Bringing Down the Medillin Cartel, Part II

HARDLY.

During the time the Sheriff’s Office employed the Professional Confidential Informant, I was kept busy transcribing tapes of the pressured speech of 'poor white' crack users on their meandering quests to re-up. Since the CI and the suspect were usually wired in more ways than one, their missions were not well thought out and they would spend many talkative hours trolling the county's seedy neighborhoods, apartment complexes and trailer parks. The strategy for their errand was very scatter shot and time consuming, so much so that finding the drugs must have been like a full time job for them. Actually, it was their full time job, since every single one of them eventually revealed during their conversations that they collected welfare and food stamps, which most of the dealers would take as currency for crack. As the suspects jabbered away they would reveal all sorts of incriminating details about their lives that made it very hard to feel too sorry for them or for me to remain a bleeding heart Democrat. It was too bad for the targets that their drug use didn’t make them more paranoid of the Judas driving in the car with them. I noticed that white people in general seemed a little more complacent and less wary than African-Americans, whose community had already been the target of several drug sweeps. Since the CI was white he could only sucker other whites into procuring drugs for him, and what dumb, luckless white trash they were.

The CI showed me how he would put his targets at ease. When the pigeon would get in the car, the CI would show them a Santa doll (this was around the holidays).

“Look here what I got my old lady for Christmas.”

He would then pull down the Santa doll’s pants to reveal a grotesquely large penis. An anatomically exaggerated Santa Claus doll was apparently the height of hilarity and they would both cackle and slap their knees for about 5 minutes. The transcript would go something like:

CI: {...LAUGHING...} Isn't that motherfucker the best? {...LAUGHING...}
SUSPECT: {...LAUGHING...} Where did you find that motherfucker? {...LAUGHING...}
CI: {...LAUGHING...} This motherfucking store. {...LAUGHING...}
SUSPECT: {...LAUGHING...} Goddamn, that motherfucker's funny. {...LAUGHING...}
CI: {...LAUGHING...} Sure fucking is.
SUSPECT: I'm going to get me one of those motherfuckers. {...LAUGHING...}
CI: OOOO-WEEE, take a look at that pussy over there!
SUSPECT: I'd like to fuck me that pussy.

After that little ice breaker, the informant and suspect would spend the next 5 or so hours continuing along in this delightful vein and I would have to type every single word of it.

The users were just recreational, as far as you can be a recreational crack user, and none were remotely what you would call a king pin. They were procuring the drug for the CI so they could get a little piece of it as commission. After the CI had collected cases against 15 or so of them, the Narcotics Officers began their arrests. To be continued…

She's (working for) the Sheriff!

The year noneofyourbusiness I graduated from college there was a terrible recession. I know you will find this hard to believe, but even though I had a very hot ticket B.A. in History from an anachronistic all girls finishing school, I was not courted heavily by any Fortune 500 companies. Instead of trying to find adult work, I decided to give myself one last summer as a counselor at a summer camp that I had attended since I was seven. That year I was in charge of a stable of 30 horses and when I wasn’t teaching riding or assigned to cabin duty I had carte blanche with the horses. I spent a lot of my free time racing through the woods and swimming with them in a beautiful private lake, which you do by clinging to their mane as they paddle through the water. I count this as one of my top five experiences of my life. When the summer ended I felt like I had been cast out of heaven into an indifferently cruel world and I had no idea what to do with my life. So I decided to (wince) follow a man and move to Virginia to be near my boyfriend, who still had a couple of years to go in an anachronistic men’s finishing school there.



I had to find work immediately, and out of desperation did so at Carroll Reed, a defunct women's 'sophisticated country casual' clothing store, where my boyfriend’s mother shopped for the lion’s share of her wardrobe. Working retail is just the pits, especially at a strip mall. I've never worked a worse job - the minimum wage salary, the fussy, humorless female supervisors who believe in the company's mission like it's holy writ, the incessant sweater folding and hanging up of clothes, the standing on your feet all day, the boring product. Because it was the South, the customers at least had manners and were pleasant to deal with, but I was still utterly miserable.



One day before an evening shift I watched Miller’s Crossing, and found myself sobbing during the scene when Gabriel Byrne takes John Turturro out to the woods to shoot him. Turturro is begging for his life, pleading and sobbing on his knees for Byrne not to kill him like some kind of animal there in the woods. And I was sobbing right along with him, not because of the intensity of the scene or because I felt the least bit sorry for that weasel Turturro, whom Byrne should have shot through the temple without hesitation, but because the woods were so beautiful and I would have given anything to be there in the woods rather than have to leave to go to work in a mall in a chain store under hideous fluorescent lighting.



Before I became too despondent, my boyfriend’s father, the former attorney of a rural county, helped me acquire my first real office job as a clerk for the Sheriff’s Office. Thanks to a little country cronyism, I was to be a foot soldier, or more aptly a file clerk, in this country’s glorious War on Drugs. The job was funded by a federal grant and my responsibility was to manage a primitive software program called Drug Trak. I was to enter data and old case file information about drug dealers and suspects into the database. Aside from marijuana growing and some small time crack dealing (this was before meth really hit it big), drug trafficking was practically non existent and my position was completely unnecessary. I adored my sinecure, though, especially the narcotics officers, who were good old boys in the best sense: courteous rednecks. They primarily worked nights or out in the field and I rarely saw them except when they passed through the office to throw work at me. I would type up a report for them or to do their monthly statistics or for them while they good naturedly sexually harassed me. I thought they were great and loved teasing them about their latest unconvincing biker mustaches and goatees that they would grow and shave to disguise themselves. Since the country wasn’t a hot bed of drug activity, I was left with a lot of time on my hands, unsupervised and alone in the little narcotics room, which was basically a small office with a computer and a bunch of file cabinets. I used the ample downtime to teach myself WordPerfect and read books of monstrous length like Shogun and the complete works of Ayn Rand, which I found HI-larious. I guess I had missed the small window of the personal development stage (around 14-16 years of age, I believe, the acme of teenage asshole selfishness) when you can actually take her philosophy seriously.



Then the county hired a free lance confidential informant. Most confidential informants are criminals themselves - we're talking real scum of the earth. They move into a community, befriend other dirtbags, get them to sell them drugs while they wear a wire, testify in court against them, collect their money and then head on to the next town. I thought it was a sleazy practice, practically entrapment, but it’s a common tool in our illustrious War on Drugs. So, our confidential informant would wear a wire and go cruising for drugs with addicts. These were no kingpins - they were mostly addicts themselves who wanted to procure drugs for the CI so they could earn a little bit for themselves. The CI and his target would sometimes drive around for hours searching for drugs, and my main job became transcribing these conversations, some of them lasting for hours. I had to type every single tedious word or else the tapes would be inadmissible in court. I became an expert typist and Word Perfect savant. The quality of the conversation of drug addicts was not what you would call elevated or even all that interesting. Often the participants were high on crack and jabbered away at light speed on these nonsensical jags. The word m*therf*cker was used so frequently in their discussion that I taught myself how to make a macro for the word. Most discussions were boring and monotonous, although sometimes they were hilarious. Other times they were horrifying and pitiful. More often they were just plain filthy. Some of these people would spill out their life stories to make conversation, and talk about their kids and family, and I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for their doomed, soon to be mandatorily sentenced asses.

One memorable quote:



“Do you mind if I have a little piece of that rock? I promised my babysitter I would bring her some back.”



While I was reading The Canon and amusing myself rummaging through old case files up in the Narcotics room, the criminal investigators, who were dealing with real crime like rape, homicide, and bad check writing, were drowning in paperwork and desperately in need of some clerical help. That’s when my boss lent my services to them and the real fun began.

She's (working for) the Sheriff!

The year noneofyourbusiness I graduated from college there was a terrible recession. I know you will find this hard to believe, but even though I had a very hot ticket B.A. in History from an anachronistic all girls finishing school, I was not courted heavily by any Fortune 500 companies. Instead of trying to find adult work, I decided to give myself one last summer as a counselor at a summer camp that I had attended since I was seven. That year I was in charge of a stable of 30 horses and when I wasn’t teaching riding or assigned to cabin duty I had carte blanche with the horses. I spent a lot of my free time racing through the woods and swimming with them in a beautiful private lake, which you do by clinging to their mane as they paddle through the water. I count this as one of my top five experiences of my life. When the summer ended I felt like I had been cast out of heaven into an indifferently cruel world and I had no idea what to do with my life. So I decided to (wince) follow a man and move to Virginia to be near my boyfriend, who still had a couple of years to go in an anachronistic men’s finishing school there.

I had to find work immediately, and out of desperation did so at Carroll Reed, a defunct women's 'sophisticated country casual' clothing store, where my boyfriend’s mother shopped for the lion’s share of her wardrobe. Working retail is just the pits, especially at a strip mall. I've never worked a worse job - the minimum wage salary, the fussy, humorless female supervisors who believe in the company's mission like it's holy writ, the incessant sweater folding and hanging up of clothes, the standing on your feet all day, the boring product. Because it was the South, the customers at least had manners and were pleasant to deal with, but I was still utterly miserable.

One day before an evening shift I watched Miller’s Crossing, and found myself sobbing during the scene when Gabriel Byrne takes John Turturro out to the woods to shoot him. Turturro is begging for his life, pleading and sobbing on his knees for Byrne not to kill him like some kind of animal there in the woods. And I was sobbing right along with him, not because of the intensity of the scene or because I felt the least bit sorry for that weasel Turturro, whom Byrne should have shot through the temple without hesitation, but because the woods were so beautiful and I would have given anything to be there in the woods rather than have to leave to go to work in a mall in a chain store under hideous fluorescent lighting.

Before I became too despondent, my boyfriend’s father, the former attorney of a rural county, helped me acquire my first real office job as a clerk for the Sheriff’s Office. Thanks to a little country cronyism, I was to be a foot soldier, or more aptly a file clerk, in this country’s glorious War on Drugs. The job was funded by a federal grant and my responsibility was to manage a primitive software program called Drug Trak. I was to enter data and old case file information about drug dealers and suspects into the database. Aside from marijuana growing and some small time crack dealing (this was before meth really hit it big), drug trafficking was practically non existent and my position was completely unnecessary. I adored my sinecure, though, especially the narcotics officers, who were good old boys in the best sense: courteous rednecks. They primarily worked nights or out in the field and I rarely saw them except when they passed through the office to throw work at me. I would type up a report for them or to do their monthly statistics or for them while they good naturedly sexually harassed me. I thought they were great and loved teasing them about their latest unconvincing biker mustaches and goatees that they would grow and shave to disguise themselves. Since the country wasn’t a hot bed of drug activity, I was left with a lot of time on my hands, unsupervised and alone in the little narcotics room, which was basically a small office with a computer and a bunch of file cabinets. I used the ample downtime to teach myself WordPerfect and read books of monstrous length like Shogun and the complete works of Ayn Rand, which I found HI-larious. I guess I had missed the small window of the personal development stage (around 14-16 years of age, I believe, the acme of teenage asshole selfishness) when you can actually take her philosophy seriously.

Then the county hired a free lance confidential informant. Most confidential informants are criminals themselves - we're talking real scum of the earth. They move into a community, befriend other dirtbags, get them to sell them drugs while they wear a wire, testify in court against them, collect their money and then head on to the next town. I thought it was a sleazy practice, practically entrapment, but it’s a common tool in our illustrious War on Drugs. So, our confidential informant would wear a wire and go cruising for drugs with addicts. These were no kingpins - they were mostly addicts themselves who wanted to procure drugs for the CI so they could earn a little bit for themselves. The CI and his target would sometimes drive around for hours searching for drugs, and my main job became transcribing these conversations, some of them lasting for hours. I had to type every single tedious word or else the tapes would be inadmissible in court. I became an expert typist and Word Perfect savant. The quality of the conversation of drug addicts was not what you would call elevated or even all that interesting. Often the participants were high on crack and jabbered away at light speed on these nonsensical jags. The word m*therf*cker was used so frequently in their discussion that I taught myself how to make a macro for the word. Most discussions were boring and monotonous, although sometimes they were hilarious. Other times they were horrifying and pitiful. More often they were just plain filthy. Some of these people would spill out their life stories to make conversation, and talk about their kids and family, and I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for their doomed, soon to be mandatorily sentenced asses.
One memorable quote:

“Do you mind if I have a little piece of that rock? I promised my babysitter I would bring her some back.”

While I was reading The Canon and amusing myself rummaging through old case files up in the Narcotics room, the criminal investigators, who were dealing with real crime like rape, homicide, and bad check writing, were drowning in paperwork and desperately in need of some clerical help. That’s when my boss lent my services to them and the real fun began.

Billy and the Angry Inch

We finally saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch last Saturday, and it has been playing practically non stop on the Tivo ever since, which forces anybody else who wanders into the apartment to watch it as well. I believe my own personal viewing count is something like 15 times. Not only is the story poignant, brilliant and unlike anything I’ve ever seen, it is riddled with some of the most hilarious one-liners I've heard ("After my divorce I scraped by with babysitting gigs and odd jobs - mostly the jobs we call blow.” And what can you say about a movie that has an Israeli drag queen named Kristal Nacht.) I’m not particularly fond of musicals, but I have been humming these beautiful songs, some of which are profound and explain Platonic theory much better than any Philosophy professor I ever had, on a constant loop. The Wig in a Box song has to be one of the most inspirational songs I’ve ever heard about pulling yourself up, dusting yourself off and doing what you have to do to get on with life. It has supplanted my previous favorite song of this type, Bobby Gentry's Fancy, which was covered superbly by Reba McEntire. “I might have been born just plain white trash BUT FANCY WAS MY NAME!” Yeah, she got herself a Georgia mansion and she ain't been back. (Billy Jack was almost named Fancy).



Speaking of, we now are more sympathetic of and sensitive to Billy's behavior problems. E theorizes that this all stems from his botched tail docking when he was a 6 week old puppy. Jack Russells’s tails are docked at 6 weeks, but only partially. Enough tail length is supposed to remain – about 5 inches - so that the tails make a convenient little handle for grabbing them and pulling them out of varmint holes. As you can see from the photograph, Billy’s tail was docked much too short and he has been spiteful and overcompensating ever since.



E has been picking Billy up and singing, “6 inches forward and 5 inches back. Billy's got an angry inch, an angry inch!” Anyway, I can't believe Rachel Griffiths didn't get an academy award for her portrayal of the transexual Hedwig. She was amazing. I'm just kidding, but you have to admit the resemblance is remarkable.



Drag queens have always fascinated me. Many of them patronize this branch and even if they are not in their full raiment they are still glamorous creatures to behold. It’s almost like they are a third sex – a combination of female and male, like angels are purported to be. Two like to come in the branch together. They are never seen without their platform heels which make them both about seven feet tall each. They take my breath away, like I'm in the presence of a fallen archangel or some larger than life being or royalty (they're not called queens for nothing). Their vanity, their star power, their overall fabulousness, their supermodel size hips, awe me. I also love their eviscerating humor. They have the feminine catty, cruel streak combined with a man’s physical power and ruthlessness. And they are not to be messed with, sister. They wouldn’t hesitate to rake their Mandarin length nails across one's face, and since they possess a man's strength, this would probably be mortal wound. I can understand why men like Eddie Murphy cruise them – it would be like having sex with some kind of fantastical creature. When they come in I always waive their fines because as that homosexual sage Buddy Cole cautions, "An angry drag queen is scarier than a minotaur!"

Billy and the Angry Inch

We finally saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch last Saturday, and it has been playing practically non stop on the Tivo ever since, which forces anybody else who wanders into the apartment to watch it as well. I believe my own personal viewing count is something like 15 times. Not only is the story poignant, brilliant and unlike anything I’ve ever seen, it is riddled with some of the most hilarious one-liners I've heard ("After my divorce I scraped by with babysitting gigs and odd jobs - mostly the jobs we call blow.” And what can you say about a movie that has an Israeli drag queen named Kristal Nacht.) I’m not particularly fond of musicals, but I have been humming these beautiful songs, some of which are profound and explain Platonic theory much better than any Philosophy professor I ever had, on a constant loop. The Wig in a Box song has to be one of the most inspirational songs I’ve ever heard about pulling yourself up, dusting yourself off and doing what you have to do to get on with life. It has supplanted my previous favorite song of this type, Bobby Gentry's Fancy, which was covered superbly by Reba McEntire. “I might have been born just plain white trash BUT FANCY WAS MY NAME!” Yeah, she got herself a Georgia mansion and she ain't been back. (Billy Jack was almost named Fancy).

Speaking of, we now are more sympathetic of and sensitive to Billy's behavior problems. E theorizes that this all stems from his botched tail docking when he was a 6 week old puppy. Jack Russells’s tails are docked at 6 weeks, but only partially. Enough tail length is supposed to remain – about 5 inches - so that the tails make a convenient little handle for grabbing them and pulling them out of varmint holes. As you can see from the photograph, Billy’s tail was docked much too short and he has been spiteful and overcompensating ever since.

E has been picking Billy up and singing, “6 inches forward and 5 inches back. Billy's got an angry inch, an angry inch!” Anyway, I can't believe Rachel Griffiths didn't get an academy award for her portrayal of the transexual Hedwig. She was amazing. I'm just kidding, but you have to admit the resemblance is remarkable.

Drag queens have always fascinated me. Many of them patronize this branch and even if they are not in their full raiment they are still glamorous creatures to behold. It’s almost like they are a third sex – a combination of female and male, like angels are purported to be. Two like to come in the branch together. They are never seen without their platform heels which make them both about seven feet tall each. They take my breath away, like I'm in the presence of a fallen archangel or some larger than life being or royalty (they're not called queens for nothing). Their vanity, their star power, their overall fabulousness, their supermodel size hips, awe me. I also love their eviscerating humor. They have the feminine catty, cruel streak combined with a man’s physical power and ruthlessness. And they are not to be messed with, sister. They wouldn’t hesitate to rake their Mandarin length nails across one's face, and since they possess a man's strength, this would probably be mortal wound. I can understand why men like Eddie Murphy cruise them – it would be like having sex with some kind of fantastical creature. When they come in I always waive their fines because as that homosexual sage Buddy Cole cautions, "An angry drag queen is scarier than a minotaur!"

Serenity in 2005

All I want for Christmas is botox injected into my face. I want it in extreme quantities, the kind of amount that would lay waste to an entire Medieval banquet of revelers after they had ingested the tainted, improperly preserved venison. I don’t want the procedure solely for vanity, although I am certainly guilty of that little vice (and wish that more of my colleagues were as well), but for professional reasons. One of my New Year’s goals is to improve my game face/professional composure when I am on reference duty. I don’t want any facial tells betraying my shock, confusion or alarm. I aspire to be like a professional poker player or a priest or cop who has heard it all and is impossible to shock anymore. I want my face to register only a beatific serenity, even as I am picking up the phone to dial 911.



Some patron encounters at the reference desk in 2004 that have caused my composure to slip:

When an elderly female scholar declared that manatees have milk producing breasts and that is why lonely sailors would drag them on board the ship to have sex with them.

When a man with a Serbian accent expounded on his theories that Jews all go into the medical profession because they suffer from the most diseases. Then he asked indignantly why we didn’t have a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

When the woman wanted the name of the government program in which you rent your house to the army so it can store surplus weapons in it. There was a lot of exasperation and attitude when I didn’t know immediately what she was talking about. I never did find out what she was talking about.

When a man I had never seen before who demanded that I get that book that he was reading the other day. “It was red. You know the one that I’m talking about.”

When the man wanted the exact location and phone number of the radio station that exists under a nearby island because it is transmitting radio signals that his teeth fillings are picking up.

When the patron came in and wanted Britney Spears' cell phone number. He gave off a lot of creepy stalker agitation when I told him that it was unlisted and impossible to obtain.

When a regular patron wanted to know if I could pay his utility bill that month. He told me that he was good for it.

When the Vietnam Vet asked me how to obtain government subsidies to grow marijuana.

When a little girl wanted the Polar Express on DVD. But it is too out on DVD - she just saw it for sale on the street.

When the type-A soccer mom wanted a Charlotte’s Web with an alternate ending in which the spider doesn’t die.

When a patron with a history of scary behavior problems threatened to call the ACLU and the Human Right's Commission because I forbade him to scream the F word in a library. He has now cut his hair in a flat top crew cut and is resembling Michael Douglas' character in Falling Down more each day. I fear that I now personify 'the system' and he thinks of me as the agent and cause of all failures in his sad life.

Serenity in 2005

All I want for Christmas is botox injected into my face. I want it in extreme quantities, the kind of amount that would lay waste to an entire Medieval banquet of revelers after they had ingested the tainted, improperly preserved venison. I don’t want the procedure solely for vanity, although I am certainly guilty of that little vice (and wish that more of my colleagues were as well), but for professional reasons. One of my New Year’s goals is to improve my game face/professional composure when I am on reference duty. I don’t want any facial tells betraying my shock, confusion or alarm. I aspire to be like a professional poker player or a priest or cop who has heard it all and is impossible to shock anymore. I want my face to register only a beatific serenity, even as I am picking up the phone to dial 911.

Some patron encounters at the reference desk in 2004 that have caused my composure to slip:

When an elderly female scholar declared that manatees have milk producing breasts and that is why lonely sailors would drag them on board the ship to have sex with them.

When a man with a Serbian accent expounded on his theories that Jews all go into the medical profession because they suffer from the most diseases. Then he asked indignantly why we didn’t have a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

When the woman wanted the name of the government program in which you rent your house to the army so it can store surplus weapons in it. There was a lot of exasperation and attitude when I didn’t know immediately what she was talking about. I never did find out what she was talking about.

When a man I had never seen before who demanded that I get that book that he was reading the other day. “It was red. You know the one that I’m talking about.”

When the man wanted the exact location and phone number of the radio station that exists under a nearby island because it is transmitting radio signals that his teeth fillings are picking up.

When the patron came in and wanted Britney Spears' cell phone number. He gave off a lot of creepy stalker agitation when I told him that it was unlisted and impossible to obtain.

When a regular patron wanted to know if I could pay his utility bill that month. He told me that he was good for it.

When the Vietnam Vet asked me how to obtain government subsidies to grow marijuana.

When a little girl wanted the Polar Express on DVD. But it is too out on DVD - she just saw it for sale on the street.

When the type-A soccer mom wanted a Charlotte’s Web with an alternate ending in which the spider doesn’t die.

When a patron with a history of scary behavior problems threatened to call the ACLU and the Human Right's Commission because I forbade him to scream the F word in a library. He has now cut his hair in a flat top crew cut and is resembling Michael Douglas' character in Falling Down more each day. I fear that I now personify 'the system' and he thinks of me as the agent and cause of all failures in his sad life.

Weeding

Librarians have different philosophies regarding the maintenance and weeding of collections. Because I come from a corporate background, I'm a little more ruthless than some of my colleagues in the public sector, where a lot of agonizing and wringing of hands goes into the removal of even a single book from the collection. Not that weeding is a task to be undertaken rashly and thoughtlessly (or with extreme prejudice, which I admit I do with Danielle Steele books), but I don’t see the need to spend 15 irretrievable minutes of one’s life deliberating over a grimy, circa 1980’s Suzanne Sommer's autobiography whose pages are covered with peculiar stains and of which the system has 30 other copies. (Actual incident). Other librarians have to weed on the sly because their managers outright refuse to do so, even if they have been ordered by upper management. To them every book, no matter how outdated, or in what kind condition, is precious and belongs in the collection. It doesn’t matter that carts of new books are languishing in the in the workroom, inaccessible to public, because even with the assistance of a crowbar there is no way to force them onto the groaning shelves. One manager confessed that she couldn't bear to discard any book because she each one was like a child to her, like every act of weeding was as agonizing and horrific as the scene in Sophie’s Choice when she has to decide which one of her children she is to send off to die.

It’s not as if the discarded books are destined for death camp ovens, or even for the landfill, for that matter. Weeded hardbacks are distributed to various community groups. The only exception is mass market paperbacks, which are ‘recycled.’ Most of these are uncatalogued donations we just throw jumbled together on spinner racks. Some of them circulate hundreds of times and are just not meant to endure so much wear and tear. When they are withdrawn we rip the covers with the library barcode off and then throw the books into the recycling bins like any other paper product. Even this task is too emotional for some of my colleagues. I was at a branch one day and a page was tasked with withdrawing some grungy old paperbacks. I heard some noise from the backroom where she was working. I thought at first she was laughing, but then I realized that she was crying. I asked her what on earth was the matter and she said, “It’s just so sad. I can’t stand destroying books!” I stood there dumbfounded while she worked herself up into quite a state. Her lamentations and caterwauling became so disruptive that the manager finally sent her home to pull herself together. I'm not making this up. To be fair, she does have a history of behavior problems, but come now. She'll probably be promoted to management soon.

Weeding

Librarians have different philosophies regarding the maintenance and weeding of collections. Because I come from a corporate background, I'm a little more ruthless than some of my colleagues in the public sector, where a lot of agonizing and wringing of hands goes into the removal of even a single book from the collection. Not that weeding is a task to be undertaken rashly and thoughtlessly (or with extreme prejudice, which I admit I do with Danielle Steele books), but I don’t see the need to spend 15 irretrievable minutes of one’s life deliberating over a grimy, circa 1980’s Suzanne Sommer's autobiography whose pages are covered with peculiar stains and of which the system has 30 other copies. (Actual incident). Other librarians have to weed on the sly because their managers outright refuse to do so, even if they have been ordered by upper management. To them every book, no matter how outdated, or in what kind condition, is precious and belongs in the collection. It doesn’t matter that carts of new books are languishing in the in the workroom, inaccessible to public, because even with the assistance of a crowbar there is no way to force them onto the groaning shelves. One manager confessed that she couldn't bear to discard any book because she each one was like a child to her, like every act of weeding was as agonizing and horrific as the scene in Sophie’s Choice when she has to decide which one of her children she is to send off to die.

It’s not as if the discarded books are destined for death camp ovens, or even for the landfill, for that matter. Weeded hardbacks are distributed to various community groups. The only exception is mass market paperbacks, which are ‘recycled.’ Most of these are uncatalogued donations we just throw jumbled together on spinner racks. Some of them circulate hundreds of times and are just not meant to endure so much wear and tear. When they are withdrawn we rip the covers with the library barcode off and then throw the books into the recycling bins like any other paper product. Even this task is too emotional for some of my colleagues. I was at a branch one day and a page was tasked with withdrawing some grungy old paperbacks. I heard some noise from the backroom where she was working. I thought at first she was laughing, but then I realized that she was crying. I asked her what on earth was the matter and she said, “It’s just so sad. I can’t stand destroying books!” I stood there dumbfounded while she worked herself up into quite a state. Her lamentations and caterwauling became so disruptive that the manager finally sent her home to pull herself together. I'm not making this up. To be fair, she does have a history of behavior problems, but come now. She'll probably be promoted to management soon.

The Latest News from Skidrowbegon

Last reported, local street minx Loretta had been evicted from her 4th residential hotel room. Loretta was cast out because of her Looking for Mr. Goodbar habit of cruising and picking up fellow vagrants. When she is living in the park she entertains them in the public restroom stall, much to the horror and amazement of passersby, but when she has a room she entices them back there with her ample (Loretta weighs about 250 pounds) boozy charm. After working up an appetite with lots of raucous love making, she and her beau of the moment typically cook up a little something to eat on the fire hazard hotplate. They will then pair their meal with about 10 bottles of Ripple and maybe some crack. Loretta is not always a happy drunk, however, and some drunken misunderstanding inevitably ensues which then leads to a murderous fight. Loretta is real a wildcat and the police always have to come referee and let me tell you from my days as a clerk at the Sheriff’s Office there is nothing cops hate more than a domestic. These residential hotel rooms are provided and paid by the city’s taxpayers, but because this city is truly enabling and codependent, it has decided to give her just one more chance (and they REALLY mean it this time) at a room under the strict condition she has absolutely no visitors.



Loretta, like a puffy incarnation of Donatello's Repentant Magdalene, was quite the picture of pathos as she and her stolen Safeway cart brimming with her urine soaked blankets wended their way toward the park. Even if the taxpayer has to underwrite it, I can’t help but be glad that she is being given one more chance to be off the streets now that winter is here.



Loretta's comrade Steve-o took the loss of Punky particularly hard, and vanished from the neighborhood like so much crack smoke in the wind shortly after Punky's untimely death. I feared the worst, although I really shouldn't have, because his type seems to disappear and return cyclically and unwelcomingly, like a herpes outbreak. The Feisty Old Broad informed me that Steve-o has been emotionally and spiritually convalescing in HAWAII. He used his new SSI income to finance his vacation.

The Latest News from Skidrowbegon

Last reported, local street minx Loretta had been evicted from her 4th residential hotel room. Loretta was cast out because of her Looking for Mr. Goodbar habit of cruising and picking up fellow vagrants. When she is living in the park she entertains them in the public restroom stall, much to the horror and amazement of passersby, but when she has a room she entices them back there with her ample (Loretta weighs about 250 pounds) boozy charm. After working up an appetite with lots of raucous love making, she and her beau of the moment typically cook up a little something to eat on the fire hazard hotplate. They will then pair their meal with about 10 bottles of Ripple and maybe some crack. Loretta is not always a happy drunk, however, and some drunken misunderstanding inevitably ensues which then leads to a murderous fight. Loretta is real a wildcat and the police always have to come referee and let me tell you from my days as a clerk at the Sheriff’s Office there is nothing cops hate more than a domestic. These residential hotel rooms are provided and paid by the city’s taxpayers, but because this city is truly enabling and codependent, it has decided to give her just one more chance (and they REALLY mean it this time) at a room under the strict condition she has absolutely no visitors.

Loretta, like a puffy incarnation of Donatello's Repentant Magdalene, was quite the picture of pathos as she and her stolen Safeway cart brimming with her urine soaked blankets wended their way toward the park. Even if the taxpayer has to underwrite it, I can’t help but be glad that she is being given one more chance to be off the streets now that winter is here.

Loretta's comrade Steve-o took the loss of Punky particularly hard, and vanished from the neighborhood like so much crack smoke in the wind shortly after Punky's untimely death. I feared the worst, although I really shouldn't have, because his type seems to disappear and return cyclically and unwelcomingly, like a herpes outbreak. The Feisty Old Broad informed me that Steve-o has been emotionally and spiritually convalescing in HAWAII. He used his new SSI income to finance his vacation.

Spanky, the Black Narcissus

One day my mom found a note in my aunt's car that read:

Whacker Farm
Intercourse, Pennsylvania
Bring $500 cash

Before she became filled with grave misgiving about what my aunt might be up to, she made the connection between the note and my aunt's errand to Pennsylvania Dutch country to purchase a Schipperke dog a few weeks before. When my aunt took the tiny puppy, then about the size of a goose's egg, for its first vet visit he asked her where it had come from. When she told him that she purchased it from a nice Amish farm he screamed, "How could you! The Amish run horrible puppy mills! They are notorious! The most defective animals I've ever treated come from the Amish. I wish you luck with this animal – you’re going to need it!" Although you would think that the Amish would practice sound animal husbandry and would be above impure motivations like money they apparently are not.

Spanky is a testament to the amazing power of human love, and by that I mean that it's amazing how human beings have the capacity to love and mother anything, no matter how dangerous or monstrous that creature may be. Spanky was the runt of her litter and even now is only 7 pounds, which has probably been the only reason my aunt has not been forced by the authorities to destroy her. Spanky has a horrible fear of children (we suspect she was tortured by the Amish children who were charged with raising her) which she expresses by trying to kill them. Any time a child visits Spanky has to be locked securely away behind several doors. Schipperkes are difficult dogs anyway - I understand the breed rescue organization is quite active – and Spanky is no exception. Although she is intelligent and cunning, there is a strange absence of emotional connection, like she has a canine form of Asperger’s. It’s like having a dangerously undomesticated animal around. I liken her to a cross between a javelina and a scorpion.

Spanky is an inky black imp that zips and flits about my aunt’s floor and furniture. E said she reminds her of one of the creatures unleashed when Pandora opened the box. She shrieks and twists like a mandrake root if anyone besides my aunt tries to pick her up or breaches her personal space, which is arbitrary and constantly shifting. She also has several territorial spheres/No Man's Lands surrounding her food bowl, tennis ball and the BBQ grill. If anyone intrudes, even innocently, she will charge and bite them like a black mamba. Every one of us, with the exception of my aunt, has been bitten at least once, including my cousin through the lip when she bent down to kiss her goodnight.

Several pet names for her:
Spooky, Sketchy, Shrieky, Squealy, The Black Narcissus, Satan's Merkin

One day I was sitting on the couch and looked down and noticed Spanky had raised her tiny hind leg, the size and weight of a green bean, and rested it upon my foot. I first thought she was raising her leg to urinate on me like a male because she is so aggressively masculine, but my aunt explained that Spanky was dominating me. This was her way of displaying that she was the boss of me. After she made me her bitch, she actually allowed me to hold her in my lap. Her heartbeat was impossibly fast, like a shrew or hummingbird's.

Although Spanky is terrifying, she’s also exciting to be around because she is so fascinatingly, dangerously unpredictable. She genuinely does love my aunt and adds an element of thrilling excitement to my visits to her house, like a trip to a Fun House where things pop out at you. When we visit she hates the disruption in routine, though, and a few Thanksgivings ago expressed her displeasure symbolically by diarrheaing all over the welcome mat.

Spanky, the Black Narcissus

One day my mom found a note in my aunt's car that read:

Whacker Farm
Intercourse, Pennsylvania
Bring $500 cash

Before she became filled with grave misgiving about what my aunt might be up to, she made the connection between the note and my aunt's errand to Pennsylvania Dutch country to purchase a Schipperke dog a few weeks before. When my aunt took the tiny puppy, then about the size of a goose's egg, for its first vet visit he asked her where it had come from. When she told him that she purchased it from a nice Amish farm he screamed, "How could you! The Amish run horrible puppy mills! They are notorious! The most defective animals I've ever treated come from the Amish. I wish you luck with this animal – you’re going to need it!" Although you would think that the Amish would practice sound animal husbandry and would be above impure motivations like money they apparently are not.

Spanky is a testament to the amazing power of human love, and by that I mean that it's amazing how human beings have the capacity to love and mother anything, no matter how dangerous or monstrous that creature may be. Spanky was the runt of her litter and even now is only 7 pounds, which has probably been the only reason my aunt has not been forced by the authorities to destroy her. Spanky has a horrible fear of children (we suspect she was tortured by the Amish children who were charged with raising her) which she expresses by trying to kill them. Any time a child visits Spanky has to be locked securely away behind several doors. Schipperkes are difficult dogs anyway - I understand the breed rescue organization is quite active – and Spanky is no exception. Although she is intelligent and cunning, there is a strange absence of emotional connection, like she has a canine form of Asperger’s. It’s like having a dangerously undomesticated animal around. I liken her to a cross between a javelina and a scorpion.

Spanky is an inky black imp that zips and flits about my aunt’s floor and furniture. E said she reminds her of one of the creatures unleashed when Pandora opened the box. She shrieks and twists like a mandrake root if anyone besides my aunt tries to pick her up or breaches her personal space, which is arbitrary and constantly shifting. She also has several territorial spheres/No Man's Lands surrounding her food bowl, tennis ball and the BBQ grill. If anyone intrudes, even innocently, she will charge and bite them like a black mamba. Every one of us, with the exception of my aunt, has been bitten at least once, including my cousin through the lip when she bent down to kiss her goodnight.

Several pet names for her:
Spooky, Sketchy, Shrieky, Squealy, The Black Narcissus, Satan's Merkin

One day I was sitting on the couch and looked down and noticed Spanky had raised her tiny hind leg, the size and weight of a green bean, and rested it upon my foot. I first thought she was raising her leg to urinate on me like a male because she is so aggressively masculine, but my aunt explained that Spanky was dominating me. This was her way of displaying that she was the boss of me. After she made me her bitch, she actually allowed me to hold her in my lap. Her heartbeat was impossibly fast, like a shrew or hummingbird's.

Although Spanky is terrifying, she’s also exciting to be around because she is so fascinatingly, dangerously unpredictable. She genuinely does love my aunt and adds an element of thrilling excitement to my visits to her house, like a trip to a Fun House where things pop out at you. When we visit she hates the disruption in routine, though, and a few Thanksgivings ago expressed her displeasure symbolically by diarrheaing all over the welcome mat.

Have you Checked the Catalog?

I apologize for my erratic and desultory blogging, but I’ve been in Connecticut for a week. Each year I visit my aunt and cousins there for a traditional New England Thanksgiving, although my protracted celebration of gluttony and sloth would certainly be condemned by the Puritans we're supposed to be honoring. The town elders would probably sew a great big G for gluttony on my clothes. What a stern, joyless, niggardly lot they were. I’m glad that I’m descended from a later, less fanatical wave of immigrants.



The night before I left I had yet another obscene phone call, diabolically clever and drawn out. The only other librarian on duty was the children's librarian, and she was occupied upstairs trying to coax a filmstrip through an ancient projector for children’s movie night. She dreads these movie nights because the equipment is so temperamental and ancient and the events are always so poorly attended. When she tried to modernize and show tapes from the VCR a bunch of parents wailed that the movie night just wouldn’t be the same without the filmstrips. They are inexplicably, stubbornly nostalgic for these terrifyingly groovy short animated films from their childhood that only exist on filmstrip. The films are all practically dissolving and have a flickering, migraine triggering visual quality. Of course these parents never bother to attend these events, but I've found those types are always the ones who are the most vocal and who like to express their written opinions in letters to the City Librarian. My coworker thought she was off the hook when no one showed up, and while she was wheeling the projector away a man in his 40s reading the paper said without looking up from the paper, “Excuse me. I believe there is a movie night here tonight.” Since there were no children or anyone else my colleague said that she was going to cancel the program due to lack of interest. He then whipped out a library events schedule and said, “Right here it says there is a movie night scheduled; therefore, I am here for the movie.” He was the doppelganger of Toby, Harvey Pekar’s autistic coworker, with the same precise, stilted speech and single minded determination. My colleague knew reasoning with him would be futile and so she resignedly continued with movie night.



While my colleague struggled with the film, I took a reference call from a man with a vaguely European accent. He started off with questions about the availability of films by French director Eric Rohmart. He then wanted to know about ordering books of psychological case studies. After I named a few he specified that he was was particularly interested in those having to do with the psychology of relationships. His tone became warmly conversational and he complemented me on my searching skills. After disarming me with flattery (an obscene phone call red flag, I've found) he then wanted to know how strong our collection was on the field of abnormal psychology. After listening for a moment to some of our titles he returned to the subject of the psychology of interpersonal relationships, especially romantic relationships. I listed several books the library owned. He then wanted to know if we had any books about abnormal sexual psychology, and if would I read the list and describe them in as much detail as possible. There was a strange, desperate yearning tone that had crept into his voice and I finally wised up to the true purpose of this call. I lied and said that I had a line of people at the reference desk, although the library was practically deserted. He then abruptly hung up on me, which confirmed my suspicions that he was not a legitimate caller.



My ear was heated and sore, as if the caller had been tonguing me in my ear the entire ten minute conversation. Although I cursed myself for my continuing naivete and unwitting participation in these perverted phone calls, I still get fooled by the elaborate and bizarre setup. Human sexuality is confounding and I'm still learning about the strange lengths people will go to to get their freak on. The most pathetic ones I heard about were the Foxy Cancer Information Specialist's. She had people call her and ask overly detailed questions about how to conduct a testicular exam, obviously getting off.



Although most callers seem harmless, my ultimate fear is that an obscene phone caller will one day call me from a cell phone within the library, and it will be just like that old horror film When a Stranger Calls when the babysitter keeps getting these calls asking, "Have you checked the children?" She has the calls traced and then the police break in the line and say, “We’ve traced the call! The phone call is coming from within the house! Get out!” This is actually how a moron phoning a phony bomb threat was apprehended at The Main. He was using a pay phone within the library.

Have you Checked the Catalog?

I apologize for my erratic and desultory blogging, but I’ve been in Connecticut for a week. Each year I visit my aunt and cousins there for a traditional New England Thanksgiving, although my protracted celebration of gluttony and sloth would certainly be condemned by the Puritans we're supposed to be honoring. The town elders would probably sew a great big G for gluttony on my clothes. What a stern, joyless, niggardly lot they were. I’m glad that I’m descended from a later, less fanatical wave of immigrants.

The night before I left I had yet another obscene phone call, diabolically clever and drawn out. The only other librarian on duty was the children's librarian, and she was occupied upstairs trying to coax a filmstrip through an ancient projector for children’s movie night. She dreads these movie nights because the equipment is so temperamental and ancient and the events are always so poorly attended. When she tried to modernize and show tapes from the VCR a bunch of parents wailed that the movie night just wouldn’t be the same without the filmstrips. They are inexplicably, stubbornly nostalgic for these terrifyingly groovy short animated films from their childhood that only exist on filmstrip. The films are all practically dissolving and have a flickering, migraine triggering visual quality. Of course these parents never bother to attend these events, but I've found those types are always the ones who are the most vocal and who like to express their written opinions in letters to the City Librarian. My coworker thought she was off the hook when no one showed up, and while she was wheeling the projector away a man in his 40s reading the paper said without looking up from the paper, “Excuse me. I believe there is a movie night here tonight.” Since there were no children or anyone else my colleague said that she was going to cancel the program due to lack of interest. He then whipped out a library events schedule and said, “Right here it says there is a movie night scheduled; therefore, I am here for the movie.” He was the doppelganger of Toby, Harvey Pekar’s autistic coworker, with the same precise, stilted speech and single minded determination. My colleague knew reasoning with him would be futile and so she resignedly continued with movie night.

While my colleague struggled with the film, I took a reference call from a man with a vaguely European accent. He started off with questions about the availability of films by French director Eric Rohmart. He then wanted to know about ordering books of psychological case studies. After I named a few he specified that he was was particularly interested in those having to do with the psychology of relationships. His tone became warmly conversational and he complemented me on my searching skills. After disarming me with flattery (an obscene phone call red flag, I've found) he then wanted to know how strong our collection was on the field of abnormal psychology. After listening for a moment to some of our titles he returned to the subject of the psychology of interpersonal relationships, especially romantic relationships. I listed several books the library owned. He then wanted to know if we had any books about abnormal sexual psychology, and if would I read the list and describe them in as much detail as possible. There was a strange, desperate yearning tone that had crept into his voice and I finally wised up to the true purpose of this call. I lied and said that I had a line of people at the reference desk, although the library was practically deserted. He then abruptly hung up on me, which confirmed my suspicions that he was not a legitimate caller.

My ear was heated and sore, as if the caller had been tonguing me in my ear the entire ten minute conversation. Although I cursed myself for my continuing naivete and unwitting participation in these perverted phone calls, I still get fooled by the elaborate and bizarre setup. Human sexuality is confounding and I'm still learning about the strange lengths people will go to to get their freak on. The most pathetic ones I heard about were the Foxy Cancer Information Specialist's. She had people call her and ask overly detailed questions about how to conduct a testicular exam, obviously getting off.

Although most callers seem harmless, my ultimate fear is that an obscene phone caller will one day call me from a cell phone within the library, and it will be just like that old horror film When a Stranger Calls when the babysitter keeps getting these calls asking, "Have you checked the children?" She has the calls traced and then the police break in the line and say, “We’ve traced the call! The phone call is coming from within the house! Get out!” This is actually how a moron phoning a phony bomb threat was apprehended at The Main. He was using a pay phone within the library.

Could You Change the Ending?

A mother swept in one day and demanded to know if there was a version of Charlotte’s Web with an alternate ending. She complained that the spider’s death was too sad and depressing and she didn’t want her seven year old son exposed to something so upsetting. Instead of seeing the book as a beautiful parable about the natural cycle of life and death – which, whether we like it or not, is our common destiny – she wanted to ruin the entire point of a children’s classic for her own sadly misguided purposes.

Another librarian reported that The Quitting Deal was challenged (librarian term of art meaning a patron has asked for a book to be removed from the collection) because the mother in the book was messy and there were dirty dishes in the sink.

Could You Change the Ending?

A mother swept in one day and demanded to know if there was a version of Charlotte’s Web with an alternate ending. She complained that the spider’s death was too sad and depressing and she didn’t want her seven year old son exposed to something so upsetting. Instead of seeing the book as a beautiful parable about the natural cycle of life and death – which, whether we like it or not, is our common destiny – she wanted to ruin the entire point of a children’s classic for her own sadly misguided purposes.
Another librarian reported that The Quitting Deal was challenged (librarian term of art meaning a patron has asked for a book to be removed from the collection) because the mother in the book was messy and there were dirty dishes in the sink.

Fresh Out of the Big House

Today a man still wearing his prison ID bracelet inquired about getting a library card. When told that he would need a piece of government issued ID, he presented his wrist with the bracelet. Although technically it is government issued, the page explained that the form of identification needed to have his picture and address on it. He shrugged and left the library to continue the long process of adjusting to life on the outside.

Fresh Out of the Big House

Today a man still wearing his prison ID bracelet inquired about getting a library card. When told that he would need a piece of government issued ID, he presented his wrist with the bracelet. Although technically it is government issued, the page explained that the form of identification needed to have his picture and address on it. He shrugged and left the library to continue the long process of adjusting to life on the outside.

At Least the Trains Ran on Time

Two library security guards dropped by on their rounds the other day. They looked wearier than usual and told me that they had just come from breaking up a catfight between two partially clothed women on the front steps of the main library. Before you get too titillated, the combatants were filthy bag ladies who both looked a lot like the bloated body in the bathtub of room 217 of the Overlook Hotel. As they were screaming filth and grappling with each other they tore each others clothes off until they were down to what would have been their underwear if they had been wearing any. Just the thing you want your children to see on a visit to the library.



Homeless congregate on the steps of the library because misguided Good Samaritans will drive by and hand out food and clothes to them there. Citizens trying to help the homeless use it as a centralized drop off location for food and clothes, in effect making the library an unoffical rescue street mission/soup kitchen, but with none of the proper staff or facilities. The security guard told me that he often see homeless men walking around with plates of food and trays of lasagna, which they eat and leave half eaten on the library steps. People also drop off bags of old clothes so the homeless will use the library's bathroom as a changing room. He will find filth encrusted outfits crawling with vermin shoved in the trashcans of the library.



It's not that I haven't any social conscience or feel that the homeless should be hidden from view. But outside the library they loiter, shoot up, deal drugs, fight and the library and its staff are neither equipped nor trained to deal with this. The hit and run philanthropists who hand out food can get a warm fuzzy high but in the meantime the average patron avoids the library for fear of his life and the library is left to deal with the mess. At times I feel that the main has been basically ceded to the homeless.



What is so sad it that even though I consider myself a very live and let live liberal, when I see and hear these sort of things I feel myself sliding down the repressive (but well maintained and graffiti free!) slope of fascism. Intrusive phrases like "At least the trains ran on time" pop into my head. I envision more of a Starship Troopers style fascist utopia than Mussolini's or Mayor Giuliani's. In any case, the codependent, free for all style of this city is not working.

At Least the Trains Ran on Time

Two library security guards dropped by on their rounds the other day. They looked wearier than usual and told me that they had just come from breaking up a catfight between two partially clothed women on the front steps of the main library. Before you get too titillated, the combatants were filthy bag ladies who both looked a lot like the bloated body in the bathtub of room 217 of the Overlook Hotel. As they were screaming filth and grappling with each other they tore each others clothes off until they were down to what would have been their underwear if they had been wearing any. Just the thing you want your children to see on a visit to the library.

Homeless congregate on the steps of the library because misguided Good Samaritans will drive by and hand out food and clothes to them there. Citizens trying to help the homeless use it as a centralized drop off location for food and clothes, in effect making the library an unoffical rescue street mission/soup kitchen, but with none of the proper staff or facilities. The security guard told me that he often see homeless men walking around with plates of food and trays of lasagna, which they eat and leave half eaten on the library steps. People also drop off bags of old clothes so the homeless will use the library's bathroom as a changing room. He will find filth encrusted outfits crawling with vermin shoved in the trashcans of the library.

It's not that I haven't any social conscience or feel that the homeless should be hidden from view. But outside the library they loiter, shoot up, deal drugs, fight and the library and its staff are neither equipped nor trained to deal with this. The hit and run philanthropists who hand out food can get a warm fuzzy high but in the meantime the average patron avoids the library for fear of his life and the library is left to deal with the mess. At times I feel that the main has been basically ceded to the homeless.

What is so sad it that even though I consider myself a very live and let live liberal, when I see and hear these sort of things I feel myself sliding down the repressive (but well maintained and graffiti free!) slope of fascism. Intrusive phrases like "At least the trains ran on time" pop into my head. I envision more of a Starship Troopers style fascist utopia than Mussolini's or Mayor Giuliani's. In any case, the codependent, free for all style of this city is not working.

Touch You Once, Touch You Twice

One time I was working at another branch and heard a patron softly and rhythmically grunting by one of the bookshelves. The noises sounded painfully and forcefully abbreviated, like an aborted hiccough. As I watched him I noticed that he would touch the spine of a book on the shelf, mutter the call number, grunt, and then move to the next book and repeat the process. His behavior, although strange, seemed harmless. One of the regular librarians explained, "Oh, he does this every time he comes in. He starts at the beginning of the Dewey Decimal system and works his way through each book until the very last one in the 900s. Then he will move onto the fiction section and work through it until the library closes."

Lucky for him it was a small branch. How terrible to be enslaved by such a boring and monotonous compulsion. OCD is such a dreadful but fascinating condition. David Sedaris's essay "A Plague of Tics" describes his bout with OCD when he was a young boy. Although he lived less than a mile from school, he would take well over an hour to get there because of of the elaborate sequence of rituals - tapping his shoe against his head, licking and touching objects, performing bizarre, dance like motions, circling trees - he had to perform en route to school. His OCD wasn't just limited to his walks to school, however. Whenever he rode in the car and passed particular landmarks he felt compelled to lick the windshield. This habit infuriated his father and when he leaned forward to lick the windshield his father would tap the brake so David's face slammed against the glass. Even though he knew his father was just waiting to punish him this way, the need to lick the windshield was so overpowering he couldn't resist. He claims that once he began smoking his OCD vanished. OCD seems to be caused by some brain chemical not switching on or off properly. Nicotine fiddles with brain chemicals like serotonin and dopamine, and he credits medicating himself this way with curing him of OCD. Even though getting his face slammed into the windshield by his father made for great material, I still felt sorry for Sedaris that his father was so unsympathetic, until I went to a book signing and Sedaris signed my copy of Naked, "To -----, a young slut in Alabama." Then I thought of his face slamming against the windshield and I felt glad.

In Xenophobia, science fiction writer Orson Scott Card creates a planet of geniuses who act as the intellectual minions of an interplanetary empire. The most brilliant geniuses of this planet of geniuses are inflicted with crippling OCD, and the rituals they perform are revered and considered holy, a gift from God. It is discovered that the empire intentionally infects them with a virus that causes OCD, so that the empire can exploit their brain power without fearing that the geniuses will rebel or try to usurp control of the empire. Their OCD keeps them hobbled.

I believe everyone has a touch of OCD. Even though I know that I turned the iron off I will sometimes obsess and feel a siren call, this maddening itch, to stop what I'm doing and go make sure, even if I'm out the door. Even though I find the iron cold and unplugged, I still am rewarded with a flood of relief. Just from that little taste of the compulsion disorder makes me feel a deep sympathy for those who are really inflicted.

Suggested further reading, Emily Colas' hilarious memoir of OCD: Just Checking

Touch You Once, Touch You Twice

One time I was working at another branch and heard a patron softly and rhythmically grunting by one of the bookshelves. The noises sounded painfully and forcefully abbreviated, like an aborted hiccough. As I watched him I noticed that he would touch the spine of a book on the shelf, mutter the call number, grunt, and then move to the next book and repeat the process. His behavior, although strange, seemed harmless. One of the regular librarians explained, "Oh, he does this every time he comes in. He starts at the beginning of the Dewey Decimal system and works his way through each book until the very last one in the 900s. Then he will move onto the fiction section and work through it until the library closes."

Lucky for him it was a small branch. How terrible to be enslaved by such a boring and monotonous compulsion. OCD is such a dreadful but fascinating condition. David Sedaris's essay "A Plague of Tics" describes his bout with OCD when he was a young boy. Although he lived less than a mile from school, he would take well over an hour to get there because of of the elaborate sequence of rituals - tapping his shoe against his head, licking and touching objects, performing bizarre, dance like motions, circling trees - he had to perform en route to school. His OCD wasn't just limited to his walks to school, however. Whenever he rode in the car and passed particular landmarks he felt compelled to lick the windshield. This habit infuriated his father and when he leaned forward to lick the windshield his father would tap the brake so David's face slammed against the glass. Even though he knew his father was just waiting to punish him this way, the need to lick the windshield was so overpowering he couldn't resist. He claims that once he began smoking his OCD vanished. OCD seems to be caused by some brain chemical not switching on or off properly. Nicotine fiddles with brain chemicals like serotonin and dopamine, and he credits medicating himself this way with curing him of OCD. Even though getting his face slammed into the windshield by his father made for great material, I still felt sorry for Sedaris that his father was so unsympathetic, until I went to a book signing and Sedaris signed my copy of Naked, "To -----, a young slut in Alabama." Then I thought of his face slamming against the windshield and I felt glad.

In Xenophobia, science fiction writer Orson Scott Card creates a planet of geniuses who act as the intellectual minions of an interplanetary empire. The most brilliant geniuses of this planet of geniuses are inflicted with crippling OCD, and the rituals they perform are revered and considered holy, a gift from God. It is discovered that the empire intentionally infects them with a virus that causes OCD, so that the empire can exploit their brain power without fearing that the geniuses will rebel or try to usurp control of the empire. Their OCD keeps them hobbled.

I believe everyone has a touch of OCD. Even though I know that I turned the iron off I will sometimes obsess and feel a siren call, this maddening itch, to stop what I'm doing and go make sure, even if I'm out the door. Even though I find the iron cold and unplugged, I still am rewarded with a flood of relief. Just from that little taste of the compulsion disorder makes me feel a deep sympathy for those who are really inflicted.

Suggested further reading, Emily Colas' hilarious memoir of OCD: Just Checking

More Accidental Revelations in Fiction

I am fascinated by incidences of novelists who find the truth uncannily revealing itself in their work, and recently I described examples by writers Amy Tan and Isabel Allende. This weekend I watched The Dancer Upstairs, a movie about an unnamed Latin American country besieged by a vicious shadow terrorist organization. In the movie, dead dogs hang from lampposts with signs of nonsensical political statements scrawled on them and sticks of dynamite shoved in their throats. Child suicide bombers detonate themselves in crowds. School girls ambush and assassinate military leaders with machine guns. A mysterious, undeclared revolution seems to be underway, one without manifesto except for a vague Maoist ideology. In response to the terrorism, the country's government, already corrupt, is a hairsbreadth away from imposing martial law and unleashing right wing death squads to patrol the streets.

The movie is based on book by Nicholas Shakespeare about his experiences in Peru while visiting his diplomat parents. After witnessing a ten year old boy blow himself up in the lobby of a hotel, he became journalistically obsessed with The Shining Path, a Maoist terrorist organization ultimately responsible for the deaths of over 30,000 Peruvians. He was never able to penetrate the wall of secrecy around The Shining Path (and 40 journalists were murdered trying), so he decided to write a fictionalized account of Peru under The Shining Path. Although nothing was known about the leader of the Shining Path, Shakespeare reported that for years after the bombing he was haunted by the image of a man in an upstairs room surrounded by books, the skin of his face enflamed with some painful skin condition. Shakespeare modeled the character of the head of the terrorist organization after the image of this man he invented, and gave the character psoriasis. He has the book's main character, a detective, track him down through prescriptions for his psoriasis to a dance teacher’s upstairs studio apartment. When the Shining Path's leader Abigael Guzman was caught, he was living with his lover in a house rented by a dancer. Officials had tracked Guzman by tracing the prescriptions he used for his psoriasis medication. The novel The Dancer Upstairs  was well under way when these details emerged.

More Accidental Revelations in Fiction

I am fascinated by incidences of novelists who find the truth uncannily revealing itself in their work, and recently I described examples by writers Amy Tan and Isabel Allende. This weekend I watched The Dancer Upstairs, a movie about an unnamed Latin American country besieged by a vicious shadow terrorist organization. In the movie, dead dogs hang from lampposts with signs of nonsensical political statements scrawled on them and sticks of dynamite shoved in their throats. Child suicide bombers detonate themselves in crowds. School girls ambush and assassinate military leaders with machine guns. A mysterious, undeclared revolution seems to be underway, one without manifesto except for a vague Maoist ideology. In response to the terrorism, the country's government, already corrupt, is a hairsbreadth away from imposing martial law and unleashing right wing death squads to patrol the streets.

The movie is based on book by Nicholas Shakespeare about his experiences in Peru while visiting his diplomat parents. After witnessing a ten year old boy blow himself up in the lobby of a hotel, he became journalistically obsessed with The Shining Path, a Maoist terrorist organization ultimately responsible for the deaths of over 30,000 Peruvians. He was never able to penetrate the wall of secrecy around The Shining Path (and 40 journalists were murdered trying), so he decided to write a fictionalized account of Peru under The Shining Path. Although nothing was known about the leader of the Shining Path, Shakespeare reported that for years after the bombing he was haunted by the image of a man in an upstairs room surrounded by books, the skin of his face enflamed with some painful skin condition. Shakespeare modeled the character of the head of the terrorist organization after the image of this man he invented, and gave the character psoriasis. He has the book's main character, a detective, track him down through prescriptions for his psoriasis to a dance teacher’s upstairs studio apartment. When the Shining Path's leader Abigael Guzman was caught, he was living with his lover in a house rented by a dancer. Officials had tracked Guzman by tracing the prescriptions he used for his psoriasis medication. The novel The Dancer Upstairs  was well under way when these details emerged.

Bizgirl is Bizman! And probably not even a librarian.

In a strange case of blog transvestism, it turns out that Bizgirl, a purported colleague that I linked to and who linked to me, is a man, man. A concerned reader let me know today. The article doesn't mention whether he made the librarian part up either, but I wouldn't be surprised. I became disillusioned and started down the primrose path of deep cynicism early, when at the age of twelve I was upset and more than a little confused to discover that my favorite romance writer, Jennifer Wilde, was a 300 pound man who looked like a swarthy Michael Moore. I didn't understand how (or why) a man could so realistically create the inner life of narrator and plucky heroine Marietta Danvers, who was always getting herself kidnapped, swept away and ravished, usually with some signficant historical event as a backdrop, just like Flashman. In Love Me, Marietta, she is forced to get it on with white slavers, her master when she is an indentured servant, a pirate king, Native Americans, the French Navy, and, ultimately, her soul mate. (She forgives her soul mate - he only forced her because he was so insanely in love with her! - and they live happily ever after, until she is carried off by some other group in the sequel. Russian trappers, I believe). Her spirit and virtue, because it is always against her will, remain intact, and she is absolved from any sort of moral responsibility or trampiness. One benefit of Wilde's work is that I learned a lot of history, which was, remarkably, meticulously accurate.



I hope Bizgirl reveals his reasons for inventing Bizgirl's identity because I'm curious. I guess he doesn't owe anyone an explanation, although if I were his wife the whole situation might give me pause. The internet is rife with such fabrications, and his was fairly harmless as they go. I've always suspected that Belle Du Jour, the blog of a London call girl, was a man. Was it just for kicks? Was he practicing and gearing up to write a New Zealand style Bridget Jones? Although Bizgirl won best blog of the year in New Zealand, I thoughy the blog was really kind of innocuous and bland and didn't do much to either harm or help librarian stereotypes.

Bizgirl is Bizman! And probably not even a librarian.

In a strange case of blog transvestism, it turns out that Bizgirl, a purported colleague that I linked to and who linked to me, is a man, man. A concerned reader let me know today. The article doesn't mention whether he made the librarian part up either, but I wouldn't be surprised. I became disillusioned and started down the primrose path of deep cynicism early, when at the age of twelve I was upset and more than a little confused to discover that my favorite romance writer, Jennifer Wilde, was a 300 pound man who looked like a swarthy Michael Moore. I didn't understand how (or why) a man could so realistically create the inner life of narrator and plucky heroine Marietta Danvers, who was always getting herself kidnapped, swept away and ravished, usually with some signficant historical event as a backdrop, just like Flashman. In Love Me, Marietta, she is forced to get it on with white slavers, her master when she is an indentured servant, a pirate king, Native Americans, the French Navy, and, ultimately, her soul mate. (She forgives her soul mate - he only forced her because he was so insanely in love with her! - and they live happily ever after, until she is carried off by some other group in the sequel. Russian trappers, I believe). Her spirit and virtue, because it is always against her will, remain intact, and she is absolved from any sort of moral responsibility or trampiness. One benefit of Wilde's work is that I learned a lot of history, which was, remarkably, meticulously accurate.

I hope Bizgirl reveals his reasons for inventing Bizgirl's identity because I'm curious. I guess he doesn't owe anyone an explanation, although if I were his wife the whole situation might give me pause. The internet is rife with such fabrications, and his was fairly harmless as they go. I've always suspected that Belle Du Jour, the blog of a London call girl, was a man. Was it just for kicks? Was he practicing and gearing up to write a New Zealand style Bridget Jones? Although Bizgirl won best blog of the year in New Zealand, I thoughy the blog was really kind of innocuous and bland and didn't do much to either harm or help librarian stereotypes.

The Crushing Burden of History: Iris Chang Commits Suicide at 36

I spent Veteran’s Day brooding about Iris Chang’s suicide. I almost saw her a few months ago on her book promotion tour of The Chinese in America: A Narrative History, which I have been meaning to read. I picked up some extra hours at the library instead and I'm sorry I didn't go hear her speak. I could not bring myself to read The Rape of Nanking, her controversial and courageous history of the Japanese occupation of the city during World War II. I know my limits and that I could not bear to read about such atrocities in detail. When the Japanese invaded Nanking, they committed acts of such savagery and barbarism on the unarmed civilians that the Nazis stationed there were writing home begging Hitler to put a stop to it. Although the actual number of victims is unknown, it is believed that as many as 300,000 civilians were murdered. Children, women and the old were tortured and massacred in beheading contests, mass live burials and acts of sickening sexual sadism. These atrocities weren’t committed by a few individual soliders in the heat of battle, but in a systematic orgy of violence that lasted for months. It is theorized, and I believe, that the event was swept under the historical carpet for political reasons during the Cold War, and the Japanese have done their part since to deny the tragedy as nothing but communist propaganda. Iris Chang was personally and professionally vilified by the Japanese. I guess I have a bit of a problem with the Japanese proclaiming their status as atomic bomb victims while aggressively hushing up some of their own dark historical roles and contributions. Germany certainly doesn't. And Japan? It's high time that the comfort women were given repartions, or at the very least a public apology, before they all die off. In any case, I have untold admiration for writers of Chang's courage who bring these events to light and give survivors opportunities to bear witness.



From what I’ve read it seems that Iris Chang was a brilliant but painfully sensitive woman who tended to become too involved with and immersed in her tragic material. When she killed herself she had been interviewing POWS of the Bataan Death March for her next book. I’m certain that the collective pain of all of her interviewees and exhaustion from her ambitious work schedule contributed greatly to her suicide. What a tragedy and what a great loss, and how sad that she chose Veteran’s Day, a day honoring the veterans that she was going to give voice to in her next book, to end her life.



One of my grandmother’s childhood friends survived the Bataan Death March, just barely. She has had deep enmity for the Japanese every since. When I was considering doing the Jet program she wrote me a letter admonishing me to make sure that it wasn’t some white slavery trap. I laughed at her quaint cultural chauvinism, but a few days later I heard about an Oprah show with all of these women recruited over to Japan as show girl entertainers. Once they arrived they were forced into prostitution and held virtual prisoners. They thought they would surely be killed eventually but at the completion of their contract the Japanese men, very business like, said that they were free to go and sent them on their way.

The Crushing Burden of History: Iris Chang Commits Suicide at 36

I spent Veteran’s Day brooding about Iris Chang’s suicide. I almost saw her a few months ago on her book promotion tour of The Chinese in America: A Narrative History, which I have been meaning to read. I picked up some extra hours at the library instead and I'm sorry I didn't go hear her speak. I could not bring myself to read The Rape of Nanking, her controversial and courageous history of the Japanese occupation of the city during World War II. I know my limits and that I could not bear to read about such atrocities in detail. When the Japanese invaded Nanking, they committed acts of such savagery and barbarism on the unarmed civilians that the Nazis stationed there were writing home begging Hitler to put a stop to it. Although the actual number of victims is unknown, it is believed that as many as 300,000 civilians were murdered. Children, women and the old were tortured and massacred in beheading contests, mass live burials and acts of sickening sexual sadism. These atrocities weren’t committed by a few individual soliders in the heat of battle, but in a systematic orgy of violence that lasted for months. It is theorized, and I believe, that the event was swept under the historical carpet for political reasons during the Cold War, and the Japanese have done their part since to deny the tragedy as nothing but communist propaganda. Iris Chang was personally and professionally vilified by the Japanese. I guess I have a bit of a problem with the Japanese proclaiming their status as atomic bomb victims while aggressively hushing up some of their own dark historical roles and contributions. Germany certainly doesn't. And Japan? It's high time that the comfort women were given repartions, or at the very least a public apology, before they all die off. In any case, I have untold admiration for writers of Chang's courage who bring these events to light and give survivors opportunities to bear witness.

From what I’ve read it seems that Iris Chang was a brilliant but painfully sensitive woman who tended to become too involved with and immersed in her tragic material. When she killed herself she had been interviewing POWS of the Bataan Death March for her next book. I’m certain that the collective pain of all of her interviewees and exhaustion from her ambitious work schedule contributed greatly to her suicide. What a tragedy and what a great loss, and how sad that she chose Veteran’s Day, a day honoring the veterans that she was going to give voice to in her next book, to end her life.

One of my grandmother’s childhood friends survived the Bataan Death March, just barely. She has had deep enmity for the Japanese every since. When I was considering doing the Jet program she wrote me a letter admonishing me to make sure that it wasn’t some white slavery trap. I laughed at her quaint cultural chauvinism, but a few days later I heard about an Oprah show with all of these women recruited over to Japan as show girl entertainers. Once they arrived they were forced into prostitution and held virtual prisoners. They thought they would surely be killed eventually but at the completion of their contract the Japanese men, very business like, said that they were free to go and sent them on their way.