action he saw in WWII which, combined with the pressures of fame, turned him into a very peculiar hermit.
As far as Peggy Salinger goes, it cannot have been easy growing up with a cult literary icon as a father, one who wrote a book that psychotic assassins like John Hinkley and Mark David Chapman carried on their persons when they were captured. It doesn’t help that she found him to be an autocratic perfectionist and hypochondriac, whose delvings into bizarre medical remedies and quackery led him to do things like consume large quanties of raw lamb and drink his own urine, about which Peggy S. goes into in embarrassing detail.
Peggy might not be the most reliable narrator, though. In her memoir, Peggy Salinger also writes about how her mother, Claire Douglas, a Jungian analyst famous in her own right, was a London child war refugee in WWII. While her mother was on a boat headed for the United States that boat’s sister ship, the Benares, was torpedoed by Nazis. Peggy writes that her mother had been waving to the children on the deck of the doomed ship at the time, and witnessed all of them burning to death. I was in a morbid mood one day and decided to research this horrific event, which was easy because the sinking of the City of Benares was a notorious incident because the U-boat captain ordered the attack on a ship full of refugee children late at night so rescue would be impossible and was tried as a war criminal because of it. (Too bad for him that he didn’t know enough about V-rocket technology or other Nazi science useful to the U.S.'s Cold War efforts to have escaped that fate.) Since the Benares was sunk in such stormy conditions late at night, I couldn’t believe that Claire was on the deck waving to children in such rough weather at that hour. This obvious error cast a pall of doubt over everything else that Peggy writes in the book, and I wrote that on my review on Amazon.
A few months later I received a telephone that, according to the caller ID, originated from the Jungian Institute in Los Angeles. A woman identifying herself as Claire Douglas, Peggy Salinger’s mother, wanted to discuss my Amazon review of her daughter's book. I thought she was calling me to upbraid me and defend her daughter, so I almost hung up on her like a coward. Instead, she told me that she wanted to thank me for exposing one of the many, many lies in her daughter’s books, and for defending those who would not come forward to defend themselves. I gather that she and her daughter are estranged. Anyway, it was quite an interesting experience and goes to show you the risks and rewards of putting yourself out there on the internet.
I'm still awaiting J.D.'s phone call.
A while back I went through a memoir phase and read a couple written by significant women in the life of reclusive literary icon J.D. Salinger: Dream Catcher, by his daughter Peggy Salinger, and At Home in the World, by Salinger’s waify ex-girlfriend, writer Joyce Maynard. Whether they were seeking retribution, or this was a healing act on their part, or one of raging spite, these women were definitely kicking him where it hurts. Salinger, in case you don’t know, is the Greta Garbo of letters. Since retreating at the height of his fame and success to a cabin in the New Hampshire woods, he has pathologically guarded his privacy, refusing to interview or publish (although he has been writing steadily, locking all of his work away in a fireproof house safe) or answer most of his fan mail. Well, unless it happens to be from a nubile fans 40 years his junior, like Joyce Maynard. He seems to be kind of a creep in that regard.
It's a little sad that someone who is so obsessively guarded about his privacy has had not one but two tell-all memoirs published about him in the space of two years.
You have to feel a little bit sorry for the guy (but not too sorry to read them, of course). Whatever he is like, he sure did something to provoke the wrath of not one but two women, because they set out publicly to hound him like Furies and destroy what he treasures most: his privacy. My theory is that he is suffering from a permanent case of battle fatigue caused by the action he saw in WWII which, combined with the pressures of fame, turned him into a very peculiar hermit.
As far as Peggy Salinger goes, it cannot have been easy growing up with a cult literary icon as a father, one who wrote a book that psychotic assassins like John Hinkley and Mark David Chapman carried on their persons when they were captured. It doesn’t help that she found him to be an autocratic perfectionist and hypochondriac, whose delvings into bizarre medical remedies and quackery led him to do things like consume large quanties of raw lamb and drink his own urine, about which Peggy S. goes into in embarrassing detail.
Peggy might not be the most reliable narrator, though. In her memoir, Peggy Salinger also writes about how her mother, Claire Douglas, a Jungian analyst famous in her own right, was a London child war refugee in WWII. While her mother was on a boat headed for the United States that boat’s sister ship, the Benares, was torpedoed by Nazis. Peggy writes that her mother had been waving to the children on the deck of the doomed ship at the time, and witnessed all of them burning to death. I was in a morbid mood one day and decided to research this horrific event, which was easy because the sinking of the City of Benares was a notorious incident because the U-boat captain ordered the attack on a ship full of refugee children late at night so rescue would be impossible and was tried as a war criminal because of it. (Too bad for him that he didn’t know enough about V-rocket technology or other Nazi science useful to the U.S.'s Cold War efforts to have escaped that fate.) Since the Benares was sunk in such stormy conditions late at night, I couldn’t believe that Claire was on the deck waving to children in such rough weather at that hour. This obvious error cast a pall of doubt over everything else that Peggy writes in the book, and I wrote that on my review on Amazon.
A few months later I received a telephone that, according to the caller ID, originated from the Jungian Institute in Los Angeles. A woman identifying herself as Claire Douglas, Peggy Salinger’s mother, wanted to discuss my Amazon review of her daughter's book. I thought she was calling me to upbraid me and defend her daughter, so I almost hung up on her like a coward. Instead, she told me that she wanted to thank me for exposing one of the many, many lies in her daughter’s books, and for defending those who would not come forward to defend themselves. I gather that she and her daughter are estranged. Anyway, it was quite an interesting experience and goes to show you the risks and rewards of putting yourself out there on the internet.
I'm still awaiting J.D.'s phone call.
Thursday, April 08, 2004
There is a band of losers I mean people (mustn't...judge) on a methadone maintenance program that likes to gather in the park near the branch where I work. The church across the street feeds them, and there are plenty of tourists passing through to hit up for money, so they don’t want for much and seem content to while away their lives in the park in a pleasant, if thoroughly unproductive, narcotized haze. Good times. They're kind of like the Lotus Eaters in the Odyssey, but not nearly as appealing or attractive.
I always wonder what the recent Chinese immigrants who also congregate in the park to practice Tai Chi must think, and if they can’t help but get a little wistful for their former homeland’s solution to drug addicts and drug dealers, which is to round them up periodically in the town square and execute them while the entire town is forced to watch. Since this isn’t totalitarian China, whose answer to the problem of drug addiction seems simplistic and - to use my favorite word so often associated with China- draconian , I am a firm believer in the principles of harm reduction. Methadone is an integral tool in treating heroin addicts in the harm reduction method. Believe me, it’s better having them in a pacified stupor in the park than desperately hitting someone over the head with a lead pipe for money for their heroin fix.
Interesting fact: Like Sarin nerve gas, the Autobahn, and Volkswagens (and, by extension, Fahrvergnugen), Methadone is a gift of the Nazis. The Third Reich was concerned about getting its supply of heroin and morphine from opiate producing countries cut off, so it had its finest scientific minds come up with a synthetic source: methadone. Eli Lilly then got the patent as a kind of spoils of war arrangement in 1945.
At least when a person uses methadone they're somewhat coherent and functional. The other day a middle aged heroin user (whom I've nicknamed Cap'n Syringe) wandered into the library and pretended to look at videos. He kept nodding off while standing up, slumping over into the bookshelves, startling himself awake when he would knock over a book. When he passed out face first into our plastic bucket of DVD covers I asked him if he were OK, and did I need to call an ambulance. He replied that he was fine and continued to browse and nod off. Meanwhile a very lovely young woman accompanied by her elderly mother were having a nice mother daughter outing and decided to come to the library. They both applied for cards so I assumed it was their first visit. The daughter was browsing through the videos when Cap'n Syringe spotted her, and his pin pointed pupiled eyes lit up like he had just seen a big shimmering pile of uncut China White. He then smoothed back his hair and lurched toward her to chat her up. He managed to get out a few slurred words when I intervened and asked him to leave before he fell into her, ensuring that her first trip to the library would be her absolute last.
He was compliant and left right away, much to my relief. I'm still getting my sea legs as far as asking people to leave the library. We don't have security, and the last thing I want to do is to set some paranoid schizophrenic off. But then again, it is my responsibility to ensure that the library is a safe and welcoming place for families and patrons who want to use the library legitimately. I’m wondering if a Masters in Social Work might not be a bad thing to get in addition to my Masters in Library Science.
There is a band of losers I mean people (mustn't...judge) on a methadone maintenance program that likes to gather in the park near the branch where I work. The church across the street feeds them, and there are plenty of tourists passing through to hit up for money, so they don’t want for much and seem content to while away their lives in the park in a pleasant, if thoroughly unproductive, narcotized haze. Good times. They're kind of like the Lotus Eaters in the Odyssey, but not nearly as appealing or attractive.
I always wonder what the recent Chinese immigrants who also congregate in the park to practice Tai Chi must think, and if they can’t help but get a little wistful for their former homeland’s solution to drug addicts and drug dealers, which is to round them up periodically in the town square and execute them while the entire town is forced to watch. Since this isn’t totalitarian China, whose answer to the problem of drug addiction seems simplistic and - to use my favorite word so often associated with China- draconian , I am a firm believer in the principles of harm reduction. Methadone is an integral tool in treating heroin addicts in the harm reduction method. Believe me, it’s better having them in a pacified stupor in the park than desperately hitting someone over the head with a lead pipe for money for their heroin fix.
Interesting fact: Like Sarin nerve gas, the Autobahn, and Volkswagens (and, by extension, Fahrvergnugen), Methadone is a gift of the Nazis. The Third Reich was concerned about getting its supply of heroin and morphine from opiate producing countries cut off, so it had its finest scientific minds come up with a synthetic source: methadone. Eli Lilly then got the patent as a kind of spoils of war arrangement in 1945.
At least when a person uses methadone they're somewhat coherent and functional. The other day a middle aged heroin user (whom I've nicknamed Cap'n Syringe) wandered into the library and pretended to look at videos. He kept nodding off while standing up, slumping over into the bookshelves, startling himself awake when he would knock over a book. When he passed out face first into our plastic bucket of DVD covers I asked him if he were OK, and did I need to call an ambulance. He replied that he was fine and continued to browse and nod off. Meanwhile a very lovely young woman accompanied by her elderly mother were having a nice mother daughter outing and decided to come to the library. They both applied for cards so I assumed it was their first visit. The daughter was browsing through the videos when Cap'n Syringe spotted her, and his pin pointed pupiled eyes lit up like he had just seen a big shimmering pile of uncut China White. He then smoothed back his hair and lurched toward her to chat her up. He managed to get out a few slurred words when I intervened and asked him to leave before he fell into her, ensuring that her first trip to the library would be her absolute last.
He was compliant and left right away, much to my relief. I'm still getting my sea legs as far as asking people to leave the library. We don't have security, and the last thing I want to do is to set some paranoid schizophrenic off. But then again, it is my responsibility to ensure that the library is a safe and welcoming place for families and patrons who want to use the library legitimately. I’m wondering if a Masters in Social Work might not be a bad thing to get in addition to my Masters in Library Science.
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
MOCK... YEAH! ING... YEAH! BIRD... YEAH!
I wish we had a cat. Nesting pairs of Mockingbirds and Blue Jays are waging a noisy turf war over our backyard, and it's like the Battle of Midway out there. I think that the berries on one of the trees in the backyard have fermented, making the situation even more obnoxious because the birds alternate between being drunk and belligerent or cranky and hungover. The action begins around 5:00 AM, when we are awakened by their hideous, raspy battle cries, and the onslaught continues well into the morning.
Usually I welcome wildlife and enjoy observing nature. There is a neighborhood Red-Tailed Hawk that sometimes hunts a flock of pigeons outside our front window and the swooping, swinging motion of the hawk as it corrals the pigeons is absolutely hypnotic to watch. If I happen to spot the hawk in action I will stop whatever I'm doing and stand by the window transfixed until something snaps me out of it. Afterward I will often notice that a significant amount of time has passed and a thin trail of spittle is running down the corner of my mouth.
Our backyard birds just seem belligerent and mean. Why couldn't it be beautiful songbirds roosting in the backyard? Both pairs of these birds have become fiercely territorial, and the puppies are caught in the crossfire. Billy was minding his own business trying to poo in the backyard and they were buzzing him like he was King Kong on the Empire State Building. Billy was oblivious, fortunately. I have seen Blue Jays flip cats on their backs - they can be quite vicious.
Speaking of pests, our new neighbors, the 24 hour party people, have installed a hot tub and carry on almost on a nightly basis. Spoon despises their sloppy, dumb, neglected Lab and his presence in the backyard behind ours will send her into a full scale barking jag, her tiny tail quivering in outrage. Border Terrier's were bred to be heard through many feet of earth when they tunnel after varmints, so her bark is jarring.
It could be worse. Some friends of ours had a mockingbird in residence who would imitate car alarms perfectly in pitch and volume.
MOCK... YEAH! ING... YEAH! BIRD... YEAH!
I wish we had a cat. Nesting pairs of Mockingbirds and Blue Jays are waging a noisy turf war over our backyard, and it's like the Battle of Midway out there. I think that the berries on one of the trees in the backyard have fermented, making the situation even more obnoxious because the birds alternate between being drunk and belligerent or cranky and hungover. The action begins around 5:00 AM, when we are awakened by their hideous, raspy battle cries, and the onslaught continues well into the morning.
Usually I welcome wildlife and enjoy observing nature. There is a neighborhood Red-Tailed Hawk that sometimes hunts a flock of pigeons outside our front window and the swooping, swinging motion of the hawk as it corrals the pigeons is absolutely hypnotic to watch. If I happen to spot the hawk in action I will stop whatever I'm doing and stand by the window transfixed until something snaps me out of it. Afterward I will often notice that a significant amount of time has passed and a thin trail of spittle is running down the corner of my mouth.
Our backyard birds just seem belligerent and mean. Why couldn't it be beautiful songbirds roosting in the backyard? Both pairs of these birds have become fiercely territorial, and the puppies are caught in the crossfire. Billy was minding his own business trying to poo in the backyard and they were buzzing him like he was King Kong on the Empire State Building. Billy was oblivious, fortunately. I have seen Blue Jays flip cats on their backs - they can be quite vicious.
Speaking of pests, our new neighbors, the 24 hour party people, have installed a hot tub and carry on almost on a nightly basis. Spoon despises their sloppy, dumb, neglected Lab and his presence in the backyard behind ours will send her into a full scale barking jag, her tiny tail quivering in outrage. Border Terrier's were bred to be heard through many feet of earth when they tunnel after varmints, so her bark is jarring.
It could be worse. Some friends of ours had a mockingbird in residence who would imitate car alarms perfectly in pitch and volume.
Saturday, April 03, 2004
"What kind of novels do you write: fiction or non-fiction?"
U.S. Customs official interrogating British author Ian McEwan, who was recently detained at the Canadian border.
We're off for an Ultimate Frisbee weekend in ###, where temperatures are expected to be high, at least for my standards. This city has turned me into a real wimp as far as heat is concerned. How did I use to play in 100 degree temperatures in Alabama and Memphis?
We're also playing next to the dairy, so it will smell stockyard fresh.
U.S. Customs official interrogating British author Ian McEwan, who was recently detained at the Canadian border.
We're off for an Ultimate Frisbee weekend in ###, where temperatures are expected to be high, at least for my standards. This city has turned me into a real wimp as far as heat is concerned. How did I use to play in 100 degree temperatures in Alabama and Memphis?
We're also playing next to the dairy, so it will smell stockyard fresh.
"What kind of novels do you write: fiction or non-fiction?"
U.S. Customs official interrogating British author Ian McEwan, who was recently detained at the Canadian border.
We're off for an Ultimate Frisbee weekend in ###, where temperatures are expected to be high, at least for my standards. This city has turned me into a real wimp as far as heat is concerned. How did I use to play in 100 degree temperatures in Alabama and Memphis?
We're also playing next to the dairy, so it will smell stockyard fresh.
U.S. Customs official interrogating British author Ian McEwan, who was recently detained at the Canadian border.
We're off for an Ultimate Frisbee weekend in ###, where temperatures are expected to be high, at least for my standards. This city has turned me into a real wimp as far as heat is concerned. How did I use to play in 100 degree temperatures in Alabama and Memphis?
We're also playing next to the dairy, so it will smell stockyard fresh.
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Mrs. Jon Benet
So, we have a 15 minute express internet computer that, after issuing several pop-up warnings, reboots, signaling to the user that his or her turn is over and it's time to relinquish the computer to the next person in line. Unfortunately, we often have to rely on the honesty policy because the people in line are waiting in folding chairs off to the side and cannot see when it's time to assert their right to their turn. I can see the computer monitors from the reference desk, though, and I catch people restarting the computer all the time. When I call them on it they act indignant or play dumb (Oh, is that what the computer shutting off meant? Why, I had no idea...), or try to play me with some sob story how it's a life or death situation that they send off this one Yahoo e-mail.
I hate babysitting the monitors but I do try to remain vigilant. If I don't, patrons often will try to sort out the issue themselves, often resorting to such uncivilized tactics as verbal harassment (One young woman was told, "Suck my c*ck, you big bootied white woman!" when she tried to take her turn), shoving matches and even fists. It can be a very volatile situation, and we are not blessed with security.
A while back I watched a woman staying put while the computer rebooted. She then initiated a new session and got back down to work. When I walked over and told her that her time was up and that there were others waiting, she pulled a face and started whining about how when she got on the computer there were six minutes left from the previous user's session and then the computer cut off and her and so she was 'cheated' out of the rest of her 15 minutes. She told me she needed more time because she was doing something very important, like that entitled her to a special dispensation from the rules.
I told her that she would have to make sure that each time she used the express terminal she would have to restart it at the beginning of her session, because if I ever saw her reboot the computer after her turn was over I would revoke her computer privileges for the day.
As I watched her carefully to make sure she didn't reboot the computer yet again, I couldn't help but see what she was doing. She was filling out an on-line registration for the Mrs. California International Pageant. You can see the urgency and need to resort to deceit. All I can say is that she needs to work on her attitude if she wants a shot at Mrs. Congeniality.
Mrs. Jon Benet
So, we have a 15 minute express internet computer that, after issuing several pop-up warnings, reboots, signaling to the user that his or her turn is over and it's time to relinquish the computer to the next person in line. Unfortunately, we often have to rely on the honesty policy because the people in line are waiting in folding chairs off to the side and cannot see when it's time to assert their right to their turn. I can see the computer monitors from the reference desk, though, and I catch people restarting the computer all the time. When I call them on it they act indignant or play dumb (Oh, is that what the computer shutting off meant? Why, I had no idea...), or try to play me with some sob story how it's a life or death situation that they send off this one Yahoo e-mail.
I hate babysitting the monitors but I do try to remain vigilant. If I don't, patrons often will try to sort out the issue themselves, often resorting to such uncivilized tactics as verbal harassment (One young woman was told, "Suck my c*ck, you big bootied white woman!" when she tried to take her turn), shoving matches and even fists. It can be a very volatile situation, and we are not blessed with security.
A while back I watched a woman staying put while the computer rebooted. She then initiated a new session and got back down to work. When I walked over and told her that her time was up and that there were others waiting, she pulled a face and started whining about how when she got on the computer there were six minutes left from the previous user's session and then the computer cut off and her and so she was 'cheated' out of the rest of her 15 minutes. She told me she needed more time because she was doing something very important, like that entitled her to a special dispensation from the rules.
I told her that she would have to make sure that each time she used the express terminal she would have to restart it at the beginning of her session, because if I ever saw her reboot the computer after her turn was over I would revoke her computer privileges for the day.
As I watched her carefully to make sure she didn't reboot the computer yet again, I couldn't help but see what she was doing. She was filling out an on-line registration for the Mrs. California International Pageant. You can see the urgency and need to resort to deceit. All I can say is that she needs to work on her attitude if she wants a shot at Mrs. Congeniality.
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Florida or Germany?
To enlighten herself further Eleanor downloaded a clip from Car Stuck Girls, and while she was studying it she noticed that the girl in white stiletto boots revving the seriously overstrained engine had a distinctly Euro accent (Oh, vat vill becomen of me?), not the Tennessee or Texas twang that you would have expected.
When she told me, it dawned on me that the purveyors of this site weren't rednecks that had somehow sexually imprinted on tractor pull type activity, but GERMANS! Of course! How could I have been so blind? Who else but Germans would be so weirdly depraved?
Even though the girls who star in the videos look homegrown and like they strutted right out of a ZZ Top video, I thought there was something suspiciously Teutonic about the site. I mean, why were these ladies running Audis and Volkswagons into the ground instead of Chevys or Fords?
Germans and rednecks do have a surprising amount in common, proven time and again by Loveline's Florida or Germany game, where callers call in to the show and read a bizarre news story that took place in either place. Adam Corolla and Dr. Drew have to guess the provenance of the story and they are often stumped.
This site has a brilliant cross cultural appeal because it combines the perversion of Germans with the redneck's love of cars and mud. I have a feeling that it does quite well.
Florida or Germany?
To enlighten herself further Eleanor downloaded a clip from Car Stuck Girls, and while she was studying it she noticed that the girl in white stiletto boots revving the seriously overstrained engine had a distinctly Euro accent (Oh, vat vill becomen of me?), not the Tennessee or Texas twang that you would have expected.
When she told me, it dawned on me that the purveyors of this site weren't rednecks that had somehow sexually imprinted on tractor pull type activity, but GERMANS! Of course! How could I have been so blind? Who else but Germans would be so weirdly depraved?
Even though the girls who star in the videos look homegrown and like they strutted right out of a ZZ Top video, I thought there was something suspiciously Teutonic about the site. I mean, why were these ladies running Audis and Volkswagons into the ground instead of Chevys or Fords?
Germans and rednecks do have a surprising amount in common, proven time and again by Loveline's Florida or Germany game, where callers call in to the show and read a bizarre news story that took place in either place. Adam Corolla and Dr. Drew have to guess the provenance of the story and they are often stumped.
This site has a brilliant cross cultural appeal because it combines the perversion of Germans with the redneck's love of cars and mud. I have a feeling that it does quite well.
Damsels in Distress Doing Terrible Things to Cars
Or, Unstuck her Truck then F**k
Thank you to Eleanor for this website that offers a fascinating glimpse into a fetish that I was completely unaware existed: Car Stuck Girls. The fetish (or convergence of fetishes) is complicated and I'm still trying to sort it out, but it has something to do with silly, sexy girls who have gotten themselves into a real automotive bind in a deserted locale and need to be rescued by a big, strong man who knows something about freeing cars. At least that's my take. Any theories out there?
I like how the make and model of the car are important elements to the fantasy, as well as whatever substance has mired the ladies down. Each DVD and photo gallery is categorized according to car and situation. Although ice, sand, clay, and wet grass scenarios are available, mud seems to be a favorite entrapment because (I guess) after the girls get themselves hopelessly entrenched by doing all of the things you're not supposed to do when you get bogged down (like spin the tires until black smoke pours off of them), they can turn on each other in frustration and get down to some foxy mud wrestling.
DVDs are available and operators are standing by.
Damsels in Distress Doing Terrible Things to Cars
Or, Unstuck her Truck then F**k
Thank you to Eleanor for this website that offers a fascinating glimpse into a fetish that I was completely unaware existed: Car Stuck Girls. The fetish (or convergence of fetishes) is complicated and I'm still trying to sort it out, but it has something to do with silly, sexy girls who have gotten themselves into a real automotive bind in a deserted locale and need to be rescued by a big, strong man who knows something about freeing cars. At least that's my take. Any theories out there?
I like how the make and model of the car are important elements to the fantasy, as well as whatever substance has mired the ladies down. Each DVD and photo gallery is categorized according to car and situation. Although ice, sand, clay, and wet grass scenarios are available, mud seems to be a favorite entrapment because (I guess) after the girls get themselves hopelessly entrenched by doing all of the things you're not supposed to do when you get bogged down (like spin the tires until black smoke pours off of them), they can turn on each other in frustration and get down to some foxy mud wrestling.
DVDs are available and operators are standing by.
Monday, March 29, 2004
The Street Sheet
Punky and the Very Special Birthday Present
A beat cop spotted Punky skulking toward the alley behind this neighborhood’s Catholic elementary school. Acting on a hunch, the cop trailed him into the alley, where she caught Punky on his knees in flagrante delicto performing an 807 (lewd and obscene public act) on another local park regular. They were doing this in full view of the rear of the school, which is lined with large paned windowed classrooms full of children. Punky, the height of discretion.
When the police officer asked Punky what he thought he was doing, Punky replied, “Well, it’s John’s birthday and I wanted to give him a present.” The police officer made sure to wish John a happy birthday as she booked them both.
Punky and the Very Special Birthday Present
A beat cop spotted Punky skulking toward the alley behind this neighborhood’s Catholic elementary school. Acting on a hunch, the cop trailed him into the alley, where she caught Punky on his knees in flagrante delicto performing an 807 (lewd and obscene public act) on another local park regular. They were doing this in full view of the rear of the school, which is lined with large paned windowed classrooms full of children. Punky, the height of discretion.
When the police officer asked Punky what he thought he was doing, Punky replied, “Well, it’s John’s birthday and I wanted to give him a present.” The police officer made sure to wish John a happy birthday as she booked them both.
The Street Sheet
Punky and the Very Special Birthday Present
A beat cop spotted Punky skulking toward the alley behind this neighborhood’s Catholic elementary school. Acting on a hunch, the cop trailed him into the alley, where she caught Punky on his knees in flagrante delicto performing an 807 (lewd and obscene public act) on another local park regular. They were doing this in full view of the rear of the school, which is lined with large paned windowed classrooms full of children. Punky, the height of discretion.
When the police officer asked Punky what he thought he was doing, Punky replied, “Well, it’s John’s birthday and I wanted to give him a present.” The police officer made sure to wish John a happy birthday as she booked them both.
Punky and the Very Special Birthday Present
A beat cop spotted Punky skulking toward the alley behind this neighborhood’s Catholic elementary school. Acting on a hunch, the cop trailed him into the alley, where she caught Punky on his knees in flagrante delicto performing an 807 (lewd and obscene public act) on another local park regular. They were doing this in full view of the rear of the school, which is lined with large paned windowed classrooms full of children. Punky, the height of discretion.
When the police officer asked Punky what he thought he was doing, Punky replied, “Well, it’s John’s birthday and I wanted to give him a present.” The police officer made sure to wish John a happy birthday as she booked them both.
Saturday, March 27, 2004
Library of Sand and Fog
The mysterious branch
The branch where I was stationed yesterday is rumored to be haunted, although the staff is very cagey and evasive if you ask them about it. The branch is in old Carnegie library, and like many Carnegies, is built in the Classical Revival architectural style: beautiful and grand, but a little reminiscent of a mausoleum. The neighborhood that this library is in is near the ocean and so it almost always damp, misty, and fogged in, which adds to the library’s overall eerie and mysterious atmosphere.
The first time I worked there was on Halloween night, appropriately enough. I was the only librarian and the evening was uneventful until right before closing. Most of the lights had been turned off, and the staff had completed their final rounds through the aisles to ensure all of the patrons were out of the building, a procedure known as the 'creep sweep.’ It was a chilly night and the steam radiators had been hissing and clanking industriously all evening, but all of the sudden they started rapidly popping, almost like automatic gunfire, and just as deafening. The clanging was interspersed with an occasional loud thud as if someone was throwing books of the shelves with great force onto the linoleum floor. The thudding sounded like it was coming from the back of one of the dark aisles instead of one of the radiators, which I thought at first must have been an acoustical trick. Although I was sure that no one could possibly be back there, I decided to go investigate, because the last thing I wanted to do was lock a patron in the library over night. I had just heard about a notorious incident where one a homeless woman had hidden in one of the rooms of another branch that didn’t have a motion detector alarm on Christmas Eve and had been locked in. Just before midnight she had decided that she didn’t want to be there and had called the police from the inside line. The manager had to get out of bed to go let her out and deal with the situation and he was understandably put out with his staff. I didn’t want anything like that happening under my watch, so just to make absolutely sure there were no stowaways I headed down the dark aisle from where I thought the noise was emanating. As I started to go back there I noticed that the staff was acting a little strange and one of them told me over all the noise,
"It's nothing. Let's go."
Now it sounded like someone was banging on the radiator pipes furiously with a hammer. I was about halfway through the aisle and could see no one, but I just had the undeniable feeling that someone was there. Then one of the staff said loudly,
"I promise you, it's nothing. Let's go."
Not seeing anyone, or anything, but still detecting some kind of presence, I reluctantly followed the rest of the staff out into the night, who seemed very relieved once we were all out the library door. When we exited the library I noticed that all of the hair was standing up on my neck and arms and I had a bad case of cold chills. I shit you not.
Months went by and I was talking to another librarian who likes to dish and has been in the system forever and that branch happened to come up in conversation and he said,
"You know that branch is haunted."
He told me that he had a supernatural experience there himself. To get to the staff room you have to walk through a basement storage area. He was on his break headed toward the staff room when he had the strange urge to read his book in a chair by a bookshelf in the storage room instead of the break room. As he was reading he had the distinct feeling that someone was looking over his shoulder. He slowly turned his head around and of course, there was no one there. He detected no malevolence in the presence - it was as if someone had been looking over his shoulder in a friendly and curious way to ask,
"Hey, whatcha reading?"
He closed his book and walked right back up the stairs, his neck and arm hair all raised, like mine had been.
Supposedly the staff became reluctant to work in the branch alone before the library opens. One night one saw out of the corner of her eye a woman in a long skirt heading for the children’s room. right before closing. When she went to tell the woman that the library was closing, there was no one there.
MMMMMWWWWAAAA
Some of the Buddhist staff members started leaving little offerings for the presence, and recently did a cleansing ceremony, and unexplained activity has subsided almost to nothing. I was secretly a little thrilled when I had to go down to the basement to retrieve Frederick out of storage, but felt nothing, much to my disappointment and relief. I'm not sure if I believe in the supernatural anyway, so who knows if there was anything there at all. The libraries are haunted by enough lost souls that are living, though, so it make sense to me that one or two dead ones might become waylaid there. Maybe that poor lost soul has finally found its way and moved on.
I'll leave you with a quote from Ghostbusters.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Of course you forget, Peter, I was present at an unexplained, unseen mass sponge migration!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Uh, Ray, the sponges migrated about a foot-and-a-half.
Library of Sand and Fog
The mysterious branch
The branch where I was stationed yesterday is rumored to be haunted, although the staff is very cagey and evasive if you ask them about it. The branch is in old Carnegie library, and like many Carnegies, is built in the Classical Revival architectural style: beautiful and grand, but a little reminiscent of a mausoleum. The neighborhood that this library is in is near the ocean and so it almost always damp, misty, and fogged in, which adds to the library’s overall eerie and mysterious atmosphere.
The first time I worked there was on Halloween night, appropriately enough. I was the only librarian and the evening was uneventful until right before closing. Most of the lights had been turned off, and the staff had completed their final rounds through the aisles to ensure all of the patrons were out of the building, a procedure known as the 'creep sweep.’ It was a chilly night and the steam radiators had been hissing and clanking industriously all evening, but all of the sudden they started rapidly popping, almost like automatic gunfire, and just as deafening. The clanging was interspersed with an occasional loud thud as if someone was throwing books of the shelves with great force onto the linoleum floor. The thudding sounded like it was coming from the back of one of the dark aisles instead of one of the radiators, which I thought at first must have been an acoustical trick. Although I was sure that no one could possibly be back there, I decided to go investigate, because the last thing I wanted to do was lock a patron in the library over night. I had just heard about a notorious incident where one a homeless woman had hidden in one of the rooms of another branch that didn’t have a motion detector alarm on Christmas Eve and had been locked in. Just before midnight she had decided that she didn’t want to be there and had called the police from the inside line. The manager had to get out of bed to go let her out and deal with the situation and he was understandably put out with his staff. I didn’t want anything like that happening under my watch, so just to make absolutely sure there were no stowaways I headed down the dark aisle from where I thought the noise was emanating. As I started to go back there I noticed that the staff was acting a little strange and one of them told me over all the noise,
"It's nothing. Let's go."
Now it sounded like someone was banging on the radiator pipes furiously with a hammer. I was about halfway through the aisle and could see no one, but I just had the undeniable feeling that someone was there. Then one of the staff said loudly,
"I promise you, it's nothing. Let's go."
Not seeing anyone, or anything, but still detecting some kind of presence, I reluctantly followed the rest of the staff out into the night, who seemed very relieved once we were all out the library door. When we exited the library I noticed that all of the hair was standing up on my neck and arms and I had a bad case of cold chills. I shit you not.
Months went by and I was talking to another librarian who likes to dish and has been in the system forever and that branch happened to come up in conversation and he said,
"You know that branch is haunted."
He told me that he had a supernatural experience there himself. To get to the staff room you have to walk through a basement storage area. He was on his break headed toward the staff room when he had the strange urge to read his book in a chair by a bookshelf in the storage room instead of the break room. As he was reading he had the distinct feeling that someone was looking over his shoulder. He slowly turned his head around and of course, there was no one there. He detected no malevolence in the presence - it was as if someone had been looking over his shoulder in a friendly and curious way to ask,
"Hey, whatcha reading?"
He closed his book and walked right back up the stairs, his neck and arm hair all raised, like mine had been.
Supposedly the staff became reluctant to work in the branch alone before the library opens. One night one saw out of the corner of her eye a woman in a long skirt heading for the children’s room. right before closing. When she went to tell the woman that the library was closing, there was no one there.
MMMMMWWWWAAAA
Some of the Buddhist staff members started leaving little offerings for the presence, and recently did a cleansing ceremony, and unexplained activity has subsided almost to nothing. I was secretly a little thrilled when I had to go down to the basement to retrieve Frederick out of storage, but felt nothing, much to my disappointment and relief. I'm not sure if I believe in the supernatural anyway, so who knows if there was anything there at all. The libraries are haunted by enough lost souls that are living, though, so it make sense to me that one or two dead ones might become waylaid there. Maybe that poor lost soul has finally found its way and moved on.
I'll leave you with a quote from Ghostbusters.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Of course you forget, Peter, I was present at an unexplained, unseen mass sponge migration!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Uh, Ray, the sponges migrated about a foot-and-a-half.
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Another One Rides the Bus
While I was waiting for the bus to go to work today the sky bottomed out and the buses became so crowded that I thought for a moment that the entire city was being evacuated. I have never seen the buses so overloaded - it was like rush hour in Tokyo or Mexico City. Like Tokyo, the bus could have used some people pushers, because passengers were not being good team players and refused to share their space until they were coerced by the sheer mass of humanity forcing its way onto the buses.
It was Bedlam in every sense of the word, because half of the passengers were certifiably insane, looking for a cozy place to get out of the rain, I presume, or were having psychotic episodes triggered by the crowded conditions. Though the inside of my bus was like one huge writhing scrum, people did manage to give the man who appeared to be having a violent argument with himself plenty of personal space. It was a frotteur and pickpocket’s dream. At one point the bus picked up a bunch of African American high school students and one of them, a girl, shouted indignantly,
"People be putting their ASSES on me!"
Which totally made my day.
While I was waiting for the bus to go to work today the sky bottomed out and the buses became so crowded that I thought for a moment that the entire city was being evacuated. I have never seen the buses so overloaded - it was like rush hour in Tokyo or Mexico City. Like Tokyo, the bus could have used some people pushers, because passengers were not being good team players and refused to share their space until they were coerced by the sheer mass of humanity forcing its way onto the buses.
It was Bedlam in every sense of the word, because half of the passengers were certifiably insane, looking for a cozy place to get out of the rain, I presume, or were having psychotic episodes triggered by the crowded conditions. Though the inside of my bus was like one huge writhing scrum, people did manage to give the man who appeared to be having a violent argument with himself plenty of personal space. It was a frotteur and pickpocket’s dream. At one point the bus picked up a bunch of African American high school students and one of them, a girl, shouted indignantly,
"People be putting their ASSES on me!"
Which totally made my day.
Another One Rides the Bus
While I was waiting for the bus to go to work today the sky bottomed out and the buses became so crowded that I thought for a moment that the entire city was being evacuated. I have never seen the buses so overloaded - it was like rush hour in Tokyo or Mexico City. Like Tokyo, the bus could have used some people pushers, because passengers were not being good team players and refused to share their space until they were coerced by the sheer mass of humanity forcing its way onto the buses.
It was Bedlam in every sense of the word, because half of the passengers were certifiably insane, looking for a cozy place to get out of the rain, I presume, or were having psychotic episodes triggered by the crowded conditions. Though the inside of my bus was like one huge writhing scrum, people did manage to give the man who appeared to be having a violent argument with himself plenty of personal space. It was a frotteur and pickpocket’s dream. At one point the bus picked up a bunch of African American high school students and one of them, a girl, shouted indignantly,
"People be putting their ASSES on me!"
Which totally made my day.
While I was waiting for the bus to go to work today the sky bottomed out and the buses became so crowded that I thought for a moment that the entire city was being evacuated. I have never seen the buses so overloaded - it was like rush hour in Tokyo or Mexico City. Like Tokyo, the bus could have used some people pushers, because passengers were not being good team players and refused to share their space until they were coerced by the sheer mass of humanity forcing its way onto the buses.
It was Bedlam in every sense of the word, because half of the passengers were certifiably insane, looking for a cozy place to get out of the rain, I presume, or were having psychotic episodes triggered by the crowded conditions. Though the inside of my bus was like one huge writhing scrum, people did manage to give the man who appeared to be having a violent argument with himself plenty of personal space. It was a frotteur and pickpocket’s dream. At one point the bus picked up a bunch of African American high school students and one of them, a girl, shouted indignantly,
"People be putting their ASSES on me!"
Which totally made my day.
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Sleepy Time
Maybe there's a carbon monoxide leak upstairs, because I just had to wake up 5 men who were in the deepest stages of REM in the magazine area of this branch. Rather than wake each one up individually, I just clapped my hands, stomped my feet, and hollered, "No sleeping in the library!" I then hightailed it down the stairs and skulked behind the circulation counter for a while. Sleepy homeless can be very grumpy and unpredictable when startled awake.
Earlier tonight, I noticed one of the homeless patrons hawking and then spitting in a large potted plant. A patron had donated that plant to beautify the library and now it was being used as a spittoon, and this outraged me. I told him that I would call the police in a jiffy if he didn't stop immediately. He harrumphed and then began flipping through Time Magazine, disrespecting my authoriTAY, not intimidated by me in the least.
I'm beginning to dread Tuesday nights because I feel extremely vulnerable. We have no security guards, and there are just some other female librarians here with me and the rest of the support staff are these non threatening, beautiful Asian girls, an old manager's fetish made manifest. I wish this branch would hire some giant thugs to shelve the books like some of the other branches have, because I promise you patrons think twice about acting up when I'm at a branch that has some muscle.
Maybe there's a carbon monoxide leak upstairs, because I just had to wake up 5 men who were in the deepest stages of REM in the magazine area of this branch. Rather than wake each one up individually, I just clapped my hands, stomped my feet, and hollered, "No sleeping in the library!" I then hightailed it down the stairs and skulked behind the circulation counter for a while. Sleepy homeless can be very grumpy and unpredictable when startled awake.
Earlier tonight, I noticed one of the homeless patrons hawking and then spitting in a large potted plant. A patron had donated that plant to beautify the library and now it was being used as a spittoon, and this outraged me. I told him that I would call the police in a jiffy if he didn't stop immediately. He harrumphed and then began flipping through Time Magazine, disrespecting my authoriTAY, not intimidated by me in the least.
I'm beginning to dread Tuesday nights because I feel extremely vulnerable. We have no security guards, and there are just some other female librarians here with me and the rest of the support staff are these non threatening, beautiful Asian girls, an old manager's fetish made manifest. I wish this branch would hire some giant thugs to shelve the books like some of the other branches have, because I promise you patrons think twice about acting up when I'm at a branch that has some muscle.
Sleepy Time
Maybe there's a carbon monoxide leak upstairs, because I just had to wake up 5 men who were in the deepest stages of REM in the magazine area of this branch. Rather than wake each one up individually, I just clapped my hands, stomped my feet, and hollered, "No sleeping in the library!" I then hightailed it down the stairs and skulked behind the circulation counter for a while. Sleepy homeless can be very grumpy and unpredictable when startled awake.
Earlier tonight, I noticed one of the homeless patrons hawking and then spitting in a large potted plant. A patron had donated that plant to beautify the library and now it was being used as a spittoon, and this outraged me. I told him that I would call the police in a jiffy if he didn't stop immediately. He harrumphed and then began flipping through Time Magazine, disrespecting my authoriTAY, not intimidated by me in the least.
I'm beginning to dread Tuesday nights because I feel extremely vulnerable. We have no security guards, and there are just some other female librarians here with me and the rest of the support staff are these non threatening, beautiful Asian girls, an old manager's fetish made manifest. I wish this branch would hire some giant thugs to shelve the books like some of the other branches have, because I promise you patrons think twice about acting up when I'm at a branch that has some muscle.
Maybe there's a carbon monoxide leak upstairs, because I just had to wake up 5 men who were in the deepest stages of REM in the magazine area of this branch. Rather than wake each one up individually, I just clapped my hands, stomped my feet, and hollered, "No sleeping in the library!" I then hightailed it down the stairs and skulked behind the circulation counter for a while. Sleepy homeless can be very grumpy and unpredictable when startled awake.
Earlier tonight, I noticed one of the homeless patrons hawking and then spitting in a large potted plant. A patron had donated that plant to beautify the library and now it was being used as a spittoon, and this outraged me. I told him that I would call the police in a jiffy if he didn't stop immediately. He harrumphed and then began flipping through Time Magazine, disrespecting my authoriTAY, not intimidated by me in the least.
I'm beginning to dread Tuesday nights because I feel extremely vulnerable. We have no security guards, and there are just some other female librarians here with me and the rest of the support staff are these non threatening, beautiful Asian girls, an old manager's fetish made manifest. I wish this branch would hire some giant thugs to shelve the books like some of the other branches have, because I promise you patrons think twice about acting up when I'm at a branch that has some muscle.
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Library Record as Window to the Soul
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