Why start a conversation you can't even finish?

(found in the library, late February)

Zodiac shot young couple in 1968 Boy Survived girl didn't
2 more people shot (collage age)
Searial Killer! Signed Car door! enjoys taunting Police/meadia! Upped MO
Mix up with descreption!
Told to look for Black man not White man!
Said he would shoot out School bus tires then pick off children on at a time!

Also, I found 2 Chick tracts in the teen area yesterday, one under a bunch of Buffy paperbacks, one in what looked like a retelling of the Ark story. I didn't know those things were even still in circulation. So, total score...

Gets me to the church on time.

I stole this from Melissa 'n' Stacey.

Ten modern conveniences I take for granted but can't live without:

Now, how modern are we talking here? Since the industrial revolution*? Second half of the 20th century? What?

1. Coffee pot. Not that I don't like Turkish coffee, but it's not an everyday thing.
2. automated library catalogs and databases. Card catalogs, while romantic, are not very practical.
3. Aleve.
4. Suffrage. And civil rights. And Roe v Wade.
5. Cell phones. Especially the part about long distance being the same as local calls.
6. alarm clock/snooze button
7. the concept of adolescence. Kinda hard to be a teen librarian if we all still thought people really became adults at 12.
8. car stereo. No one wants to hear me sing, or see me try to read the paper while I'm driving.
9. plastic faux ziplock sandwich bags. I put EVERYTHING in those guys: lunch, half-knitted socks, broken necklaces I may or may not fix, the other half of that onion I used the other day to make really tasty half-assed burritos.
10. Debit cards.

*That puppy was a dog, but industry was a revolution!

Wooord! The Ghostwriter Drinking Game

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you...

Drinkin' 'n' Watchin' GW*
Drink when/for

• new Gaby's in the episode
• Calvin is in the episode
• Hector makes a grammatical error
• there's sexual tension between Tina & Alex
• exceptionally bad line execution
• some sort of fake product/brand name is shown or mentioned
• anything overly "ethnic" happens
• Lenni displays her "talent"
• Rob displays his "talent"
• Jamal uses science
• Tina videotapes something or mentions being a filmmaker
• holes in the Ghostwriter mythology
• celebrity or pre-celebrity
• ill-fitting clothing
• exceptional stupidity *drink twice if it's not Gaby*
• Tina's wearing her retainer
• "Everything's in Brooklyn!" phenomenon
• cop says, "I don't know how you kids do it"
• Frank, Kathryn, etc use wooden old-timey slang
• deep social issues
• tension because there aren't enough letters for Ghostwriter to send a message
• a code is cracked
• Jamal acts "suave"
• mention of the High School of Science
• Lenni flips out at/is rude to her dad's girlfriend
• Jamal has more immediate familythan his grandma
• bad computer effects
• the handwriting is obviously different
• someone says "rewind"
• someone says "peicing the puzzle"
• someone says "Ghostwriter!" like they forgot about him
• fake music
• bad dancing
• mention of the casebook *drink twice if it's not Gaby's*
• someone wears too much makeup
• there's an unnecessary use of a computer
• someone new sees Ghostwriter
• a team member's in a life-threatening situation *drink twice if it's not Gaby*
• *drink twice if a team member is suspected by anyone*
• mention of Lenni's mom
• team member in a tunnel of some sort
• bad accents
• Tina's family is mentioned or shown
• Rob's carrying a skateboard
• criminals that do completely retarded things
• someone's passing puberty is obvious
• wooden British slang when Jamal's in the UK

(We think this was written 2001-2002.)

Maybe they are evil after all...

Barring all arguments about the nature of capitalism, big business, and the state of the working poor in this country, I think we can all agree that it would blow if Wal-Mart stopped selling fabric.
Sure, in a perfect world we would all get our craft supplies, kitty litter, butter, etc. from locally owned businesses and all of our coffee, tampons, etc. would be produced completely safely (for the environment and the producers) and affordable for everyone. But we don't live in that world. And as someone who's worked for both big corporations and tiny locally owned places, I know first hand that small business owners aren't necessarily better as employers or people in general.
And as someone working in a government funded organization, and in a field that's traditionally somewhat shafted budget-wise, the idea of not having $1/yard tables is a bit daunting. If this does come to pass at the Wal-Marts near me, it will change my crafty program planning.
The internet is rife with rumors about Wal-Mart shutting down their fabric departments.

Here's Wal-Mart's feedback form. Help out a small-town seamstress, crafty teen who can't get her dad to drive her anywhere else, or librarian on a programming budget, okay?

Hey, Crabman.

I never think of my thrift karma as being particularly exceptional, but I guess it kind of is. Especially when it comes to hoodies.
I got my basic black hoodie in high school, after school one day. It was way cold when I started walking home, so I decided to take a thrift store (Red White and Blue) detour. I thought it would be nice to find a black hoodie, since I had kind of been wanting one. And I did!*
Last year, Tiff came to visit me and we decided to go thrifting. As we were talking about clothes--and I should explain that I sometimes get these fashion flashes, like I want a denim skirt! or My next pair of shoes should be green.--I decide that I want a boys hoodie. It would be very fitted, and the sleeves would be around elbow length. In my head, it was super-cute. And either navy or red. Then we went to Goodwill and I found a super-cute navy boys hoodie. With red lining in the hood.
So Saturday, me and Tiff are at the Friday's by a large Salvation Army. My slightly quilted black Gap hoodie is starting to get holes, and I was picking at them and complaining.** Then we hit the thrift and there was an almost brand-new quilted Gap hoodie for about $3 and hot pink.
It's the exact same pink as my long skinny scarf, though, so now I need some Lamb's Pride Worsted in black to make a long skinny black scarf to wear with it. Or maybe grey...yeah, grey would be very cute.

*Random Best Thing Ever Found In That Thrift: Keren got a pair of black chucks with the Batman logo all over them. Sweet.
**I love this hoodie. I'm actually wearing it as I type this. It smells a bit smoky, but it's very comfortable. And I have 2 tack pins in the pocket: a pink "a" and a smiley apple.

It's the sweetest taste I've known.

Yeah, yeah--I've had a bad run boy-wise. You get the idea.
Now you get to read the story of my real lost love, Muppie.

One thing you should know about me, if you don't already, is my love of drugstores. Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, etc. You can get almost anything you need there: candy, cheap plastic toys, Dr Pepper lip smacker, Wet'N'Wild black nail polish...anything. My favorite drugstore (maybe of all time) is the Rite Aid on Atwood in Pittsburgh*.
In college, Alison, Meleah, and I would spend hours in there, deciding which bad women's magazines, chips, foundation, and random toys we needed for our dorm rooms. Obviously, this was at its peak the year we all had the suite together. That's when I bought Muppie. He was a cute little orange monkey with generic Nerds in him. We liked him especially because, while all the monkeys had cute faces, somehow his smile was more open than the others. Muppie knew three college girls were taking him home that night,
And somehow, he stuck around. Jim Steiner named him when he misheard me saying "monkey". Brain fried from some exam (let's blame Marcia Landy, shall we?), I built Muppie a desk from Legos. Meleah took the desk apart to make him a stage, complete with Lego guitar.
I don't remember much of Muppie junior year, but I'm pretty sure he tagged along on the infamous Spring Break Road Trip me, Tiff, and Alison took.**
Moving gnomes never took Muppie, but I lost him anyway.
Pitt's graduation is a huge ordeal. Tons and tons of people graduate at once. It lasts for hours. Even when you're the one graduating, you take stuff to do. We talked about water guns or a beach ball. Mostly, though, we just played MASH and cheered "USA! USA!" at vaguely appropriate moments. I also had a roll of electrical tape that I made everyone bracelets from. I also had Muppie taped to my cap.
By the end of the ceremony, we were pretty excited to be all graduated, even if we were also really cold from sitting on the Penguins' ice all morning and into the afternoon. It was a sea of hugs and plans for that night.
Somewhere in all this, Muppie fell off my cap. I never saw him again.
Weirdly enough, though, a couple friends of mine had seen Muppie on the ground. Liz said she thought the monkey looked familiar, but hadn't picked him up.*** Her boyfriend, who had picked my Clash pin up off the ground 2 years earlier when I lost it and then was nice enough to give it back to me, looked sympathetic.
I like to think Muppie stuck around at the Civic Arena. Maybe he made friends with the Penguins mascot, and goes to parties now with the Pirate Parrot. Maybe he hitched a ride with the Ringling Brothers circus and tours the country now as a tiny trapeze plush monkey.
This is kind of what Muppie looked like, but a lot cuter. And orange.


*It was my main drugstore when I lived in Oakland, 3-5 blocks from several jobs, and catty-corner to my usual 61- bus stop when I was in high school, so I was there a LOT. Plus, it was pretty much across the street from the Beehive. Name a big zeitgeist-y mid90s indie movie and I probably watched it while munching on snuck in candy from this store.

**As did Assy the Ass Dog, Brian's Lenore doll, and a bag of Easter-shaped marshmallows I began hurtling out the passenger side window at some point between Chicago and home.

***This is a big difference between Liz and I. had I seen a strange orange monkey plush on the ground, I would have picked it up. Hell, I still would.

‘Cos I’m fading fast and it’s nearly dawn.

If you’ve read Scott Pilgrim, you could call him Joseph, because he looked just like that character. For a time, Melissa and I called him:
Beardy, Beardy McStaresALot, Beardy McScaresALot, Stare-y McScaresALot, Scaredy McStaresALot.
A pattern formed. Girl walks into bar, girl gives a brief and futile glance to see who’s there before figuring that anyone worth their salt will come to her (and anyone looking to avoid her can stay away), girl slowly feels eyes upon her, girl turns and sees boy with beard looking quickly away. Girl gets mightily annoyed.
I knew a girl who turned out to be a terrible matchmaker (more on that in a future post). She let me in on Stare-y’s information—basically what you’d expect from your average hipster homeless beard, but with a kid. And barely old enough to be in the bar.
As I do, I lost patience with his shy staring act and introduced myself. We chatted and he looked nervous. He shaved his beard and looked more nervous. He walked me and a drunk Melissa home one night and then we talked for a good while on my porch, interrupted every so often by me yelling at Melissa to not fall asleep on her back on my couch.
While any sane adult recognizes this as the action of a good friend, I think it only made Beardy more gunshy. But then, I had observed by this point that my definition of “good friend” didn’t exactly match any other That Town natives, save Melissa. On a nightly basis, drunk girls were left to stumble home, drunk boys somehow drove themselves to emergency rooms, and the word “friend” was only spoken between the sexes when a boy wanted to feel less guilty about a dumping.
I suggested we hang out, vague plans were made, I got stood up. If I had been surprised by this, I would also have been surprised that the sky was blue. Also, this meant I could watch Tara WhatsHerFace parade around in Kayne’s gown, as that pageant was on. I sent an email suggesting we not plan to hang out anymore. I wanted to add, Stop staring at me unless you can back it up ya pansy. I restrained myself.
A bit later, I find myself back at that bar with a friend of Melissa’s and some friends of the friend.* I’m sitting there minding my own business, sipping my cheap gin and tonic, waiting until everyone else deems themselves drunk enough to dance. A stranger walks up to me to inform me that, when I walked in the room, his friend (Stare-y, of course) exclaimed, blanched, and perked up, simultaneously. I believe I looked at the friend and wondered aloud why Scaredy couldn’t come tell me any of this myself.

*Incidentally, these are the people who, when M’s friend was in the restroom, decided they were going to leave. After barely speaking to me the whole night, they ask if I can tell M’s friend that they left, where they are going, and that M’s friend is welcome to join them there. Now, maybe I’m a bit too Emily Post at times, but I don’t know—this seems unspeakably rude to me. But then, expecting civility and friendship was probably what kept me mostly alone in a place where friendship meant known-since-jr-high or eh-I-don’t-need-to-call-her-I’ll-see-her-at-the-bar. Damn, I sound bitter. Mostly though, I’m just chomping at the bit to get these two years behind me and feel like pre-that town Jessy again.

I'm a good girl, I am.

From this guy’s blog:

“So, for instance, when I'm spending time with a new person who lacks my zeal for a good martini, has never read Ask The Dust by John Fante, and has never watched Arrested Development or Seinfeld, I'm much more excited than if we had a wealth of already-shared interests. When it's time to go pick out a movie together, I'm reaching for old favorites, not new possibilities, because I can't wait for this New Person to discover this Great Thing. Life has thrown so many Great Things at me already, in my thirty-one years as a lover of New Great Things, and mostly now I just want to re-discover them, via someone else.”

And this, my little loves, is in a nutshell why he dumped me. He could give all the “no chemistry”, “I don’t see serious with you” he wanted in that car on the Saturday night before Valentine’s Day, after we had been together for the several hours he needed to work up the nerve to tell me this. When faced with a boy who gets off on being a teacher, the Cool Girl will always lose to the wide-eyed innocent.
And now I remember all the things I showed him, like how he had never seen The Maltese Falcon before or that my reaction to his discovery of Homicide: Life on the Streets DVDs was, “I used to love that show!” Or that he, like most people, fell in love with Arrested Development through the first season dvds while I, in my hardcore nerdishness, had been watching enthusiastically since the pilot.
And now I remember how excited I was, because we had so many things and interests in common. I felt and still feel like he was the only boy I met in that town who I could have had something serious with. But I was thinking that based on associating with him, not the persona that gets created when you live in a small town for too long and are the only heartbroken boy writer with a good head of hair. He’s a local celebrity, and I’m a girl with less interest in fame, and more in the hair and the fact that we had the same favorite Wilco album (Being There, of course).
And maybe I sound bitter, and like I’m still not over this guy that broke up with me almost a year ago. That’s really not the case. This just isn’t the first time I’ve come face to face with Mr Professor, and I’m so emphatically not a fan.
Just Because I Don’t Like Professor Higgins Types Doesn’t Mean I Can’t Impart Wisdom, Too:

• Always keep some spare emergency contraceptive around.
• If you suspect that a broken condom might have scared a boy off, perhaps you should accept the inevitable and move on.
• Excelling in making out doesn’t necessarily mean a damn thing.