A Wandering Eyre

MPOW was lucky enough to snag this wonderful lady and lure her to our library, despite the heat and humidity. She survived being my roommate for LITA and decided to give it another go for Midwinter, so I think it is safe to say we are friends.

I was not fortunate enough to go to The Internet Librarian conference, where speakers got cool calculators, but Karen brought me back a pen that lights up three different ways. Seriously, what more could a person want?

–Jane, All Hallows Eve

Like my friend:

Which of Henry VIII’s wives are you?
this quiz was made by Lori Fury

Really, the only thing that will make me feel better about this is if I was really, really drunk. Thanks to Wonkette, there is a drinking game to match my mood:

Every time you hear “unlike Harriet Miers,” take a sip. Every time you hear “in contrast to Harriet Miers,” do a shot. Every time you hear “more judicial experience in his pinkie than Harriet Miers has in her whole stooped and shriveled body,” pound yourself in the forehead with a copy of Casey v. Planned Parenthood.

–Jane, who wants a Flaming Dr. Pepper?

Happy Halloween!

I am dressed as Kaylee Frye, mechanic extraordinaire. One of my partners in crime is dressed as our library dean, complete with suit, hose, and jewelry. Trick or treat.

–Jane, smell my feet

Karen G. Schneider is one of my favorite bloggers and one of my favorite people. I love to hear her talk and to discuss all those things that make being a librarian fun, interesting, and frustrating. Today, she has written a very good post on ALA, the Iraq Resolution, and politics.

We are lucky to be in a profession where what we do forces us to think about fundamental issues such as what a government should do with its resources and what rights and services people are entitled to as people. As librarians, it is also doubly meaningful when we raise the B.S. flag on a national policy.

I have to admit that I have been conflicted about ALA releasing these kinds of resolutions. ALA represents many different kinds of librarians and there are some of us that support the Patriot Act and our current administrations policies. I will say up front that I am not one of those, but I do respect that we all have a right to our opinions.

Karen is right when she says that librarians are the the people who stand up for those who are unable to make their voice rise above the crowd, but I wonder how hard it would be for me to support the resolution if it was against something I beleived in. I still have some mixed feelings, that are hard to put into tangible sentences.

What drives it home for me is a point that Karen makes, drawing the link between all our resources being in Iraq and having nothing at home when Katrina hit. Or when Rita came ashore. Or when libraries started closing and reducing hours because they could not longer pay their staff or afford their buildings. What does it really say about us as a culture that our libraries are closing, schools can not pay their electric bills, and we send troops into battle without all the proper gear?

–Jane, what indeed

Reasons why today has been “interesting”:

• I woke up this morning with a lingering migraine, lovely
• Because of the above I skipped my morning coffee, Arg!
• I thought the class I was teaching at 11 was at 10 and thus started freaking out when no one showed up, only to check my schedule and realize they wouldn’t be here for another hour
• The class came and all was well… until I misspelled beauty three times in a search and forgot how to spell raisin (did I mention the headache) but they laughed and that I can handle
• I feel like I am trailing my head around on a string; it is always about 3 seconds behind the rest of me resulting in the above hilarity
• I still have a meeting with faculty, a desk shift, and a student coming for help - I am unsure of how functional I am for any of that

The reason why none of the above matters:
While helping a student one on one after class, she recited a poem for me as we discussed the genius of Maya Angelou. I love my job.

–Jane, headless or no, today will be ok

p.s. In my first draft of this, I misspelled misspell.

I do not claim to be an Astros “fan” but I do try to support my hometown team. I am sad we lost, but proud that we advanced farther than we ever have before. I watched the game at a nice venue downtown called Pub fiction which had great happy hour specials ($6 pitchers!) and good food.

Today has been a blur of preparing for classes, a meeting with graduate students who were unsure about research, a meeting with the boss lady, and a hastily eaten lunch. Geez, I just looked at the clock and it is barely past noon. I still have a desk shift to survive, so if you do not hear from me in a couple of days, send out a search party. I will be the pile of exhaustion stuffed behind the printer with a jam in “the bad place.”

–Jane, duck and cover

Well now that Ann Rice is on our side, we are sure to win millions for Christ.

“I promised,” she says, “that from now on I would write only for the Lord.”

Does that mean that only the Lord has to read them because much of Christian fiction makes me ill.

–Jane, hey, maybe Jesus likes vampire stories

And in random news which makes little sense: Twenty people are fined in Turkey for using the letters W and Q.

I think there is a book about this called Ella Minnow Pea and it is quite good. Maybe the Turkish court should have read it and then people from all over the world would not be writing blog posts about their poor judgment.

–Jane, seriously, it is not as if they wrote the word shit on those placards or anything

Seriously, what are they basing this on?

The level of sillyness?

–Jane, is silly