Sentimental Small Talk

Some Interesting Plant Life Things to Think About

2012-01-25T00:01:00.011-06:00

It's been a while, but with all that has been going on, I haven't stopped discovering--you know, reading, observing, and getting ideas. I discovered this post in my drafts from April 13, 2009. Now I am going to finish up my thoughts after reading the book Flowers: How They Changed the World by William C. Burger.

My budding interest in flowers drew me to this book I found at a library book sale.

Here is something to think about: There are just over 260,000 known species of flowering plants yet only 25 of them provide us humans with 90% of our vegetarian energy.

America(ns) spend upwards of $20 billion a year to preserve nature by planting and maintaining flowers and plants. Sports attendance and movies combined do not even come up to this number.

Invasive species through even walking are killing...invasive species are not just plants, but think critters too. Air-travel, trade, cars, etc. have brought almost invisible seeds or spores from plants along. The amazing thing about the might of such a tiny thing is that they can withstand conditions that span the extremes and manage to become life.

Through watching flowers/flowering plants that produce fruits, the apes have learned how to walk to get food. Through evolution, this has caused us to walk (and you can believe in both Christianity and evolution, by the way).

Finally, though I had to erase several notes I made because I would need to go back to a copy of the book for them, there is a hypothesis to further explore called the Gaia hypothesis. In short, this theory suggests that the earth has a global metabolism in which both the inorganic and organic components of earth work to create balance for survival. This would be disputable based on some of the content of other books I read, such as The Secret Life of Plants, but the Gaia hypothesis is an interesting theory.

Moss Farm

2012-01-24T10:08:00.001-06:00

At the reference desk at my local public library, there is a "moss farm" growing in a dish under a cake dome. I watched it exist for years, and I was always a little fascinated by its simplicity and vitality. I wanted a moss farm and a terrarium for quite some time and have perused several books and websites about the subject in order to create at least one of each. All the while, I was aware that I have two cats who get into everything, so that's a no. I also do not have an outside window at work, so that's also a no. Third, why did I think I could take on another hobby when I have a list of hobby projects to fulfill?

Moss is pretty cool, and I just want to mention that mossandstonegardens.com has amazing moss facts here. You can view and enjoy these facts in a just a few minutes.

Two Quotes Too Important to Ignore

2012-01-17T11:38:00.006-06:00

It's been a while since I have posted (but there will be more on that later). In the midst of New Year's cleaning, two quotes which I find powerful have stuck out, and I feel it is worth posting them since this blog has in some ways become an important archive for me. Both quotes have very important messages to think about regarding the present and the future.

"We don't have a tax problem, we have a revenue problem. We've told American workers they're not valuable anymore, that it's better to do it overseas than it is right here. That's wrong. We need to reinvest in people, reinvest in manufacturing. That's how we're going to turn our economy around."
--Ed Schultz

I could not agree more. Manufacturing jobs create jobs in at least a dozen fields for American workers with and without college degrees.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."
--Albert Einstein

Though technology has created a myriad of benefits, its constant changes and society's reliance on technology has to a large degree made assumptions about the accessibility and abilities of large groups of people. It has also allowed people to isolate themselves, and it has in some instances taken away the value of human interaction. All this is pretty clear, but Einstein's words stick out because they were stated long before today.

Dan Things

2011-10-13T10:27:00.001-05:00

This Saturday marks the one year anniversary of closing on our house, "The Manor." Though we ended up with the keys 11 days later which delayed our move until after Thanksgiving because of a situation which was the first to occur in the careers of several people involved in the closing. This situation was no one's fault other than some loser in California who couldn't pick up a phone and take literally a minute to do her job--to review a document and confirm it via phone. Thinking back to all that and the fact that we had to wait months to close on the house because of people in the mortgage industry being idiots is insignificant now because we have enjoyed nearly 11 months in our home.

Some of the content in this blog has been patiently waiting in a draft for a couple months, and today I am going to revisit and rewrite the post--briefly--because reading what I had written has made me realize what I have forgotten!

For well beyond the past year, Dan has been amazing and supportive in countless ways. More than two decades separate us, but that time and space is essentially insignificant when considering the dynamics of us being a well functioning team. I do not want to offend him and make anyone feel these are "old jokes." Here I am publicly providing my view, but it feels so good to have taken care of this desire and the amusing quotes and tendencies I have at some point cherished, even if they have not continued. This post is to celebrate The Manor and Dan, the guy who pays the mortgage.

Anyway, I have concluded that these things are essentially Dan things and are unrelated to his age:

8. Dan and I moved into a big old house and for a month he was obsessed with making a practically senseless and costly back stairway. There were inspirational pictures, drawings, and semi-arguments.

7. On a Saturday afternoon, I sat in bed while he napped and I planned to read (and I stuck to my plan). He asked with strange surprise, "You're going to read with your clothes on?!"

6. Dan's working definition for a concertina (looks like an accordion and it is what should come to most people when seeing and hearing this instrument): squeeze box thing.
We saw and heard this concertina when we saw Altan and Lunasa at the Old Town School of Folk Music.

5. He bought expensive yard tools and power tools that have not been used yet or are used so rarely that they are not worth the cost. There are at least three tool boxes in the basement, and they all have to have the same things in them, and every time we need a tool, we have to go down there. It would make sense to have one on the first and second floor then. I shared this idea, but I have been told it needs to wait.

4. We had a St. Patrick's Day party and Dan spent about $300 on alcohol for his friends, who are in their 40s, and at least 15 librarians and library employees who were between the ages of 40 and 70. Did these people become inebriated from this much alcohol? Absolut(ely) not.

3. For the longest time, the decor in the downstairs and upstairs bathrooms has been toilet paper, but after a stern talking to, we have two rolls on hand instead of eight or more.

2. Dan won't eat cupcakes because "those are for girls."

1. We went to see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and when the conductor got on the stage, Dan asked me, "Is the old guy going to play an instrument?"

There are countless things that make my Danny special and loved, but sometimes you get so accustomed to things that you are not able to recall them unless asked directly. Thanks, Dan, for being the best, and happy anniversary to The Manor!

Images of Quasi-Flight

2011-08-17T12:00:00.006-05:00

Jerry from Gently Said piqued my interest with his post about the mid-air self photographs of photographer Natsumi Hayashi.

I randomly tried doing this on July 14, 2011, at the Atlanta Botanical Garden with the ~$150 digital camera I bought in 2007 (so it's nothing special, folks). I also had a "photographer" rather than a tripod and timer setting.

Here are the comically bad results with a magical color change on the third try:

Haha. The Atlanta Botanical Garden is awesome, though.

2011: 2/3 Report

2011-08-10T14:36:00.003-05:00

It's August, and the year is 2/3 history. In my little corner of the world, it has included graduate school 100% of the time, work, a long Chicago winter, and small events which have been covered with fuzz because I have been on the go most of the time. Seeing the Chicago Symphony Orchestra perform Bruckner's 4th Symphony on April 2, 2011 was the highlight of my year--even more than buying a grand piano in January. I cannot even explain why this was the highlight among other things. Realizing that this month of August both will complete 2/3 of 2011 and that last Sunday I have completed 2/3 of my master's degree, I have facetiously concluded I seem to throw this curve ball to society and who I am and what I do is extra invisible. People think I'm a borderline child creature. It's a little bit comical because 1. I am not and 2. I am a homeowner (woo!). Am I bothered that people seem to think this? No, I think it's comical.

I report back to the bloggers how I can summarize the year based on an anecdote. When we step back from ourselves--from who we are, what we do, what we have accomplished, and what we hope to be and do--we are just a form to perceive when we are out and about doing the things we need to do in the real world. Sometimes your character just creates endless awkward stories. Here's one of them:

My domestic partner and I took a trip to the liquor store (one of the biggest on the southside of Chicago) because his Foster's oil cans are cheaper there. He is older than I am, and he looks old for his age. I look young for my age. You may see where this is going... At the register, the cheery cashier smiled at me and very excitedly asked, "Do you want a pretzel?!?!" My response was, "Uhhh," because I was confused, but the cashier wasn't even waiting for a response. She was already fishing around among tall metallic tins. She opened the first one and half extended it toward me, but gasped and quickly covered the tin again. She looked into the next and extended it toward me remarking, "There's one good one left just for you!" I automatically pulled out the whole pretzel rod among several snapped ones. "What's the occasion for the pretzel? I've never gotten a pretzel before," I said to the cashier. "Oh! We always give out pretzels here," she replied with genuine enthusiasm. I started gnawing at the pretzel while Dan paid in cash. We walked out of the store with a case of Foster's and half a pretzel rod. "Waaaaaaiiit," I thought to myself, "Dan never got a pretzel."

The Things We Wrote

2011-05-24T10:11:00.005-05:00

Wow, it has already been four months since I revisited by grammar school, but it has been even longer since I have been a student there. It was a great little Catholic school.

My 7th and 8th grade English teacher pulled out these writing assignments she has saved to serve as examples for current students. I have removed dates and my last name, but I must say I think these are pretty good for a 13 and 14-year-old to have written--for both of us. I only vaguely remember writing one of mine, but I definitely remember helping my sister with the limerick about Sandy the cat. We switched classrooms for different subjects, and I remember being in English class when I was in 8th grade and getting the warm fuzzies from staring at my sister's drawing of Sandy. All these have been photocopied and that is why there is some fuzziness and the disappearance of a sentence that was highlighted on paper. In person, the illustration of Sandy was large, colorful, and realistic from a distance. You have to zoom in by clicking on the images to read them on this blog. Enjoy.

Ending the Novel with Astute Observations

2011-05-13T15:04:00.000-05:00

I am aware this is probably one of the least original posts a blogger can make, but Richard Brautigan is one of the few authors who could move me to do such a thing. I also suppose quoting the very end of So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away is a good way to end the week--a long, good, and different one. Reflect upon what is being said after you read this ending, which completes the novel like a skillfully piloted aircraft landing.

_________________________________________________

I had become so quiet and so small in the grass by the pond that I was barely noticeable, hardly there. I think they had forgotten all about me. I sat there watching their living room shining out of the dark beside the pond. I looked like a fairy tale functioning happily in the post-World War II gothic of America before television crippled the imagination of America and turned people indoors and away from living out their own fantasies with dignity.

In those days people made their own imagination, like homecooking. Now our dreams are just any street in America lined with franchise restaurants. I sometimes think that even our digestion is a soundtrack recorded in Hollywood by the television networks.

Anyway, I just kept getting smaller and smaller beside the pond, more and more unnoticed in the darkening summer grass until I disappeared into the 32 years that have passed since then, leaving me right here, right now.

Because they never spoke during dinner, I think after they finished eating they probably mentioned a little thing about my disappearance.

"Where did that kid go, Mother?"
"I don't know, Father."

Then they rigged up their fishing poles and got some coffee and just relaxed back on the couch, their fishing lines now quietly in the water and their living room illuminated by kerosene-burning electric floor lamps.

"I don't see him anywhere."
"I guess he's gone."
"Maybe he went home."

Bib Overalls

2011-04-12T16:37:00.009-05:00

This week is National Library Week. See this link for the gist of it. In celebration of National Library Week and the magic of reading, I'm sharing an excerpt from So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away by Richard Brautigan, which I obtained through inter-library loan. I had a semi-ambitious reading list planned out to accomplish in 2011 before really hitting some non-fiction titles to give myself some continuing education, but graduate school readings for 40 page papers and such happened. I did finish reading the forgettable Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, and I am half-way through Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. The Brautigan novel was read between the two because I finally had an opportunity to request one of these rare books thanks to libraries. Now how about that...

That said, there is a guy at work I walk laps around the building with for exercise and to refocus some days during the week. The word on the street is he used to wear bib overalls sometime in the not too distant past. Richard Brautigan has an excerpt for that which I read at the perfect time. I read the following excerpt from So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away in February, but the things that we can come across in a book at a perfectly random time epitomizes the laureate quality of the written word. Before I found out about my "walking buddy's" pants habits, I hadn't thought about bib overalls since 1997. This post is in honor of my "walking buddy" as well.

They were both in their late thirties and over 6 feet tall and weighed in excess of 250 pounds, and they both wore bib overalls and tennis shoes. I haven't the slightest idea what they did for a living because they never said a single word about what kind of job they did.
I had a feeling whatever they did for a living, they did together. They were the kind of people who looked as if they were never apart. I could see them coming to work together and always wearing the same clothes. Whatever they did required that they wear bib overalls and tennis shoes.
I could see them filling out employment forms. Under the line that asked about previous experience. They just put down "bib overalls and tennis shoes."
I also had a feeling that whatever they did, they came directly from work to the pond. I don't think they changed their clothes because different, but always matching pairs of bibs and tennis shoes were their entire wardrobe.
I could imagine them having special overalls and tennis shoes for church with the rest of the congregation sitting apart from them. pp. 121-122

I really enjoy Richard Brautigan's writing and his strange segues, and this is a great example of his writing style. I like the oddity of this passage, but it would have not made such an impact if bib overalls were not a hot topic during the laps we did. Thanks, libraries, for having a rare title I read at the right time which allowed me to playfully tease my "walking buddy" further.

Spring Cleaning

2011-03-03T11:42:00.005-06:00

Earlier in the week, random memories were inundating my thoughts, but I could not trace them to a reason. Because they were so varied and unexpected, they surprised me and resulted in a sense of probably needless longing for improbable situations. Do I feel the same way today? No. I am motivated to do a variation on a theme of spring cleaning.

One of the easiest things for me to clean is my drafts section of my blog--one of the easiest things for me to clean should be my drafts section.

The very first draft was written on my last day of high school, and it has been sitting around unpublished for years. To publish it would be to cross a line I shouldn't cross. It would be taking a step backward to points where I should have been going forward in another direction. None of that really matters that much in the present though, anyway.

"And what I chase won't set me free," is a line that pops into my head when my mind wanders to the past and the present, to the what was and to the what isn't.

The mental clutter and physical clutter clean up did actually begin in January, but this is phase two. Really, and perhaps unfortunately, it naturally will always be an on-going thing to some degree.

Somehow this little period in time inserts late 90s alternative rock music into my head...which is extremely rare and strange for my mind. Particularly my brain's version of Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls plays itself over the past week. Weird.

I'm just going to print out that old draft, delete the draft from my draft section, and take the print copy and stick it somewhere were I keep mementos with sentimental qualities.

The best reasons I can come up with for flashbacks and 90s alternative rock is the movement toward spring and the slightly different set of people that life introduces from time to time. I am not feeling anything "magical" for this spring. Spring 2008 and March 2010 are important for reasons related to beautiful, unexpected feelings and events.

The Real Poetry of Morning Routines

2011-02-11T10:11:00.017-06:00

Yesterday I read a surprising commentary about poetry and cereal boxes, and today I reread it just to confirm that it was as goofy as I had thought. The author was trying to convince readers that there should be poetry on the backs of cereal boxes in an effort to solve what he believes is a social issue of people being uncomfortable with poetry. Apparently, a word search or whatever they have these days on the backs of cereal boxes is not enough food for thought. Most likely, this is just me being a jerk and not being more productive on a Friday, but I’m putting some consideration into what I read. I will not even disclose the magazine I read it in, the title of the commentary, or the author. Those facts are beside the point. I found the author made several assumptions, which I find either surprising or comical: 1. Everyone has a morning routine. 2. Most people eat cereal. 3. Early morning joggers are savage mutant creatures who are running off their issues. (I calculated that over 13% of his article was about that.) 4. Morning routines are selfish. 5. Everyone is stupid in the A.M. 6. Everyone is in a transitive state of mind in the morning and poetry is best read in this state. 7. Poetry is part of a balanced breakfast. 8. Only real poetry is obscure. 9. Children who eat cereal have an adult reading level and should be exposed to William Wordsworth. Angeline’s Morning Routine: 1. Snooze through my cell phone alarm until I have about 35 minutes before I have to leave the house. 2. Shower. 3. Get dressed. 4. Realize I have 5 minutes. 5. Dodge cats. 6. Not have time to make my own darn coffee with the $140 coffee maker I recently bought. Also, avoid the chilly kitchen because the windows in the kitchen need to be replaced. (Someone decided to blow out a wall and make it all windows. It's lovely, but so cold in the winter.) 7. Forget breakfast. 8. Forget my lunch in the fridge. 9. Maybe stop at Starbucks on my way to work. AND if timing permits us to both be present, I will be somewhere along procedures 1-4 and will hear downstairs something very similar to what I heard Monday morning: “Cheeeeto! G******, dude, you're gonna kill me some day.” And the door slammed, rattling the house and, symbolically, his disposition for the rest of the week. Finding the intensity of the situation comical in an awkward way, I burst out into laughter at the waning of the sound of his car speeding out of the driveway. It is situations such as these that are more mentally stimulating than English Romantic poetry, for example, and they surely provide a morning jolt. I actually have yet to meet someone who has a carefully conducted and seclusive cereal and newspaper morning routine even one day a week. If it’s you, God bless you… And to the author of the commentary I am criticizing, I have an absolutely real and absolutely fitting poetry suggestion for cereal boxes across America from Loading Mercury With a Pitchfork by Richard Brautigan:

“FUCK ME LIKE FRIED POTATOES” Fuck me like fried potatoes on the most beautifully hungry morning of my God-damn life.

Such horrible language...but it's a breakfast poem...

I'm Going to Have Something to Say Someday

2011-02-10T16:44:00.004-06:00

This post is dedicated to the very forward individuals I have met in my non-virtual life since the creation of this blog who have not been afraid to say things to me when I was a stranger to them or barely beyond a stranger.

Things that would "creep out," "freak out," or "offend" others in our overly sensitive and cautious social interactions have been said to me, but I cherish them all. I respect forwardness and honesty and I find it both pleasurable and comical, per instance.
_____________________________________________________
I've been looking back at some old posts, particularly those from 2007-2009. I used to talk about the random things that brought fascination and joy to me during this extremely varied period, which I nonetheless have specific affections for.

When I started this blog, I was in my first semester of college.

I was in a communications class--a writing class--and the professor felt moved to bring the class to silence to tell me, "You're going to have something to say someday. I don't know what it is you're going have to say, but when you know what it is, you better say it." It was quite like the movies in the way that it occurred and in the way it replays itself in my memory.

I already was heart-set on library school for graduate school, and at the time some of the internal and external support and systems of support for the library realm started to crumble. Though I hold such strong beliefs in public libraries, I'm looking at my path right now and my trail of words behind me.

The blog and my mind seems to have taken a jump into the library abyss. Inconclusively, this is neither fair to me nor the being associated with the eye(s) of the reader-- i.e., you. The keyword here is inconclusively. This takes me back to the words of that professor.

I consider and hope that perhaps through what I write (say), it will galvanize people to use their public libraries for books, audiovisual materials, research with the help of a librarian, programs, or quiet space, just to name a few.

There is also relevancy for me to put of something "random," such as fascinating facts about sunflowers or the beautiful sunsets I have captured in photographs lately. I am human, this is one of my voices, and such posts could be a gateway to my efforts in the public library advocacy campaign via my posts about libraries. The non-library posts are what make me a librarian and advocate with a personality, even if such posts are a small glimpse into it. It is most likely a worthless mental battle to question the worth of stating what matters to me when I am provoked to post it. It would hopefully sort itself out.

Sometimes I fear the passion is not enough or cannot transcend the virtual space of the blog and the specifics of the reader. One meaningful way in which my worries have been rectified has been through a remarkable young man I met in graduate school who was immediately aware of and affected by the passion I apparently expressed and/or radiated, and he was not shy to tell me so. It had an impact because while certain colleagues have expressed some admiration of how I truly feel, they for the most part already get it.

I hope readers experience what this young man had experienced and that they take the opportunity to use their public libraries are regularly as they can. At heart, that's all I ask when I end up writing about library topics. I feel when more people are using their public libraries not only out of necessity but more importantly by choice, public libraries have a better chance at being able to sort out the issues we have (advocacy, budgets, user needs, technology, etc.) thanks to some help from our main supporters, the tax payers.

Are these library things the earnest words I was meant to say? To me, my words on the subject feel very unfinished in a way I cannot express. What I do say, I can say along with a similar group of speakers, writers, and professionals, but it sometimes feels as if they are as useful as citizens complaining about the government.

I promise a conclusion here. This blog is what it is--a lot of words and a lot of this and that. I am going to have something to say someday, and when I know what it is I am going to say it. I sure hope that circumstances are set to where it is said to millions of United States citizens and that it has to do with public libraries and using them. I also do not want to lose the thrill of coming across treasures within the tangible pages or even virtual pages and then writing about them. It is relaxing in a unique way. So, from here I am recommitting myself to continuing on. (Sounds stupid, right?) If I have something to say, I'm going to say it because, as that one professor may feel, it best be said.

"How do you like them apples?"

2011-02-08T13:06:00.005-06:00

I used the phrase, "How do you like them apples?" in conversation the other day. It is probably because I have been thinking about sociology lately--a lot--as it weaves itself into some of my graduate school readings on library and information science topics. It's sociology! How could it not?

At Saint Xavier University, I had an excellent sociology professor who used the phrase "How do you like them apples?" often. All my professors were excellent, and I miss that university, but it's good to have graduated... I thought the phrase was fascinating and it had not been until now that it was on my mind enough to try to find the meaning yesterday, as the day before the person I said it to did not know the meaning either.

It looks as if I will have to make a trip to the library to figure this one out because the Internet is not satisfying me in my search for the etymology.

Origins in World War I and in published print in 1919 from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_do_you_like_them_apples

Nothing much from Answerbag other than a funny comment:
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/99769
Notable comment here:
"hahaha, its probably what god yelled to adam in the garden of Eden, right when adam found out he had condemned mankid to eternal sin."

I checked Google Books...and...

According to American Slang By Barbara Ann Kipfer and Robert L. Chapman, the phrase comes from the 1940s.

In A Dictionary of Catch Phrases: British and American, From the Sixteenth Century to the Present Day, by Eric Partridge, the phrase may have originated in the early 1930s.

I even checked the Words and Phrases Pathfinders from the Internet Public Library:
http://www.ipl.org/div/pf/entry/48468

The closest help was from this site:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/62/messages/381.html
It's been used since the late 1920s, according to a dictionary the poster referenced.

Perhaps using the library books will help me get farther, though actual books cited on the Internet have different information. Perhaps "How do you like them apples?" is a great American mystery...

I came across this clip in my research, but can conclude the phrase did not originate in the movie Good Will Hunting although some people on the Internet believe so. I am surprised I even watched the clip, but at 2:10-2:15, Will tells the Harvard student he blew a lot of money on an education he could have gotten for $1.5o in late fees at the public library. True. So keep reading, please. Your education is not limited to your elementary, high school, or college years.

Colorful and Celestial: February Sunsets

2011-02-07T13:31:00.009-06:00

In the Chicagoland area, we have had some spectacular winter sunsets lately.

I took the first four of these pictures Friday, February 4, and I took the fifth picture on Saturday, February 5.

Since a picture is worth 1,000 words, I'm keeping this post short. ;)

Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library by Don Borchert

2011-01-28T11:29:00.004-06:00

This post is a blast from the past? I am cleaning things up and going forward with everything I have had going on, this blog included (goals included! yay!). In the midst of New Year's cleaning, I came across eight drafts for posts. I remember reading Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library by Don Borchert, and it must have been right after my wisdom teeth were removed. I remember photocopying some section because I planned to use it in a paper someday. It's somewhere but I have not yet used it in any kind of academic masterpiece.

I enjoyed the book because I understood it and could relate to Borchert's stories based on my own personal observations and experiences, as well as stories told to me by co-workers and my significant other. Because I am in love with public libraries and I appreciate and can handle the diversity--the diversity of personalities--I'm the kind of librarian/almost librarian (for those who sneer at a 1/4 of the way completed MLIS degree) who can smile and laugh at this while others would cringe with disgust. Well, those who cringe are the people keeping the potential "good" patrons away. Sigh, there is that personal belief I seem to express way too often on here, though it is not entirely the problem. *cough*advocacy*cough*

If I were to re-read the book today I only wonder slightly if my perceptions would have changed. I'm guessing not at all. Library school has not given me any sort of magical insight beyond over five years of experiencing society and the library world through public and academic libraries through both my jobs, my significant other, and my colleagues. I do have to put myself aside from my personal experiences and realize that the title of the book partly gives public libraries a bad name and may instigate fear in a non-user if they bumped into the title somewhere.

This post was started July 21, 2008. It appears to be mostly relevant quotes, and I am going to leave everything as I had it then:
_______________________________________________________

Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library by Don Borchert

Don Borchert is a librarian at a suburban Los Angeles library.

p.82 "I think a free library is an outrageous perk. I think being able to take out fifty books at a time is an astounding luxury, especially if you've priced hardbound books anytime since the Clinton administration. Go to a public library, fill out the application, and here you go, we'll loan you $1,000 worth of materials. Collateral? Nah-- just take them. You're good for it. We'd do it for anybody. And we would."

p.135 "The Latinos haven't come together as a voting presence yet, but they will, they will. Their numbers alone are impressive. As a graph trying to express population growth, their lines shoot off the charts. If Latinos were a stock, we would all want some."

p.17 "The first person in the library to help me find my way around was a young Latina page named Maria. Pages occupy the bottom rung of the library hierarchy. They are paid the least, have the fewest benefits, do the most work, and are expected to move on when they finally, inevitably become dissatisfied with their lot. A library will continue to function nicely without every other position, but without the pages it would grind to a stop within a quiet afternoon. All pages are aware of this irony but are urged to keep it to themselves." AMEN!!!

The range of characters (personalities) described are extremely similar to patrons I have personally experienced. While at times they are shocking, without them, the library would be boring.

I'm not going to post the contents of the three page introduction, but I will copy it for my own use. I share the same beliefs as the author about the importance of public libraries. Maybe it'll help me with a research paper or something down the road.

Soundtrack: The Music That Played In My Head During Everything

2011-01-12T12:22:00.002-06:00

These are the highly influential pieces of music since I was 13, and they are in order:
2001 The third movement of Symphony No. 5 by Ludwig van Beethoven
2002 Voodoo Dance by Elliot Del Borgo
2002 Vltava by Bedrich Smetana
2002 Violin Concerto by Ludwig van Beethoven
2002 The Kreutzer Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven
2004 (Norwegian Wood by the Beatles, Sun Dance by Frank Ticheli, Yellow by Coldplay, I’m Like a Bird by Nelly Furtado)
2004/5 (My Immortal by Evanescence)
2005 White Oleander by Thomas Newman
2005 Piano Concerto No. 23 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
2005 Mr. Brightside by The Killers
2005 (American Beauty, Angela Undresses both by Thomas Newman)
2005 Landed by Ben Folds
2005 Helena by My Chemical Romance
2005 Dust in the Wind by Kansas
2005 Mozart pieces from Amadeus
2005 West Side Story marching band music by Leonard Bernstein
2005 Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber
2005 Fantasia on a Theme by Ralph Vaughan Williams
2006 Crazy by Gnarles Barkley
2006 Fiddler on the Roof for marching band
2007 Psalm for Band by Vincent Persichetti
2007 As You Like It Overture by John Knowles Paine
2007 Raindrop Prelude by Frédéric Chopin
2007 The Willow Song from Othello soundtrack by Charlie Mole
2008 The first two movements (but especially the second) of A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms
2008 Impromptu, Op. 90, No. 1 by Franz Schubert
2008 The first movement of Prokofiev Symphony No. 1 by Sergei Prokofiev
2008 Overture to "A Midsummer’s Night Dream" by Felix Mendelssohn
2009 October by Eric Whitacre
2009 An Alpine Symphony by Richard Strauss
2010 The second movement of Piano Concerto No.2 by Dmitri Shostakovich
2010 The Prelude of Ballet Suite No. 4 by Dmitri Shostakovich

2011: The Year of the Bassoon and Stained Glass

2011-01-07T12:36:00.003-06:00

It's that time of year to order bassoon reeds at $15-$18 each! If I have two good/ok reeds and two pretty excellent reeds and a few unused(!) ones left over from an order about ten months ago, does buying eight new ones from makers whose reeds I have never used before count as being excessive? Probably. *shrug* The bassoon reed is one of the most fickle objects on this earth, so there is some value in spending this on reeds.

2011 is the year of the bassoon and the year of stained glass. These two things I long to spend the most time with (usually as I am doing other things...:(...). With the exception of my car and universities, these are the two things that I have spent the most money on, with the intention of them being of major importance. Well, they are important, but more as a thought and desire than actualizations.

With both these things, new circumstances make it easier to participate--even if I am not less busier than I have been the past few years. I cannot wait for band to start again January 20th.

The picture of the stained glass window is Meyda Tiffany's version of Louis Comfort Tiffany's Magnolia and Irises, ca. 1908. For the first time, I have given this year a theme, and this image is it. I would like to recreate it myself.

Along with these intentions, to read one book each week (we can say every two weeks for the longer ones) that is not related to graduate school is an important goal. I have a couple fiction titles to get through, but non-fiction is just so much more interesting to me. As usual, when I am around at home I would like to further remember to make a point to listen for the church bells at noon and 6pm. Happy new year!

Main Street, a Third of the Way Through

2011-01-04T12:58:00.016-06:00

I'm reading Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, but not very ambitiously. I am about a third of the way through and I am thinking more about my reading habits, words, and the act of reading more than the somewhat stodgy plot itself. I will give the other two-thirds of the book a chance, though.

I feel it is to my benefit (at least) to mention things when I read a book. Many books have been read, enjoyed or not enjoyed, thought about, and in some regard forgotten by the course of time and the amount of other readings I have read from the goading of academia.

Every time I feel disappointed with Main Street, which has been on my reading list since late July, I feel as if I am betraying the protagonist because she is a librarian. Not only is Carol a librarian, but she is also a lot like me outside of her library-thinking--especially in the brief description of her college years.

But for the most part, two things come to mind: 1. I need to read more. 2. I feel as if I have no vocabulary. The first thing is a fact, and the second is something to ponder. I wonder if (Harry) Sinclair Lewis sat around with a thesaurus. Writers do that, right? They play with words and carefully plan them, which requires reflection and perhaps a thesaurus. My 2.25 college degrees have not backed me with as powerful a vocabulary yet, but 90% of the time I can figure out a "smart" word within its context. I am not sure whether I should be embarrassed, unaffected, or if I should look at this as an opportunity to learn some new vocabulary words while knowing they will really only be of importance maybe in another book, or a library school paper--if they are at all remembered. Alas! The self-loathing and criticism that has the ability to consume me!

Three things so far are mildly fascinating, and a fourth thing is intensely intriguing.

"I wonder--" Carol was plunged back into last night's Weltschmerz*.
*Sadness over the state of the world, a state of mind often considered fashionably romantic; from the German for "world pain." (Yay for the footnote!) And, yes, that's how it is written: "from the German for." How cool is this little fact?

"Daily, she determined, 'But I must have a stated amount--be business-like. System. I must do something about it.' And daily she didn't do anything about it." I am in that club for certain things. I do not suggest you become a member if you are not one already.

Thorstein Veblen...is an "American writer, sociologist, and critic of social institutions (1857-1929); author of The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) and other influential works." Well, I have a degree in sociology and I don't believe I have heard of him. Time to read him. Good for me. I am excited about this actually.

"She lustily played Tschaikowsky--the virile chords an echo of the red laughing philosopher of the tar-paper shack." That spelling of Tchaikovsky! It is totally understandable, but it is so uncommon. To verify it, I naturally looked in an online library catalog, not Google. Google will not really help someone here for reasons beyond the fact that Google automatically changes the spelling it searches for you...

Speaking of philosophers, my best friend Andrea and I went to Target because I had to return something and she needed macaroni and cheese, and we may have encountered a philosopher. An employee was asking customers if they needed help locating merchandise and asked an older man, who fit the stereotypical physical description of a philosopher, "Can I help you find anything?" His reply was, "What aisle is the meaning of life in?" My friend Lance has told me that at Target it is usually in aisle nine. By the way, Andrea is going to study in London, England, for four months. You can read about her adventures in her blog.

Advertising and Advocacy: Public Libraries Are Getting It Wrong and Half Price Books Is Getting It Right

2010-11-30T15:44:00.001-06:00

Last week on a Chicago Radio Station, I kept hearing Half Price Book’s commercial for Banned Books Week. It was not Banned Books Week (Banned Books Week was September 25-October 2), but the essence of the commercial is an example the American Library Association and public libraries should follow. Half Price Book’s commercial basically told people to read and to read whatever they want.

The commercial was important because they took the opportunity to promote reading and the company’s values for intellectual freedom, First Amendment Rights, and anti-censorship that are parallel to some of the American Library Association’s values. Of course the store’s existence being the hidden, but this commercial is really about reading and not the store’s inventory. It did something to remind listeners that picking up a book (not a Kindle or the like) can be a good experience.

I have a bachelor's degree in sociology, not advertising, but from twenty-something years of being a social being susceptible to the media's effects, something tells me Half Price Books is doing something the American Library Association needs to be doing. In library school (for a Master of Library and Information Science degree), no one is afraid to admit that we library folks are passive and lazy about promoting ourselves, our value to individuals and communities, and what we offer.

I feel I am making a fair generalization here though I am sure there are public libraries who take Banned Books Week as an opportunity to be vocal and attract users to their institution. Advocacy is something that needs to be higher on the priority list the other fifty-one weeks of a year. It is nothing I have witnessed all that effectively happening around me.

The American Library Association should buy a little air time. While I am aware librarians can advocate public libraries all day and it will mean nothing if the people do not do so themselves, they need to get people in the door. And these people may speak of the great things and speak so that public libraries in their communities improve and better serve their needs, but more importantly, they will read, learn, and also use the library for everything else it offers besides books.

ALA Banned Books Week

On a side note, a lot of things have changed and are changing. I plan to sit down and re-think blogging with the desire to create something new, something anonymous, and something that is more focused on public libraries and librarianship. I am sure I will have a lot more to say when I am through with the master’s degree program. The goal of the new blog would be to help people—specifically non-users— recognize public libraries and make them an important part of their lives through doing something rather than just pointing out what needs to be done to improve the way things are. I also need to read and reread sociology books and articles because I realize more and more that I have an extremely relevant background a lot of librarians and administrators do not have.

A Book Recommendation

2010-11-23T10:53:00.009-06:00

The Treasures of the Impressionists by Jon Kear
ISBN: 9780233002347

I totally judged this book based on its cover. The copy of the book at my library has a different cover that is fabulously beautiful, so I just had to check out the book.

Because of my educational background, I thought about sociology--a lot--while I was reading the text parts. I started writing about what I noticed and further wanted to research. I was coming close to ten analytical pages I was neither satisfied with nor finished with yet. Then I realized I have neither the time nor the audience for a college-level paper of a blog at the moment.

The here and now of the matter gives us a noble opportunity, anyway.

If you're groaning thinking that you would not enjoy this book because, I can assure you that you won't be thinking what I thought. I can also assure you that you will appreciate the color images of impressionist art and the appropriate amount of well-written history on the artists, the art, and the time period. For the person with little to no background in art history who wants to enjoy the art and get educated about it, this is truly a pleasure to peruse through.

This is a book you could effortlessly enjoy if you want to have an experience in something that is aesthetically pleasing with more color images than text and is a little intellectual. This book is perfect for viewing sitting on your couch, or at your table, with a cup of coffee while everything else put aside for about thirty minutes to an hour.

Spending about an hour of just one day with The Treasures of the Impressionists by Jon Kear will most likely have you appreciating Impressionism and life more.

See if your public library has a copy, and maybe there will be some other really cool art books you can check out and spend a little time with admiring. The pleasure I got from this book is just one example of the thousands of potential wonderful experiences that are free, simple, and educational that public libraries offer us nearly every single day of the year. Familiarize yourself with your library's services (or reacquaint yourself with them and find ones you did not know about) through talking to librarians and looking at your library's website, and it may continuously be one of the coolest discoveries you've ever made.

The Power of Two...

2010-10-28T10:26:00.001-05:00

...to really tie me up at the moment.

Two things: grad school, midterms.

The Greatest Generation

2010-09-27T16:38:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: This post really lacks originality.

What I have for the Internet creatures are what I have judged as some good facts and quotes from The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw. Pro tip: You may want to go to your local public library and check out a copy.

What you get...is what you get from me. I have more page numbers and notes-to-self written down, and maybe what is not communicated here includes the real gems from my reading, but I have "library school" assignments waiting. They take precendence, or rather, they should have sometime last week...

I remember a relative talking briefly about the greatness of the book The Greatest Generation years ago, and the title stuck with me. This summer, a friend's father happened to give me the book. If what I have found valuable from it inspires you to read it, there are about 400 pages of it for you at your library, for example. *cough* xxx, 412 p. :bill. ;c25 cm. *cough* Oh, I seem to have the 300 field of the MARC record stuck in my throat... I hope I get over it really soon...

At first I encountered something that was bothering me. When I was within the first 100 pages or so of the book, I found individuals were complaining about MY generation. There is some validity in that, but there also is not. Maybe Brokaw realized it was not a good idea to talk about their strengths and use them to bash their own offspring and the changing world they influenced in ways. Then the bash our children comments stopped from the veterans, some of them who had even mentioned they had no direction or nothing else going on because of the economy prior to World War II.

Random quotes time...

I am thankful for this positive one though I disagree with the statement about the country, but keep in mind this book was published in 1998... Brokaw says of James Dowling, "He's also confident the country and this generation are in good shape" (pp.52-3). It was also said three of his sons were in Vietnam. I suppose that 18 years of being involved in organizing Little League teams, you can see the good in today's kids.

Charles O. Van Gorder, M.D. and his wife started up a hospital in a rural logging community in the United States after WWII. Brokaw writes of Van Gorder, "But Dr. Van Gorder laments the bureaucratic and commercial nature of modern medicine. 'The war taught me the importance of integrity in dealing with people,' he says, 'I worked with some fine surgeons and we helped each other. Medicine was more altruistic. I just wanted to help people. Kids start out now thinking "How much money can I make?" not "What can I do, how much can I help" ' " (pp.34-5)?
I am in agreement that medicine is no longer devoted to human interests based on ethical values, even though I was not there then. I believe medical professionals actually work with the purpose to improve the lives of patients. The insurance companies, drug companies, and corporate-owned hospitals ruin it for everyone, including the doctors, nurses, and other staff.

Joe Foss, according to Brokaw, "He was pleased recently when a schoolboy member of his church asked him to come to his school for a day set aside to honor American heroes. Joe chuckles when he says, 'Well, I got there and I was the only living hero. All the rest were George Washington and those guys. But at least the school was studying history and thinking about heroes '"(p. 123).

Tom Brokaw says, "If there's a common lament of this generation, that is it: where is the old-fashioned patriotism that got them through so much heartache and sacrifice" (p.159)?
Well, you're writing a book about why...the Great Depression and WWII and other issues combined with what many say about there being nothing else going on...even if people had better values from home and school than we as a society do now.

The WASPs are Women's Air Force Service Pilots through the help of Jacqueline Cochran. In my sociology program, we watched a fascinating video about the WASPs. The lives of the WASPS were interesting to read about. I feel it is important that Brokaw does not hide their struggles as women, the lack of benefits they received, and their civialianship status despite their service and sacrificies. Not until 1979 did they they become veterans, and they received medals in 1984 for their roles in World War II (pp. 163-171).

I love this bit from Johnnie Holmes (an African American sergeant) about the welfare system. After the war, he was a hard worker and even got into real estate, owning three buildings in which he rented out units in low-income black neighborhoods.
Brokaw says, "It was as a landlord and a black man who had overcome so much on his own that he came to hate the welfare systen that grew so fast in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. 'It just killed ambition,' according to Holmes. 'I had all of these tenants who in their late twenties had never worked a day in their life. They just waited around for that government check. No incentive'" (p. 201).

The Luis Armijo story is also amazing. He was a Spanish Basque/Apache man who spoke Spanish, French, and Apache at home. He grew up in a self-suffient home environment based on Apache ways. Through the draft, the outside world was opened to him. He was drafted, joined the Air Force and was injured.
Brokaw writes, "Despite his service, however, when he returned it was 'back to the same old thing.' Racism. 'Before the war,' he says, 'we were treated as bad as black southerners. We couldn't have a business in town. The movie theater was segregated--minorities sat on one side, the whites on the other. During the war it was different. You signed papers and the Army didn't say you were Hispanic or an Indian. The papers just said, "Hey, you're an American soldier." 'If we got captured, we were just Americans. We were in a war. Once you got back,' he says, 'you went back to the same old hole. I thought, "Hey, how can I make them understand me"'" (p. 210)?
He ended up becoming a teacher in Orange County, California. In accordance with Apache principles, Armijo was a positive influence on younger generations and taught them not only the academic lessons he learned but also valuable life lessons and skills.

In the section on love, marriage, and commitment, Daphne Cavin, whose husband Raymond Kelley was killed in action, says when remembering him, "It was hard for me...yet it opened up a lot of memories...We put on a lot of false gaiety during the war" (p. 268).
We put on a lot of false gaiety. I love that honesty. People often glamorize the period in time, and people who did not directly deal with the issues and emotions get nostalgic.

I'm ending this post with information in Brokaw's book about George Bush I, who was from Greenwich, Connecticut. To Brokaw, Bush says, "'I do not believe my combat experience was in any way responsible for my coming to Texas,' he reflects now, adding, 'The Navy sent us all over...so a move away from a home base was not so traumatic.' In that regard, George and Barbara Bush were like many young Americans in their postwar migration to other parts of the country. Kids from the Great Plains who joined the Navy returned to settle down hard by the sea in California. Young black veterans headed north to the good factory jobs in Detrioit. World War II rearranged more than the political landscape of Europe and Asia; it was a majot catalyst for the shifting population patterns of the United States in the fifties and sixties" (p. 275).
Bush and his wife moved to Texas because the oilfields provided opportunities, and you know the rest. For someone with a degree in Sociology, and as a U.S. citizen, the population shifts within the United States are fascinating to me.

The iPod in the Back of the Library

2010-08-23T19:59:00.000-05:00

Less than a year ago, I was at a library event where dozens of librarians and library staff congregated at a public library for the celebration of an other's accomplishment. There was a slight moment when the star of the event was the iPod in the back of the room. No one was really paying any attention to the music until the librarian was ready to address the crowd. Someone scuttled to the back to the dock where the iPod was playing on a table to silence the music. For this moment the crowd watched the woman quiet the device with dozens of embarrassed, shy smirks at the brief and harmless interruption.

"Oh! We didn't think to silence the music!" That's right, because no one was really paying attention to the music, to the iPod. But I was. The iPod had something to say.

This brief moment in this small library's history is an important point of all public library history and demonstrates the immersion of public libraries into mainstream culture. It speaks for the relevancy of public libraries and their breadth.

Obviously, the library had a collection of CDs and surely a CD player, but they were using an iPod for the event.

If a public library wanted to preserve the static existence of their A/V collection--namely, the CDs--they would not have invested in an iPod and would not have dared to utilize one. But the public library is aware, all-knowing, inviting! The iPod is embraced and useful.

What does that mean for the CDs and the rest of the A/V collections...and books? If I'm generally addressing the non-library user or the skeptic, take this into consideration:

CD players are still in computers, DVD players, stereos, portable devices, and cars. Many of these devices include mechanisms to play other kinds of media, for example, through a USB port. In my car, I have both a CD player AND a port for my USB cable to my iPod. Recognize my car's combination of features as being an excellent example of what the public library is for mobilizing society.

While the iPod has benefited me, I still need the CDs. Popping in the CD is still easier than being distracted fishing around for the song on the iPod (because a year after purchasing my car, I am still not tempted to use the sync technology to speak). While people have more access to information through technology (Internet at home, television), they still need the library for books, the services, and a myriad of other reasons.

...I'm going to make a judgmental statement. America is sad because they are not using their public libraries enough. When computers and televisions are turned on at home, there is so much distraction. There is pleasure, but there is also a lot of habitual fluff going on. There is something about the distance, the peace, and the function of a public library that makes the experience exciting--and this applies to the materials one can take home or elsewhere to read to. People just need to read more, whether that be for education or pleasure and to also get away from the horrible effects of computer eye-strain. (Yes, after you read this from your computer, go read a book or take a walk.)

My advice that using the library to become happier people is possible takes into account the extensiveness of public libraries and what one can accomplish from all angles. The public library is like society's biggest box of crayons for the blank spaces in our minds and souls.

I am approaching the point of rambling and am thus deleting my next lines of notes-to-self about the subject.

At least, keep in mind that: Public libraries improve and maintain their features to meet the needs of different preferences and levels of understanding. They keep a goal in mind to fight for survival to exist for you whether you rely on the library once a year, weekly, or daily. But really, you should be using your library more if you're not. You're doing your mind, body, and soul a disservice if you're not. You've got a thing to do or discover in there, and you've got to go do it. This is the easiest way to change your life for the better even if these are small things that make it better and more pleasurable. You can even have your Internet at home and your iPod too. Stay for a while and read at the library or ask a reference question and be on your way. Just use the dynamic resource and services. They're either free or nearly free and they are begging for you to use them. It's your tax dollars funding them too.

Now it is never easy for me to easily or concisely wrap up such a fantastic subject I'm passionate about (public libraries and library advocacy!), so I'm going to head back to the event when I spotted the iPod in the back of the library.

The event I was at--in itself, in the presence of technological advancements--was a celebration that people in the library world advance. Librarians advance inside and outside the library just as the library assimilates new things, ideas, and people. Public libraries accept technologies for the conveniences and challenges they bring to the institution, and they want to make your life more convenient--whether that be through very conventional or technological means--and better.

If someone turned the music back on when the librarian was done speaking, I do not remember. That iPod, it had something to say though.

Oh, Cupcakes

2010-07-22T16:53:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago I made cupcakes to share with people. I bought the accessories for making frosting flowers, and I watched a video. It is not as easy as it looks--especially when standard baggies get small holes in them from the pressure applied to force the frosting through the tips and when the frosting is melting in the bag from the warmth of your hand. Anyway, this was my attempt at making pretty cupcakes. When I realized how long it was taking and how many cupcakes there were left to decorate, I just did my own thing. I hope to take one of those cake decorating classes at Michael's someday in the near future. I made the buttercream frosting, and the coloring is from edible Wilton pearl dust. If I should ever be impelled to make cupcakes again before I take a cake decorating class, I will stick to rainbow sprinkles.

Airplanes, Sky Objects

2010-07-21T15:27:00.022-05:00

Monday morning I was searching for Chicago Public Radio on my dial radio, and I had ended up on Moody Radio, the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago's radio station. They were talking to callers about childhood summer memories. I recalled spending a lot of time with my best friend playing in her front yard, and the other memories contained a lot of vague images of playing with the kids on the block and going to the public pool before we got our own. Most of my memories revolve around independence--that which I felt I obtained through being on my bike, where I could come and go where I wanted.

I couldn't fall asleep Monday night, so I spent a couple hours visually following airplanes in the sky landing at Midway Airport from six miles away. It was fascinating. I never observed the flight patterns. It was interesting to see airplanes first come in from the southwest and then the southeast. They would just appear and then wrap around in the sky and then descend at Midway Airport. I remembered Cody from down-the-block when I was a kid. His father worked for the airlines, and Cody always wanted to be an airplane pilot. Cody has accomplished his childhood wish, and that's really special. Airplanes, Cody, and summer sit in my mind together in the Summer Childhood Memories category. Sometimes it takes coincidence to make them vivid, so it was interesting that the radio prompted this thinking, and I appreciate it.

Most of my memories of summer is the feeling of anonymity and invisibility taking a bike ride in the late evening, but that was barely considered childhood anymore and was not too long ago either. I also continue to do this. I rode my bike around Beverly on Sunday and I rode my bike in a section of town I never rode in on Thursday.

We have had a lot of nice clouds lately in the Chicagoland area. On Wednesday there was a cloud display in which the sunet was blocked the clouds, but the result was purple, pink, and orange lined clouds and fully illuminated pink-orange clouds farther away from the actual sunset. If you are reading this, I demand that you step outside for a moment and look at the clouds. Clouds are underappreciated it seems. I hope that you will become amazed by what you see and try to make a point to take joy in the clouds more often.

In my urge for simplicity, control of my future (even though that is impossible), and freedom from the person who causes me distress, the clouds freely offer themselves as mitigation.

As I spent time driving up to Dominican University taking care of library school things before the beginning of the semester, I felt both thrilled and sad. As my summer is winding down, I realize this summer was ambitiously planned and not followed through as so. The start of a school year is the beginning of a new chapter, but I'm not exactly looking for a new chapter. Better material will do, something uplifting. While I am in awe of sky objects, I hope to soon feel comfortable in my surroundings after some rough past weeks that have caused me to repeatedly question things to the point where the point in doing so may not be there.

Why Bother to Pursue a Pot of Gold When You Have the Rainbow?

2010-07-17T11:57:00.008-05:00

This rainbow appeared in Chicago over Lake Michigan around 6pm last Saturday, July 10. It made my day, and it was one of the most exciting things that could happen. This is actually a double rainbow. At the far left, you can see some of it above the lake, but in reality it was much fainter than the larger, brighter rainbow. My camera phone did not capture the actual brightness of the sky. When we were driving on the other curve of Lake Shore Drive, we had seen the other end of the rainbow, illuminated by the sun, as well.

This was the third occurence of a rainbow I've seen this summer, and it was magical. There are a lot of bad things that occur that are out of our control, but there are these wonderful spirit-altering ones that transcend human capabilities as well. No one had to do anything, but watch.

The After the 4th of July Phenomenon

2010-07-07T08:50:00.005-05:00

This summer is mostly a bust. There is no such thing as sitting and "doing nothing" for me and being ok with it. Never. I have been doing things, but they have been very few of the things I have planned and have not been administered in the planned order.

It is relatively common that people who do not feel satisfied with their summer by the 4th of July feel defeated. I feel defeated.

What am I looking for? Everything I am in control of...

Instead I find myself:
Staring at the spines of books
Staring at sheets of glass
Moving a lot of boxes, full and empty, in and out of the same places
Listening to NPR while realizing I wish I was doing something in my planner (see below)
Opening and closing my red leather planner

Most people would know that I'm overly ambitious. At this point, I don't think that completing a project or reading a book for pleasure should be that difficult. Maybe part of it is that if I finish one or two projects close to each other, but in my mind I wish I had completed seven. Other people would wow themselves to have finished the two in a year, but two in a month is not good for myself.

Maybe I also don't realize how heavy the people I'm carrying on my shoulders are.

Sigh... I need to be in work and/or school.

Before that I hope to accomplish:
Two books to read
Thirteen places to go
Twelve craft/hobby projects
Lots of bassoon

At the end of the day, whatever is lacking can be remedied with a bike ride, or now for some reason running, for I'm a vespertine creature when it comes to these things.

Sauerkraut the Right Way

2010-06-28T11:39:00.003-05:00

1 lb. bacon cut into small pieces
1 large onion chopped
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 bags sauerkraut rinsed and drained
1 cup brown sugar
Black pepper

1. Cut bacon into small pieces and saute until amost crisp on low/medium heat.

2. Add 1 large chopped onion to bacon and grease, saute on low/medium heat for 4-5 minutes.

3. Add 2 cups flour and mix well, stirring constnatly for 4-5 minutes on low/medium heat.

4. Add sauerkraut and 1 cup brown sugar and enough water to just cover mixture. Mix well. Add black pepper to taste.

5. Bring to low simmer for approximately 45 minutes, stirring occasionally and making sure bottom does not burn.

It's Been a While

2010-05-30T22:39:00.002-05:00

For some obvious reasons, I have not kept up this blog, and I have a homesickness for it. This post is to relay the message that the blog is under construction and will be running again shortly.

Is It You?

2010-03-01T15:10:00.003-06:00

Sometimes I wonder: "Is anybody out there?"

The Mysterious Value of Input

2010-02-03T10:02:00.005-06:00

My MLIS pursuit and current librarian position have given me a sortof reputation at my university. People take it seriously and I am remembered as the Library Girl.

This has made my input mysteriously valuable to some professors. This adds some evidence to a surprising thing I've found through work experience: People value a librarian's input. Many times this ends up being a second opinion that confirms what they are already doing.

Often the people I help at work are on the right track, but the second opinion and a tip or two make a difference and help students gain confidence and proceed with their research or using the computer.

A librarian's position is not just about being able to locate some materials, but a lot of it has to do with the prior knowledge about various things you have. There is a certain level of respect associated with the word librarian I did not think "outsiders" had.

To me, this gives me another reason to push forward, gives more meaning to the profession, and motivates a personal determination to make sure there is legitimacy to these perceptions of librarians others have.

Classes prior to and the class meeting on which a librarian from the university was scheduled to help one of my sociology classes use EBSCO, my professor (who had been through the trouble of remembering detail about me) asked for me to give input if I felt it necessary.

I doubted I would have anything to add, but sure did.

The librarian (of course we had the nasal-sounding, middle-aged guy with a quiet voice and outdated sayings people were chuckling about) hit the right points about searching for sociology articles, which is something I'm certain most of the students have already been through before. This was at least an essential refresher for most students.

Some members of the class woke up when I added that students should save interesting articles for the annotated bibliography assinment so they do not have to write down titles and then search for them all over again. "What's a folder?" "How do I get one?"
...and so I explained the ease and time-saving convenieces related to creating a personal folder in EBSCO.

I was a little surprised the librarian didn't mention that, but he really liked the suggestion and wished me good luck in the MLIS program. I admit to feeling a little proud that something that simple gave me kudos and legitimacy as the Library Girl, but I also felt that there was some librarian teamwork going on even though I was sitting in one of my very last undergrad courses. Due to my input, it is most likely he will teach future classes how create folders to save time and frustration and will thus be helping a lot of people.

Too bad my valuable input didn't get me out of doing the very long annotated bibliography assignment though...

I Have a New Rule

2010-01-06T12:09:00.002-06:00

I spend too much time on the Internet at home wasting time, but I have a new rule to make up for it. The rule is: No using the computer at home except for one hour on Saturday and one hour on Sunday.

My full-time librarian job has me mostly sitting at a computer in wait for others' needs of my assistance.

People, how much more would you accomplish if you weren't on the computer at home all the time--like it was before 10 years ago?

Children's Literature: This was meant to be analytical, but now it's become a reading suggestion

2010-01-03T00:24:00.001-06:00

Amongst the demands of school and work and the impulses of other life, my quest to point out some of the amusing and alarming things I found reading The Illustrated Treasury of Children's Literature published by Grosset and Dunlap of New York, c1955, has been pushed aside. Wonderful thoughts have been forgotten, and it's hard to believe it may be somewhere nearing a year since I started reading the book, which took me until perhaps April to finish. I may have to read it again.

I started reading it for whimsical purposes, but the point quickly became to spot all the red flags and I found myself using the "sociological toolkit". Outside the classroom, using the toolkit becomes natural for people with sociology backgrounds.

I'm bothered I could not have the post from the readings fresh in my mind to be thoroughly explained, but I also think my audience is pretty small (maybe one person, if even). I believe I would have some writings of brilliance, but the page numbers and notes I made to myself will have to suffice. It's a good read for a reader of any age; you're not going to be able to flip through it in a day.

This 55-year-old copy of The Illustrated Treasury of Children's Literature came from library book sale. The book is red, hard-cover, has gold-embossed characters on cover, and has no dust jacket. There are some illustrations, but they are secondary to the stories. Most of the children's books now focus on illustrations, but for this treasury I keep in mind its large size and the cost of printing illustrations for the dozens of stories. The illustrations that do appear in the treasury are black and white and some of the ones with simple color seem to be lithographs. About 15 pages of the 512 page book are on a glossy paper, which has not started to darken as the rest of the pages have. The pages do pass the double-fold test.

The inside is a wonderful look into the past without having to learn about "the way things were back in the day", and despite changes in society and our thinking, it's good children's literature.

Many of the stories have a comparable silliness appeal to modern children's literature that enthralls a young reader/listener. Fun is fun and creativity is creativity, but there is a reflection of the textual differences that separate then from now--especially in the choice of vocabulary words. Times have changed.

One of the most important things someone with a sociology background does is not just look at what is present but also what is not there. There stories gravitate in one way or another around white, middle-class, complete families, the sexual division of labor, male dominance, and natives as are seen as barbaric. Well, one can look at these observations and argue things have not actually changed much, but these aging tales are just so blatant in a way that isn't quite the same.

There is probably no better way at the moment to speak of such things other than copying the notes I had written to myself while reading. If I were to go into detail for each flag, then I would be far into writing a book of my own or something extremely scholarly. This is either for personal mental-organizational purposes or for you to read along with if you can obtain a copy of the book. Or perhaps this will later be useful for the reasons mentioned before.

This was meant to be analytical but now it serves best as reading suggestion. Below are the notes I wrote to myself. If you happen to read the treasury (and I read it again), there is content on these pages that is very interesting.

p.111 Nonsense Alphabet by Edward Lear, loved it
p.161 "making a dust"
p.184 three wolves, Tom Thumb, others....eaten people come out fine.
p.194 The Tinder Box ignores justice, as a lot of the fairy tales do not make sense or make use of morals, but this is non-sugary entertainment, straightforward...
p.206 The Fir Tree is depressing...
p.218 Little Taylor shows women's oppression
p.220 paragraph 4
p.222 thimbles and kisses
p.246 Medio Pellito interesting...
p.288 how puss in boots ends...b/c it's interesting and I never heard it before.
p.306 Simpleton wanted respectful woman for wife and story is of a man's happiness but wife is an object
p.344 animals swallowed whole end up living
p.368 "what is real"/"being real"
p.370 last sentence wording is weird...again on p.372 of a different story.
p.385 advertising/savage
p.396 "gloaming", "touchwood-light"
p.440 "procured"
p.474-475 "toturn turtle"
p.478
p.479 dog went nuts and evil with happiness
p.480 "reconnoiter"
p.482 "first night"
p.483 "hirsute"
p.506 Thor dressed as a woman to get hammer back...because woman marrying as a trade for hammer ....

Tell Me

2010-01-01T23:19:00.002-06:00

In English, we capitalize the pronoun "I". How many other languages do this?

Shadows

2009-12-23T01:37:00.002-06:00

I think sometimes still about Lolita and Desdemona and willow trees. They no longer have the same place in me, but they have dwindled to an infrangible thread connecting me to a series of memories that have become blurred into one thing not quite overcome.

Just Think About This for a Second

2009-12-15T12:21:00.013-06:00

I am sure I am more glad than anyone else who may bump into my blog that after my last post two months ago I have the time to not only be completely struck by something but that I have the chance to share it. Now, when I'm reading for school, a lot of information is extremely notable to me, but that information inhabits notebooks and the pages of numerous papers exceeding 15 and sometimes even 20 pages. It has been difficult to read fiction or pleasure read non-fiction, but I'm seizing the opportunity from the series of breaks coming. So today I picked up a book from my bookshelf that has been in waiting for perhaps a year or more that I had chosen to read on my own. I have chosen to read The Best of Roald Dahl.

For I am struck by the real images of a life (though it's fictional, it's realistic) outside of my 65-hour on the go work/school busy life, I thank the escape. What is more meaningful is that fiction causes me, causes people, to think from all angles. If you're going to argue that, then you're probably not a reader and I feel sorry for you. These experiences available through the abundance of reading materials public libraries offer for free is one of the reasons why I think public libraries are so great and more people need to read, but this is not what the post is about this time.

Frequently, though briefly each time, I end up thinking about religion--well, not religion, but God. These thoughts often interrupt thoughts devoted to non-spiritual or God-centric (perhaps yes or no, based on your definition) things. Without any further elaboration, I often think: What to do with my humanly sins that I am aware of?

Only three stories into The Best of Roald Dahl, "The Sound Machine" really um, struck a note with me. The main character, Klausner, builds a sound machine in order to hear the sounds the human ear cannot hear and when testing it, ends up hearing the roses in the distance shriek (at 132,000 vibrations per second) as his neighbor cuts them as puts them into her basket.

I did a little research and found humans can hear pitches that span from 20 to 20,000 Hertz (20 to 20,000 vibrations per second). There are sounds that other living creatures can hear, and there are sounds that other living creatures cannot hear.

Is God speaking to us all the time and we cannot generally hear what is being said?
I just think, again, that we think we are ahead with science and spend too much time looking for proof of God, but we are not making the conclusions we are looking to science for and cannot get to the truth presented to us in the way we want to see and hear it. Science does do things for us, such as discovering frequencies and that there are frequencies out there beyond our hearing range. Science is a good thing and it does not take anything away from the existence of God even to breaking things down to quarks. There is still mystery. Every scientist (and let's hope person) knows that we humans are limited by our senses, and science is methodologically empirical because we have instruments to make up for our human limitations. These instruments are not perfect either, and words of the scriptures and the difficulty of trying to use our human selves and our human instruments to find proof that all this world is God's gives us the answer--a priori knowledge of God is sufficient.

When I think about animals' sharpened senses, sometimes God seems more frightening.
If they can hear better than we can, why are they so fearful of pain and death? Maybe it is because they do not even hear God. Not all other creatures along the spectrum of hearing can tell us what they hear or think; we just guess and then find a way to support it.

But who thinks enough about this stuff in this way? Who thinks about hearing and human limitations beyond one single science class of your life?

...And "The Sound Machine" was only three stories into the book. Reading is an absolutely necessary human activity and instrument for thought.

Things I'm Going To Do Over Winter Break

2009-10-24T10:43:00.005-05:00

Blog on children's literature

Get one of those Batter Blaster pancake things because they look goofy

Finish my stained glass star projects

Start putting things on Etsy

Read Canterbury Tales

Read Atlas Shrugged

Start my senior project research for my BA in Sociology

Sell the old bassoon

EDIT (additions):
Wash my floors

Wash my walls

Learn to crochet

Not Such a Mystery

2009-10-20T22:16:00.003-05:00

I often wonder how much better my life would be if I had never met him. I often cannot believe that this is me and all that is and was is real. I often have a hard time trying to make sense of how a person with his thinking can actually exist. I often wish I were not sitting here four years later in yet another state of misery and hopelessness.

Greeks and Time

2009-09-06T00:14:00.001-05:00

The Greeks have two words for time: chronos and kairos.

Chronos is horizontal time, which is represented through seconds, minutes, hours, days--as on clocks and calendars.

Kairos is the Greek term for specific, momentary time--like the time a certain memory or event occupies.

God Before God

2009-08-31T21:30:00.007-05:00

One of the most interesting and profound pre-religion religious experiences I had involved a baby crib and a light tower with an isochronally blinking red light to guide aircraft that is about three blocks west of my house.

When I was still in the crib, one of my earliest memories are the many times I would look up to stare at the light. Years and years and years later I still can feel inside of me the exact feelings I felt as I watched it. I cannot recall my exact thoughts, but I do know that I associated the light tower with God without even knowing anything about the concept of God.

I was not worshipping the light tower. The light tower can be in many ways symbollic of God: everlasting, mighty, larger than humans, a source of direction, guiding light, there are a bunch of crosses found within the structure of the tower--to name a few. The light tower is still there, but as both the trees and I have grown, it's been concealed from my view both by leaves and life. And because I'm not a low-flying airplane.

It is both mysterious and striking to me (and it would probably be to anyone who reads this) that I felt God's presence and power at one or two years of age and remember the feeling, which is the same way I feel about God's presence to this day--even when I have questions.

The second infantile memory I have which chronologically is my first memory ever was hearing churchbells while I lay in my crib. I would have had to have been less than four months old because then we moved. It is said that infants cannot have memories, but I had long ago questioned my mother about the details I remember about the room and the arrangement, and everything I remember was correct. At the time we did live across the street from a Catholic church.

My experiences and infantile memories of them are peaceful and powerful testaments of the existence of God. These are the only two early memories I have and both are linked to God. This is all pretty deep in a way only faith can answer.

Thoughts About Faith and God

2009-08-30T20:52:00.001-05:00

A lot of new books have bright, attractive, and aesthetically pleasing covers. This is one reason Godology by Christian Lander jumped out at me among the many other shiny new books at the library. Of course, there was a second, more important reason why I decided to check out the book and read it: I have questions about faith. My questions about believing in God sometimes enter my thoughts in very nebulous, surface ways. I never exactly am looking for hard evidence or a reason to believe; I am probably searching for spiritual guidance and looking to feel strong beliefs in a human need-based way. I consider myself a believer, but I often feel that my beliefs are not acceptably strong enough--"acceptably strong enough" to whom, I am not sure, but to Him, I suppose. The fact that I often find myself questioning bothered me a bit. Christian Lander's words about faith in his book Godology did not necessarily bring me to any groundbreaking conclusions, but I was reassured that my questions are normal and can mostly only be answered by accepting faith in Him alone. So maybe I'm ok where I am. Christian Lander has the benefit of being under thirty years old, so his formal education in Christian theology and his words on faith are useful to young Christians with questions who are in the same age group--as I fit all these categories.

I took note of some meaningful passages from Godology which would benefit any Christian or unsure believer of any age or denomination, and I would like to share them without providing explanations for why I chose them. I believe they speak for themselves.

"Like water, God is fluid, steam, and icicle--one substance, but three textures. These pictures can be powerful, but eventually they melt down and cannot illustrate the infinite essence of God" (19).

"Among many Christians today, there is a reaction against the past. We feel that we must 'recast' Christianity because it's gone out of style. It's become popular to abandon our Christian roots, our historic practices, and start more or less from scratch. ...But let's reject our condition, not our tradition. The Bible instructs us to honor our fathers and mothers (Exodus 20:12). By completely ignoring the faith passed down to us, we disrespect those who sacrificed their lives so we can know God in a real and relevant way. We don't need to recast our faith; we need to recover it. Paul raises a good question: 'What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?' (1 Corinthians 4:7). God has accomplished great things throughout history. Simply leapfrogging back to the time of Jesus ignores what Jesus has been doing in the last two thousand years. ...Our churches are dying, but we're not dead yet. We're in cardiac arrest. George Whitefield, the great revivalist who came to America, said, 'The Christian world is in a deep sleep. Only a loud voice can awaken them out of it.' Only Christ can receive us. Revival always begins in the heart. Only then does it travel to the home, church, nation, continent, and world" (24-25).

Lander brings up J.B. Phillips, author of Your God Is Too Small, who wrote, "The trouble with many people today is that they have not found a God big enough for modern needs."

"On the menu of salvation, God's love isn't a la carte. You can't order it alone. It comes with a myriad of side dishes. It comes with soul-deep joy and attitude adjustments. When God loves us, He will keep loving us until His love has perfected us. That's just the way He rolls. God never loves a people without making them whole and holy" (80).

"God creates us, but He also recreates us. Every seven years the human body regenerates itself. Human cells are constantly being recycled. We get new skeletons, kidneys, ankles, and ears. ... In other words, the bodies we wear today are not the bodies we put on seven years ago. Even more spectacular is the fact that our atoms are not our own. According to science author Bill Bryson, atoms are extremely durable: 'When we die our atoms will disassemble and move off to find new uses elsewhere--as part of a leaf or other human being.' ... Even on a molecular level, Solomon was right: 'There is nothing new under the sun' (Ecclesiastes 1:9)" (41-42).

"According to astrophysicists, 1 percent of the universe is composed of stars, and up to 99 percent is dark matter-- a measurable form of matter that does not reflect electromagnetic radiation. In other words, most everything that exists is invisible. .... Everything we know is made of atomic particles--this book, your hand, even the light that allows you to read these words. Inside the atoms are nuclei composed of protons and neutrons. Proton and neutrons are made up of tiny particles called quarks. Quarks are held together by gluons that we can't see, but know must exist. But what are gluons? It's at this point that scientists scratch their heads.
Yet Christians might have a clue. According to the apostle Paul, 'He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him (not capitalized in book, but should be). He is before all things, and in him all things hold together' (Colossians 1:15-17). Isn't God the glue that holds His creation together? Can't the Creator also be the Sustainer? God asked Jeremiah, 'Am I not present everywhere, whether seen or unseen?' (Jeremiah 23:24)" (47-48).

"What would happen if Christians of different denominations and traditions gathered monthly to celebrate a meal in which God was the sole subject of the conversation? Not the news, or the MVP of the game, or the creaminess of the mashed potatoes, but Christ--the ultimate conversation starter. Would this transform our communities? Would it spark revival in our cities" (85)?

"By getting in sync with God's work in our lives, our eyes are opened to those around us. A sign outside a cathedral in Philadelphia reads, 'How can you worship a homeless Man on Sunday morning and ignore one on Monday?' While the 'social gospel' often becomes all social and no gospel, everyone of us is responsible to Christ for those around us. God forgive us for being catatonic Christians standing still in a world of falling people" (57). (Lander goes on to mention that youth are really improving slum areas and the lives of their peoples by feeding, clothing, and caring for the less fortunate--reminiscent of the spirit of the early Franciscan and Celtic orders.)

"Humans operate in four dimensions--height, width, depth, and time. Like a force field, these restrictions wall us in. They shackle us to this world, and even our fastest engines and state-of-the-art technologies can't free us. But nothing handcuffs God. He is bound by nothing. God surrounds Himself with infinite dimensions and robes Himself in endless realities. Having said this, I type the following pages with trembling fingers, knowing that God is too hot to handle.
They say that in the fifth dimension you can flip a basketball inside out without puncturing it. Imagine what life is like in ten, fifteen, or fifty dimensions. Humans are shrouded from understanding the mind-boggling mysteries of God because we don't exist as He exists. Nothing in our world can be one and three at the same time. Nothing can be everywhere and in one place at once, either. But in God's reality, in God's dimension, these things do not contradict one another. They work in unison, in partnership, like the wheels and pedals of a bicycle. .....Some have tried to mimic Him--to play God with science, power, and technology. But at the end of the day, God stands uniquely alone. No brain can decipher His frequency. No eyes can decode His wavelengths. He is distant and extraordinary, unreachable and perfectly hidden.
But He's also in plain view. The biggest mystery in the world is what a cloaked Deity would uncover Himself for a people anchored by rebellion. God gave us Himself in three ways: His Word, His Son, and His Spirit. We can also view it as His lips, His skin, and His heart. Why would God expose Himself like that? It would be one thing if God came to earth merely to analyze us. To survey or interview us. Or perhaps even to laugh at us" (134-135).

"Holiness is a gradual process. Unlike righteousness, it takes time. The moment we give our lives to God, we are instantly made right with Him. Christ's purity is superimposed over out guiltiness and we're as perfect and flawless as Jesus. But holiness is a different beast altogether. John Owen said that holiness is 'continually to be renewed and gone over again, because of the remainder of sin in us.' Holiness is the morning to morning commitment to become more like Christ. .... Christians are changing all the time. We fight an inward battle, a civil war of the soul, a 'holy violence,' wrote J.C. Ryle. Paul described his struggle: 'What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise' (Romans 7:19, my paraphrase). Yet, in this daily combat, God paces alongside us. He encourages us to keep going, to keep fighting, to keep straining for the finish line. Holiness is our work, but it's also God's work. Like paddling a rowboat, Christianity is a movement of cooperation with Christ. We push; God pulls. This is a strange synergism, but step by step, row by row, we forge our way to holiness. We don't give up because God doesn't give up. Grace is the grueling work of a determined God. But we also 'work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling' (Philippians 2:12). We hold these in happy tension--a beautiful paradox, resolved only in the infinite mind of God. ...Led onward by the encouraging words 'For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight' (Ephesians 1:4), we surrender all that threatens the path to holiness. ...Anything that moors us can be severed. ...Spiritual disciplines are ancient practices that set our spiritual paces. They keep us from laziness and atrophy. But they require patience and stamina. Richard Foster and Emilie Griffin suggest that spiritual disciplines lead to spiritual formation and ''perhaps we could think of spiritual formation as a pattern, a series of concrete actions that will gently move us toward transformation in Christ.' Like waves in the sea, we can either resist the disciplines or ride them. The surf is up" (65-68).

"Being a Christian is not a mindless calling. When God enters a life, He doesn't hollow out the head. Ours is not a fairy-tale faith in a Hansel and Gretel God. Rather, we believe in Him because the evidence is overwhelming--internally and externally. The trail of breadcrumbs is too compelling; the signs, too obvious. Grace doesn't make us gullible; it makes us pliable. It stretches our thoughts and molds our minds. It realigns our attitudes. It readjusts our inclinations. A faith that doesn't think is a faith that doesn't thrive. Yet thinking about God is not just and academic activity for the brain. The author of the book of James wrote, 'Faith by itself, [without] action, is dead' (James 2:17). It involves everything we are--everything we can be. The Puritans used to say, 'We ask great things of a great God.' So we keep on asking. We keep on learning. ...We can question the Bible, but beware; the Bible can question us back. God's Word is samurai sharp, slashing through armor and cutting through pride. It renders us defenseless and vulnerable. But it also helps us fix our thoughts on Jesus (see Hebrews 3:1). Knowing God in all His wisdom is the highest aspiration of the human intellect" (115-116).

What Happens?

2009-08-24T13:44:00.012-05:00

Q: What happens when a 20-something-year-old girl decides to peek inside a box of crayons?

A: Nothing spectacular.

So on the last day of summer before my senior year of college (I don't have Monday classes this semester...yay.), I felt like coloring. There were no crayons on my school supply list--just a few hundred dollar's worth of textbooks.

Now this is something I would consider doing again. I colored on wax paper, folded it, and then ironed it to melt the wax and seal it.

The Train Trundling Along the Track of My Existence

2009-08-24T12:55:00.005-05:00

"It wasn't that I forgot Hanna. But at a certain point the memory of her stopped accompanying me wherever I went. She stayed behind, the way a city stays behind as a train pulls out of the station. It's there, somewhere behind you, and you could go back and make sure of it. But why should you?"
--Page 88 of The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Such a good point and a great, great thing to both be aware of and beware of. I can count the number of such people on a single hand, but it is really truly hard to tell if it is my age that makes one have a greater impact over the other or the train schedule.

"Library Class"

2009-08-23T02:12:00.000-05:00

Days before the fall semester starts, I've been thinking about some of the non-text-related information that had the greatest impact on me during the summer semester. I have strong ideas and opinions about the positive roles public libraries play, and the children's literature class I took gave me a lot of valuable patron views.

A large part of our grade was a project in which we had to visit the children's section of a library and assess almost every component: the collection, staff attitudes, programs, the layout, the decor, etc. The second part of the project was to explain what we would have done differently with the library we visited. A few people in the class of about 25 went to the same libraries, but there were at least 12 presentations on different libraries, so I had a lot of helpful information streaming through my brain.

Anyone could see that the class was bored beyond themselves when the youth services department library presentations ended up taking well over three hours over the course of two classes. Others' assessments and suggestions meant a great deal to me, so it was not so tiring to sit through them all. I have been living out the past year basically taking everything and putting into a library perspective (and this is also part of how the sociology undergrad degree is applied), but it is very important that I take off my library glasses now and then and momentarily borrow pairs from patrons. It is in fact more important to take the patrons' experiences and opinions (obviously the reasonable ones) to heart if I really want to dedicate my career and beliefs to making something of the "Library 2.0" scene.

Even though the assignment focused on the youth services department, the topics covered apply to every department of a public library and thus the library as a unit. Students (many of whom are student teachers and mothers of young children) mostly had good things to say, but the "dislikes" and "negatives" hold the powers for better futures for libraries. I wish every director of these libraries was present to sit through the presentations.

Listening to the library presentations may have been the most valuable moments of the 25 credit hours I did the entire summer. I will borrow these views and ideas, check them out, and hopefully return them.

The number one thing that shocked me the most is that I discovered public libraries are actually more important and used more than I had previously thought. I had many times felt as if I were just trying to get people to admit that libraries are valuable resources and debating their usefulness with a handful of peers. Hearing classmates (with or without children) say they wish they had more time to use the libraries on their own was highly motivational.

Library awareness can mean library usage, right? Libraries are promoted, but they still need to be and it's not a campaign that should be abandoned anytime soon. It is not the libraries' services that are lacking, it is the views of patrons caught up in various obligations--whether it be work, family, consumerism, or dependence on technology such as e-mail, social networking websites, television, or anything else that uses too much of our free time--that has them longing to frequent public libraries yet at the same time lost. The most difficult factor for people in this day is time--not the time it takes to visit the library, but the time it takes to finish a book or multiple books, for pleasure or need, due to the previously mentioned constraints.

The second thing that came up the most is how many people were improperly handed by librarians, circulation, and other staff. For those who went to the same libraries at different times on different days, their overall experiences often were dependent upon the staff member(s) present. Anyone who had issues with staff attitudes about their jobs wanted friendlier service and to see the attitudes of librarians and staff who care. Reluctance is no way to encourage new patrons or inspire the time-to-time ones. This proves a point about the uniqueness of libraries. The aggregate of library service and employee attitudes is distinctly different from the automotive section at Sears or the checkout line at Dominick's. People get a bad clerk at the store, and they get over it quickly, but if they get bad service (mostly attitude-related) at a library, their personal views of the libraries or the particular library are like raw eggs in free fall.

The third thing that came up was that people were looking for more children's programs during the school year and more programs for adults. This usually depends on the size and budget of the library, but passionate and creative librarians should be able to think up and carry out all sorts of interesting programs with ease and often with very little use of a budget. Library users are not always looking for extravagance; they're just looking for something. A public library that encourages renting materials for free certainly can make use of its own free resources and librarian-power to pull off some great programs.

The fourth point that came up often is that a welcoming layout is often more important than the materials because many of the students/patrons recognize the library as a sanctuary and a means to get work done.

In that course when Kindle came up--launching a debate--and "technical terms" were needed, the teacher immediately asked for my input and was legitimately interested in what I had to say. Instead of Angeline, my name was "library girl" to a number of classmates. It was easier for people, and I was their temporary "expert". I am no expert; I am just a heavy believer in public libraries who has had a pre-library school career. With some observation, attentive listening, and a little careful maneuvering, public libraries will thrive and so will communities and individuals.

An Introduction

2009-08-22T22:48:00.009-05:00

Sunday night I did not sleep. I was not bothered; I was not restless. Something inside of me must have been waiting for the rain.

At 6:30 Monday morning, I brought my bike out of the shed and started riding around the neighborhood listening to Thomas Newman soundtrack music. It started to rain, and rather than heading back home, my mind and body had planned for me to ride in the steady rain. The days of the year are few when you are obliged by the specific weather to wear a sweater with shorts. It is much different from a spring day or any given chilly summer night. This week has been the time frame for this.

I remember the last time I rode my bike in the rain. It was a few weeks from the end of my freshman year in high school and I had to give my friend Steve his honors algebra book back because I had left mine in school. In band we were playing Night Dances by Bruce Yurko, and it was playing over and over in my head as I pedaled and coasted along. It started to rain and I was concerned with not getting the textbook wet, but once Steve safely had it, I was at ease and kept riding in the rain instead of heading home. I was soaked, and I felt what must have been peace. It's still pretty clear in my mind, and the feeling is impressed upon my being. On the news that night, it was reported that a student from my high school had drowned in a quarry swimming with friends. I did not really know the student, but he was in my health class my first semester and he was once in a group with me for an in-class project. I sometimes wonder if the shock of such an event made the memory of riding my bicycle in the rain stick or if it was the peace I felt. Maybe it was both, and I at least hope that he felt peace at his time of passing in the May rain.

Monday morning as I followed my usual route, I felt as if I were in a different place. By day, the rain makes you invisible. It washes away who you are, and you want it. You are relinquished of your outward self, and you are left a soul peddling around believing in something you cannot wrap your thoughts around. You feel something, but you don't know what it is. This feeling, you can only feel it now. I think it's called peace. The tears that fall become a secret between you and the rain. Monday morning I met myself for the first time.

Something Left Behind

2009-08-21T09:39:00.002-05:00

I had saved a Virginia Hamilton Adair poem I liked, and have found it a year and two days later--being today--because I had actually dated it for some reason. Almost two years ago, after I read Ants On the Melon, I posted two of her poems that I enjoyed, but this one had been left behind.

Riding a Koan
My koan waits
unsaddled, unbridled
tied to nothing.

I mount and ride
out of the map
into a tangle of stars.

Currents of grass
move through me,
and the scented rain.

I peer through snow
dust, fire, tornadoes,
into the vulture's eye.

Suns stampede
cantering through me
in my thicket of bones.

My koan whisks away
flies and words
finally, itself.

The earth opens
like a beak
through which I sing.

Alone on the prairie now
sod to cut
a well to dig.

This is interesting because a koan isn't a horse, but it sounds like a kind of horse. A koan is: "n. A puzzling, often paradoxical statement or story, used in Zen Buddhism as an aid to meditation and a means of gaining spiritual awakening" according to dictionary.com.

As much as I love reading, I always find it sad that when you read (especially in large numbers of books), so much gets forgotten until if by chance you happen to locate the notes you may have taken. Coming back to the selected poem, the words are familiar only in a faint way--like an unsteady childhood memory of a family member whom you've only seen a once or twice before your teenage years. Virginia Hamilton Adair's words closed up between the pages her books somewhere on bookshelves in dusty basements and library shelves today have a voice.

Plain Face

2009-08-20T19:30:00.007-05:00

I, the thin, manic evil clown
that tripped across the stage back then
making a show of falling down
am now going to wash my face.

And you will see quite exactly
the same face of the very girl
who with her very eyes in fact
took you rather seriously.

And you will see quite exactly
someone who had faith in you and
accepted your antics back then
as others were watching the show.

And you will see quite exactly:
beautiful rocks, always tumbling,
beautiful, hypnotic patterns
you'll mistake for clowning around.

While you paint a face of hatred
on your face in the cruelest shades
you'll wear to interpret back then,
I'll wash mine in sincerity.

Exceptionalities

2009-07-24T22:16:00.006-05:00

Something interesting I realized is how society has been substiuting "exceptionalities" for "disabilities". I like that and it was something that had gone unnoticed until last week. I had heard "handicapable" before and agree with that term. While I do not know many handicapped people personally, I have had interaction with them in the community and believe many of them have a place in society beyond their work tasks. Whether they have mental or physical exceptionalities, these members of society participate in their careers--and daily life--with heart. Putting ones soul into something is especially important now if we want to remodel the current world and make positive changes that will benefit everyone. This idea will be tied into something I will get into a bit later about comments I hear from "outsiders" about the library field.

Too many people are putting their physical hearts into their careers and daily life, literally. The stresses of the economy and complex 21st century life wear on the heart. This is not the sort of heart that is going to help our institutions thrive.

It's important to have people out in any field that have passion--especially when times are rough like these. Those who have passion will pick up the pieces of the fallen world and join them with the others, placing them in a strong bond with the fragile pieces that we can never let fall. Find something you truly believe in and be passionate about it. It is the sort of thing that will change the world. People with exceptionalities change the world for the better--even if their numbers are fewer--just because they care about and take pride in everything they do. Everyone is capable of being passionate about their careers and/or just the things they do to live their own lives and influence the lives of others.

Soon

2009-07-08T00:17:00.011-05:00

I often find myself examining the shells of your bullets in my hand--
My bullets--the ones deep inside of me,
But when I hold them before you,
They'll mean nothing--
Because this is your game and the life you live
And what you put me through.
I'm just going to store them among the things I have held onto,
In the far corner of a drawer filling up with the products
Of time's progression since,
Until I'll hold them in my fist and forcefully throw them into the distance
To separte myself from it all even further,
Where it will not be visible anymore,
Losing all proof of representing a valid memory
Despite what's lodged inside. Soon.

What is a Pseudoflower?

2009-05-22T11:47:00.000-05:00

Information on pseudoflowers is limited, and it seems as if William Burger coined the term through his studies, but the concept of pseudoflowers is very real. In some ways, I am struggling to fully grasp the concept for flowers get to be quite complex and a lot of overlooked flowering plants contain pseudoflowers. It had become somewhat important to me to understand pseudoflowers in order to shore up my knowledge of flower classification and my understanding of the complexity of many flowers.

The easiest examples I grasp belong to the asteraceae family, which includes asters, daisies, sunflowers, marigolds, and dandelions.

The sunflower is actually hundreds of mini flowers! The petals are actually ray flowers and the center is actually a capitulum of disk flowers, each having five petals with five stamens surrounding a pistil and stigmas. Each disk flower produces one seed, and there are 2,362 in one head. The multi-floral composition of the sunflower exemplifies why the asteraceae family is also known as composites.

The head of the dandelion is one large capitulum, and this composite flower’s seeds each have a little flower on them. The dandelion is composed of about 200 ray florets only.

The head of another composite, the black-eyed Susan, has a center is made up of tubular disc florets with slender blade-like ray florets closely around the outside of the center, which become the petals of the pseudoflower.

Members of the asteraceae family may have only disk flowers or ray flowers (the dandelion), or they have both (the sunflower, the black-eyed Susan, and the Alpine aster). Interestingly, the disk of a composite flower whose seeds have all been dispersed looks like a little plotted garden from the pits from where the florets had previously been.

Of the flowering dogwood we think that there are petals, but what we see are actually bracts and what we consider the center of the “flower” is the actual flower, making the dogwood flowers pseudoflowers. This is a different kind of pseudoflower than the composites mentioned above, and there are many other pseudoflowers in the natural world.

Pseudoflowers basically look like true flowers, but by classification of their parts, the flower is found to not be a true flower.

I’m glad to have wrapped this up, and this is about as far as I wanted to dig into what perplexed or interested me from my flower research for now. It bothers me that there has not been any variety on my blog in a long time. I have been so busy with work and school that I have kept my precious spare self-educational time focused on the flower…field. I’ll be slightly more than half-way through school this summer on my way to the MLS, so by next summer when I’m starting the short MLS program, I will be able to read more—like a real librarian. I am looking forward to this more than I am even aware of right now as I have been reading textbooks for most of the past year.

Floral Code

2009-05-17T13:43:00.000-05:00

Victorians had an intricate floral code that is definitely a cool piece of history to peruse. The language of flowers, floriography, allowed people to express feelings through flowers instead of words. A very good read on this is The Language of Flowers by Sheila Pickles. It gives a fascinating short account of bits of the floral code, and Wikipedia has a great page that goes into detail and serves as a good reference.

Now we enjoy flowers explicitly for their beauty. We take for granted their medicinal powers or their poetic history. We select flowers for our crowded suburban yards by personal preference of look and scent. It’s important to acknowledge the hidden meanings of flowers to see how they functioned in society through myth, histories, sayings, and childhood games.

As for giving and receiving flowers in Victorian times, if the ribbon on a bouquet of flowers was tied to the left, the meaning went to the giver and if it was tied to the right, the recipient. But I have trouble figuring out from whose view determines this.

During the Victorian era, how and where a flower was worn had specific meanings. Today people pin personal favorites wherever they please, most likely not being cognicent of what it means--or at least what it meant. A flower worn in the hair meant caution. I have pinned dandelions in my hair just for fun, so if I have a dandelion in my hair, do not fear me.

Floral Crown

2009-05-16T11:16:00.000-05:00

Crown Imperial got its name because the flower is like a king looking down upon his subjects…or a queen looking down upon her subjects. The flowering plant is also known as the Persian Lily because in the 16th century it was brought to Europe from Persia. A single bulb costs over $10(!), but they are very unique blooms.

I want to wear it as a crown and run around pretending I'm a fairy. If I lived about 25 miles south of here where the population thins and the open land appears endless, then there is no doubt that I would submit to this impulse. But how could I kill such a flower for a moment of making a semi-irrational fantasy come to life?

Bellis perennis

2009-05-15T10:14:00.004-05:00

...or the common daisy of Europe and North America.

The daisy will close up its petals at night and open them again in the daylight. Hence, Chaucer called it "eye of the day"--a pretty interesting bit of etymology. The Canterbury Tales (which I hope to read this summer as it has been waiting on my bookshelf since December 2007) was written throughout the 1380s, and I do not know whether or not it was Chaucer's description of the flower that officially gave the daisy its name. With the frequency of the daisy in England and the popularity of The Canterbury Tales, I'm thinking that it was in fact Chaucer's description that resulted in Bellis perennis earning the name of daisy, but I cannot find what the flower was called prior to the 14th century. Perhaps it was always called daisy, and Chaucer was just descriptively playing with words.

Wild daisies grown in pinks as well!

Petals Drifting Around in My Head

2009-05-14T16:41:00.007-05:00

Some more underapprecaited facts I learned from my obsession with reading about flowers:

“Anthemon” is Greek for flower and “chrysos” for gold, which refers to the golden yellow color of the chrysanthemum.

Columbine reminded people of a flock of doves, and the flower got its name from "columba” which is Latin for dove.

Though tulips have become an iconic symbol of the Netherlands, tulips are actually from Persia. The bulbs were brought to Europe in the 16th century, and Holland planted them in such great numbers that it upset the economy due to the costs from the constant cultivating, buying, and selling of tulips. The name tulip comes from the Persian word “tulipant” meaning turban, which describes the shape of the flower.

The Poppy

2009-05-12T17:22:00.003-05:00

Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare,
And left the flushed print in a poppy there:
Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came,
And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame.

With burnt mouth, red like a lion's, it drank
The blood of the sun as he slaughtered sank,
And dipped its cup in the purpurate shine
When the Eastern conduits ran with wine.

Till it grew lethargied with fierce bliss,
And hot as a swinked gipsy is,
And drowsed in sleepy savageries,
With mouth wide a-pout for a sultry kiss.

A child and man paced side by side,
Treading the skirts of eventide;
But between the clasp of his hand and hers
Lay, felt not, twenty withered years.

--from The Poppy by Francis Thompson

Helpful Things About the Structure of Flowers, Etc.

2009-04-30T07:08:00.006-05:00

For the past eight months or so, I have been absorbing all sorts of information about plant life. The book Flowers: How They Changed the World by William Burger taught me quite a bit about flowers. I scanned the document of things I made note of. Clicking on the image will bring it to actual size, where it is readable.

Interesting Facts About Sunflowers

2009-04-28T16:19:00.009-05:00

I wanted to note some of the interesting facts I had used in my speech about sunflowers I gave in September.

When you think about World War II, you probably do not see images of tanks and raging battles amidst large fields of sunflowers. You probably did not know that Russia’s sunflower fields caused Hitler to launch these massive attacks. Hitler wanted to seize Soviet sunflowers so that the oil could be used the feed the Germans. There is even more to the sunflower besides a large role in World War II and being the state flower of Kansas. The sunflower, in fact, has been a very important plant since 3000 B.C., and is an overlooked component of society.

Our heliotropic flowering friend, Helianthus annuus, the sunflower, is quite an intriguing plant. It's a shame that we pass them along a highway or overlook them in their bunches at farmer's markets.

The seed of today's sunflowers are 1,000 times larger than those of their ancestors due to genetic manipulations when Native Americans continually selected the largest seeds. In each head, there are 2,362 seeds, which are actually considered to be blue in color. The number of seeds will remain the same whether the blossom spans 4 inches or over a foot across. They have strong stalks ranging from the width of a pen to the width of a toothbrush and can be either one foot tall or 15 feet tall, 25 feet tall being the record height.

Native Americans such as the Cherokee, Dakotas, and Zuni depended on the sunflower for food and ceremonial and medicinal uses. During Peruvian religious festivals sunflowers were in abundance in the arms of young women. The image of the sunflower represented the powerful Sun God, and was even carved in pure gold throughout Inca temples.

There is a famous story of a 12th century troubadour named Geoffrey de Rudel who was madly in love with the Countess of Tripoli, though he never even met her. While searching for her he bore sunflowers. As the sunflower always faces the sun, Rudel turned toward his love. He never saw her for he died on his journey.

The sunflower also symbolized power over groups of people. Kings of Britain used the sunflower to symbolize the people’s dependence on him. Catholicism adopted the sunflower as an emblem of devotion to God and the Catholic church.

Unfortunately, nearly all the knowledge of the sunflower’s power was lost after the Spanish conquistadors emptied the Americas of its indigenous peoples. North America did not regain the sunflower until 1893 when Russian immigrants used the sunflower for oil. Still, there are many known uses of the sunflower that date back to 3000 B.C.

The sunflower is most popularly used for human and animal consumption. The large content of vitamin E, selenium, and copper helps cells ward off damage that causes heart disease and cancer. Birds and small mammals are consumers of sunflower seeds and leaves, which are used to feed geese and livestock. Sunflowers have more power then being just a healthy snack. The medicinal uses for the sunflower are rather impressive. Sunflowers protect against radiation due to the pectin in the sunflower’s seeds. Sunflower seeds can also help maintain good eye health. Sunflower oils can even lower high cholesterol. Sunflowers have been and currently are used as folk remedies for asthma, coughs, colds, and malaria. If the juice of crushed sunflower stems is applied to cuts and wounds and then are bandaged, the injuries will heal quickly and not become infected.

Though food and medicinal uses of the sunflower are most popular, the sunflower has other amazing abilities. There are other clever uses for the sunflower in society. Sunflower stalks are used for fuel. The oil of the sunflower seeds is used in margarine, artist paints, soap, and cosmetics. A vivid yellow dye is produced from sunflower petals, and parts of wild sunflowers are used to achieve black and purple dyes. The fibers in its hulls are used in the manufacture of Chinese fabrics. The stalk’s pith is used in paper making, mounting materials to microscope slides, and in life preservers because it’s even lighter than cork.

In order to maintain our current way of life, what the future holds for us is partially dependent upon sunflowers. A female British scientist has a hydrogen fuel plan underway. By her methods, sunflower oil, air, water, and two catalysts are used to extract hydrogen. Thousands of cars could be filled up with hydrogen fuel from a single generator. This also would be a clean and renewable hydrogen fuel source. Biodiesel production from sunflower oil is one of the reasons for the steep grain prices. However, biodiesel uses little water in production and there are few sulfur and particulate emissions from it. The petroleum-consuming engines of trucks, military vehicles, buses, and construction and farm machinery will not need to be modified in any way to burn even 100 percent biodiesel and will even achieve equal performance and mileage!

As we are always looking for more cheaper, efficient, and sustainable sources of fuel, we may soon be able to traverse the U.S. with the help of sunflowers fueling our gas tanks, cooking our on-the-road snacks, and even being part of the medium for writing our directions.

Another Angeline x 1.5

2009-04-24T12:30:00.002-05:00

Today at the grocery store, I met someone with my name. Well, my first name, which is uncommon--especially with the same pronunciation. She was an older woman and her tag read "Angie", and I told her it was my name too, but that it's short for Angeline. Hers too--same pronunciation. (The "line" is like a straight line or the ending in the name Madeline, NOT leen.)

A girl in one of my classes also has the same first name, and the first time the professor returned papers I raised my hand and had another Angeline's paper. (I guess she wasn't there that day.) She is always in my lab group, and I asked her if she pronounces it the way I do, but she doesn't. She sort of doesn't count.

An Angie (I think her formal name is Angela) sits right next to me in band. Angies are not too common. It feels sort of weird when the band director is addressing her, since I'm not used to it.

Google Rainbow: Flowers

2009-04-23T17:09:00.008-05:00

Poppy

Wallflower
Mum

Green Goddess
Hydrangea
Phlox

Cabbage Rose

The genius idea of Google Rainbows came from this blog.

Wendy's Haiku

2009-04-21T17:46:00.002-05:00

Cheeseburger, french fries

I just ate fast food slowly

I'd do it again

Seven Things I Really Want to Do This Summer

2009-04-20T14:17:00.004-05:00

Lincoln Park Zoo

Printers Row Book Fair, June 6-7

A downtown Chicago beach

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Antique flea market

Indiana dunes

Aurora borealis

Edit: #8 Garfield Park Conservatory

National Library Week

2009-04-14T12:59:00.000-05:00

This week (April 12-18) is National Library Week. For those of you who do not know, my goal is to get my Master of Library Science degree, and libraries are what I really believe in. For their proposes of assisting everyone with their needs—extending far beyond finding a book on the shelf— and all the materials and programs they offer, libraries are really awesome places.

To me this week is a bit more than a chance to reflect upon my career path and the glory of libraries. As a believer in libraries, National Library Week is an opportunity to spread the word. My message to you is simple: Find time this week to go to a library and enjoy the experience.

People often think that the dynamism of the Internet has made libraries insufficient, but that is completely wrong. The Internet has actually helped libraries in numerous ways, but it will never replace the books on the shelves and the librarians who lead you to your answers. The advances in technology make swift entrances into both public and academic libraries, and going to the library will never become antiquated. Right now libraries are more important than ever, and the number of resources they offer is expanding.

The best thing about libraries is that you all have access to them. Go to the library and, most importantly, keep coming back. You an integral part of libraries because they exist to aid you and supply you with your library needs.

Take advantage of what the library has to offer. Rent a DVD for free, take a study break and flip through a magazine, attend a program, ask a librarian for help with finding materials, start reading a book instead of taking all these addicting Facebook quizzes—the list is expansive. Libraries are much more than a warehouse of books. Visit a library! You've got nothing to lose.

Happy National Library Week!

Brilliant

2009-03-02T09:59:00.002-06:00

The Google homepage in America for March 2, 2009, makes me want to go to the library and check out all the Dr. Seuss books they have and spend the day reading them. Canada, the UK, and Australia also have this on their Google homepage today.

Peeking Into Modern Art

2009-02-27T10:53:00.005-06:00

The art realm--as in painting and drawing--is not somewhere I usually explore, but now and then I come across images that strike me. I am in awe of such talents, like the painter Angelina Gualdoni. I accidentally stumbled across her art somehow, favorited the site, and revisited it the other day. Angelina Gualdoni is a native San Franciscan in her early 30s and holds a Masters of Fine Arts degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She's had an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Hmm, I did not know we had that. Field trip?

Her works are based on the ruin and abandonment found among the physical establishments of modern life. Weeds and dilapidated buildings are common.

These are my two favorites:

Praca dos Tres Poderes (Morning)
2005, Acrylic and oil on canvas, 122 x 183

The Veil and its Touch
2008, Oil and acrylic

Her work reminds me of watercolor paintings. Such ability to mimic the effects with a different medium! When I look at art, I tend to overlook the background of the piece. It's actually quite important--and perhaps due to the artist--to at least recognize the source of inspiration. Not all art is random art, and it also is not necessary to scrutinize the sources of any art to enjoy it.

Here is some more information about Angelina Gualdoni:
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/angelina_gualdoni.htm
http://kavigupta.com/artist/angelinagualdoni

Intriguing modern artists, including Angelina, featured in the Volta Show in New York:
http://ny.voltashow.com/5158.html

The Invisible Wall

2009-02-24T18:12:00.003-06:00

My thoughts now are constantly edged with sadness and deep emotional pain, but what's strange is that they are of the past. I'm not sure what to make of this because for years, I never thought back much to my freshman year of high school after it was over with. These fuzzy memories occupy a lot of space, and the rest of the space is dedicated to the hurt I experienced from what Brandon did to me--things I may never overcome. The lack of reponsibility, sorrow, or regret he has for his actions kills me. In my mind I keep repeating the same very hurtful things he said to me, and I wish the words would stop coming back to me.

My mind is sending me back to anything before Brandon. I will remember everything between us and everything that has happened during the time we were together, but my mind refuses to let me think about anything at all from the past four years and even the present for any solid amount of time. It's pretty strange to go back and get stuck in that time. There was nothing special about it, but Brandon was not on the scene yet. I think about band music that was stuck in my head from my freshman year, little random things that happened in school my freshman year, and any other thoughts reflect on my emotional pain and random tasks.

I sort of don't know what to do with my mind. Or myself. Or my memories of him.

This is Why I have Little Respect for Meteorology

2009-02-09T14:23:00.004-06:00

Image #1 1:46 pm

Image #2 2:21 pm

This is what I often keep track of during a slow day in the library. Now, I hope you're not a meteorologist saying, "Well, I have little respect for librarians." It's just frustrating that great variations occur within less than an hour. If you've got the brain power to deal with all the technology and math, then you're ahead of me, but it often seems as if there is a lot of fuzzy math happening if there are great changes in the predictions throughout the day. It's that, or we need a new crystal ball over here. Surely, though, I will take these temperatures after the extremely cold past couple months we've had, and I really do love thunderstorms.

Blossoming!

2009-02-04T13:41:00.007-06:00

This morning I made a "Blossoming Brooch" pin from the February 2009 issue of Martha Stewart Living. I'm sort of proud for having quickly completed a February goal. Yay for no school before work on Mondays and Wednesdays!

I did not have the normal pinbacks, but I had safety pins. Using a thin strip of felt and hot glue, I secured the safety pin to the brooch. The fabric I used (I did not use lace trim as the project uses) is from an old pillow case a friend gave me. The fabric was slightly longer than the yard stick I used, and I kept those extra inches on. I actually just lined the yard stick up with the edge and traced along the other side to create a strip of fabric that was about 1.5 inches wide.

Also, my flowers are growing! The tulips were actually bought at Jewel (only $5!)

My amaryllis apple blossom (Hippeastrum) is growing! I started to force this bulb during the last couple days of December. Just the past week or so, it has grown a lot. For the longest time it was barely above the soil. It's very tall now! Sunday the blossom started to appear, and it continues to emerge slowly each day. If I were to rotate the pot 180 degrees, the plant would be just about straight by the time I get home tonight. My flower is heliotropic.

February Fun

2009-02-03T12:36:00.010-06:00

Each month, Martha Stewart Living magazine has given me a bounty of inspiration and ideas I want to use. (As if I needed anymore things I wanted to get done!) As right now is a large recovery period for me, as part of the process I think it would be great to accomplish all my favorite ideas from the February 2009 issue. Although I work full time and go to school full time, being singular has given me just that bit of extra time to "accomplish" my creative goals.

For February 2009, here's what I'm looking at:

"Blossoming Brooch" on page 42: Instead of using lace trim, I'm going to turn scrap fabric into ribbons and use it instead and see how it comes out.

"Branching Out" trivet on page 44: This would be good to use in my office, at home, and I could take it with to school. I can modify the size and make coasters as well. Plus, the materials are basically free.

"Greek Stuffed Peppers" on page 86: It contains roasted peppers and cheese. I'm sold.

"Brownie hearts on chocolate brownies with basic buttercream" on page 94: Hearts + brownies + buttercream frosting (my favorite, by the way)= yum.

The vase of green leaved branches on page 106: What a genius, yet simple idea! I'm sure I have a plain large glass vase somewhere--otherwise it can be bought for $2 at Salvation Army. I'd still be waiting on the green leaved branches. Might not be until mid-April. The one problem with letting this bit of nature in my room is that my cats would love to tip the vase and gnaw on the leaves and give th furniture water damage in the process. It might at least last a couple hours.

The cupcakes on the cover!!!: I don't like purple (except my midnight purple Ford Contour), but there are some pinks, yellows, and oranges in this arrangement of cupcakes into the shape of a heart on the cover. Plus, it's buttercream frosting, but I think I'd use the yellow cake recipe (in the issue too). I'm sure I can get the colors at Michael's or a party store.

Three other things I would like to do this month are: start forcing bulbs, make a risotto (I made a really good one last year), and make a quiche (I make the best).

It seems as if I will be doing a lot of cooking. I'm not all that crazy about cooking, but I like trying new things and I easily fall in love with all things domestic. Maybe I will save some money and help the environment because I won't have to keep buying frozen things to take to work.

...Don't worry. I'll post pictures.

Trying to Move With a Paralyzed Heart

2009-01-29T15:41:00.006-06:00

The past month has been the hardest in my life, and I have to keep looking at the calendar to even believe that it has only been one month. Time has slowed down and the pain I have endured in the past month seems to have happened months ago and is still dragging me along. It was not only the pain of that one day, the following days, and the following weeks, but also the extreme mistreatment I endured for many, many months that has caught up with me. To add to the cruel end of my relationship, all the small things came out of hiding to deteriorate as well.

What was done to me was the last thing I deserved.

Anytime I see him, I feel broken over and over again because all I see is him kissing a girl just over 16-years-old and making a victim out of her immediately--within 3 days. He believes he did nothing wrong and somehow everything was my fault.

He tried to justify what he did because he believed it when I said, "There's someone else," in order to escape his house after he beat me on his front lawn in front of the only real friend he had. It's funny how those words seem to have been the only ones to ever have an effect on him. That was lucky for him because it appeared to be an easy way out and a way for him to effortlessly uncover what he had in the making--what he had hid from me. So did it not matter to him when I said, “I love you”? Did those words and the hundreds of times I said them have such little power that with that one untrue and vague sentence I said about there being someone else mean everything and cause him to do such a thing? No; it’s not possible. He manipulated me and lied to me. He played a game with me and ruined me. He used me for my love and did not love in return. What he did was not a show of love, and no one who claims to have loved someone would do such a thing within days.

What was done to me was the last thing I deserved.

I don't think that I could ever in my life forgive him from what he did to me. He never said he was sorry, and I know he isn't. I was used by him; I was used up and then tossed to the side. What he did is one of the worst things anyone can do to anyone in the world.

I need to escape my past and escape everything that was taken from me. The best hopes I have are what could be ahead. I've got all my eggs in one basket with one plan, but those eggs are being incubated not only by me but also dozens of my supporters.

It's hard to look the person I loved more than anyone in the world in the face and believe what happened. It's hard to grasp that I went through what I did and that I went through the cycle over and over again with a genuinely sick person who isn't quite lined up inside his head.

I kept too much focus on the right things that were done and the “I love you”, and in the end it was all just a stream of meaningless actions and words that had great power over me.

I'm not perfect--never was, never will be. There are things I can't bring out on here that had happened that never should have--terrible things of abuse, dominance, and control. Everything was taken from me, and if anything wasn't, he was actively trying to take the rest from me. I saw, read, and heard all the horror stories that made their way out to the sea of people, and I made excuse after excuse. Because my experiences didn’t completely match the others’, or end or nearly-end fatally, I had hope in that the cycle would not continue for a fourth or fifth time. The truth is that I would have ended up with a slit throat or broken bones, and although I would have been genuinely angry and upset, I would have found a way to justify his actions.

It's really hard when people tell me that I'm smart, nice, funny, creative, pretty, or that I will make a difference--anything positive about me. I feel like garbage typing those things because it makes me sick to even want to believe any of those things about myself. He always made it seem like I didn't matter and that all my ideas and beliefs were stupid--from my career choice to my clothing. He acted towards me as if I were so completely flawed that I needed a new soul.

Again, I wasn't perfect, but I loved him for who he was, and I was kind to him. At times I lost my temper--because I'm human and there was much more tension than there should be. This tension was 90% of the time related to his anger with me over numerous things that didn’t make sense: because I talked to a male friend, because I talked to a girl who dates a guy who had had alcohol before, because I don’t have contacts anymore when they don’t even make them for my prescription, because I wouldn’t marry him by 2009 (a threat proposal…there was no real proposal), because I worked at a library, because I planned on going to see my friends while he was at work, because I text messaged my friend on her birthday, because I had homework to do, because I...because I…because I.

Every time he said, "I love you," I believed it with all my heart. Even as I got up from the ground or had to cancel plans last minute with friends, I believed his words and had faith in them.

I'm still trying to recover, but it's going to take a long time. This is who he is and it's who he will always be. He will destroy anyone he is ever with, and he will not even know it because he suffers in the worst kind of way. I was the only one who was there for him no matter what, and I tried as hard as I could to love and accept him and be there for him despite the emotional (and sometimes physical) abuse I endured. I still struggle to understand how someone could undermine the one person who cares about them more than anyone else in the world. Nothing was ever good enough for him. I was always in the line of a barrage of obscene quests mandating that I change nearly everything. He always implied that I was imperfect at the core; everything about me was no good from my hobbies to my friends to my career goals. I had never told him that his hobbies, beliefs, ideas, or goals needed to be changed. I did not agree with everything, understandably, but I never threatened him to change. Never. Every time he knocked me down, I still loved him.

Some people might say that I'm really one in a million. Through some way, I happened to end up with someone who is one in a million--the controlling, abusive, manipulative liar who isn’t the normal guy and isn’t man at all. His name is Brandon, and he meant the world to me.

I never stopped loving him for one second of one day, and he violated my love and trust and proved that is he a liar. He not only lied to me, but he also lied to himself, and to another girl.

I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get over these lies that destroyed a large portion of me. I'm waiting for the days to pass and that weight to be lifted off my chest. It's a heavy weight that has become a part of me and has been pushing down on me for too long. There are only two things that can happen: it can make me weaker and weaker or I can gain strength and push it off.

I feel so alone and trapped here being in such close proximity to him. There is little that takes it off my mind. I’m pathetic for listening to him when he wants to talk and for trying to be nice. I will not forgive. I cannot. I will only love, but from now on that love has to be from a real person. Love me for me as I love you for you. I love easily, laugh easily, and strive to please, and I cannot ever again let someone take advantage of these features. I don’t think men are terrible or evil from my experience; in fact, I am a huge fan of men. I have never met someone else like him, and in this case, that’s a great fortune in which all the world can share the wealth.

The purpose of me writing this was not supposed to be a lengthy attack on him. This is what happened, and this is how I feel. Part of recovering is letting go of everything—including the words inside your head—in any way possible. If this takes away .002% of the pain, so be it. If these thoughts wind themselves through my soul and need to be released again, then they will be. When I can find the first foothold of this mountain’s valley, I will run to its peak.

It's Art? Okay. Maybe.

2009-01-28T13:59:00.005-06:00

If you tried doing a Google search today, you might have had a hard time trying to figure out where Google is in the picture--or what the picture is. Well, it's art. It's art. Art? It's art?

Today is Jackson Pollock's birthday. I have as much trouble trying to convince myself that a Jasckson Pollock painting is art just as much as I have a hard time trying to call John Cage's pieces music. Especially 4'33" , a three-movement piece that is silent. As for Jackson Pollock, he belongs to the abstract expressionist movement, and John Cage is a 20th century American composer. I try to avoid both those things and like to hang out 250 years in the past.

You can create your very own Jackson Pollock-esque art ("art") here. If you want to start over, right click and hit play and it will erase. Left click to change colors. The only way I have been able to save my precious masterpiece was by using the "Print Screen" key and pasting it into Microsoft Paint and cropping it. I know you all want to see what I did. (I stuck with black.)

Droodles

2009-01-23T14:16:00.006-06:00

I read Mark's blog daily, and sometimes I come across things that are new an interesting to me.

Today I discovered Droodles. I read the title of his post too quickly and had thought it said "doodles." When Droodles are mentioned I thought it was a typo. I saw a Wikipedia link to Droodles at the end of the post and then my curiosity was fired up.

In 1953, Roger Price, who is also the originator of Mad Libs, wrote a book entitled Droodles and they have caught on for a while and even expanded to newspapers and advertising. A Droodle is both a doodle and a riddle. I'm generelly not one to like a riddle, but the riddle trait of a Droodle does not mandate an exact answer. Our interpretations of these simple drawings is traced to pareidolia, which explains that we humans are predisposed to unconsciously try to make sense of the vague visible things near us. Droodle doodles are not necessarily inteneded to be art, but they are based off and become an abstract art form. They're sortof like tricks--but not mean tricks. With Droodles, it's all fun, so it's ok if your interpretation is wrong. The meanings the "Droodlers" give the drawings after their completion is based on the artist's interpretation.

I have a little theory about Droodles and "Droodlers." It's obvious that Droodles are meant to be fun, but I also look at them as a way of poking fun at the "think outside the box" bandwagon and eccentric artists. Droodles are definitely my type of entertainment and humor.

I guess I was born when they lost their popularity. None of the libraries in my interlibrary loan system have Roger Price's book. The only result I got for Droodles was The Droodles Storybook of Proverbs, and I'm going to check the book out to see if it has any relation at all to Roger Price's Droodles.

Check out some Droodles at the Droodles Homepage!

More Droodles background.

Now a droodle of my own:

Scissors cutting a balloon string that comes too close to the ground.

Professional Musicians

2009-01-20T12:22:00.004-06:00

It's been a while since I posted last, but I sure haven't stopped thinking. January has been a bit rough for me.

The library job is fine, but as for the rest of my life, the other major parts are breaking down, those being things such as: my relationship, my car, my heart, my (whatever is going on that is causing me to lose balance and fall), and other small things that are costing me to replace, such as my black shoes, power strip, and the re-cracking part on the wing joint of my bassoon.

After a few rough weeks, I'm still shaking my head, but now it's being accompanied by a smirk. Things have been working on in some way or another, and it's getting a little easier to believe that this is the way things will happen for me.

What I had spent a lot of time thinking about lately is musicians. As I goofed around with my bassoon and crummy reeds, it was extra frustrating to me because I know more than the basics and all the fingerings I need. It hit me hard to realize that there is something more separating me and many others from professionals. That's where all the time and practice really comes in (and not having a lousy bassoon, in my case). We all know the fingerings and how to make sounds, but there really is more to it. For a bassoonist, the reeds are really difficult things to deal with sometimes. I can switch my reed and things will be very different. Professionals can adjust to a different reed (even a bad one) quickly; ordinary players like me can't immediately do it.

At this point with all that's been going on and with how busy I am, I am not sure how I feel. I guess that is one more thing that kind of frustrates me because I wish I had the time and dedication to make huge improvements. It also does not help that it's really, really hard to get decent bassoon reeds, which are expensive, locally. Jones is not sending them out anymore, and for some reason this seems have had a domino effect. My second look at reality is a win for the professional musicians because it proves how dedicated and appreciated they all really are.

Without the hours of practice professional musicians put in, the music world would sometimes get too sharp or too flat or not be able to conquer a reed that won't respond right to certain pitches...just like me.

Text a Librarian

2008-12-21T23:27:00.007-06:00

On my Facebook profile, it's listed that I am into books, work/have worked in libraries, enjoy crafts, and listen to classical music. Some sort of bot then interprets these details and scatters some advertisements at the right side of my page. Fulfilling its purpose, one of the ads caught my eye tonight--not for any alluring reason but rather for the sudden shock of Text a Librarian. Text a Librarian is probably technology gone wrong.

While text messaging is largely at hand for a great number of the Library 2.0 target audience, it seems like a bad progression to try to incorporate text messaging into a library's services.

What a brilliant money-making scheme Text a Librarian seems to be! For $2,399 a year and a one-time $199 setup fee, your library can be equipped to send unlimited text message responses to patrons. (Or $1,199 a year for a monthly ration of 1000 outgoing messages.) What about the incoming messages?

According to the website's examples (which are probable examples), librarians can answer simple questions such as: "What are the library hours for tonight? Thx!"

or more complex questions such as:

"What are 2 great books about the Civil War?"

Not every text message is going to come into the library's inbox making sense. The first question may come as "wen ru open". (I'm putting that period outside because the text will not even include punctuation.) Librarians may wonder if the patron meant today or this weekend. Depending on the library's hours, they could send the week's hours to the patron. However, most phones have a word limit they can accept within incoming messages.

How can a librarian quickly and efficiently answer questions with a limited number of characters?

Going on to the second example question, a good librarian cannot just respond with two random titles pulled from a database or go with his/her opinion. In serving the needs of a patron, a librarian must recognize the age of the patron (is this a 9-year-old or a person in their 30s), the general purpose (is this for pleasure or a report), and the specific purpose (what about the Civil War do you need to know) of the request. In order to find out this information, there would have to be a lot of back and forth between patron and librarian. If a library is paying nearly $3,000 a year for this service, it's actually paying for a disservice.

My point is that texting between librarians and patrons is not a form of service to efficiently answer the bulk of questions besides the library's hours, fees, or location. What library wants to spend a couple grand to tell people when they're open?

If you've got a cell phone in your hand and the library doesn't have Text a Librarian, you sure can just CALL the library like anyone would do with a home phone! There is a PHONE in your HAND, and believe it or not, the library has been paying a phone bill before cell phones even existed. The idea of using a phone for its purpose has been popular with libraries for decades. When it rings, library staff will pick it up! Has technology put functional fixedness to an end or what?

One Month and One Day

2008-12-18T16:12:00.004-06:00

Occupationally I have been a librarian for one month and one day today. Coming from a page position at a large suburban public library and having paid close attention to the aspects of the career, I have nurtured a sprightly enthusiasm for librarianship and a MLIS pursuit. And so, through ability and drive, I've been moving on up--one of the joys of being in my 20s.

What I miss most about public libraries is the people. This is augmented due to the fact that I run the show on my own here. However, this satisfies my need to be independent. (How strange to admit that I strive independently yet am proudly committed to a career where serving the needs of knowledge-seeking people makes me feel good.)

The fact that this is a small academic legal library in an off-campus building for several colleges and universities channels the reference questions into computer questions and such. I have gotten a few reference questions, and I'm hoping that next semester I can help all types of students get information through EBSCOhost, NewsBank, etc.

Of course, I'm busy with inventory, cataloging, removing and replacing old volumes with new ones, and a few other things. Students/staff/whoever are generally bothered when I ask them to sign in (for statistics/funding reasons). I have found that it is better to say, "You're signed in, right?" rather than, "Could you please sign in?"

I am picking up whatever I need, but if you have the personality, desire, and some idea of how libraries operate behind-the-scenes, librarianship is not a rough career for the committed. The biggest reward (for me at least) comes from serving others who can gain intellectual/emotional/what-have-you benefits from the resources within the library.

I hope that when I'm in the master's program that there will be at least some small challenge. I, of course, do not know everything there is to know, but I am off to a very good start.

Delighted and Excited: Charley Harper Discovered

2008-12-16T15:26:00.005-06:00

After not giving Charley Harper enough credit in my last post, it behooved me to expand on the discovered treasure of his work.

I checked out from the library his book of art: Beguiled by the Wild. It's entertainment for the eyes and comedic! What makes Charley Harper stand out aside from his art is his personality showcased throughout. He interviewed himself for two pages!

Beguiled by the Wild, "Charley Harper Interviews Charley Harper"

Does a picture have an ecosystem?
Indeed it does. A successful picture is a visual ecosystem in which all the elements--color, shapes, lines, subject--are interrelated, interdependent, perfectly balanced. Herin, perhaps, lies the lure of painting for both artist and viewer: in a world of chaos, the picture can be one small rectiangel that contains a controlled and ordered universe. And the artist is master of that universe.

Big Rac Attack

The captions are both descriptive and hilarious. He is the master of anthrophomorphism.

Watermelon Moon

Seems like I'm a big fan of the raccoon art! There are giraffes, zebras, dogs,cats, birds, bugs, insects, and more whimsical critters in this fascinatingcoffee table book.

Charley Harper's work seems to be coming back through others. He must have been a great influence on modern art. I see a lot of this Harper-esque stuff today and maybe that's why his works in the Jan/Feb 2008 issue of Audubon caught my attention. The dates surprised me. Charley Harper was born in 1922 and was over 70 years old when Beguiled by the Wild was published with such strong art and wit.

Dolfun

Audubon

2008-12-06T11:45:00.005-06:00

Although I work in an academic legal library, we get various magazines. I picked up and read the only copy of Audubon we have--the January/February 2008 issue. A year later, there surely is still an ongoing battle on the wild side with new highs and new lows, but these issues are still all-encompassing as we are all part of nature, even though human animals like to evade the truth. These are just some things I thought were interesting, and I added how I felt.

The squirrel dances with her tail to scare off rattle snakes from their young, who sense the infrared glow. Co-evolution...

Condors have died from the fragments of old lead game bullets. Believe it or not, the condors are making a return, and there is a push to ban lead bullets. If bullets are banned altogether, we'd all be saved.

A bird has been stealing Doritos from a store on a daily basis for months.

Birds were accidentally exposed to a harsh chemical and an owl had gotten surgery--complete with replacement feathers super glued on until new ones grow in. She even found a mate shortly after the procedure.

Sensibility is trying to be sold to us and we are being told to invest green. Things should be "green" regardless of their potential economic benefit to us. This is part of where the planet has gone wrong with the eventual destructive practices which not enough people are trying to reverse and our fascination with ownership and profit. Making money off sustainability has some backwardness to it.

The chemically grown roses are killing the Ecuadorians. Organic roses are being pushed for in South America and in the United States.

Though coal-fired power plants are not common anymore, plans for a new one threaten Arkansas wildlife.

Charley Harper's bird art regained fame. I'm glad because I had never heard of him before, and his art is strong. I now have the small pull-out poster on the back of my office door.

North Carolina property owners and Texans are easily bothered when endangered species are on their land because they do not want the government encroaching on their land and putting forth regulations to protect the wildlife.

...This just shows that humans are destructive in nature, even if they "can't help it." It's also programed into our normal operations. Among the bad, there is the good, and I did not expect Audubon to be such an interesting magazine.

Prokofiev, Etc.

2008-11-15T23:45:00.003-06:00

Right as I finally got the movement out of my head, I realized that I wanted to document the fact that the first movement of Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1 hits the spot.

After watching Listening for Clues by Wynton Marsalis in my music appreciation class, I had it stuck in my head for a couple weeks. I am not fond of Prokofiev's music, but of this movement I am ultra fond. It appeals more to a Classical/Romantic period ear.

The funniest part of the classroom experience with this movie was watching the occasional completely un-related top-grade computer animation from 1995. That stuff is all but a joke now. Also, a reference was made to the Twin Towers when Marsalis was comparing the development to buildings, and in the development section floors (the symphonic form was being described as trying to recapture the escaped hampster you just bought as the multi-level mall) could be chopped off at any floor. The students in the video are told to think of a familiar building..."like the Twin Towers in Manhattan." 9/11 happened of course after this educational film, and the classroom erupted in "Ohhhhhhhh!!!!" There was another roar of audible shock when one of the un-related graphics showed skyscrapers bobbing about 1/3 underwater. Hurricane Katrina. If anything, that graphic was completely strange. Who would have even thought to create such a thing? I think we need to have a talk with a computer animation specialist who started toying with the weather via pixels back in 1995.

Anyway, I have gained some appreciation for Prokofiev.

It may be disturbing to admit that at 11:45PM on a Saturday night, I'm listening to Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras of Brahms' German Requiem.

The subject of the German Requiem (Robert Schumann's death and Brahms' mother's death) is a bit eerie to me, but I think that this is an especially cool piece because it's in German instead of traditional Latin. The German Requiem is actually supposed to comfort the listener in his or her sorrows over those lost. I also think it's cool because it's sacred music that isn't written as a mass. Typical composers usually wrote occasional sacred music as or for masses.

I discovered Brahms' German Requiem this past spring and listened to it mostly when I rode my bike. I'm a bit saddened when I think of this because it is now cold and the time since bike riding weather has passed so quickly. Last April/May seems like a couple months ago, but it's already been 6 months.

Now that I will be both going to school and working full-time, my biking opportunities won't be around once that day finally comes when it's March and the windows finally open for one evening to let us know better weather will stay with us soon. I will be so desperate by then, and I am already thinking about that mystery day.

Age: The Indefinite Factor

2008-11-14T09:19:00.003-06:00

Last night at the board meeting (where I was approved to be a real librarian!), one of the board members joked to my new boss, "Is she even old enough to work here?" while she shook my hand.

All I could say was that I get it all the time...

About two weeks ago as I was working one of my last nights at my old job, at closing I told a woman that she didn't have to put her book back. She stared at me and was really confused and then asked if I worked there in a surprised tone. When I told her that I did she freaked out and insisted that I was 13. Then when she was walking out past the reference desk she was still on the subject and she insisted to my boss that I was 15 and thought I was her daughter.

But still...I get that all the time...

Even on some occasions, like at garage sales, people think I'm pregnant. Maybe they figure if they have baby stuff and they see a young person by herself, she must be pregnant. That is disgusting. Or a few times for whatever reason, it was implied that I must be married.

13...30...20... What's to make of that?
I have a few more weird stories with people being fooled about my age, but I'm starting to fear when people are joking or thinking I'm 13 and 15. I'm way past that and I hope that people can take me seriously, though I know that many people do listen to young teenagers and often take them seriously as well. However, that's not what I am. I'm still young and going places at the start of my career, and I hope that the speed continues and people's ideas about my age do not slow the process. But again, I am where I am now, and that is a major plus.

In the Middle of the Staircase

2008-11-12T09:38:00.001-06:00

As I'm climbing up the stairs of the library, there is so much to do before I take this next step in five days.

Rejoin

2008-11-03T22:47:00.008-06:00

Almost at the moment when Mr. Gatsby indentified himself a butler hurried toward him with the information that Chicago was calling him on the wire. He excused himself with a small bow that included each of us in turn.
"If you want anything just ask for it, old sport," he urged me. "Excuse me. I will rejoin you later."
--F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Rejoin...I do not think I have ever heard that word used, but it should be used. Somehow it seems to have fallen through the vocabulary black hole that I believe is located somewhere within Montana.

I will now rejoin my cat Sandy in bed.

I Too Would Like to Become a Cloud

2008-11-01T10:06:00.003-05:00

Demons in the Spring is an exciting incorporation of short stories by Joe Meno with just the right touch of graphic artists’ works for illustrations.

"People are Becoming Clouds"
A husband faces difficulty because his wife has a medical condition that causes her to turn into clouds at inconvenient moments. This causes sexual frustration with the man and makes the relationship difficult---but there is no arguing or blame in this story. A valid question comes to his mind: “Would I still love my wife so badly if she wasn’t so impossible to claim? Would I still want her if I could have her whenever I wanted?”

"Miniature Elephants Are Popular"
A widower gives into the fad of keeping a miniature pet and chooses an elephant as a companion. Hypersensitive and prone to depression, the man tries hard to regulate the elephant’s mood by sheltering it from the grimness of reality. The elephant’s hypersensitivity helps save a life, but the tragedy causes him to die. The miniature elephant becomes a town hero and is remembered by a miniature statue.

"The Unabomber and my Brother"
To me this was a particularly interesting story because many of the streets I travel are mentioned since Evergreen Park, IL, where the Unabomber, brother, and narrator grew up, is the next town over. This story is an emotional tale about genius and mental breakdowns.

"I Want the Quiet Moments of a Party Girl"
This one is a beautifully devastating story about an interesting young couple (a typically modern working American-born husband and a foreign-born wife fascinated with the emotions of others through their discarded personal writings, answering machine tapes, and VHS tapes) and their excitement about an unplanned birth and then the disappointment and sense of loss due to a miscarriage.

Cat Gallery

2008-10-26T19:54:00.006-05:00

Disclaimer: I am not a skilled artist. Hey, I had some time to spend last Friday and had some canvas and cheap acryllics around. I painted eight cat pictures. To make me look even more pathetic, the photos did not bring out the details.

Eavesdrop

Gregory and the Tulip

Center of the Universe

The Old Cat and the Sea

Nightcat

Cat Food

Ordinary People

Distraction

Multi-Lingual Crayons

2008-10-26T17:41:00.002-05:00

I'm a crabby person who is getting tired of there being a language barrier in the U.S. since we have no official language, although English is most commonly spoken.

It kind of bothers me when I pull out my Crayola crayons and put my carnation pink--I mean rosado clavel--to work.

I have four Crayola products here:
24 pack of crayons
48 pack of crayons
64 pack of Pip-Squeaks markers
24 pack of Mini Twistables crayons

The strange thing about the 24 pack of crayons is that I bought it new summer 2007, and there are actually mixed labels in here! Some are slightly different in design and have the color names in English, Spanish, and French, and some have older labels with the color name in English only. There are all the correct colors in the box too. Hmmm...strange. The copyright on the box is 2002.

I found the 48 pack of crayons in my friend's basement, and he gave them to me. They are unused and have a 1997 copyright on the packaging. The color names are in English.

The markers have their names in English, Spanish, and French and have a copyright of 2007.

Unfortunately, you have to play detective with the Mini Twistables because the color names are on the back of the package and are only in English. The copyright on the packaging is 2006, but "the Easter Bunny" brought them to me in 2008.

Crayola offers lots of products. We can't assume that all the kids who use their products (if they even have Crayola products at all) just use the basics. When I had school supply lists that required crayons and markers, I was fortunate enough to always have the "better" crayons and markers. If I were in 3rd grade now, and the school supply list said 24 pack of crayons, I would totally have the 24 pack of Mini Twistables in my desk. While I would have the "privilege" of having "better" crayons, I would not have the privilege of learning the colors in Spanish or French.

I'm not certain how I feel about the crayons bearing three languages on them. My instinct is to be annoyed. Multi-lingual labeling on very simple children's products is mostly useless. Knowing that sky blue is azul cielo in Spanish will not help people communicate, nor will it even help initiate learning the valuable components of the language. This is why if we're not going to declare an official language, but unofficially accept the Spanish language, there needs to be some serious educating going on with young children. Tossing them multi-lingual crayons will not help.

I'm reminded of how when I was in grade school it took 7 years to really know about Spanish...

I went to a Catholic grammar school that started teaching Spanish from kindergarten. Unfortunately at the time, we learned colors and food and some animals until I was 11. Then we moved onto words used in The Three Little Pigs and then Goldilocks and the Three Bears (very strange approach, I know). Then we got two new teachers who worked together when I was in 6th grade and they taught grammar and such to make sense of the Spanish language. This really, really helped me be ahead of most people in high school and even in college. Every Spanish word I knew until 6th grade was just useless fact. Learning how the language works is what made the difference.

Crayola says here why they are adding the Spanish and French names on the labels and that we should expect to see more of this on Crayola products soon.

Pressed Flowers

2008-10-21T19:29:00.010-05:00

For my birthday I received a beautiful arrangement of roses, and four days later I put some into my flower press.

Here is the result:

For storage, I made an envelope from wax paper. I do not know yet what I will do with my collections, but I think I'm going to stick with this method of hanging onto them. A couple months ago I sealed some pressed flowers in contact paper, but I'm afraid that soon there will be some resultant color changes due to the moisture of the sticky sides. Also, pressed flowers don't look so nice between sheets of contact paper.

Some really great books about pressed flowers are Fairie-ality and Afterlife of Flowers. Fairie-ality is a collection of fairie outfits made from pressed flowers and plants and the book is setup like an elaborate catalog for these outfits. Afterlife of Flowers is a beautiful picture book of pressed flowers, but unfortunately there is some lame poetry. Thankfully, the poetry is in a tiny font and the flowers are what grabs your attention.

Maybe someday I'll have a beautiful idea for using and displaying my own collection of pressed flowers. Right now I just have too much going on, and flowers won't really be sprouting all over the place for another six or seven months.

Believe it or not, there is more to pressing flowers than sticking them in a press or closing them between the pages of a heavy book. I still have more to learn. The unpictured yellow rose I tried to press is proof. The big blossom ended up looking like an unripe crab apple that fell on the sidewalk five days ago. After looking into pressing large blooms, I found methods I would have never though of--such as microwaving it and then covering each petal in paper towel and wrapping the whole thing into a ball and then sticking it into the fridge.

Willow Revisited

2008-10-19T06:54:00.008-05:00

When I was doing research for my speech on sunflowers, I came across the significance of willows and The Willow Song on the same page! This is weeks-old news, but at least to me it is shocking* nonetheless.

From Green Magic: Flowers, Plants & Herbs in Lore & Legend by Lesley Gordon

"The wearing of wreaths was not only a sign of joyous celebration, for the willow, cypress and yew were tokens of mourning. Disappointed lovers in Elizabethan times, it seems, wore wreaths of willow."
..."Apparently about one third of the population of that age (Elizabethan) was jilted or unloved, and instead of taking practical steps to remedy the situation, they seemed to spend their time weaving willow garlands, decorating their hats with its leaves, singing sad songs about it, or hanging their harps on its branches. It was obviously a valuable outlet for those with nothing better to do, of whatever rank in society; for Desdemona, telling of her mother's love-sick maid, Barbara, says,

She had a song of 'willow',
An old thing 'twas, but it expressed her
fortune,
And she died singing it."

Yes, that certainly happened in Othello. The 1995 movie shows a beautiful scene about this where Desdemona is singing the song to herself while washing up before bed on the night she is killed. It might even make you cry.

How cool to accidentally come across more information about something I already was interested about from the same page I was using for different research! I'm not even kidding when I say that these sort of findings have great mental and emotional effects on me. Yeah, that's a librarian-in-training for you. I'm pretty sure I was that way before I knew what I wanted to do anyway.

*This relates to some very hard times last winter. A bunch of factors threw Othello and The Willow Song in there, both of which were both extremely coincidental and extremely appropriate for the situation. I sometimes still think of it all. (Things are ok now.)

PumpkinCat

2008-10-19T05:42:00.002-05:00

Brandon and I carved this pumpkin Tuesday night. He did the eyes and whiskers, and I did the nose and mouth. We both worked on the ears and touched up each other's work. Brandon doesn't like cats [and is allergic :'( ], but I love them. Lucky me that wanting to carve a kitty pumpkin was a good idea to him too.

Willow Approaching

2008-10-16T01:04:00.005-05:00

Maybe it's the approaching day--the day of an actual beginning, that has me thinking throughout the day of someone I lost. I never lost the impression, but I lost the impressionist. I'm not sure what to make of the art that's been put in my head as the artist is so near to me, but is also not there.

I never meant any harm.
I never meant to hurt you.
I know I have...
I know I'm hid from...
Nobody has to hide anymore. Literally.

For the short while I was lucky. You helped save my life. You know who you are, but you said you don't read this. So I hope that in some way God whispers "thank you" in your ear and gives you the kind of return that's been awaitng you, whatever it may be.

Oh, Barb...

2008-10-13T22:41:00.007-05:00

In Quiet, Please by Scott Douglas, he recalls from his experiences at a public library the time when he realized the librarians did not read much. When he started out as a page he was reading The Crying of Lot 49 and one of the librarians had not ever heard of the book and admitted to not reading much. When a new copy of a famous classic came in, Scott Douglas asked if she had read it, and she laughed at this idea and said she only read the review. Moments later a patron came up to the desk asking if she could check the book out, and she asked the librarian if she read it. The librarian told the patron that she read it and loved it and that it was one of her favorites.

[After mentioning that Quiet, Please, a title we own, is a great book that is also very applicable to the happenings at the public library we work at...]

Angie: This book (QP) is very similar to our library's patrons and happenings.
Barb: Of course. People are the same!
Angie: I'm reading Dewey, and what happens in their library isn't so similar.
Barb: Yeah, but how big is that town?
(She said this as to point out the 10,000 resident population.)
Angie: So you read it?
Barb: No, I read the review though.

Oh, Barb...

Movement Refers to the Piece; It is Not a Command to the Conductor

2008-10-12T02:35:00.003-05:00

It's 2:35 am. I've been finally using the new sewing machine I got for my birthday. I actually just took it out of the box today. The past couple hours I have been reading Quiet, Please.

The point I'm trying to make, which wasn't not even eluded to above, is that I have been listening to the first movement of Prokoiev's first symphony. I have become obsessed with this finding for the past couple days. It's about time that the third movement of Beethoven's fifth symphony and Ralph Vaughn Williams' Fantasia on a Theme have some company. Now here is the point: From watching performances on YouTube, there is NO NEED for conductors to look so stupid by dramatically moving around. Their excessive movements have no effect on the outcome of the piece. I promise. I know this because I have been watching the director (ok, not 100% of the time) for 10 (!) years now. None of my band directors did stuff like that to the extreme. I feel embarassed for all these conductors.

One of the high school directors had a habit of taking a huge breath before the downbeat. In this band, the bassoons (Jeremy and I) were practically in the back row and on the very end, and we could hear this unnecessary breath and would snicker or roll our eyes. We were the ones in need of breaths, but if 50 members, including percussion, drew in audible breaths like that before the first downbeat of each piece, we would sure have some issues.

Sleepy time.

Pound Purries

2008-10-06T16:38:00.003-05:00

When I was in second grade, I had about seven of these mini Pound Purries. I like that--purries. Even then they were smaller than my hands. I had a black one, a white one, an orange striped one, a calico one, a grey one, a tan one, and a grey striped one. I held onto them for a while and used to make little habitats for them in shoe boxes. I really wish I hadn't gotten rid of them, but I guess I didn't know then how obsessed I would become with cats.

Future in Action!

2008-10-04T23:20:00.003-05:00

Friday I got some carry-over birthday surprises. At 20, one is never too old for toys, I suppose.

From Jon: "Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure"

I wonder if the cat lady purposely looks manly.

From Ashley: "Librarian Action Figure"

The box is hilarious. It says: "With amazing push-button shushing action action!"

They need to make a hybrid of these two!

Reading: In Style*...Or Should I Say Elle?

2008-10-01T09:52:00.007-05:00

I am not a reader of Elle, a 300+ page magazine that is dedicated to showcasing the latest paycheck-and-a-half works of fashion designers of women's clothing. Still, I acquired a copy of the October 2008 issue last weekend, and scanned through it, hoping for inspiration. Most of the ads and pages didn't appeal to me, but I was blown away by the three whole pages dedicated to books in a section called Elle Intelligence: Books.

I was nearly ecstatic.

I never thought that people who read this magazine weren't intelligent or maybe even didn't read. I am so glad because Elle is making a point that I really value: Books are high fashion.

There were books on art, interior design, fashion biographies of designers, and other non-fiction and fiction titles. The section also featured reviews and three reader-recommended books.

As far as I could see in my community, this has had some impact. Every single book on there that I decided to request from my library has exactly one hold ahead of me. ...But for those who can actually afford the pricey designs in Elle, there are probably thousands of people who bought a book or two from that list. Throughout the whole October 2008 issue, the books were the only things to have double-digit prices.

Even if you're just borrowing a book from that list-- or any book-- from a friend or your library, you're in possession of a valuable material. Unlike the $498 Jill Stuart dress on page 264 of the October 2008 issue of Elle, books are one of the most affordable pieces of flair you can own or just hang onto for a while until you're ready to change your reading wardrobe.

*In Style is the name of another fashion magazine for women.

Twenty

2008-09-30T23:01:00.001-05:00

Happy birthday to me...

The Little Pea on the Windowsill

2008-09-28T23:53:00.002-05:00

The little pea rests on the windowsill,

On the edge of all things

We are so small.

Clowns, Not-Clowns, and Nifty

2008-09-21T15:45:00.008-05:00

During the week Brandon used the possibility of there being a clown "where we're going Sunday" to cheer me up.

Where we were at today was The Liver Foundation for Kids fund raising event. My boyfriend's uncle and grandmother own this foundation. My boyfriend's 10-year-old cousin was born with some liver disease. It's all on the website somewhere.

"Sparkles the Clown" was actually Sparkles...the body painting women company, and they were not dressed as clowns. After nagging him enough, I got Brandon to permit me to get a kitty painted on my arm. I chose a green--yes, a green--kitty. He also had an orange scarf and was covered in glitter--sparkles. He was also a homosexual. Brandon got a sword, and it also had sparkles. He had no say in that matter.

It also was OK that there wasn't a clown. Earlier in the week we found a cute stuffed clown in a closet at his house, and I have been dragging it around there. I don't even like clowns, but there is something about that silly old stuffed clown doll. It's almost as if he is not a clown doll, but rather he is just a doll dressed for as a clown--let's say, for Halloween.

A month ago I bumped into this cupcake cookie jar. Here and there I have been purchasing items for when I leave home, and knowing that I will need a cookie jar at some point, I badly wanted this one. Luckily I did not spend the $50 plus shipping for this insanely awesome cookie jar. I mean, if I could, then I would have certainly gone for it and supported this artist, but right now I have my own arts to finance and college tuition. (Huge gigantic sigh) Her profile says that she uses vintage ceramic molds, which must explain my extreme luck...

LOOK WHAT I FOUND AT A GARAGE SALE!!!!!!!!!!!

*Clatter*

*Running paws hitting the tile sound*
"What's this all about?"

*Sniff* "Not edible."

Everything there was pretty much old junk from back in the day, but I found the exact cupcake cookie jar as the one I wanted. I also got two other small things there for a grand total of $2, so I'd say the cookie jar was about $1.50!!! I can even paint the base if I wish... The little pea pod is a salt and pepper shaker set that cost me ten cents at a different garage sale, and at another one I got a squirrel cookie cutter for 10 cents as well. These three things were among the niftiest of what I found Friday morning, but I also accumulated some more cool stuff that I don't need. The cat (Luke) was already mine.

Mantra

2008-09-08T00:14:00.000-05:00

"Love means next to nothing. Duty is what counts."
--Jump at the Sun

Week Two of Second Year of College Complete: Three Things Learned

2008-09-07T00:06:00.003-05:00

1. Hand sauce= hand lotion

2. Sitting apparatus= chair

3. Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture is very hard to play.

Summer 2008: Not Eventful, Not Memorable, But OK

2008-09-01T15:59:00.003-05:00

Nothing is "exciting" or new at college this year because after a year of it, the campus and everything is the same and predictable. My summer some how started and ended colliding with the same place again.

It seems that everyone this year has realized that this has been the fastest summer ever. No one can seem to recall much or figure when and how the time went. Maybe this is how the world will end. In stead of a terrifying apocalypse, time will just keep going faster. No one will even be able to prove it because it will have an effect on everyone and everything--even the mathematical evidence. Time will just pass faster and faster until it escapes us and we will no longer exist. We won't even know it.

This summer consisted of reading about 30 books, going to very few garage sales, doing some crafts, biking less than I hoped to, and sleeping unreasonably long.

I did get my driver's side window finally fixed.
Brandon and I were doing really well for a couple months.
I was downtown once for the Printer's Row book fair.
I discovered the best soup: the tomato bisque at my work's (library) cafe.
I discovered the awesomeness of the French press, and now I use it daily.
I spent the night at Brandon's once.
I played some mini golf a few times, which about exhausts the idea for a while.
I had a third cat for a little bit. (Tiny black and ferral Wally)
I had a day and a half of extreme pain from my wisdom teeth.
I had the flu really badly for a day and a half, and it wasn't related to my wisdom teeth. It was strange to throw up and be cold and have a fever in June.
I got three of my wisdom teeth out and recovered quickly and easily.
I found a small pool that I never got to use because my dad dumped it out.(grrr...)
I threw a small party for my godbrother's birthday.
I went to a couple graduation parties.
That's about it.

:)

Olive You: Loving a Colorblind Person Is Easy

2008-08-30T00:46:00.003-05:00

Angie: good night olive you
Brandon: olive u 2
Angie: :)
Brandon: green olive only
Angie: okies
Brandon: o
Angie: that is gray
Brandon: o shit
Angie: O
Brandon: o
Angie: that is bright teal blue
Brandon: O
Angie: bingo

Loaf

2008-08-27T22:50:00.003-05:00

A couple days ago I was instructed to throw the 2/3 uneaten stale loaf of French bread out to the birds. I did just that. I stepped onto the back porch and tossed it to my right. The hard loaf skimmed the edge of a small tree branch creating a dramatic rustle. I then proceeded to brush the crumbs off my hands and head back inside.

This morning--a day or two later-- I walked out onto my driveway en route to the nearby farmers' market going on in my town. The bread was on the larger side of the yard below a tree. On the crust of the loaf were illegible messages and art carefully chiseled by small beaks. The bread had traveled about 15 feet from it's original spot, and had conquered a small partial fence and low plant growth.

This afternoon as I arrived home from class, I pulled up to the curb, got out of my car, and stood directly in front of the stale loaf of French bread, which was now in front of the house and across the sidewalk that runs across from my front lawn.

I wonder just how many creatures carried this loaf about my property, but it is no surprise to me why it was not eaten.