Commie Kitty is Live

Go here and justify my love! (Also, buy me a t-shirt!)

And, for a closer view, thanks to my good friend Stephen: YOU MUST CONTINUE TO STRUGGLE, COMRADE!!


A thing of beauty, indeed!

And to reinforce the association of librarians and Communism: THE RED LENDING MENACE!

The increased use of the library has been something that we have been noticing for several months now. Especially in the evenings, the computers are all being used, the tables are all occupied with students doing homework and adults on their wireless. People plant themselves at one of the back tables with their laptop in the morning and work on it the entire day. The other day, a tutor and a student had to drag a couple of the comfy chairs together because there was no place else for them to go in the library. Even within the time that I have worked here, there has been a marked increase in use.

I, too, like vodka.

Remember: Better read than dead!

Bloody Steve

I had a dream I was eating blueberries last night. The more mundane my dreams get, the weirder they seem to me.

Today is my first day working at the Atlee branch of our library system; the previous tenant of the chair my butt is occupying retired, effective yesterday -- Hi, Susie! But in order to cover all the main libraries with sufficient hours on the reference desk until New Guy© starts on the desk, I was shuffled out of my office in Mechanicsville, and sent here. It's only 5 or 6 miles further for me: the commute is longer, and less direct, but not as bad as it could be. It also means that I will not be expected to travel from branch to branch the way I have been these past few months. I have spent most of my time on the desk in Mechanicsville, of course, but I have also logged time at Atlee and Ashland. That last one is the biggest pain: it's a heck of a drive, and unlike at the other two libraries, reference questions, even of the human library catalog, "Do you have this book?"-sort, are terribly infrequent. It's a nice library, and the area is attractive, everyone is really nice to me, and I actually enjoy the fact that the railroad passes right in front of it. But I would not want to work there full time.

I finished Christopher Moore's The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove yesterday, and am currently trying to decide what I would like to read next. Another Christopher Moore book? Should I revisit Vonnegut for the first time since high school? Should I follow up 1984 by reading Brave New World? The tenth novel I've read in a little over two months, I think: I discovered the key to my reading is to actually make time to read. That may sound self-evident, but it sort of wasn't for me. So instead of blaming my faulty brain chemistry on the fact I don't read, it was just that I wasn't reading. I never claimed to be particularly bright.

You may have noticed I'm trying to take time to write on my blog more frequently, too. I realize that the audience is minimal, but my brain has been feeling ossified and uncreative lately, and I think that the blog helps to get me thinking about things, and organizing my thoughts better. I also think that anything that gets me writing is, in a way, a good thing, barring terrorists pointing a gun at my parents' dog and demanding I blog.

Zoe says: "DON'T LET THE TERRORISTS WIN!!"

I started this monster as a way to entertain myself, so I guess nothing is lost if I keep on in that tradition.

And, to entertain you fine folks this Saturday afternoon, Flight of the Conchords:

WE LOVE BIG MOTHER.

So, Sarah Palin?

[Former Wasilla Mayor John] Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.
Time, via The AV Club.

I've said it before: if nothing else, this should prove to be a very interesting election cycle.

Pretty Pretty?

My desk at the end of my first day of work, complete with a welcome bouquet of balloons. I feel like the prettiest girl at the dance!

(In case you didn't guess from the plethora of small, bad photographs, I have recently gotten a cell phone with a camera in it, courtesy of Friend Eric. My old, camera-less phone died a painful, painful death before I moved down here, and F.E. was kind enough to Express-mail one of his cast-offs. Yay, the inexorable march of outdated technology inherited from other people!)

FINAL-FREAKING-LY!!!*

Yes, I have finally been offered a job. As a librarian. In Virginia. To say I'm ecstatic doesn't quite begin to express what I'm feeling, although right now I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of setting up a new life, after I've spent the past week moving back in with my parents' house in upstate New York.

For a long time now, I've secretly believed that this blog has been sort of working against me in my struggle for independence. I've done my best to remove my surname from it, although the link still comes up if you know what you're googling; I have also severely reduced my posts here, which you may have noticed. This was partly due to not having anything much to say, but it was also because I was afraid that I might say something that would limit my chances to be hired somewhere. My logic runs that, were potential employers to see how my mind works, or where my interest lies, they might think twice before offering me a job. I don't know exactly what it is that I'm afraid of employers finding out, although the sexuality thing is a big part of it. Which is patently stupid, since I haven't been closeted since my teens, and I'm not particularly anxious to start denying who I am now.

So I get the call this morning -- I drove to Virginia last week with my cousin for the interview -- and the first thing she asks me is about the title of my blog. My heart sinks: I'm finally getting confirmation that this thing is an albatross around the neck of my professional career. I do my best to explain, it is a character from one of the Gamera films ("Gamera vs. Guiron," to be precise); I saw it on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and I just liked the name. She expresses relief, and tells me that a search online had come up with a definition that is not even remotely what I had in mind -- for the painfully curious, you can look it up at urbandictionary.com, but consider yourselves warned. It is listed as "corn job". Considering what the definition is, she was remarkably sanguine about it. By the way, my blog? The name is changing. Feel free to offer suggestions -- basically, this means you, Roy!

Long story long, she asks me if I'd be interested in accepting the job, and at that moment the word "yes" just didn't seem affirmative enough. My mom was in the car next to me, pounding the arm rest -- she knew what was happening -- and my grin couldn't have gotten any bigger without wires and extensive cosmetic surgery. It's a moment I've waited a long time for, and even now I am wondering if maybe something will go wrong. But I need to work harder to silence my inner Eeyore.

Anyways, after that she tells me that she had found my blog before I even showed up for the interview, and that, name aside, it was a major factor in her wanting to interview me in the first place! Who would've thunk it? She said that she liked what she saw, and I found myself wondering, what did I say? I look at the main page now, and most of it basically seems to be a holding pattern, brief updates, and whatnot. But then I look closer, and there are bits of me here, a bit dispirited, but unmistakeable. It's entirely possible that this blog has been a negative factor in some of the instances in the past where I've applied for jobs, but wouldn't I prefer to work somewhere that my boss can look at it and say, This is a man we think can work well here? Hell yes! I'M SORRY FOR EVER DOUBTING YOU, BLOG!!!

What is ironic is that, when her phone call came, I had just been told by the people at Target that they had finished all their hiring for the holiday season, and would I want them to call me in the new year if any positions open up? And I was on my way to a job fair to apply to work as a technical troubleshooter over the phone for tax-preparation software, which was essentially the sort of work I did before I got my graduate degree. Oh, and yesterday? The three year anniversary of my graduation with my library degree. What a long, strange trip it's been. I remember hearing in library school that the average amount of time it took a new librarian without experience to get hired was six months. I think I may have just single-handedly raised the average.

Oh, and congratulations to Eric for receiving his business degree at the same time I received my wonderful news. At least I found a job before he did!


*See what I did there in the title of the post? It's called tmesis. I learned that from a comic book, yes I did!

Please. Please, Please

Let me, let me, let me get what I want this time.

Details will be forthcoming, depending on the outcome. Which will, at the latest, be determined on Friday. Wish me luck!

...Say A Prayer To The Man Above

I'm in a much better place now. I contacted The Man yesterday, asking for a chance to explain myself to him. He messaged back to let me know that he understands where I'm coming from, and that we will get together this weekend to hash it out. It doesn't mean I'm out of the woods yet, but it does suggest that whatever damage done isn't irreparable, and that he maybe sees where my frustration came from. I must add at this point that he knows that my history with relationships is a relatively brief one, and, not to put to fine a point on it, he hasn't had a whole lot of luck in that arena, either. So it does tend to get a little "blind leading the blind": we have a general idea of how things are supposed to work, but never seem entirely sure about how to get there. Which, if nothing else, makes the endeavor somewhat egalitarian. But anyways, the pervading sense of romantic failure that hung about me like a toxic cloud when I wrote the previous post has dispersed a bit, and right now I'm just curious about what will happen next.

I'm using bigger words than usual, and I have no idea why. Except that I've been awake all night.

On the job front, I was granted eligibility for a temporary teaching certificate in Florida yesterday, so, even if no library will hire me, I should be able to start looking for a job as an English teacher in Miami Public Schools. So we'll see. It isn't ideal, of course, but in my life I've found it necessary to remain flexible in my plans. I just sort of see how new paths might contribute to my ultimate goal -- i.e., a career as a librarian -- and just go with it. That's what convinced me to accept the position with both AmeriCorps and with Even Start, both of which I think have made me more attractive to libraries. I may not have a job as a librarian yet, but over the last month I have had four interviews, which is more than I have ever had before. Eventually I'll hit the tipping point; until then, I just labor on.

Oh, Yes I Did!

Last Friday I sent out two cover letters with the following paragraph:

Let me be blunt: as far as I’m concerned, if you do not hire me, you are an idiot. I have labored for two and a half years to try to get a library position, and have been consistently overlooked. I am smart, curious, and capable, and I have instructional and customer service experience to spare. I will be an asset to the library that finally hires me, and I can only hope that you will be that library. Thank you for your time.

OK, so it may not have been the wisest move -- and I do admit that I did it mostly because Dave dared me to. But it is, more or less, how I feel, although perhaps the word "idiot" is a tad harsh. Both the institutions I sent the cover letter to are libraries that I have applied to before, and never gotten much in the way of response back, so I didn't expect to hear back from them anyways.

"We Collaborated With The Cleaning Of The Baths To Loosen To The Toilet Each Sees Is Used."

This is about the only Spanish (aside from very simple statements, like "Me llamo Bill") that I can recite from memory (and I apologize if any grammar or spelling has been slaughtered in the remembering):

Colaboramos con la limpieza de los baños soltar el sanitario cada ve se use.

This used to be posted in the lavatory at De Porres P.L.A.C.E., and I managed to memorize it, before I even knew what it meant. I mean, I had an idea, since the signs were posted above the urinals, but I certainly didn't recognize many words. I actually created a little song with it, which I proceeded to sing for everyone I saw -- which more or less meant Brianna. The song lingered for a while after I left, but eventually seemed to evaporate, just another detail lost in the march into the future.

Then yesterday, I was teaching my students about "clean" and "dirty" -- "limpio" and "sucio" in Spanish -- and when I saw the word "limpio" in the bilingual dictionary, the entire song came back to me. So I thought I would share, because I can't get the damn thing out of my head. Some day, I will record it, and then you'll all be sorry! YOU'LL ALL PAY!! MWUH-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!

Of course, I'm also posting it here so I won't forget it again, too.



On an unrelated note: as I'm looking for a job, I've been paying more attention to the goings-on in my (hopefully) future profession. Hence I was very pleased to find that John Waters addressed ACRL. I find the reactions amusing: the positive reaction isn't really sure that it is positive in any sense except the theoretical, and the negative reaction has trouble putting the offense into words. How old was she that she was referencing "vaudeville"? Really, I have sat through a few of these speeches, and they are ALL relentlessly self-serving, including Barak Obama's spewage at the ALA Conference in Chicago. His single-minded, relentless idolatry of children's librarians left me breathless with boredom for the duration of the speech. (Yeah, OK, children's librarians are great, we get that, but there are whole species of librarians who will never, ever have to participate in anything called "storytime".) I would have paid an extra hundred dollars if John Waters had bum-rushed the stage and started to recite the professional biography of the man with the singing sphincter from Pink Flamingos, complete with a slide show and Odorama.

All That I Ask Is That You Dance With Me, Dance With Me

I had an interview this morning with a public library in the area. It went fairly well -- the weird thing was, I wasn't that nervous. I mean, I was nervous, but not to the extent that I frequently am before an interview; I suppose this is a product of the fact that I am, in fact, currently employed. I stammered a bit, especially at the beginning, but I improved a great deal, particularly when they asked questions related to customer service. Frankly, that's where my experience is. The one question that completely threw me asked about what was on the best-sellers list -- I had completely no clue. I ended up laughing and said the only thing that came to mind was The DaVinci Code, which I knew wasn't right. But I guess my feeling is that if that's all it took for me to be passed up for employment, I didn't have much of a chance anyways. Once I'm hired by a library, I will be concerned with librarian things: as it is now, most of my time is spent trying to describe the English language in the clearest, simplest ways, or in trying to figure out how to get Spanish-speakers to pronounce the 'th' sound correctly. I'm pretty far removed from best-seller lists at this time.

One other thing is that the interviewers were not allowed to give me any feedback on any of my answers, nor were they allowed to rephrase confusing questions. The latter was only a problem with one question, which I think I answered fairly poorly, but I can't imagine how else I could've answered. The lack of feedback, while I understand it, meant that I wasn't able to establish the sort of rapport with the interviewers that I have in my best interviewers in the past. Which, I suppose, may be the point. But it also meant that the questions were standard, and had nothing to do with clarifying my background at all. Which felt a little...off.

On the way there, I discovered that the best "getting ready to be interviewed" song is apparently the 12" mix of Donna Summer's "Last Dance". It's odd, because I never liked that song much, but my iPod was shufflin', and it came up, and all was right with the world. Who knew?