keeping your enemies closer, or just not letting them leave

I'm getting kind of bored of my glasses. Any thoughts on what my next frames should look like, aside from not all bent and crooked like these?
But that's not why you're here, I know. You're here to read all about my lovely Christmas. I haven't had a shittier Christmas (even that year I got an alarm clock, or when I had the flu or whatever that was). Well, let's face it--December hasn't exactly been going well, what with programs with zero attendants, Buddy issues, and general crap-town problems. Which is why I was looking forward to being able to leave and see my family for a few days. Which is why this snowstorm was an especially large "fuck you", particularly due to the following things.
Thursday was still a state of emergency around here. So how come the local Fox affiliate news, the local NPR station news (who did, however, mention that there were still places closed "in spite of the weather"), weather.com, the state police website, and the road safety hotlines all failed to mention this? I may take risks sometimes that smart people don't, but I do know better than to drive during a state of emergency, provided SOMEONE TELLS ME.
Also, someone wanna explain to me the point of plowing interstates when the snow is allowed to just sit on the entrance and exit ramps to said interstates? What's the point of having clear roads if no one can get to 'em? And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I got stuck. Of course, it could be infinitely worse: I heard of a woman who was stuck in her car for over 23 hours, and at least one of the other cars stuck on my ramp had been there all day. But this isn't the sort of thing you want to think about when, instead of greeting your family at their door and attempting to get Brett to do his trick, you're fighting back tears and attempting to stay on the plowed part of the road, a task made a whole lot harder when no one has salted yet, because plowing to get rid of snow only winds up revealing the inch or so of ice underneath. Who plows and doesn't salt? Why am I paying municipal taxes again? Especially since, several days later, my street still has not been salted, and most of the cross streets I need to use haven't been touched.
Christmas Eve was spent making sure Johnny wasn't throwing up anymore, trying to figure out why he had been in the first place, giving up on keeping the boys out of the tree, watching the first season of The O.C. (more on that later), and desperately trying to pretend it wasn't Christmas Eve, which I kind of like even better than Christmas itself, what with tree-putting-up and no poorly disciplined small cousins.
On Christmas, the work friend fiance (these would be the same people who loaned me the car when Buddy had the water pump issues, and who pulled me out of the on-ramp. I think it's getting to the point where, if I call Becca, she just assumes emergency) picked me up and I spent Christmas dinner with them. This was as nice as spending Christmas with a group of people you've never met before when you were hoping for your family and hate crying in front of strangers can be. That's not a criticism, I swear.
Sunday I watched more TV-on--DVD and had a lovely conversation with Alison Farinacci's grandmother. Alison is this friend of mine from college. She was the second person I met at Pitt (does Janice count, since I technically met her the weekend before our advising session?); we were roommates for 3 semesters and neighbors for a summer; we worked together for awhile; in short, great friends. She came up to Philadelphia for New Year's when I was living there, and then she fell off the face of the earth. Her number has been disconnected. Her parents have a new number, that I don't have. However, the grandmother has my number now, and hopefully she'll call. I miss the girl. And as I'm learning more and more, particularly here in Holeville, silly is hard to find.
Barring a tsunami (yeesh, it's hard to feel sorry for yourself when over 21,000 people are dead from one natural disaster, but I've been perservering), New Year's will be spent in Louisville.

I'm cracking up over this, and I'm not sure why.

"That's my exciting day so far. My generous brother Larry bought me a taco from Taco Shack. Surprisingly good tortillas. I find that many Tex-Mex restaurants resort to using disgusting preserved tortillas. What are they thinking!!!"--http://sqwinch.blogspot.com/

Heh. I thought I had already copied it, but Ctrl-V only got me this:1591163366. I'm not so far gone in library nerdiness as to think an ISBN is funny, thanks.
People are going absolutely crazy over what the weather's supposed to do in the next couple days, while I'm driving back to Steel Town, USA. I'd be more worried if the exact same fucking thing hadn't happened before Thanksgiving, when I missed all inclement weather entirely. And the Nuggets box will keep me warm.
***
I'm wearing the exact wrong bra/shirt combination today. I've got a black camisole that masquerades quite well as a trendy, camisole shirt when really it was found at the thrift in the women's sleepwear section. Under that, I've got my black bra with little white dots* which has a habit of peeking out from under things sometimes. I'm really not a ho, I swear.

*How sad is it that I'm trying to figure out how much of my extensive readership knows what this thing looks like? Combination of too many former roommates and not enough modesty, I guess. Or that particular brand of Jessy impatience: I'll save 30 seconds if I don't wait for random friend to leave the room before I change my shirt! Mmmmm, trashy librarian.

There won't be snow in Africa this Christmas...

but this totally makes up for it.
Also, when am I going to get to hear the new version of "Do They Know It's Christmas"? When?
Oh, yeah, and nobody showed up for my program. I'm thinking it's time to spend less effort on programming, more on collection, space, school visits, and one-on-one: the stuff that is getting results. I don't want to get a reputation as that lame-ass librarian who has events no one cares about; I'd much rather be that librarian who almost never has events because she's too busy running around doing what her patrons need/want.

it's hard to stalk someone when you don't know their schedule

Relatedly (did I just make that word up?), <undisclosed location> Public Library's (now referred to as ULPL) mediocre service just keeps getting more and more so. Mediocrer? Like a clerk who says, "I believe so," when asked if checked out books will be due the same day as a renewed box set. Also, the western branch teen hole? If I lied down in it, I could touch all four shelf-walls. And I'm a short, short girl. It's also such a box that you could probably film porn in there and no one would be the wiser. Yes, I've watched Comedy Central's Porn and Chicken. Shut up.
Some extraordinarily stupid things that have happened to me today:
So I've got this program I'm doing tomorrow, which I really hope people will come to but I'm not holding my breath, because I learned the optimism lesson from my last attempted YA program. I think, music would be nice, but, as has become crazy obvious lately, I know next to nothing about popular music. Damn you, lack of magic free cable! Easiest solution? There's a laptop in the meeting room I'll be holding the program in, and we are all wireless and fancy. I'll just boot up one of those Yahoo stations and it'll be cake. BUT. I can't connect laptop to internet. Then I think to just throw a bunch of cds into Windows Media thingie (so much less intuitive than iTunes), hit random and Whammo! Fun time in Music City. BUT. Although the meeting rooms are more accurately thought of as two rooms which can be connected if attendance dictates, the speakers in them are wired as though it is one large meeting room, part of which can be closed off if need be. Music in one room, music in both rooms. This is so stupid, I think I might throw up. I hate when things don't make sense. Unless it's funny, and this so wasn't this morning.
Then I went to lunch. I deposited my paycheck, then drove down to carplace to pay Buddy's bill. I had forgotten my checkbook this morning, so I went with the good old debit card. Which was denied. Mechanic B (A, who dealt with me last week, was also there) says that he's seen a lot of debit cards have limits. Is this the biggest amount I've put on the card? Yes, because after I was quoted the correct labor time of 5 1/2 hours, Buddy's water pump cost more than the couch. Sure enough, breaking the amount in 2 works. For the first half. Ah, my huge multinational bank-created innocence has been sullied once again.
Just for the record, I've been more or less responsible with keeping up with this bank account, so I know the money's in there. Stupid card.
Some patron insinuated that her translating and archeology degree was somehow more useful than my film studies degree. And was generally insulting. All I did was ask if she needed help, to which she pulled that always annoying (in no matter what situation) move where someone says you never have what they want, implying that their tastes are ever so much better than everyone else's. Then why are you here, mook? At least when I say that, I'm refering to a place I never go, and I try to come off as apologetic or self-effacing, not that my tastes make me cooler or smarter or something.
I was worried that someone would eat my hotpocket from the freezer because my name wasn't on it, but then I realized how Andrew from Buffy I was being, and that shut me right up.
You like how I can call myself out for being a nerd by making a super nerdy reference? My lameness never fails to impress me.
***
I finally finished Planet Simpson by Chris Turner. For the most part, I liked it, and it was fun to be back in that crazy-obsessed Simpsons space I lived in when Meleah, Ben, Cara and I all used up ILL time quoting Ralphie. Basically, imagine Greil Marcus' Lipstick Traces, but about the Simpsons. Turner sometimes comes off as a crank, particularly when talking about capitalism, and sometimes it feels a bit dated how he talks about the under-40 set, almost as though we're still living in the cultural climate of Ann Power's Weird Like Us and/or Slacker. (I could make a righteous Canadian dig right here, but I won't. Because I like Canadians, much as I enjoy all peoples with fun accents and socialized medicine.)
Mostly I like reading a nonYA book that doesn't make me want to tell Dave Eggars to shut up. However, the book frequently uses Poochie to make points about the media and the Simpsons' roles within tvland, while never mentioning Roy. Seriously, what's up with that? Roy's probably my favorite one-time character, too.

some things you might have noticed, and a key

So Google is apparently indexing random blogs, making mine insanely easy to find. After a while of other people knowing this, it's finally been brought to my attention (thanks, guys), so I've moved and attempted to make things a bit more anonymous, or at least defend the shit I talked on some people in some of the more bitter posts.
So:

• I now live in an undisclosed location. Heh.
• Anytime you see ***, I've edited something, in a rare fit of maturity.
• This color means I'm attempting to defend something I said. Does it work? Who knows?

See, I'm not really feeling put-upon or angry or censored by this, since it's not like I wasn't already self-censoring things about people I knew for a fact were reading this. Though I do feel I should argue charges of naivete. Aside from the afore-mentioned ignorance of Google expertise, I also just assume that others have a similar attention span to mine. I don't read blogs of people I don't know, unless they're crazy funny or a really good writer. And I'm no Sars.

2 pints of pus from her lovely body.

This is all because I’ve been whining about boys lately, I’m sure.
So, I know what's wrong with my car now. Water pump. Want to know how I know?
As I'm driving into work, looking for a mechanic, Buddy begins to overheat. I finally, after about 10 minutes and what feels like a million years, find a place to pull over. And, yup, it's a real overheating, with boiling over and everything. As I'm putting in more fluid, wiping stuff off, and worrying about the giant puddle of coolant forming, a nice man pulls up.
--I'd like to interrupt here with an aside about sexism. Yes, it does suck that people assume that a young woman always needs help, particularly with car matters. But I can't help but be grateful for that same attitude when I do need help. I guess I just wish that I could know that men would stop and help anyone, you know?--
So anyway, nice man gives me a couple tips, including the water pump thing (and that's what's been clonking, too, so at least only one car problem at a time, right?) and tells me to go to a place which, luckily, is on my way into work, so I know exactly where it is and, if necessary (it wasn’t), I could walk.
They're very nice there. Buddy will be done tomorrow, as the part has to be overnighted. I think I'm looking at about $200, which is typical for the biennial (that's twice a year, right?) meltdown.
So my problem now is, How do I get home? Or, conversely, Where do I sleep? I think I'm just going to ask an in-town librarian if I can crash on her couch. This seems to be the simplest solution, and my supervisor didn't seem to have a problem with me showing up in the same clothes two days running. Of course, I’m probably going to lose a few hours and $$, but since whenever anything goes wrong with Buddy I panic and think, $2000!, it’s all part of the price, right?
Now I just have to make sure I crash with someone I can also bum black eyeliner off of.
In January, I’m so going to start looking for a new car. One that makes me feel like less of a fuck-up.

that glazy sleepy stare

Damn kittens, keeping me up with their cuteness and their beating down on each other.
Last night they discovered the Christmas tree. I'm really hoping I come home tonight to a vertical tree.
My face-front graphic novel shelving came in today. Hooray! And there really isn't much that's hotter than a cute librarian putting together furniture and listening to JAMC, is there?
***
'Course, if that were true, I'd have much less of a history as a dateless wonder. I've decided I really want someone to make me a good ol'fashioned crush mix. The kind where you call up your best friend and giggle, holding the phone to the stereo to analyze each and every song, which of course was put on the mix for a very significant reason. The kind that doesn't have bad songs on it, or disappear into the mix-maker's brother's car never to be seen again. The kind that, unfortunately, is on cd, since I have no way of listening to tapes. The kind made by someone who lives in the same city as me.
I'm not holding my breath.
***

Shut up, Dave Eggers

I've officially given up on this year's best Nonrequired Reading. The kids who select have come way too much under Eggers' thrall (which is the Norse word for slave, or so it would seem from Sea of Trolls, which is the book I've cast Nonrequired over for). Also, it's more fiction than last year, and the fiction is annoying, in that Shut up, Dave Eggers kind of way.

Also, like no one saw this coming:

You are Belle & Sebastian's If You're Feeling
Sinister.


What essential indie rock album are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

the Thanksgiving recap

Dear god, driving from to Pittsburgh sucks. Especially when you stop at the Volvo dealership first to get the code so your stereo will actually work and the computer tells the jerk employee that your car does not, in fact, have a stereo. Oh, I think, so that's why I've been using the lighter to power my cd player and some cheesy walkman speakers. It has nothing to do with all that battery drama: I simply have no stereo. Then I went to Wal-Mart for wine and a six-pack (I've become the family bootlegger since I'm the only one who lives in a state without Quaker-made liquor laws) and my cashier was useless, even by Wal-mart standards. Really, the only things keeping me entertained on this drive were pleading with the giant storm clouds to avoid where I was driving on 71, 70, or 79 (thank you thank you thank you) and the pretty song I made up about driving through the Wheeling Tunnel.
I like the way Wheeling, WV looks a lot. Of course, I've only driven there on my way home, and what I should probably really be saying is, I like the font they used over the Wheeling Tunnel. I tried listening to The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place audio book during the drive, but my speakers weren't loud enough/it was boring. I think I'm going back to elementary school Jessy's original Konigsburg rating: just not that interesting. But it's nice to see Molly Ringwald earning a paycheck, no?
So I get to my parents, finally, and I'm trying to park on their bigass, brick-paved hill and it's not going so well, as there's a full foot of smushy, slick, wet leaf mess next to the curb. My dad suddenly materializes, and you know, there's really nothing that irritates me more after an insane drive than someone watching me park. I guess I got spoiled by my street being filled with so many un-lived-in houses for so long, because I really resent having to back up and do a full parking thing.
Incidentally, this is also my biggest beef with the SUV that's shown up on my street here in , with the Big Momma sign in the front and the "It's only kinky the first time" bumper sticker: it's parked where I have to use reverse to park in my favorite spot.
But then I get up the steps and into good ol' 1106 and everything's great. The pumpkin tart smells amazing, my cousin's on the phone telling me about this wonderful vacuum cleaner she got (though, since it doesn't turn dust into gold or move around by itself or is completely silent, I'm failing to be awed, even with the this-is-how-my-friend-caught-his-cheatin'-wife story. And if I was on "Last Comic Standing", I'd be cracking something about how that's how she finally got her husband to do some housework, but I'm not. And if I was, I'd be too busy chatting up that Iranian Jew kid to tell any bad jokes, anyway.), my sister's starting in on the first of 3 tantrums she performed over the weekend (I named them Martha, Semantics, and Reverse Psychology, if you're interested) and no longer liking Heinekin, or however it's spelled, and kicking my ass at Scrabble, Brett's getting ready to do his trick (he hops into your hand, because he wants to be petted so badly!).
And the greatness continued all weekend. Yumminess on Thursday; creepy urban mall with random Joseph Beth, Hong Kong Rice Bowl I've been dreaming about for the past couple weeks, kitties dressed as food, dragging Lara into the comic book store and hanging out with wonderful family friends, including people I hadn't seen in a long long time on Friday; Ikea and Spongebob on Saturday; and then the drive home on Sunday, which wasn't quite as bad, even with the pulling out-leafmess problem, probably because I gave up on Ringwald and Konigsburg.
And yes, I bought a couch. Not either of my first two choices, but now that I've finally got its 863 pieces together (cracking a couple in the process, grr), a damn fine couch nonetheless. It's this one, but blue. And it fit in the car, with no swearing at all! Now I just need to figure out what happened to my triangular pillow.
Kitten arrival: T-minus 2 days, and counting.