Manager

Hey, guess what, folks. It looks like I may be stepping across the Big Divide and becoming what my business card says I am: Head of Technical Services. The Divide to which I allude is called Management. I have lived with someone belonging to that evil cadre for around 10 years (since he became a manager--I lived with him longer before he joined the cult). The new boss mentioned in passing that I will soon be doing job evaluations for certain individuals who do a lot of tech service stuff.

Yeah. I have an attitude about Management. I have never aspired to it. You can put that on being the youngest member of my generation in my family, you can attribute it to my undergrad days in Russian history classes, whatever. I don't wanna be a boss. I had a taste of it over 20 years ago, and the taste was foul. I know it was the recipe that was used, but y'know, once you've tasted something that made you physically ill (and it did, in my case, make me physically AND mentally ill), you're not really inclined toward tasting it again.

And, I like being the proletariat. I've no interest in becoming part of the problem, personifying the Peter Principle. (see "attitude about Management" above).

It's odd. My dad owned his own company/ies. He was Management most of his life. Of course, he was also Chief Cook and Bottle Washer, CFO, line staff, and PR department for many of those companies as well, and what it bought him was heart attacks at 47, 60, and 67 (not to mention the one that killed him at 74) and years of sleepless nights. The sleepless nights and heart attacks were all about the Management aspects of his work. The actual WORK of his companies he loved. The organizing of stuff he loved. But the hassles surrounding coordinating employees, finances, and customers...not so much love there.

On the other hand, I've also been Management for at least the past 16 years. I'm Head Scheduler, Financial Officer, Chief Goal-Setter, and General Shit-Taker for Sparky (this isn't meant to suggest that Beast does nothing, but he doesn't get into the scheduling and planning as much as I do simply because he travels so much among other reasons). That role has been lessening exponentially over the past couple of years, so it's probably a good thing that I'm being asked to do similar things for pay.

I wonder if I get a raise...? I wonder if I'll get more hours, and benefits? hah That's right: the economy still sucks, and it has started hitting our budget due to the vagaries of property taxes. Nevermind. I need to figure out a way to work smarter (i.e. more efficiently).

And suck it up. But, I still am not a fan of Management. Any more than I'm a fan of Lawyers. There are exceptions that prove the rule, of course. Hopefully I can become one of those while still remembering why I have Management Issues.

Yeah, I love the workin' Sundays

It's not VERY often that I call (or text) Beast as I leave work and ask (demand) a drink mixed and waiting for me when I arrive home.

Today was one of those days.

I think my tolerance for Teh Stoopud was maxed out today before 1:05. We opened for bidness at 1.

The vodka-tonic Beast mixed was inside me in less that 25 minutes. That too is unusual. He makes a mean 'un.

My fingers, feet, and brain are numb. That's a Very Good Thing, especially the latter.

ALA

Weird people go to ALA. I'm sure that's not a shock. It's just a VERY odd mix of people.

I was one of them today.

I met a good friend for the first time and we hit it off immediately. Gawd, I love teh internets!

I ran into two old friends by happenstance. And they wouldn't go away!

I chatted with another good friend whose going through...Major Stuff. She said kind things to me, which may or may not be deserved, and I worried about her. Still am. Still will be for awhile.

And I came home with four new cloth bags--only one of which was, at most, half full. (The six new books don't count--they were in the bag I brought with me.) Now that I've been home for awhile, I'm down to a stack about 6" tall of materials to deal with at work this week.

And I spent about $65, which I won't be submitting for reimbursement. I mean, really, what's the point? It was worth every dime to be on my own dime today.

Oh how I hate flurries!

Doesn't it always seem that bad news travels in a pack? I've certainly seem my share of personal (i.e. family) bad news, but when I broaden the scope, here's what I see scattered around:

• A dear friend whose doctor needs to have evil things done to him for ignoring her phone calls for weeks until she showed up in his exam room in early-stage organ failure because of medication he prescribed! [this brings up ghosts from my childhood and freaks me way the fuck out in very abnormal ways]
• Someone who is hospitalized tonight because of a fall a couple of days ago.
• A coworker who's father died just under a month ago.
• My sister needs a tuneup in her brain electrodes, but there are some issues there. Long story. Of course.
• Another friend who's mother died about 10 days before mine.
• And a couple of others' whose parents are at the stage my mom was at about 5 months ago.
• People forgetting the whole "innocent till proven guilty in a court of law" thing. Accusation doesn't equal fact.
• Ongoing medical issues with another friend who has, essentially, had a headache since November. Every day. Can you imagine dealing with a three-year-old 24/7 with a headache? Yeah. Doctors have no idea. Doctors suck.
• Gout in another family member. Though that's easing due to--of all things!--cherries.
• Stupid men involving themselves in extramarital situations and having their lives destroyed over it (not to mention the lives of their wives and families). Guys: KEEP YOUR DICK IN YOUR PANTS, and your pants zipped/glued shut!
• The legal maneuvering over my mom's broken leg is still hanging fire in our family. See footnote here.
• The economy is hitting home in libraries across the country. Ohio is slashing and burning its way through their astoundingly fabulous libraries. Our city is sending ominous links via email to articles about other communities' belt-tightening as we approach the budget planning sessions for 2010-11.
• Schedule Nazi just doesn't seem to understand that some of us never want to see her again.
• PTF pissed me off this week in a way that he hasn't achieved for months. Possibly over a year, in fact. Over something insanely stupid. Of course. What else is new?
• [whinge] I work Tuesday-Friday this week. I'm going to ALA on Saturday--just for the exhibits--all day. I work Sunday; Sundays S U C K! And then I work Monday-Thursday next week. So basically I'm working 7/7-16 every day.[/whinge] The problem is exacerbated by the feeling like I'm at work for 7 or so hours daily and get virtually no cataloging done. Since that's the part of my job I love the most, I'm getting whinier and whinier about it, not to mention behind-er.
• Our super-wonderful senior shelvers will be leaving for college in 5 weeks or so. WAAAAAHHHH!!! Am so sad about this. For me; not for them, of course.

There's also the fact that the new director, while starting to get her legs under her as far as the job goes, is still needing a LOT of information regularly. And we've undertaken to make some rather ginormous changes in some of of our major work procedures...there's a lot of stress. I like change. These will be good changes when they are all in place and understood...but it's hard.

This is the sort of mood where I probably could use a large glass of wine (or two), but I'm too afraid of using alcohol as a crutch (family history + ) so I probably won't. But the inside of my skin itches from all this drama and angst and things to think about that I don't even know where to start. Gah.

Roll With It

When life is too much, roll with it, baby
Don't stop and lose your touch, oh no, baby
Hard times knocking on your door, I'll tell them you ain't there no more
Get on through it, roll with it, baby

Steve Winwood (not an artist I like, but, well, the lyrics fit)

So.

Beast is in Memphis on a last-hurrah business trip this week. He got a call this afternoon from his boss. Apparently the past week...? Specifically last Tuesday? Forget it ever happened.

As in "Nevermind."

As in they aren't laying him off after all.

Confused? Yep. Relieved? You betcha! Corporate America is weird.

OMFG

Sparky and I are working our way through Star Trek: The Next Generation. We've gotten about midway through Season Two to an episode called The Dauphin. One of the 'new life forms' that appears at the beginning is played by an actress called Paddi Edwards. Here's her photo:

Any of you who read me often enough probably remember me talking about someone I call CT.

Welcome to my world: this actress--in this getup and role--looks and acts a LOT like CT! Especially around the mouth, less so around her eyes. But if you've seen the ep...well, I'll just say that the resemblance tends to increase in certain ways over the course of things.

Consider me officially freaked out.

Weird Day

Yesterday was a strange day at work. Part--most?--of that strangeness can be attributed directed to the fact that, starting Monday, we will have two Directors for a week. There is a great deal of time being spent thinking about that, planning for the current Director's going-away party, thinking about what we need to find out from her before she's gone, tying up loose-ends of projects, etc. The staff is doing a special presentation and there was a lot of talk about that (when the boss wasn't in the room).

About midway through the day, I suddenly realized that everyone had received a 'script' for the party via email. Except, that is, me. It was inadvertent, I'm sure, but it explained the sort of low-level cluelessness I'd been experiencing all week. I knew something was percolating because people were talking about it out loud, but then they'd say something about squirrels (I kid you not) and I'd think, "What?"

Yes, part of our presentation involves squirrels.

Being aware enough to know that I was missing something is paranoia-inducing, especially since there are some other, actual, paranoia-inducing things going on at work right now as we prepare to start working for the first new Director the library has had since the early 1970s. I hasten to say that I know from prior experience that things could be MUCH MUCH worse. The last time I worked a 'regime change' was horror-inducing. This will be a breeze, no matter how angsty everyone gets!

But some other weird stuff was going on too. It is the end of the month so I was working up the cataloging stats. Weirdly, this is something I generally find very calming. I've only recently started doing this for the boss, so I still have to think through each and every step. When I got to the main stats document I was lost. Fortunately, she was nearby to ask, "Where do I put May??" Er, duh, Cat.: new budget year. New spreadsheet. New new new ... everything. I figured it out, after much faffing about. There was some intense praying that I didn't manage to delete last year's entire accounting document. In fact, I had to keep getting up and walking around to clear my head enough to ensure I wasn't jumping to conclusions before deleting/saving over docs.

[Realized as I typed this that I left out a piece--rats! Fortunately, it's a piece that I keep for my own joy, so it's not a big deal. The numbers are there; I'll just have to do it on Tuesday.]

Because of all the up-and-down, plus the Public Desk schedule, plus trying to tie of other projects including entering order records into the catalog all morning (that always makes my brain itch) and running the July Hot Books in Publishing list, I felt like I had a big case of ADD.

Did I mention the scheduled eyedrop breaks? Yeah. The eyes are better but they require constant maintenance and coddling. As, apparently, they will for the rest of my life. I will be single-handedly supporting the individually packaged Refresh et al. market. Absolutely nothing with a preservative can go in my eyes. And the Greek chorus shouts, "THANK GOD I am alive now, not 50 years ago when there was no understanding of this sort of thing, no options, and I would probably be legally blind by now."

And finally...while I was at the Reference Desk, a woman came up to me, seething with fury. She claimed that while she was away from her internet station briefly (to put money on her print account, 10 feet away), someone sat down at it and "deleted" the pages of work she was just about to print. So, yeah, I'd be furious too, but then she said something to the effect of "This is why I wish I carried a gun!"

Gulp. I suggested, strongly, that this would not solve the problem, and she should CERtainly not bring a gun to the library for this purpose.

As I got to thinking about it, I am pretty sure that she had to wait awhile for staff to put money on her account and the computer she was using timed out and shut down. The guy who came and sat down there had no way of knowing she had been using it at that point.

Eventually, I asked her if she had said anything to him. "No. I'm too angry and I might say something...." Yeah, something out of line maybe?! But on the other hand, there is a sudden stench of passive-aggressive here. I'm not either person's mom, and by the age she is she should be able to stand up for herself.

When she finally finished up she stopped at the desk and said, "That guy just left a few minutes ago. Maybe I can catch him in the parking lot and punch him." I reiterated that she shouldn't do this on library property. Now I'm wondering if I should have called the cops. Would I if she'd been a Big Scary Guy? I didn't because I rationalized that if she was too much of a wienie to talk to him, she was not likely to punch him. And had I really thought she might have a gun, I might have at least followed her to the parking lot to keep an eye on her.

That situation was exacerbated by the book I'm reading: Columbine. It's probably NOT the best book to read, as I did Thursday night, in bed before going to sleep. Definitely not if you have or know teenage kids, or have spent any quality time in a school recently.

However, it did bring about an epiphany of understanding about why a certain architectural feature at Sparky's school freaks me the fuck out. Every time I walk into the building, I shudder, and now I know why--it reminds me of a bit of the blueprint of the area in which most of the killing took place at Columbine. [The design is different enough that now that I know WHY it gives me the wobblies, I can start working on letting go of them.]

Bookending the day was a nice walk from and back to our favorite service station where I had left the Honda to have a lug nut replaced. Beast got a little carried away while fixing the brakes a couple of weeks ago. So I drove it to Bob's in the morning, left the keys, walked to work, and reversed the process at the end of the day. Both walks took place with perfect-in-every-way weather (temperature and humidity were moderate and the sun was shining), and because there was a train at the station on my way to pick up the car there was no traffic as I walked across the street, even though 5 minutes later I could barely drive out of the parking lot.

The capper to the weirdness, I think, is that Beast is the most relaxed I've seen him in months. Which is odd, considering his job situation and the uncertainty around that. On the other hand, the other shoe has dropped. And that, at least, is over.

I'm hoping for Less Weird today. Grocery shopping, weeding, dropping off Sparky's job apps, visiting an elderly friend, cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms.... Boring is fun. ;-)

It was bound to happen, really

Starting July 1, Beasty will be available for appearances--for pay--anywhere across the country.
Well, honestly, why be picky: he'd take a job almost anywhere right now!

Two pieces of good news

One work-related, one non-work.

The work-related one involves the cataloging of photos. As the little birdie who told me said, "We win, I think." There were concessions and compromises on both sides, but the best part is PsychoDirector (not to be confused with--though visually she could be!--PsychoBoss) lost a lot of ground after expending an awful lot of energy to essentially increasing her library's "items owned" by 25% again while making our catalog a mess.

The non-work one is that I'm going to see The Wizard of Oz tomorrow, at a Big Fancy Theatre in the Huge City to the East. It means catching a train and meeting Beast who will be on his way home from a business trip Down South. We will meet at about 5, drive the rest of the way, find a place to eat near the theatre and not get home till...uh, after midnight probably. Fortunately, neither of us has to work Friday morning.

Tomorrow's the last day of Poetry Month.

You know what that means....

Blood pressure

I bought some radio show CDs for my mom some time ago and when she stopped using them, they were in good enough shape to donate to the library.

They have worked their way to the point of needing labels and cases and so forth. The person in charge of this--who, I'm sure it will come as no surprise given the title of this post, is CT--brought one over to ask something about it. When I took a look at it, I realized that my sister had written Mom's last name on the discs to ensure they were returned to Mom at the nursing home. So I said to CT, "You are going to black out the name, right?"

Sigh. "I don't know...."

WTF? Why would you leave someone's name on something when they don't own it anymore?? And it's a matter of taking a Sharpie and doing just what my sister did: writing on the surface of the printed side of the disc. I'm not asking for a label.

"There are an awful lot of them...."

So I told her fine, give them to me to scribble on because my time is ever so less valuable than hers. "I'll do it, I'll do it...." as she walks away. Sounding just like my mother, The Martyred One.

I'm telling you. I'm ready to feed her to the sharks.

Ridiculous day

• So there was the lengthy non-service Customer Service call outlined earlier with FOX (grrrrrrrrr.......)



• I have also been trying to get our account cancelled with another Big Name Company (whose boilerplate claims to be "the world’s leading source of commercial information and insight on businesses." Fair enough, except they have priced themselves out of our budget. I called last month sometime to commence this process (bargaining them down on rates). After no rate quotes were forthcoming for three weeks, I called and left a message to cancel our account and send me a confirmation email/fax/snail mail. Two weeks, three calls, and an email (today), and we're finally set. At least it was cleared up before the budget year rolled over.



• CT has turned into a canker on the souls of the entire staff. It's gotten completely out of hand. I've heard at least three other people--besides me--ask, "Is it just me, or is she even worse than usual today/this week/lately?" No, it's not just you. Or you. Or you. With the director out of town this week, and all of us on our last nerve with CT, either someone is going to start WWIII or someone's going to have to tell her to back the hell off whatever is going on that's causing her constant harping, whining and complaining. Did I mention extreme unhelpfulness? Oh, yeah, that too: she will not help anyone out for even the shortest or easiest reasons...except when doing so would be the most useless 'help' possible.



• Sparky has a tux. That took an hour. Them 'r expensive suckers, too. sigh Oh, well, it's only money, right? Supporting the economy, right? ...we still need to figure out flowers. This looks like a $300 'date,' not counting her ticket(s), dress, or hair/nail appointments. I'm reverting back to my own high school point of view: What, precisely, is the point?



• Beast got a call from one of his customers today asking for help. The customer's company burned yesterday (?I think), and he's going to have to start over from scratch. What a huge bummer, though definitely not bad news for Beast's business. We both feel awful for the guy, though, and Beast is going to ask if there is anything we can do for the community, which apparently was pretty messed up by these wildfires.



• An hour or so ago I finally got around to checking Facebook, only to find that a blogger/Fb'er/Twit friend of mine found out from her son today that his speech teacher is a complete moron. Or as a commenter wrote, concisely: "Starts with a C. Rhymes with Bundt Cake." One does not make comments about who 'should be' allowed to parent. Apparently, in spite of being a Christian Speech Teacher, she never heard the one about casting the first stone, or even the one about living in a glass house. Ppl r toopud.

And now, I'm mixing a drink for myself. It's not even a full moon!! What is going on around here??

Edited @ 9:45 p.m. to add that the first Tweet I read this morning was this one: "New idea to save libraries. Be an opinionated, trusted "filter." Hire librarians with taste. Buy only excellent books. Guarantee quality." Yeah. That's radical and new. And utopian and impossible due to tax support. Do you know how many good friends I have who think The Shack is the Best Book Evah?!

Should have known from the moment I read that how the day was going to go.

Why I won't be watching Slumdog Millionnaire in this lifetime

First of all, I hate the title, and the premise. I could probably have worked around both, however, in light of all the positive reactions I've heard about it.

Then we found out that 20th Century Fox Searchlight released the DVD without the correct Extras stuff. [two links among many others] OK, so we called the toll free number that Amazon provided--note that Fox never contacted us, and neither did Amazon, so woe betide you if you don't read the news or have friends who do! In any case, there is a note on the Amazon page which I will quote verbatim because it's an indication of what I would call Good Customer Service:

DVD Alert: Fox apologizes that the special features are missing from a portion of the Slumdog Millionaire DVDs ordered before April 2, 2009. Fox has set up a hotline telephone number (1-888-223-4369) for those consumers who may have been affected. Upon calling the hotline, these consumers will be able to have their disc replaced for one containing special features. This issue does not occur on the Blu-ray version. Fox regrets any inconvenience this may have caused and is making every effort to expedite the replacement discs as quickly as possible.

Clear, concise information, courteously worded. Great.

So I called the number on or about April 8. Other libraries I'd talked to had gotten their discs replaced as quickly as overnight. Wow! GREAT service, eh? The dozens of patrons waiting to view one of our library's copies won't even notice that there was a switcheroo.

Not so fast. On April 14, when our new discs had not arrived, I called back and asked for help. Got disconnected. About 10 minutes later, I received a call that was ostensibly a rep calling from a list she had been working on before I called. And...ah...now I was told that because we purchased more than one of the movies, I need to find the invoice and fax a copy to Fox to prove that we really had bought three. And that will take another few days. So, I complained a little and said it would have been nice to know that LAST week. The voice at the other end said that the call desk wasn't told about multiple copies. They clearly weren't told to ASK about multiple copies, either, or we could have started this whole faxing thing then! So I was...ahem...disgruntled. I found the invoice, a miracle in itself since it was bills week and usually would have been outside the building being paid. I faxed the invoice to the number I was given. It went through, and I put it aside to wait for the @$&*ing discs to arrive.

They have not arrived today. I called and the operator eventually came back and said he'd have to 'research' this and he would call me back. I just got off the phone with his supervisor--the same woman with whom I spoke last week. Their story has changed yet again! They insist that the procedure has only changed once, but since this is the third and different thing I've been told, to me it feels like every time I call I get new directions. NOW, the rule is that they have to seen me mailing labels and I have to mail BACK the incorrect discs FIRST instead of after we receive the correct ones.

Frankly, this should have been the way it was handled from the beginning, for everyone regardless of how many copies were purchased. Even better : send out addressed return envelopes, but I can't complain about that since we are usually drowning in media mail envelopes. However, the issue here is that they had no record of my fax. They had no record of me calling. The whole angsty conversation last week apparently never happened.

And then...

...sigh...

...there was the clear insinuation that I had not actually faxed anything to start with. There have been several claims that we are the ONLY customer who has had trouble with this procedure, and absolutely no Customer Service. Just "here's what to do" and when I questioned why, was stonewalled and told "corporate told us to" handle it this way (last week and this week). The best part is that in the process of emailing me (another story in giving her my email address: said it, spelled it, said it--she'd screwed it up when she read it back) three mailing labels, and claiming to send 'two' ("Why two?" "Because I already sent one, so now I'm sending two more." "When did you send one?" "Just now." Really? Cuz there's nothing in my email...) which was confusing--and I'm an idiot for thinking so--I ended up talking to her supervisor. I said I'd gotten two emails and two labels and asked if I should just copy one; "NO! YOU HAVE TO HAVE THREE DIFFERENT ONES!"

All righty then. I only got two. So she says she'll have the other woman send me another and I said, "Right. I'll wait on hold while you do that." Big sigh from the other end, but when she came back she immediately said, "You have it now." Uh, no...see, email = not-instantaneous. Believe it or not.

Can I possibly be the only person who got tangled up in this nightmare? And what proof, really, do I have that I have mailed these discs back when I call next week because we STILL haven't gotten the damn things?

I did say several times that really, treating me with contempt and discourtesy wasn't really Customer Service, when actually it was YOU GUYS at Fox who screwed up. An apology, a real one without nasty eye rolling sounds, would have been nice. Really, one of these people thought I was blaming her personally for everything. omfg--'you' is a plural pronoun, you (singular, I hope to God) cloth-eared bint!

In any case, I have lost ANY inclination to watch this stupid movie, and I will be boycotting all 20th Century Fox products herewith (not such a big deal since I rarely see movies). Shit, if people can boycott WalMart for lousy customer service--someone with whom I work--I can boycott everything with "FOX" in it for being subhuman fucktards.

Not really so secret

Perfect photo.

Take me outta the toaster--I'm burnt

O
          M
                    F
                             G
                                      !!!!

CT has to go away. Consider the bidding war open: suggestions, comments, requests for proposals, etc. Anything goes. Know, however, that there is a line forming in-house for kneecapping and nose-punching.

Lyrics and Revelation

Thank you, God, for Nat King Cole's voice. And thank you for inspiring these guys: words: John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons; music: Charlie Chaplin. Hey, is that the Charlie Chaplin?? Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
Thats the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smileWhile dealing with my hair this morning and replaying some conversations from yesterday at work, it dawned on me: CT's major issue, the reason she's so fucking annoying all the time, is that she's incredibly disappointed in life.

Whenever there is a discussion of why something stupid happened, or why people do things a particularly stupid way as a matter of course, CT can be counted on to pipe in with a comment to the effect of "But that's not the way it should be."

Well, no. But life is rarely as we think it should be, eh? I think she's never really figured out how to stop raging against fading chance at utopia and deal with life in practical terms. Look, there are certain things people do that are thoughtless and/or backward. They shouldn't do those things. But the fact is that they do, they have done them, and all the rest of us can do is a) bitch about it and/or b) deal with the fallout. I'm OK with bitching (if you've read the blog, that's pretty obvious), but at some point we all really need to get past that step and carry on. CT seems to be rather stuck there.

In the case of yesterday, we were talking about a method of doing something work-related that is bass-ackwards, but due to circumstances, it's kinda the way things happen. We all do this procedure this way, and most of us recognize that it's really stupid, but there's no efficient permanent workaround. (Yes, I'm being obtuse on purpose.) Occasionally, we discuss changing it, but it would be a LOT of work, so we mostly just gripe and then get on with it.

Not CT. She jumped into the discussion Box Lady and I were having--across the workroom from CT--about part of this issue. CT's introductory comment was, "But we should do [this/that/the other thing]. It shouldn't be [the way it is]." Yes, of course we should, and it shouldn't. How about taking the next 6 full weeks of your work-time to coordinate and streamline the process and then train the whole world to do that? BL and I were just trying to figure out how to make that one step a little less painful, but by all means, CT: go nuts. Fix the world. Really. Go on.

Which leads to her next problem: follow-through. As in, she has none. Several years ago she was going to 'prettify' the Large Print section so all the labels said the same thing on them. Some currently say LP, some say Large Type, some say Large Print, and some just have the author's name all alone. She did two shelves, out of about 150 total.

So, now, having come to this realization about her--that she's constantly fighting reality rather than managing it to her benefit, or at least ignoring the bad parts--I think I can get through the day without murderous rage.

Sometimes God just drops this kind of stuff in my head as a gift. So, thanks, Big Guy.

Not-bullets

1. Hey, it's poetry month! Hence the poems that have posted the past two days (oh, how I love post-dating!).



2. My Bloglines front page says I have "63 updated feeds" which include 367 unread posts. I also have 172 saved posts. I think this means I am officially buried.



3. I am caught up in tweets and Fb, though. Short Attention Span rules the day!



4. I am not loving Fb's 'update'. Just discovered that you can't do "less of/more of" individuals. People are either in your news feed, or not. That explains why I get RSS'd updates in Bloglines for Stephanie, Kyle, Kevin, et al., but never see 'em on Facebook; in the old incarnation they were "less of" but now they are invisible. Guess I'll create a 'group' of them so I can find them periodically. Stupid. How is this an upgrade, Fb??



5. Today I am meeting someone with whom I may be spending a great deal of time in the future, someone who may strongly influence my external happiness meter. Hope that goes well.



6. This weekend is crazy busy: local mission trip on Saturday (more on that, perhaps, later). On Sunday I'm playing in the bell choir at church which will be followed immediately by an Easter Egg hunt for the little kids. The youth group is going to hide the eggs, so as soon as worship is over, I have to go into supervision mode. Whee.



7. My mom's health is stable. That's all. I have not bought plane tickets. Not...quite...yet.



8. Found a shirt this morning in my closet I had forgotten about. It was with the summer shirts, but it's a long-sleeved T. Why, yes: I am wearing it today, as a matter of fact!



9. I'm nearly caught up in cataloging new materials at work, but suddenly feel absolutely swamped in projects. Graphic Novels, biogs, gifted videos and manga, calling STOOPUD publishers to cancel subscriptions (Dun&Bradsteet, you SUCK!) original cataloging, typos, fairy tales...the floodgates have opened.



10. Our system database manager at work needs to be punched in the face. This has nothing to do with anything else in this post. He just does. On principle.



11. Sparky has reverted to 100% teenager. Glad he's normal. Wish he'd pull his head out a little more often though.



12. The sun is out. This is a good thing, yo.

Waste

The boss asked me to be at a meeting with her this afternoon at a library about an hour from ours. Things got weird because of scheduling and then I got sick so I wan't sure what to expect when I got there.

First of all, we started over half an hour after she told me to be there, 10 minutes late according to the prescheduled starting time. At that point, I knew I was in trouble, since the handouts all pertained to something I've been using for about 5 years (maybe more). This is a component that all the directors should be using, but what was on display was a clear case of the Peter Principle among a couple of them (not mine). There's a new component that was recently added, but after 2 hours we still hadn't gotten to it.

I bailed at 3:50. Got back to Sparky's school to pick him up at 5. I will definitely submit my mileage for reimbursement, but it was a lot of time that would have been better spent sleeping.

Blurts

Wow, I was a complete slug this weekend. Maybe I was storing up for today's busy-ness? On the other hand, I did get some stuff done: most of my to-do list is crossed off. Today I'm having lunch with a friend and then later in the afternoon I'm doing some sort of presentation at work for a Girl Scout troop about library collections. This follows my usual two-hour busman's holiday at Sparky's school library this morning.

Beast has hit the road yet again this morning, so Sparky and I are on our own for a couple of days. Hopefully we won't kill each other. He's back to being the 'typical teenager', i.e. head up his butt 90% of the time. Things will cycle back to calm again at some point. However, I've just promised him that I will call the doctor--the 'real' doctor, not the pediatrician--for an appointment to chat about his inability to sleep past sunrise. It's making him sleep-deprived and can't be helping in the Head-Up-Butt Department.

The Oscars, at least the last half, were more entertaining than they have been for years, except for the multiple wins that "Slumdog Millionnaire" received. Look, I think it's great that a movie about another culture won, and I haven't seen the movie, but it sounds completely stupid and unrealistic and sappy...and all the other cliches about Hollywood movies. (OK, and Benjamin Button sounds MORE realistic?) But Danny Boyle seems to be a lot more fun than most directors out there, and he gave a good speech.

Am glad Kate and Sean won. Very glad. I love Kate, and I think Sean's movie was released at a critical point in history, and I loved his speech! That was the Sean we can appreciate so much more than his usual annoying, self-aggrandizing, mopey self.

In other news, after jokingly calling one of the youth group members on her language use on Facebook, she was able to dish it back at me in spades when I posted using a 'worse' word myself. Oops. They keep me honest. That's good.

I've finally gotten around to updating all of my reading stuff, both in terms of printing out the full list of what I read last year and also creating the cards. Yes, truly: I keep a card file of the books I've read since about 1992ish. It's not all that library-ish--I only file by main entry (usually author) with the date so that I can go back to the printouts and read what I thought about the book. Yes, I know I could put this all online. I like writing the cards up. Sorry, Tim Spalding. The serendipitous discoveries I make every year are so much fun. "That book was by the same author as that book that I read in 1996! Really!"

The drawer I used to file the cards--acid-free paper drawer, purchased at an office supply store--is nearly full, and yet I am considering adding a title card for each book. Don't worry, I'm not going the subject route. My notes on the books aren't complete enough to do that. Frequently, the notes are pretty useless or non-existent, especially pre-blog (though this year I had a patch of no-reviewing too).

So, that's the update. I'm gonna head to school now. Shelving awaits.

Multitasking

Mood: ok
Hair: clean and purdy
Eyes: a little dry, but ok
Listening to: electronics

I love technology! Right now, I'm waiting for a translation of a friend's blog. She writes in a language I know nothing about. While she's doing that, she's IMing me directly from my blog.

I'm also IMing with Beast directly from my blog. Same blog. [unfortunately, there are some unpleasant things going on at work for him today--just the beginning of the sorts of things we know will be going on for the next several months, or longer]

And I'm on Facebook with a friend/colleague, chatting about salad and being a good person and tact, both in private messages and on her wall.

Plus, I'm watching CSI:NY on Spike TV.

All of this is going on while I shiver and occasionally snuffle. But the cold is slowly leaving my system. Must be all the diet DP I've been drinking.

Snippets

• My current Fb status:

#@&$ skinny kids' books ... Hate. Them.

• An email I sent today:

Here is one of those s.h. that I hate….there isn’t one for Mardi Gras in LCSH. We’re supposed to use "Carnival." I’ve updated the Google Doc and imported the Authority Record so we have X-refs. I only see a handful of incorrect headings in [our catalog] right now. Can everyone check and fix those they own?

• A Fb conversation (private) with a subject heading that contains the words "bl0w j0b" has 34 discrete messages between me and a BFF (female). Only the first one or two messages have to do with the act in the heading (ahem). This one certainly doesn't:

I am neither Celine Dion's husband (have I mentioned that my dad likes the way she "sings"?) nor Woody Allen {gag} {shudder} {barf}.

I knew. I was just teasing you, in direct violation of a direct order from Doc L. (which is, creepily, my dad's nickname. {gag} {shudder} {barf}.)

• As I was swearing at the children's librarian in my head about buying all the picture books from my childhood 30 years ago (instead of NEW BOOKS!), the song "Drop Down Dead" (The Housemartins) came on. I'd post the lyrics, but there is an internet ban on all Housemartin lyrics. For some reason.

• And one of our neighbors passed away yesterday.

• All in all not a fabulous morning. I have an hour on the Reference desk this afternoon. That should be fun. {choke}