Published on Jun 27, 2009 - In: Librarianisms| Miscellany
Girl Frankenstein's Monster! Girl Frankenstein's Monster! That's me.
It's been almost a month since my last post. I'm sorry about that. I haven't got any good excuses, so I won't throw any out. Instead it's just been a lot of day to day getting on with things, you know the type.
Birthday Hoopla
My birthday was lovely -- we thought we'd be caretaking on the actual day, but in the end we got a last minute trade and were able to stay home. To celebrate Sky and I made fish tacos* complete with radishes, cabbage, limes, avocado, and that yummy creamy sauce. I worked the day after my birthday, and then that Sunday we had a nice picnic in Cal Anderson park w/ a good assortment of friends.
Surreal Thursday
So I work at two branches of my library. They balance each other nicely, the two branches: one is heavy traffic, more urban, with lots of issues with mental health and drug use, while the other is in a residential neighborhood and the biggest issue is noise during storytime. Last Thursday, however, was like Freaky Friday. Freaky Thursday. Whatever. There were all sorts of weird goings on at the normally mellow library - all. day. long. This is the same day that Michael Jackson (and poor forever 2nd billing Farrah Fawcett) died. So the day was filled with weird security issues, punctuated with people coming up to the reference desk and saying to me "Michael Jackson is dead," and waiting for me to argue with them or tell them it was a joke. Usually they just wanted to have someone say "Yeah, weird/sad/unexpected, huh?"
The day capped off with a totally whacked out man running to the desk, telling us that a man with a knife was cutting up a watermelon in the men's bathroom. He said he was pretty sure the man was praticing on the watermelon and intended to come after us any second. The whacked out man was really whacked out and displayed all the signs of crazy, so my coworker laughed it off as the man left, running (for his life) to bus stop. I, however, knew the day was a contender and suggested we check the bathrooms on the off chance that whacked man was right. Sure enough, there was a man with a huge knife cutting up a watermelon in the sink.
Fakery & Lies
I'm going to a weddin' this afternoon, and the dress I'm wearing is shortish - it shows off my knees and legs. My knees and legs are not just paler than pale, they are bruised and have scratches and scars of unknown origins all over them. I have the legs of a 8 year old boy, truth be told. So last night I thought I'd try out some of that new fangled tanning spray in an attempt to make my injuries look less garish against my snowlike flesh. What a mistake. I followed all of the instructions, but still woke up this morning with weird orange knees and a random streak down one side of my calf. I don't know how that worked since I sprayed evenly over my legs after exfoliating and all of the junk. I've been applying lotion with alpha hydroxy in it every 30 minutes or so, which is only making the orange parts a little pinker. I'm going to be a hot mama this afternoon, and Sky is going to tease me about this for the next 5-8 years.
* I've been eating fish about once a month in an attempt to get more Vitamin D and those fancy oils you're supposed to have in your system. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.
Published on May 31, 2009 - In: Movies, Music, Art
It's May, which means just one thing to many Seattleites: the Seattle International Film Festival!
Sky and I didn't get into the swing of things until late in the festival last year, so this year we tried to get a jump on it. Last Thursday we decided to see whichever film looked best that night. The winner was I'm Gonna Explode, which was conveniently playing just a few minutes from our house.

Maru and Román, two teens in I'm Gonna Explode
I also enjoyed the depiction of a sexually awakening girl - she wanted to do it, but was freaked out about doing it, and didn't want the guy to expect her to do it, even though they both kind of knew he did. It was all very layered and enjoyable to watch. Thumbs up!
Published on May 28, 2009 - In: Books & Reading| People I Love
I really hate waking up earlier than necessary - to a ridiculous degree. If I plan to get up at 9, I get ten kinds of grumpy if I'm awake (or awoken) at 8:45. It's the principle of the thing. The problem, in our household, is that Sky likes to listen to the radio as he gets ready and has his breakfast. Usually this isn't an issue because I can sleep with a train rumbling through my front yard (true story - we once lived in a house not 10 feet from a train track). But sometimes the news is interesting enough, or has the word "library" in it, that it knocks me out of my blissful sleep. I refuse to wake up all the way, though, because it's not 9 yet. So instead I lie there, trying to fall back asleep, and remaining very still, because if I look close to being awake, Sky will talk to me, and I'll be grumpy at him. This morning I wasn't still enough and Sky started asking me about how to use electronic books and I got all "I don't start work until 11:30, Buster!" and he got all "But I thought you were my personal librarian" and I got all "Well that's when I'm not trying to SLEEP and have DREAMS" and then I got out of bed and it was over - I was 100% awake about 14 hours before I wanted to be awake.
So now I'm sitting AWAKE on the couch with two snoring cats. Something about sleeping cats just make me want to stay home, reading on the couch so bad. Like really, really, really bad. Like I'm 10 years old and I WANT IT BAD, BAD. I'm contemplating a kittynap between now and work time.
I spent last weekend with my parents in Oregon. It was a mellow time and I enjoyed seeing them. My dad showed me how he can pop wheelies on his new wheelchair, which was more impressive than it sounds. We watched Murderball and now my dad wants a customized armored wheelchair machine.

Book reading view: my parents have a boathouse, but no boat, so it's just a prosaic place for bats to live
Published on May 16, 2009 - In: Listmaking

Scooting Around in a Dress
Chatterbox