I think it's strange you never knew.

(bonus points to anyone other than Tiff who gets the joke in the title)

Who wants a story?

I don't know why, but I was thinking about this story earlier today and decided to share, since I think there are people reading this who don't know it, and it's a great story. Unfortunately, I lost the original telling, so if anyone still has that email (Tiff? Cara? Alison Farinacci, whereever you are?), if they could send it back along to me? Thanks. And Google isn't helping for the published version, which I don't like anyway, mostly because I come off as kind of a judgmental bitch. Which I'm not. At all. Stop laughing, you.
Anyway, on to the story, which I shall call, "Desperate for Dinner"...
Now, I don't exactly advertise this, because it makes me look bad and pisses me off, but I didn't date in Pittsburgh, until the last 8 months or so that I lived there. We're defining "date" as hanging out + making out. You should all be remembering that this is the town I grew up in. Yup, it's that sad.
It seemed especially sad one summer night (2001), when 3 girls (me, Tiff, and Cara) were on the Historic Southside, doing something that involved free beer and was sponsored by the Pittsburgh City Paper, my less favorite Pgh free newsweekly. The only redeeming-and-relevant-to-this-story thing in the City Paper was this column where they would set 2 people up on a blind date, then interview them later about how it went. Oh yes, we applied. A short time later, I went on my date.
This would be where that email would come way in handy right about now.
We were set to meet in Squirrel Hill, at the Murray Ave Grill. I got there early. I had time to meet a magazine-buying Richard and see a cute boy that, in retrospect, I should have pretended was my blind date. I also had time to invent worst case scenarios, like what if he showed up in a Peewee Herman suit. Then I realized that this was actually a best case scenario, so I stopped.
I should tell you what I was wearing, because I looked really cute. And yes, I remember. I had on a short black skirt, a navy tank top, white knee socks, and--shit. Shoes? Maybe these Nine West faux trainers I used to have. I should tell you what he was wearing, because total schlub. T-shirt and shorts. Sneakers, but looked like the sort who would wear sandals, and I specifically said on my application form that I have an aversion to sandals. He tried to explain his appearance and general out-of-itness by telling me about some plane he had just gotten off of, from a wedding, but here's the thing. Why schedule a stupid, free newsweekly sanctioned blind date the same day that you get off a plane from somewhere? Not cool.
He also owned no TV, and me talking to someone with no TV and very little frame of pop culture reference is a sad conversation indeed. Also, I said "post punk" and he said "Green Day?" Here's the real sad thing about his lack o' TV: my main concern during our dinner was that it would end in time for me to watch "Bands on the Run" because it was the episode where we found out who won. Tiff and I were rooting for Flickerstick, with their Paul Westerbergian guitar player.
Really, the things I'll do for a free meal.

Epilogue i: Afterwards, I went straight over to Tiff's, where her date turned out to be even worse than mine. I'll let her decide if she wants to share. And Flickerstick won. Hooray!

Epilogue ii: A couple days later, I get a call at work from the terse and irate writer of the blind date column. This is when I was one of only 2 clerks in the children's dept of a busy urban library, during summer reading program, so I couldn't exactly have a long conversation, which Ms. Writer wasn't happy about. I said something about how, had I wanted to meet a boring bland normal guy, I knew where to find them, and wouldn't have needed the City Paper's help. And my depiction in the City Paper just gets worse and funnier from there.
The column never used people real names, but exactly how many girls with bat tattoos who look "like a 50s librarian, but a punk version of a 50s librarian" are out there?

Some other time on "Jessy's Sad Life Storyhour": Unfortunately Large Pants.

and I'm so glad that you were fired

OK, it's getting on that time of year where I start thinking about how I want to spend my summer. Here are some scenes I've been fixated on lately, when the grayness becomes too much even for me (and I like gray):
1. sitting on my balcony with my morning coffee, maybe a book, or in the early evening with a crossword, or...really, just spending as much time on the thing as possible.
2. walking over to a kind of dive-y bar for a nice late afternoon beer (something about my work schedule may have to be changed for this one--or maybe it's on a Friday?)
3. Picnics! With fruit salad, like the one I made for the leaving-Philadelphia picnic, where I went overboard and cut out the watermelon with a star cookie cutter. And records. And lots of salt, like the one Tiff, Cara, and I had 4th of July one year where we were all PMSing and it was all deviled eggs and sour cream and onion chips.
Want to join me? Interested parties should apply at the office. By which I mean the comments field. Or if you're extra-special, you have my email.
I should also mention that, in all of above scenarios, I'm wearing black shorts, kinda knee-length and Bermuda-y, and Chinese cloth mary janes. And maybe for a picnic I've got the 25 cent tube top on.

I am the biggest nerd, and I really need a nap.

Oh shit! Choose-You-Own-Buffy!! Is this the best thing since sliced bread, or what?
Anyone interested in buying some cat food and garbage bags and bringing them to my house tonight so I can go straight home after work?

My cats are determined to become a "(Say Anything)" entry

This is the kind of cranky I am today: as I was blowing my nose, not really sure why because I'm at the point where it's just going to be all stuffed up again in the time it takes to throw the tissue away, I blew a bit too hard and could feel my tampon slip a little.
I'm nothing if not ladylike. As evidence of this, I give today's eyeliner. Today's absolutely perfect, symmetrical, no-corrector-pen-neccessary, liquid eyeliner. I am a genius. After work, I shall take my genius self home to eat junk (tampon), drink herbal tea (stuffy nose), and watch some Invader Zim (nerd).
I was really cranky this morning, but that subsided, thankfully, by the time my program started, mostly because I was running around getting stuff together and almost getting killed by stacked chairs. They were stacked way too high and the wrong way round and all came falling down in a column when I tried to grab one. I swore loudly, got out of the way, then swore some more, then unearthed the American flag from underneath and stood it up in front of the now-horizontal stacked chair column, effectively saying, "No, there is no chair mess here. None at all." After the program, I told our maintenance guy and he made the whole mess go away. Yay, maintenance guy!
The program was mostly a success. It was one of those all-you-can-read things, but instead of making it like a marathon (what most libraries do), I did it like a drop-in buffet. Only 2 kids came, but I'm happy b/c they're that group of patron that comes in and looks at stuff but can't check out because of some ancient card/fine problem. So they got to read stuff they might not have and eat snacks and I did very little work this afternoon. Except I did read something I want to booktalk and looked through a manga/anime catalog, so that counts, right? Right? And now I'm working my way through my "wait for paperback" list, trying to find out what's been published in a cheaper version. There are those (mostly other YA librarian geeks) thinking, O! she's following Patrick Jones' advice, with that whole teens-prefer-paperback school of thought, but, really, I'm just a cheap bastard. And still holding out hope that certain books will be republished with less horrible covers. Also, why is Lurlene McDaniel's new series in hardback? And should I spend the hardback $$? I mean, they'll certainly get the wear and tear, but I just can't bring myself to pay $10 for Lurlene. Eh, I'll probably change my mind soon enough.
I also need to get my act together and fill out the "send me to ALA, dammit! Please?" paperwork. If I play my cards right, I could see David Sedaris on my birthday, plus attend the Francesca Lia Block Edwards award luncheon 2 days before. This is all provided I don't turn itno a puddle the second I see Ms. Block.
ooo! I just ordered A Question of Attraction! I'm not even done with it yet, but it's so fabulous. I made Tiff tell me who Brian winds up with last night (Brian the protagonist, not Brian her brother--he winds up with Mariah Carey. Or is it Christina Aquilera?), which I almost never do with books and I never ever tell other people the endings. Oh, the stupid arguments I had with mom and Lara after finishing the 5th Harry Potter.
I pre-ordered a copy of #6 the other night when I was at Borders buying magazines for the sick hermit-ness.
Someone wanna explain the point of hardcover comic books to me, please? The insides are bound just as crappily.

I wanna reach out and grab ya

I've found a new home for Gob Bluth. It's in this book: , by Judy Waite. Now, it is in England, and teenagers, and there's a murder, but, let's face it, doesn't Gob strike us all as the sort of guy who wouldn't mind being surrounded by teenaged girls? Also, everyone is kinda dense, so he'd be right at home. But here's the real reason this book is the perfect place for him: everyone acts like they've never seen a magic trick before. Seriously. The main boy character is a busker at one point, and he makes a small object disappear, and a bystander crosses herself. He also has some woman chasing him around London, convenced that he can heal her daughter. The main girl character impresses a bunch of bad apple teenagers with card tricks. C'mon--don't these people have uncles? Has no one ever "found" a quarter (sorry, a pound coin) behind their ear before?
So yeah, not exactly the world's greatest book.

I want to sho-oo-oot the whole day down.

I hate Fridays. They are possibly my least favorite day of the week. I know, everyone thinks I'm crazy now. But trust me on this one. I'm 'bout to list my reasons.
As a side note, I've been really bulleted list-happy lately.

Why my Fridays suck

• I have to get up at 6:21. Why the :21? Because my finger was too fast on my alarm clock.
• I have to shower before coffee, which leads to the dilemma: which is worse, pre-coffee tooth-brushing and coffee aftertaste all morning, or the threat of toothpaste on most likely primarily black outfit?
• No time for morning litter clean-up.
• I swear, Legs is more annoying on Fridays.
• "Morning Edition" repeats itself. Friday's the only morning I'm awake for repetition.
• Also, innumerable repetitions of local "news".
• At work at 8AM=super fucking long feeling day.
• That's a day with almost no public desk time, which means no internet or printer. You know how much work I have that doesn't involve the internet or a printer in some way? I can't even look through journals without checking to see what book covers look like. (Oh, I updated this post with a picture of the UK cover.) Anything I type up will eventually have to be taken outside of my office, physically, on a disk, to print.
• My office is very small, and shared with a coworker who keeps just about everything she's ever made. This is mostly a problem because I'm a packrat, too.
• Up at 6:21 AM=super tired by 10 PM.
• See how hard my life is?

You know what day I do like? Saturday. I like waking up on Saturdays with a full 2 days to do whatever I want.
You know what else I like? Circle skirts. I think I need a new one.
Up at 6:21 AM=this kind of random.

the internet just told me I'm a sex bomb

I took this quiz.

Dave Eggers is stalking me through mediocre YA literature

The book in question: . There's more info here, but this isn't really a recommendation. I only started reading this because all of the other interesting new YA books are either gone or I've read them already and I'm kind of getting bored with Dave Itzkoff's Lads. It doesn't necessarily suck (Lads, that is), it's just that in the non-crazy-hilarious moments, it gets a bit--not whiny...petulant, maybe? Cranky? I feel bad saying this, because all in all I like the book, and the funny parts are numerous and really damn funny. Maybe I was expecting more of an exploration of the Maxim-ness and less just description of it? In any case, Itzkoff should be commended for the sheer number of times he uses the word "gay", and not in the homosexual way. I know it's horribly offensive, but sometimes that's the only way you can describe certain things. Like the Kentucky license plate.
Seriously, and back onto my original point, why does this half-assed attempt at teenaged suspense keep name-dropping Eggers? Is it some kind of bet? Written by buddies of his? Thankfully, it does not share his writing style. To prove this, I will now give you a synopsis of what I've read so far (I'm about half-way through):

I'm Tom. This is my journal, my only friend. [That's pronounced gournal: guess I'm not all smart like you] Alice is so pretty, but she must never know my secret. Oh, that deep dark secret of mine. Oh oh, my secret. That former life I had before I came to New York. I'm going to mysteriously drop names from that time, but never tell even you, my journal, my only friend, about it.

The school librarian just called to schedule a field trip...on a day that there is no school.
Also, if people would listen to what the nice lady who is paid to sit there and help them says, maybe she wouldn't have to get up, away from her blog entry, to show them that, if something is a TV program, it will be in the TV program slot. Like the nice lady just said.
Professionalism!!

Fuck you, Jordan Catalano.

Last night, there was a group of rowdy teenagers over in the remotest corner of the library being SO loud, SO vulgar, that patrons were up and leaving. Then the kids left and, as they were leaving, we basically told them that it would be nice if, next time, they were a bit more mindful of everyone in the library. And then the one girl apparently (I didn't see it) gave me the finger. Becca says it was the half-assed finger. Should I be pissed? Eh. The half-assed, unseen finger is, to my mind, the saddest of all come-backs. It's so noncommittal: not only do you not want the recipient to see what you're doing, you also don't care if your friends notice. And isn't your friends noticing the whole damn point of giving "authority figures" the finger?
I know all this instinctively, because the last time I gave someone the surreptitious half-assed finger was less than a month ago. At a school visit. And once again, we ask ourselves, is Jessy a good young adult librarian because she's got their maturity level?
Apparently, the kids were deep into R. Crumb's book (which caused a big brew-ha-ha long before my time here), and my night's coworker thinks that may have been what got them all riled up. It's kind of annoying, but there's really nothing I can do about the psychology of teenagers, aside to work for a separate enough space for them. It doesn't help that most of the kids in question are pleasant and more or less agreeable in smaller groups. Hell, I've even had normal conversations with finger girl.
The real thing of this was after they left, listening to my coworkers talk about the kids. I would be so, so hypocritical to not let someone vent, especially when I know things have been stressy, but, see, here's the thing: I still identify with those kids. I remember the rebellious bravado that makes you swear super-loud on the bus, or run around Spring Carnival demanding that people pay attention to your rainbow slinky. I'm not making that last one up. And, like the title implies, I was head-over-heals for Mr. Catalano, literacy level be damned. And maybe, just maybe, I still kinda want to be friends with the kids who seem bad and dumb.*
So fuck you, Jordan Catalano. That's why Brian Krakow raped the Pink Ranger, anyway.

*'Course, the one of them let me introduce him to Poppy Z Brite's Lost Souls today--see what I mean about when they're not in groups?