We need a jar of RU-486 at the desk

Not because I have eugenics fantasies, but because clinical trials "the abortion pill" show promise that it dramatically relieves psychotic episodes. Many people suffering from the worst kind of psychotic delusions have haywire high levels of cortisol, and it appears that RU-486 blocks brain cortisol receptors.

In any case, there would be a lot less of these reference emails that fill my inbox:

HELP ME. I am dying & the charge is murder ONE.
I am at the present am in serious/critical condition due to all-night and/or morning attacks of roach pesticides. Last night I had conscious attrophy and I have shortness of breath. I moved in the ghetto neighborhood known for its' drugs and prostitution. I acquired congestive heart failure shortly after moving in and have been under attack, all along. They have submitted edited video and audio of me reacting to extreme harrassment and to my own personal views on issues of concern. My past has been distorted and I have been kicked out of many places, bogusly. My life was ruined by former enemies, who have followed me here and smeared and slandered me. The Irish yellow bastards are behind what is and has been going on using other creatures who accept blood money.

One of my colleagues told me that she now assumes every patron is mentally ill unless proven otherwise.

A collegue called me out to the reference desk to deliver a basic email instruction handout I had created. The man began to ask me about email and then went into a long story about how he sent an email to the president of Costa Rica outlining his plan for peace, and how the president then appropriated his plan and used it to broker a peace between the United States and Nicaragua and is taking all the credit. Although his delusion seemed harmless, he kept looming over me as he backed me into a corner. He was built like a longshoreman and was beginning to get worked up, so I finally said, "I must go now" and ran like a rabbit for the security of the staff only area.

Reference Desk Soup

A weathered, tweaked out woman slapped her copy card down on the desk and demanded a refund for the remaining balance of $.40 because she was “leaving this town forever.”
The librarian told her that she would have to fill out a form for the copy machine vendor before we would issue her a cash refund.

"I don’t have time for that!" she hollered. "You damn people, fucking my life up in every way!" She stalked off, listing a little to the right.

A woman asked for some scotch tape, which she used to remove the lint off of her velvet jacket. “Do you want to hear a little story about loss?” she asked as she angrily affixed and yanked the tape off her jacket. “I just lost 80 years of my family's pictures. She said that it was safe to leave them at the shelter and then she put them out on the curb! This is the same woman who entered in my social security card wrong 4 days in a row, and then acts like she's never seen me before."

“Oooh - sorry to hear that.”

"I mean, I don't appear crazy, do I?"

“Of course not, ma’am.” I replied, figuring a little white lie never hurt anyone.

Two ragged men, the type my grandmother would call hobos, came up to the desk and asked me for books about shipwrecks.

“Any particular shipwrecks, like the Titanic or Andrea Doria, or just shipwrecks in general?”

“Just shipwrecks!” Seeing the little excited boys within these men tugged at my heart.

A man cut through a long line of people and interrupted me and the patron I was trying to help. “I can’t find my book! It’s supposed to be on the shelf and I can’t find it!” I told him to get to the end of the line. He reluctantly did so, oblivious of the glares of collective hate from the others in line. The whole time in line he kept trying to butt in and grab my attention. He huffed and drummed his fingers against his thighs and continued to do other maddening things until his turn came round at last.

“What book are you looking for?” I asked.

"I don't know, it's on my card!"

The book? What does everybody else know that I don't? : social skills help for adults with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) : a reader-friendly guide.

Maiden in Distress

There was some Euro rave festival outside and a beautiful, willowy Japanese girl wearing platform shoes, white furry thigh highs, a pink micro mini, and shimmering gold tube top wandered in to use our bathrooms. Her long hair was pulled back into girlish pigtails, and she looked like she had just flitted out of the pages of manga. She fainted on the stairs, a result of too much club drugs I suspect, and immediately 20 Samaritans, all men, made a bee line for her. They fussed over her, held her hand and tried to revive her. I had to laugh, because usually when patrons collapse people step over them and leave them to choke and die on their own vomit before alerting the staff.

Maiden in Distress

There was some Euro rave festival outside and a beautiful, willowy Japanese girl wearing platform shoes, white furry thigh highs, a pink micro mini, and shimmering gold tube top wandered in to use our bathrooms. Her long hair was pulled back into girlish pigtails, and she looked like she had just flitted out of the pages of manga. She fainted on the stairs, a result of too much club drugs I suspect, and immediately 20 Samaritans, all men, made a bee line for her. They fussed over her, held her hand and tried to revive her. I had to laugh, because usually when patrons collapse people step over them and leave them to choke and die on their own vomit before alerting the staff.

Matango: The Forbidden Fungus

Twice a week there is a farmer's market right across the street from the library where you can really take in all the mind boggling, year round bounty of this state. At the market there is a mushroom stand with which I have a wary fascination. The people who work there remind me of members of some aging hippie biker cult/commune from the sixties that never disbanded. They all have a similar look: heavily tattooed, middle aged and leathery and brown as the dried shitakes they sell.

They offer an astounding variety of mushrooms, many of which I have never seen before. There are ones that looks like boar’s tusks, or delicate white lace, or like little white golf tees, or sea sponges or honeycombs. There is one electric orange variety that screams POISON/DEATH/TOADSTOOL to me. I hope these people know what their doing.

Actually, they must, because they are constantly sampling their own wares, nibbling or chewing on them like gum, squinting their eyes in appreciation while they assist customers. They often speak to their customers through a mouth crammed with mushrooms, which I guess is the highest of endorsements.

The other week I saw a bowl of what looked like cleaned little squirrel brains. I asked one of the employees, who had just reached into the bowl with his dirt encrusted fingernails and popped one in his mouth, what kind of mushroom they were.

He chewed with quick, sideways motions like a grasshopper.

“Mmsphrks”

“What?”

“Mywjhjk”

“OK. Never mind. I’ll take a bag.”

How do I prepare them?

He swallowed. “Sautee them in butter.”

"How do I fix these morels?" I pointed to another bowl.

“Sautee them in butter.”

“And these?” gesturing to what looked like a bowl of hairy tarantula abdomens.

“Sautee them in butter.”

He gave me a bag of the squirrel brains, crammed some more mushrooms in his mouth and wandered off, but not before turning his head back around.
“You better eat those soon, as in tonight – they’re about to turn.”

I threw them on the counter in the kitchen and forgot about them until the next morning when their smell brought them to my attention. When I bought them they had a slight earthy, musty odor. Now they smelled exactly like rotting fish, and sent me on a Proustian journey back to the time at summer camp when a brat whow lived across the lake tied a 20 pound catfish under the girl’s cabin, where it dangled putridly for days before the source of the odor was discovered. I looked in the bag and they had all disintegrated into a black mush. I couldn’t believe something that wasn’t animal based could reek like that. Mushrooms, flesh from the earth. Dirt meat.

One rainy Saturday afternoon long ago I watched an absolutely terrible Japanese horror film on the Creature Feature called Matango: Fungus of Terror. The lame plot involves some shipwreck survivors washing ashore of a mysterious island. They don’t have any food and the only only thing edible on the island seems to be mushrooms. Although the captain warns them not to eat the plentiful mushrooms, the passangers eventually succumb and are transformed into these shuffling, walking toadstool monsters. Perhaps the movie is trying to say something deep about the mutating effects of radiation poisoning the food supply, but it's still a very silly movie.

Here is the trailer, with the theremin used to great effect.

I bet my little mushroom cult people have a thriving side business selling psychedelic product on the side. The prospects of tripping on mushrooms seems too exhausting to consider at my age, but I do look back fondly on the many I have taken. Memories of the insights I gained and the profound feeling of interconnectivity I was awash with during my experience have sustained me through the years, and certainly warded off any long, dark nights of the soul. Looks like psychedlic mushrooms may have some unexpected medicinal uses in alleviating cluster and migraine headaches, depression and OCD.

Matango: The Forbidden Fungus

Twice a week there is a farmer's market right across the street from the library where you can really take in all the mind boggling, year round bounty of this state. At the market there is a mushroom stand with which I have a wary fascination. The people who work there remind me of members of some aging hippie biker cult/commune from the sixties that never disbanded. They all have a similar look: heavily tattooed, middle aged and leathery and brown as the dried shitakes they sell.

They offer an astounding variety of mushrooms, many of which I have never seen before. There are ones that looks like boar’s tusks, or delicate white lace, or like little white golf tees, or sea sponges or honeycombs. There is one electric orange variety that screams POISON/DEATH/TOADSTOOL to me. I hope these people know what their doing.

Actually, they must, because they are constantly sampling their own wares, nibbling or chewing on them like gum, squinting their eyes in appreciation while they assist customers. They often speak to their customers through a mouth crammed with mushrooms, which I guess is the highest of endorsements.

The other week I saw a bowl of what looked like cleaned little squirrel brains. I asked one of the employees, who had just reached into the bowl with his dirt encrusted fingernails and popped one in his mouth, what kind of mushroom they were.

He chewed with quick, sideways motions like a grasshopper.

“Mmsphrks”

“What?”

“Mywjhjk”

“OK. Never mind. I’ll take a bag.”

How do I prepare them?

He swallowed. “Sautee them in butter.”

"How do I fix these morels?" I pointed to another bowl.

“Sautee them in butter.”

“And these?” gesturing to what looked like a bowl of hairy tarantula abdomens.

“Sautee them in butter.”

He gave me a bag of the squirrel brains, crammed some more mushrooms in his mouth and wandered off, but not before turning his head back around.
“You better eat those soon, as in tonight – they’re about to turn.”

I threw them on the counter in the kitchen and forgot about them until the next morning when their smell brought them to my attention. When I bought them they had a slight earthy, musty odor. Now they smelled exactly like rotting fish, and sent me on a Proustian journey back to the time at summer camp when a brat whow lived across the lake tied a 20 pound catfish under the girl’s cabin, where it dangled putridly for days before the source of the odor was discovered. I looked in the bag and they had all disintegrated into a black mush. I couldn’t believe something that wasn’t animal based could reek like that. Mushrooms, flesh from the earth. Dirt meat.

One rainy Saturday afternoon long ago I watched an absolutely terrible Japanese horror film on the Creature Feature called Matango: Fungus of Terror. The lame plot involves some shipwreck survivors washing ashore of a mysterious island. They don’t have any food and the only only thing edible on the island seems to be mushrooms. Although the captain warns them not to eat the plentiful mushrooms, the passangers eventually succumb and are transformed into these shuffling, walking toadstool monsters. Perhaps the movie is trying to say something deep about the mutating effects of radiation poisoning the food supply, but it's still a very silly movie.

Here is the trailer, with the theremin used to great effect.

I bet my little mushroom cult people have a thriving side business selling psychedelic product on the side. The prospects of tripping on mushrooms seems too exhausting to consider at my age, but I do look back fondly on the many I have taken. Memories of the insights I gained and the profound feeling of interconnectivity I was awash with during my experience have sustained me through the years, and certainly warded off any long, dark nights of the soul. Looks like psychedlic mushrooms may have some unexpected medicinal uses in alleviating cluster and migraine headaches, depression and OCD.

IM Reference 2, Electric Bugaloo

We're really trying to get administration buy-in instant message reference. They want a demonstration, and this is what I fear will happen as they're all gathered 'round my computer screen.

Patron: I need some of the uses for pi
Librarian: Hello, welcome to IM reference. Do you want some practical applications for pi?
Patron: Yep
Librarian: According to Encyclopedia Brittanica, it can be used “in various formulas of physics and engineering to describe such periodic phenomena as the motion of pendulums, the vibration of strings, and alternating electric currents.” It can also be used in cryptography, to describe the DNA double helix, analyzing the ripples on water…
Patron: That's not the kind of pi I mean
Librarian: I'm sorry. I'm not sure I understand your question
Patron: I mean hair pi
Librarian: Excuse me?
Patron: Do u have big tits?
Librarian: Your question is inappropriate and I must end this session.
Patron: Aw come on help me out

IM Reference 2, Electric Bugaloo

We're really trying to get administration buy-in instant message reference. They want a demonstration, and this is what I fear will happen as they're all gathered 'round my computer screen.

Patron: I need some of the uses for pi
Librarian: Hello, welcome to IM reference. Do you want some practical applications for pi?
Patron: Yep
Librarian: According to Encyclopedia Brittanica, it can be used “in various formulas of physics and engineering to describe such periodic phenomena as the motion of pendulums, the vibration of strings, and alternating electric currents.” It can also be used in cryptography, to describe the DNA double helix, analyzing the ripples on water…
Patron: That's not the kind of pi I mean
Librarian: I'm sorry. I'm not sure I understand your question
Patron: I mean hair pi
Librarian: Excuse me?
Patron: Do u have big tits?
Librarian: Your question is inappropriate and I must end this session.
Patron: Aw come on help me out

Curiosity Killed the Cat but Satisfaction Brought him Back

One of the records management clerks, a man named Jeff, had the most extravagantly decorated cubicle I had ever seen. It was something to behold, every surface covered with University of Alabama football crap: ceramic elephants, banners, posters, buttons, ribbons and other things I can only categorize as ‘flair.’ It looked like the lair of a hoarder with fanatical school spirit. Upon learning that Jeff had never attended University of Alabama or college, most people would find this school spirit rather strange. Actually, this wasn’t too odd in Alabama, which lacks a professional football team so college football is elevated to fill what is obviously a gaping hole in people’s lives. Usually the first question out of people you meet in Alabama besides “Where do you worship” is “Auburn or Alabama?” The big Auburn/Alabama game was the highlight of the social season for many people, and attaining the annual “braggin’ rights” if one’s team won could make or break one’s year.

I’ve always thought it was intrusive and controlling for a company to set rules on how many pictures and plants and decorations their employees could have but after taking a look at his cube I could see the point of such regulations. Jeff was a heavy smoker but even I with the sensitive nose had no idea that he smoked because he was so circumspect and fastidious. I don’t know if he scrubbed his hands after each cigarette or wore gloves, but I worked with him 8 months before I discovered he was a smoker, and only then because I saw him myself taking a drag in the outside smoker’s area.

I never met his wife but he had some pictures of her amidst all of the University of Alabama crap. She looked like a bantam version of Joy from My Name is Earl. She was a hot little number but dumb, mean and utterly, helplessly dependent upon her husband. She refused to work and exerted considerable financial pressure on him. The field of Library Science, even in the more remunerative corporate sector, traditionally pays just enough to keep a spinster from starving, and records management doesn’t pay much better, so this was a constant source of strain in their marriage. There was a picture of her as a toddler being dandled on her daddy’s knee, dressed in (what else) a University of Alabama cheerleading outfit. There was something creepy infantilizing about the picture, as if she had gone from one daddy to the next.

She used to call her husband all day, sometimes more than twice an hour. She called for any random reason: because she thought she smelled gas, because there was a strange man at the door, because she was bored and lonely, because she heard a strange nose. It was evident that these calls made him miserable. I could hear him talking to her with strained patience, pleading with her to let him get some work done. One time at a sales meeting she kept him on the hotel line for three hours while he calmed her down and ran up a $400 phone bill, for which our manager refused, rightly, to pay.

I left for a new job, but I kept up with the old records manager. She told me that Jeff had back surgery, which I had always heard can be accompanied by depression. As soon as he was ambulatory he drove across the state line and checked himself into a motel room in Mississippi, where he blew himself off the earth with a shotgun.

His wife wore an all white denim outfit to the funeral, an unusual choice for the widow, and put on quite histrionic performance.

What I will never forget about this story is that Jeff sent a time delayed email to one of his coworkers, a woman for whom I suspect he had always had an unrequited love. She didn’t receive the email until after the funeral. She read it, but would never say what was in the email. My question to you is would you have read it? I don’t know if I could have, but I’m a very curious person, and may not have been able to help myself, no matter how horrible the contents may have been.

Curiosity Killed the Cat but Satisfaction Brought him Back

One of the records management clerks, a man named Jeff, had the most extravagantly decorated cubicle I had ever seen. It was something to behold, every surface covered with University of Alabama football crap: ceramic elephants, banners, posters, buttons, ribbons and other things I can only categorize as ‘flair.’ It looked like the lair of a hoarder with fanatical school spirit. Upon learning that Jeff had never attended University of Alabama or college, most people would find this school spirit rather strange. Actually, this wasn’t too odd in Alabama, which lacks a professional football team so college football is elevated to fill what is obviously a gaping hole in people’s lives. Usually the first question out of people you meet in Alabama besides “Where do you worship” is “Auburn or Alabama?” The big Auburn/Alabama game was the highlight of the social season for many people, and attaining the annual “braggin’ rights” if one’s team won could make or break one’s year.

I’ve always thought it was intrusive and controlling for a company to set rules on how many pictures and plants and decorations their employees could have but after taking a look at his cube I could see the point of such regulations. Jeff was a heavy smoker but even I with the sensitive nose had no idea that he smoked because he was so circumspect and fastidious. I don’t know if he scrubbed his hands after each cigarette or wore gloves, but I worked with him 8 months before I discovered he was a smoker, and only then because I saw him myself taking a drag in the outside smoker’s area.

I never met his wife but he had some pictures of her amidst all of the University of Alabama crap. She looked like a bantam version of Joy from My Name is Earl. She was a hot little number but dumb, mean and utterly, helplessly dependent upon her husband. She refused to work and exerted considerable financial pressure on him. The field of Library Science, even in the more remunerative corporate sector, traditionally pays just enough to keep a spinster from starving, and records management doesn’t pay much better, so this was a constant source of strain in their marriage. There was a picture of her as a toddler being dandled on her daddy’s knee, dressed in (what else) a University of Alabama cheerleading outfit. There was something creepy infantilizing about the picture, as if she had gone from one daddy to the next.

She used to call her husband all day, sometimes more than twice an hour. She called for any random reason: because she thought she smelled gas, because there was a strange man at the door, because she was bored and lonely, because she heard a strange nose. It was evident that these calls made him miserable. I could hear him talking to her with strained patience, pleading with her to let him get some work done. One time at a sales meeting she kept him on the hotel line for three hours while he calmed her down and ran up a $400 phone bill, for which our manager refused, rightly, to pay.

I left for a new job, but I kept up with the old records manager. She told me that Jeff had back surgery, which I had always heard can be accompanied by depression. As soon as he was ambulatory he drove across the state line and checked himself into a motel room in Mississippi, where he blew himself off the earth with a shotgun.

His wife wore an all white denim outfit to the funeral, an unusual choice for the widow, and put on quite histrionic performance.

What I will never forget about this story is that Jeff sent a time delayed email to one of his coworkers, a woman for whom I suspect he had always had an unrequited love. She didn’t receive the email until after the funeral. She read it, but would never say what was in the email. My question to you is would you have read it? I don’t know if I could have, but I’m a very curious person, and may not have been able to help myself, no matter how horrible the contents may have been.

Epater le Bourgeois

The library is executing a crack down on the size and number of bags patrons are allowed to bring into the library. For security and hygiene reasons large bags have always been forbidden, but patrons have traditionally managed to drag in ridiculously large bags with impunity. I suspect the recent reinforcement has something to do with an epidemic of a super strain of bed bugs that is bedeviling all of the residential hotels and shelters in the city. Several of my patrons, victims, have rolled up their sleeves to show me their shockingly red pocked arms. They look like they have a severe case of the measles or tropical impetigo. I sympathize with certain patrons' reluctance to part with their bags, especially if they are homeless and have no place to keep them, but for reasons of practicality and safety the library simply cannot acommodate them.

One man brings in filthy white king size sheet stuffed full of grimy papers and wadded up clothes and God knows what else. He spreads out the contents over an entire table and spends the day fussing with and folding paper. He carries the bundle atop his head, which droops down around his head so when he walks by the desk he looks like some kind of ambulatory toadstool. He has been trying his luck every day, hoping to slip by an inattentive guard or for enforcement to loosen.

One of our patrons was trying to drag in a couple of bags and I waved over at the security guard. One bag ended up being crammed with feces caked blankets, potentially seething with hepatitis. He had been coached well by the advocates and wrote down the badge numbers of the guards. He has a long history, and used to come in smelling so wretched that he constituted a public nuisance. He finally was told very compassionately that he was going to need to shower before he returned, and was provided with a list of free showers around the neighborhood. The next day he was returned all scrubbed clean, but accompanied by two homeless advocates, who marched him right up to the chief’s office to file an official complaint and threaten the administration with a lawsuit.

I don’t know who some of these homeless advocates think they’re helping. I don’t mean to denigrate the valiant altruists who are trying to make a difference, and more power to them for working with this population. But there is a certain tragically misguided faction that believes people have a God given right to live in their filth, and contaminate and ruin the library’s furniture and other peoples nostrils, even though an odor and lack of hygiene are indicative of a horrible sickness, like an animal that stops grooming itself right before it dies. Just as there is a military industrial complex, I believe there is a non-profit charitable complex. On some level, members of this complex have no real interest in these people getting better because it would put them out of a job and remove their purpose from life, which just must be an orgy of angry self righteousness and crusading codependence. As an extra bonus, these people get to be a thorn in the side of decent society and “The Man,” who I suspect they have somehow confused with their father, since most of this type seems to be from a very privileged background. I can’t quite put my finger on it but there is something creepily Oedipal about the whole business.

Epater le Bourgeois

The library is executing a crack down on the size and number of bags patrons are allowed to bring into the library. For security and hygiene reasons large bags have always been forbidden, but patrons have traditionally managed to drag in ridiculously large bags with impunity. I suspect the recent reinforcement has something to do with an epidemic of a super strain of bed bugs that is bedeviling all of the residential hotels and shelters in the city. Several of my patrons, victims, have rolled up their sleeves to show me their shockingly red pocked arms. They look like they have a severe case of the measles or tropical impetigo. I sympathize with certain patrons' reluctance to part with their bags, especially if they are homeless and have no place to keep them, but for reasons of practicality and safety the library simply cannot acommodate them.

One man brings in filthy white king size sheet stuffed full of grimy papers and wadded up clothes and God knows what else. He spreads out the contents over an entire table and spends the day fussing with and folding paper. He carries the bundle atop his head, which droops down around his head so when he walks by the desk he looks like some kind of ambulatory toadstool. He has been trying his luck every day, hoping to slip by an inattentive guard or for enforcement to loosen.

One of our patrons was trying to drag in a couple of bags and I waved over at the security guard. One bag ended up being crammed with feces caked blankets, potentially seething with hepatitis. He had been coached well by the advocates and wrote down the badge numbers of the guards. He has a long history, and used to come in smelling so wretched that he constituted a public nuisance. He finally was told very compassionately that he was going to need to shower before he returned, and was provided with a list of free showers around the neighborhood. The next day he was returned all scrubbed clean, but accompanied by two homeless advocates, who marched him right up to the chief’s office to file an official complaint and threaten the administration with a lawsuit.

I don’t know who some of these homeless advocates think they’re helping. I don’t mean to denigrate the valiant altruists who are trying to make a difference, and more power to them for working with this population. But there is a certain tragically misguided faction that believes people have a God given right to live in their filth, and contaminate and ruin the library’s furniture and other peoples nostrils, even though an odor and lack of hygiene are indicative of a horrible sickness, like an animal that stops grooming itself right before it dies. Just as there is a military industrial complex, I believe there is a non-profit charitable complex. On some level, members of this complex have no real interest in these people getting better because it would put them out of a job and remove their purpose from life, which just must be an orgy of angry self righteousness and crusading codependence. As an extra bonus, these people get to be a thorn in the side of decent society and “The Man,” who I suspect they have somehow confused with their father, since most of this type seems to be from a very privileged background. I can’t quite put my finger on it but there is something creepily Oedipal about the whole business.

Hold on to that Feeling

At the library I often see women who look just like Charlize Theron…in Monster. Although the movie Monster was about the quality of your average Lifetime for Women made for TV movie, Charlize Theron’s transformation into Aileen Wuornos, drifter, prostitute and serial killer, was truly extraordinary. The scene I remember most in the movie took place at a dingy roller skating rink. Christina Ricci and Charlize Theron have recently met and Ricci asks Theron to join her at her favorite hang out, the local skating rink. Wournous, a hard, used up truck stop hooker in her 30s, looks hopelessly out of place there. They skate slowly arm and arm during the couples only skate, and stare tenderly into each others eyes. When the song "Don't Stop Believin'" swells around them they fall passionately in love. They’re sad, down and out losers – one is even a budding serial killer - but their emotions are authentic and your heart just goes out to them. The song is the perfect soundtrack for the women: cheesy, pathetic, and risible but at the same time completely poignant and hopeful. It's awesome.

Everyone who watched the brilliant Sopranos finale has probably had the song stuck in their heads all week. It’s such a gloriously cheesy song, the perfect anthem for the two monsters, Aileen Wournous and Tony Soprano, that you can’t help but root for.

Here’s a fitting tribute. Get ready to be rocked.

Hold on to that Feeling

At the library I often see women who look just like Charlize Theron…in Monster. Although the movie Monster was about the quality of your average Lifetime for Women made for TV movie, Charlize Theron’s transformation into Aileen Wuornos, drifter, prostitute and serial killer, was truly extraordinary. The scene I remember most in the movie took place at a dingy roller skating rink. Christina Ricci and Charlize Theron have recently met and Ricci asks Theron to join her at her favorite hang out, the local skating rink. Wournous, a hard, used up truck stop hooker in her 30s, looks hopelessly out of place there. They skate slowly arm and arm during the couples only skate, and stare tenderly into each others eyes. When the song "Don't Stop Believin'" swells around them they fall passionately in love. They’re sad, down and out losers – one is even a budding serial killer - but their emotions are authentic and your heart just goes out to them. The song is the perfect soundtrack for the women: cheesy, pathetic, and risible but at the same time completely poignant and hopeful. It's awesome.

Everyone who watched the brilliant Sopranos finale has probably had the song stuck in their heads all week. It’s such a gloriously cheesy song, the perfect anthem for the two monsters, Aileen Wournous and Tony Soprano, that you can’t help but root for.

Here’s a fitting tribute. Get ready to be rocked.

Yuck

A woman in a sequin top and fucia beret, drunk as a lord, wobbled up to the desk. “Why, hellllllo! Do you have the movie Sounder? I just came from a Mother’s Day lunch.” She leaned in and mimed knocking back a drink. “Now I’m finished with my lunch and I want to watch SOUNDER!” She threw back her head and howled, “Soundeeeeer!

My colleague led her over to the public catalog and helped her look up Sounder. There was a copy up in the children’s room. As my colleague was pointing out the good news on the computer screen she stepped on a mucus filled, wadded up tissue. She grimaced and kicked it away.

The woman scoffed at my colleague’s fastidiousness. "Oh, I'm not afraid of that. In fact, I need one.” She picked it up and stuck it in her pocket.

My colleague stared at her. "Yes, I'm sure that tissue will come in handy when you watch Sounder."

I’ve written, well, ad nauseam about the filthy things that go in the library, but this one was particularly upsetting. Some of the pages who handle the books wear cloth gloves as a cautionary measure. One of my colleagues overheard a patron say, “How nice that you all wear acid free gloves to protect the books!”

Yuck

A woman in a sequin top and fucia beret, drunk as a lord, wobbled up to the desk. “Why, hellllllo! Do you have the movie Sounder? I just came from a Mother’s Day lunch.” She leaned in and mimed knocking back a drink. “Now I’m finished with my lunch and I want to watch SOUNDER!” She threw back her head and howled, “Soundeeeeer!

My colleague led her over to the public catalog and helped her look up Sounder. There was a copy up in the children’s room. As my colleague was pointing out the good news on the computer screen she stepped on a mucus filled, wadded up tissue. She grimaced and kicked it away.

The woman scoffed at my colleague’s fastidiousness. "Oh, I'm not afraid of that. In fact, I need one.” She picked it up and stuck it in her pocket.

My colleague stared at her. "Yes, I'm sure that tissue will come in handy when you watch Sounder."

I’ve written, well, ad nauseam about the filthy things that go in the library, but this one was particularly upsetting. Some of the pages who handle the books wear cloth gloves as a cautionary measure. One of my colleagues overheard a patron say, “How nice that you all wear acid free gloves to protect the books!”

Multicultural Adventure

It’s a hard world for little electronics, especially if they’re owned by me. In all my lifetime I have never lost a cell phone, but in a dark period of less than 3 months I have lost two of them.

The first phone suffered a gruesome fate. I was leaving work and reaching for the passenger side door handle of the car and the phone slipped right out of my hand and dropped with blade like precision through the narrow slats of a sewer grate. I heard it hit the muck with a sickening plop. As I peered into the grate, I saw its red light blinking piteously at me as it slowly disappeared into the sludge at the bottom of the drain. This is a particularly foul sludge because this drain receives, along with the usual urban filth, all of the industrial chemicals used to wash off the biohazard waste such as urine, vomit and feces that 'patrons' leave against the side of the library. The phone falling through the narrow slats like that was damndest thing, and I'm still marveling how the chunky little phone did that. Perhaps urine forms some sort of gravitational or magnetic force of its own. I was going to write off the loss but then I found out that although this phone came free with my service it would cost $200 to replace it. Any fastidiousness I had about putting the phone back to my face vanished and I called the Department of Public Works. The gentlemen at the Department of Public Works met me at the sewer grate and fished it out for me. I told them that this was probably not the strangest thing they’ve had to retrieve and they told me, “Honey, you don’t even know.” The most common items they were called to retrieve were jewelry, wallets and keys. I tried to tip them $20.00 but they refused the money and instead tried to talk to me about Jesus Christ. When I lived in Alabama I was constantly fending off the unwanted advances of evangelicals but I was a little out of practice since I moved to the city and it was so unexpected that I just kind of froze and stared at them. I handled my hairdresser's Scientology pitch the following week much more gracefully.

The phone had shorted out so I did have to replace it. This was about 2 months ago. Then last Friday we went to the movies and saw Black Book, which was awesome by the way, like a cross between Showgirls and Schindler’s List. I must have lost it in the theater, perhaps during the shocking scene where the Jewish resistance fighter dyes her carpet to match her drapes to pass for an authentic blonde if you know what I mean, but didn’t notice its absence until the next day. We checked Verizon's records which confirmed that someone, presumably the person who found the phone, had been making many calls all day so we canceled the service.

We were able to do some forensics and called some of the numbers that the person had called. Most were to Mexico but others were to a neighboring city, so we called and texted that number until finally someone wrote back, “no english.” I called and he finally answered and we had a short conversation in Spanish, which I speak in a very broken, limited sort of way. I lived in Costa Rica when I was seven and mastered Spanish in that effortless way that children do so the neural pathways in my brain have been laid down, but were in such disuse, however, that I imagine them as some post-apocalyptic abandoned city street covered with vines and trees and giant potholes. They're still there, in other words, but in terrible shape. It was amazing how tongue tied I got as my mind groped around for the right word, but with the help of AltaVista Babelfish and the offer of a $50 reward (recompensa) we were able to arrange a rendezvous the next morning at an intersection near home.

The person who had my phone was late and I called his friend who arranged another meeting about 6 blocks away. I stood on the street corner and eventually two Mexican men strolled up. After ascertaining that this wasn’t some sort of sting and that I hadn’t brought along La Migra one of them produced the phone and a hasty exchange was made. E discovered that he had downloaded about $36 worth of games and pictures (one was of Jack Sparrow with a monkey on his shoulder, the others were the Women of Maxim) but other than that, had done no real damage. He had basically taken my phone on the equivalent of a joy ride, and when the phone’s service was cut off he lost interest. The picture featured at the top is his self portrait he left on the phone.

Multicultural Adventure

It’s a hard world for little electronics, especially if they’re owned by me. In all my lifetime I have never lost a cell phone, but in a dark period of less than 3 months I have lost two of them.

The first phone suffered a gruesome fate. I was leaving work and reaching for the passenger side door handle of the car and the phone slipped right out of my hand and dropped with blade like precision through the narrow slats of a sewer grate. I heard it hit the muck with a sickening plop. As I peered into the grate, I saw its red light blinking piteously at me as it slowly disappeared into the sludge at the bottom of the drain. This is a particularly foul sludge because this drain receives, along with the usual urban filth, all of the industrial chemicals used to wash off the biohazard waste such as urine, vomit and feces that 'patrons' leave against the side of the library. The phone falling through the narrow slats like that was damndest thing, and I'm still marveling how the chunky little phone did that. Perhaps urine forms some sort of gravitational or magnetic force of its own. I was going to write off the loss but then I found out that although this phone came free with my service it would cost $200 to replace it. Any fastidiousness I had about putting the phone back to my face vanished and I called the Department of Public Works. The gentlemen at the Department of Public Works met me at the sewer grate and fished it out for me. I told them that this was probably not the strangest thing they’ve had to retrieve and they told me, “Honey, you don’t even know.” The most common items they were called to retrieve were jewelry, wallets and keys. I tried to tip them $20.00 but they refused the money and instead tried to talk to me about Jesus Christ. When I lived in Alabama I was constantly fending off the unwanted advances of evangelicals but I was a little out of practice since I moved to the city and it was so unexpected that I just kind of froze and stared at them. I handled my hairdresser's Scientology pitch the following week much more gracefully.

The phone had shorted out so I did have to replace it. This was about 2 months ago. Then last Friday we went to the movies and saw Black Book, which was awesome by the way, like a cross between Showgirls and Schindler’s List. I must have lost it in the theater, perhaps during the shocking scene where the Jewish resistance fighter dyes her carpet to match her drapes to pass for an authentic blonde if you know what I mean, but didn’t notice its absence until the next day. We checked Verizon's records which confirmed that someone, presumably the person who found the phone, had been making many calls all day so we canceled the service.

We were able to do some forensics and called some of the numbers that the person had called. Most were to Mexico but others were to a neighboring city, so we called and texted that number until finally someone wrote back, “no english.” I called and he finally answered and we had a short conversation in Spanish, which I speak in a very broken, limited sort of way. I lived in Costa Rica when I was seven and mastered Spanish in that effortless way that children do so the neural pathways in my brain have been laid down, but were in such disuse, however, that I imagine them as some post-apocalyptic abandoned city street covered with vines and trees and giant potholes. They're still there, in other words, but in terrible shape. It was amazing how tongue tied I got as my mind groped around for the right word, but with the help of AltaVista Babelfish and the offer of a $50 reward (recompensa) we were able to arrange a rendezvous the next morning at an intersection near home.

The person who had my phone was late and I called his friend who arranged another meeting about 6 blocks away. I stood on the street corner and eventually two Mexican men strolled up. After ascertaining that this wasn’t some sort of sting and that I hadn’t brought along La Migra one of them produced the phone and a hasty exchange was made. E discovered that he had downloaded about $36 worth of games and pictures (one was of Jack Sparrow with a monkey on his shoulder, the others were the Women of Maxim) but other than that, had done no real damage. He had basically taken my phone on the equivalent of a joy ride, and when the phone’s service was cut off he lost interest. The picture featured at the top is his self portrait he left on the phone.

Sugar, the White Devil

I became disgusted by all the sweets I had mindlessly been eating over the holiday so I quit eating sugar as a New Year’s resolution. Since then the weight has been melting off my body at an outstanding rate. I never really had a sweet tooth and consequently didn’t even eat that much sugar, but obviously the amount I did consume was doing one hell of a whammy on my metabolism. I’m not saying this approach will work for everyone, but it truly amazes me that something so simple as eliminating sugar could be the key to such a transformation. My recent loss has not pleased everyone, especially certain African American colleagues and Italian patrons, who, true to cultural stereotype (God bless them), appreciate a voluptuous woman with a well marbled rump. The rowdy group of homeless who carouse by the backside of the library voice their dismay every time I walk past them, and inquire about my health with great concern, as if I have been afflicted with some sort of wasting disease.

Sugar, and its lab invented twin high fructose corn syrup, really is the devil and its affects are insidious and disturbing. A few years ago I watched a reality show called Brat Camp. The premise was that parents, at their wits ends, have professionals kick in the doors of incorrigible delinquents in the middle of the night, place a bag over their heads and drop them in the Oregon desert in the middle of winter. Groovy counselors, some graduates of the program themselves, give the teens a totemic name like "Running Bear" and then force march them around the desert until they acquire a new attitude. It was terrifying how medicated these children were on drugs from Big Pharma: Ritalin, Seroquel (what my bipolar patrons take, or rather, are supposed to take), Ambien, but what really stood out was these children's diet, which was total crap. Some of the teens had been consuming a mind blowing 10 cokes a day. Since food is the biggest drug you put in your mouth, I had to think that perhaps their diet was the core issue of their behavior. For breakfast the counselors fed the 'brats' plain oatmeal and they retched and gagged like it was the most bitter poison. Their palates had obviously been so blasted by high fructose corn syrup that it was if anything not completely sugar saturated was repulsive to them.


The link among farm subsidies, high fructose corn syrup and a fat ass populace:

You are what you grow and When a crop becomes king.

Sugar, the White Devil

I became disgusted by all the sweets I had mindlessly been eating over the holiday so I quit eating sugar as a New Year’s resolution. Since then the weight has been melting off my body at an outstanding rate. I never really had a sweet tooth and consequently didn’t even eat that much sugar, but obviously the amount I did consume was doing one hell of a whammy on my metabolism. I’m not saying this approach will work for everyone, but it truly amazes me that something so simple as eliminating sugar could be the key to such a transformation. My recent loss has not pleased everyone, especially certain African American colleagues and Italian patrons, who, true to cultural stereotype (God bless them), appreciate a voluptuous woman with a well marbled rump. The rowdy group of homeless who carouse by the backside of the library voice their dismay every time I walk past them, and inquire about my health with great concern, as if I have been afflicted with some sort of wasting disease.

Sugar, and its lab invented twin high fructose corn syrup, really is the devil and its affects are insidious and disturbing. A few years ago I watched a reality show called Brat Camp. The premise was that parents, at their wits ends, have professionals kick in the doors of incorrigible delinquents in the middle of the night, place a bag over their heads and drop them in the Oregon desert in the middle of winter. Groovy counselors, some graduates of the program themselves, give the teens a totemic name like "Running Bear" and then force march them around the desert until they acquire a new attitude. It was terrifying how medicated these children were on drugs from Big Pharma: Ritalin, Seroquel (what my bipolar patrons take, or rather, are supposed to take), Ambien, but what really stood out was these children's diet, which was total crap. Some of the teens had been consuming a mind blowing 10 cokes a day. Since food is the biggest drug you put in your mouth, I had to think that perhaps their diet was the core issue of their behavior. For breakfast the counselors fed the 'brats' plain oatmeal and they retched and gagged like it was the most bitter poison. Their palates had obviously been so blasted by high fructose corn syrup that it was if anything not completely sugar saturated was repulsive to them.


The link among farm subsidies, high fructose corn syrup and a fat ass populace:

You are what you grow and When a crop becomes king.