All I know is I'm clean as a whistle.

I met Tiff at the Cincinnati Art Museum Saturday afternoon. The first thing we both did was pull out our digital cameras and compare the pictures we attempted to take on the drive there.
Then we saw some art, ate some yummy panAsian food, and saw the Strangers With Candy movie. And I harrassed Jennifer, Tiff's cat, quite a bit.
I really need to move somewhere where I can do these things without a tank and a half of gas.

Airport biographies are usually true.

(I wrote this on June 23 at the airport.)

Airports always have businessmen doing weird things. I'm across from these 2 guys; both of them are on the same side of the table. Maybe it's because they're both looking at the laptop Mr A has open.
It has something to do with a phonecall, and a woman who may want 250,000 of something.
It may be helmets, or he may have asked Mr B if he wanted Hellman's for his burger.
But who says that, not mayonaise?
***
I'm feeling very Harriet the Spy right now, and also fully aware that, to the Belle and Sebastian uninitiated, my "The Life Pursuit" tshirt could be construed as vaguely religious.
***
Unlike last year, there's no copy of Spin in the newstand, and the latest copy of Lucky is taking its own sweet time to get to my house. I have nothing to read, and my shitty phone is saying digital roaming. I wanted to call Tiff and tell her about the Cathedral of Learning beer stein, and that I got her cds.
The light's too dim for my intended project.
My flight is late. 10 minutes before we were due to leave the airplane still hadn't left Atlanta.
Luckily, I had a bit layover in the ATL airport. Unfortunately, I'm now spending that time in this tiny airport. I wonder if Mr Parking Attendant will give me a ride in his golf cart.
I wonder if Mr Terminal Guy's supervisor knows he was spitting into a juice bottle while he answered my questions. Chewing tobacco-type spitted.

While You Were Out

Before I left for New Orleans, I parked Junior in the abandoned parking lot across the street from me. They re-tarred (heh) it while I was gone, and haven't come back to fill in the hole.
Thankfully, I didn't get towed or ticketed or anything. But who redoes a parking lot without posting notices?

New Orleans, Where Even the Urban Outfitters Employees Are Friendly and Helpful: ALA 2006 bk 4

(Seriously, the friendliest, most helpful, and least hipstersnobby UO employee I’ve ever seen. Sidebar: I always wonder what UO employees have to be so hipstersnobby about. I mean, if they’re so hip, what are they doing working for a giant chain whose sole purpose, most days, seems to be taking DIY and thrift culture and charging an arm and a leg for it? Not, of course, that I don’t shop there; I clearance rack hop anywhere. Sidebar 2: Why is it so damn hard for me to find a straight, short-not-mini, basic black nonpencil, no ruffles, skirt?)

I love in the 2nd Scott Pilgrim when the free newsweekly is held up and one of the sidebars is “Comic Books Aren’t for Kids Anymore”.
Neil Gaiman talked about the graphic novel thing on his blog. Plenty of librarians argued with this, on both listservs I’m on.
Frankly, I do think that his complaint that one could be left with the impression that librarians are only interested in manga has some merit (don't hurt me, please). But I think that has more to do with the audience questions than anything else. Our crews want manga, so we ask other librarians, and maybe some of the indie and/or realistic stuff falls by the wayside because you just can’t cover everything in the amount of time given. Even with that, I thought it was a great and informative program. But then, I don’t need a primer; I just like some help keeping up.
I remain totally fascinated with the idea of boy-love manga (no one is surprised by my attraction to the boy-on-boy). However, realistic stuff (ie/eg not fantasy) doesn’t tend to circ with my crew, and I’m way too cheap to buy it on my own dime. Someday…
My favorite inside-Jessy’s-head Simpsons reference came at the graphic novel program. A mother of a teenager* was talking about some boy-love book in her daughter’s room and how she asked who was the boy and who was the girl.
“Girls, Lisa. Boys kiss girls.”

By Teens For Teens
My library doesn’t have a teen advisory board. When I made moves to start one, I got a big fat “meh” from my crew.
Unfortunately, most of these “by teen for teen” conference programs that I’ve been to have been all about the TAB. I’m constantly working on ideas for getting feedback/ideas from area teens, not just my regulars, in some sort of casual way.
The best part of this program was the Neighborhood Story Project people. Ashley Nelson is seriously one of the best speakers I’ve ever seen. I really need to read her book, and so does everyone else.
I think what really struck me about the NSP thing was the respect everyone involved clearly has for each other. It’s not, as was so often the case in my high school and I suspect lots of places, white adults with missionary complexes (and sometimes religious funding, making them kinda actual missionaries) coming into the ghetto to help the poor children there. It’s teachers and other adults using their talents and skills to start something somewhere. And that’s awesome, and something I think everyone should aspire to.

So that’s ALA. I know I left some bits out, but this was the general gist.
Jesus, storytime’s loud.



*Someday, somewhere, I will have a conversation with a group of my professional peers and we will actually talk about our actual teenage patrons, not anyone’s children. I can’t help but feel that somehow, somewhere in this “my son/daughter…” method of librarianship, there’s an undercurrent of “You haven’t raised a kid, so you don’t know how to librarian to them.” Or maybe it’s just time for me to move back to someplace where single, childless, and not uncomfortable with either thing girls aren’t such a rarity so I don’t feel like the only boyfriendless, no-kid-having-and-not-caring 27yrold in town.

I got dibs on Jigglypuff—ALA 2006 bk 3

I believe I’ve mentioned before my crew’s lack of interest in DDR. But I still want to have a gaming program, right? Here’s the new plan:
Super Smash Brothers.*
The weekend after all the freshmen orientations, so I can tell every 9th grader in town in just a few fell swoops. Of course, this plan hinges on the school librarian giving me more than a week’s notice for the orientations. Let’s all knock on some wood, shall we?
Thanks to all the gaming discussion people for helping me out with this one. I’m sure I’ll be bothering you guys for help more and more. And I mean that in the least annoying possible way. And the least grammatically correct, apparently.

Stephen Abram’s millennials thing was interesting and didn’t irritate me the way most generational discussions do. Mainly because it didn’t make value judgments, or act like trends in demographics mean EVERYONE born between certain years thinks and acts the same. The powerpoint is here and the handout is here.
The two hottest things I got from the program: Hennepin County has a catalog search box on their MySpace (and they’re offering the code to add a search box to your MySpace—how cool is that!?) and some libraries have text message reference.
Also, I was amused that, after 2 librarians whose questions for Abram were “…but I read this other thing that said that millennials were born after 3:15 PM June 7 1983…”, I bust up there like, “Hennepin County has the catalog on their MySpace? How do I do that?”

Sitting in the audience of the Quick Picks committee was totally fun, even if I was late because no one was exactly sure when Brent Hartinger was signing. I’d been saying to myself that I wanted to be comfortable with my job and what I’m doing librarian-wise, and then I’d look into committee work, and I think I’m ready to investigate. And I think we all know I can’t keep a secret well enough to be on the Printz or Best Book committees.
And I learned all about this book called Fuck This Book, which consists of photos of “fuck” stickers in humorous places. There’s a website, which is of course blocked by our new filter. Though I would find it HILARIOUS if it wasn’t. This is a great book. I totally wish I could buy a copy for school visits (b/c this kind of thing is great for getting teens to realize that libraries aren’t all storytimes and old people), but I like to think I’ve got better sense than that. The high school secretaries already hate me, and I suspect that the high school librarian already thinks I’m without a moral compass.



*I mentioned this to Lawyer Chris yesterday at Melissa’s dad’s picnic and, I swear, it was like Christmas morning. So don’t think I’m not relying on you to help me with this program, Chris. Also, I’m linking to you b/c I think you need to blog the story about Pikachu and the bully.

Luna was transgendered; Mike’s a lesbian: ALA 2006 bk 2

Dude, what is it with every librarian on the planet but me and Feed, anyway?
Actually, I suspect I know, but that’s a whole post unto itself. For a book with a 2004 copyright, it came up in conversation quite a bit at the 2006 conference. I feel like I could, in fact, discuss the programs I went to by describing how and why Feed came up at many of them. But I won’t. I’ll also attempt to contain myself when I start talking about the Neighborhood Story Project.

Alex Awards Program
I went to this last year and it was really cool, so I figured I’d repeat. And I totally got rewarded for not trying anything new, because Neil Gaiman was there. I’m also terrified now, because A. Lee Martinez (Gil’s All-Fright Diner, which is one of those books I swore I ordered, several times, and yet we don’t have it) was introduced with biographical information from his MySpace page.
Here follows A Little Jessy Professional Nightmare:
“Jessy enjoys picking junk up off the ground, thrift stores, clearance racks, public transportation. Drunkdialing AudioBlogger. "I Saw You" personal ads, and making an ass out of herself. She wants to meet a round little fellow who seems to be passed out from drinking too much milk.”
And, yes, I know that the easy answer is to not have any personal information on the internet that I wouldn’t want used to introduce me to a bunch of librarians. But where’s the fun in that? I also kind of can’t believe the intro’s writer. If I were writing presenter’s biographical information for my sister, I wouldn’t say, “Lara’s heroes are people who stand up for something…Oh, also Nick Lachey,” to a bunch of teachers.
I also noted that I should really read As Simple As Snow. I wondered a bit at Galloway’s slightly awkward (I thought) discussion of his “goth” characters (you know how sometimes you can hear quote-bunnies?) with Neil Gaiman sitting next to him, but, well, I don’t know if I could discuss anything with Neil Gaiman sitting next to me. I do, however, know that I wouldn’t read a passage from a fellow panelist’s work as part of my talk, like Galloway did at the YALSA President’s Program. But then, I was unimpressed by Postcards from No Man’s Land. Oh, and for an Iowa graduate, I was impressed at his lack of Poet Voice.

Audiobook Preconference
There was a contest to be in an audiobook! You had to audition and everything. I kinda screwed it up, which I think I wouldn’t’ve done if I had actually practiced out loud, but it was really fun nonetheless. The woman I sat next to thought so as well. Apparently, we were so excited by the prospect of being in an audiobook that somehow her ALA badge (which you need for pretty much EVERYTHING) wound up in my purse. Which I discovered hours and hours later, right before I discovered that her business card only listed her school number. Oops. Hopefully, she got to the exhibit hall lost ‘n’ found. Let that be a lesson to everyone that obsessively checking for your badge at every turn isn’t just me being insane and paranoid!
There were also interesting panels, like Bruce Coville, Listening Library, etc. talking about producing audiobooks and a couple of the kids from Full Cast Audio talking about being audiobook actors, and actually doing some audiobook rehearsing in front of us, which was super cool. Clips of audiobooks played (I tried to time my bathroom break to coincide with the clip from Feed, but no dice) that totally inspired me to make a mixcd to take on class visits this fall (what song should I “accidentally” add? “I Hate Music”? “Nic Fit”? Dub Narcotic’s “Fuck Shit Up”? [joking—I would never ever do that]). The woman I was behind in the lunch line is currently working on the audio version of Traveling Pants #4 and I tried to pump her for spoilers, but, again, no dice. I’m still terribly excited about reading this one.
Tamora Pierce does this great “I’m a terrible speaker” fake-out at the beginning of her talk, and it totally sounds like Delores Umbridge does in my head.
The awesomest thing from the preconference was the discovery that New York Public Library worked with Listening Library to get audiobook clips on their website. I’m really excited about biting this idea for my library, maybe even on the MySpace page. Kind of like how Ned Vizzini put an excerpt of It's Kind of a Funny Story on its own MySpace.
Some libraries (school ones, I think) shelve their audiobooks right next to the print version. I’m still thinking of the pros and cons of this idea for the teenhole, but I kind of like it. I mean, we’ve got the hardback and paperback copies together, why not the audio as well? My crew don’t go and look at the audiobook section as a rule, so it just might work. I wonder if I could do a test run?
Cool toys from the precon: audiobooks on memory cards and these Playaway things that my library (the one I use, not the one I work for) has and I keep meaning to investigate.
Upcoming in part 3: committees I audienced at, Printz speeches, graphic novels, and more rambly “goodness”.

Yay us; or ALA 2006 bk 1

So, I was in New Orleans for a week. I've never been anywhere where palm trees grow naturally before.

FAQ answers:

• No, I didn’t spend that much time on Bourbon Street. Do I strike you as the sort of girl who would enter a bar called the Frat House, or the sort of girl who would pick a sign up off the street instructing Frat House patrons that dress codes were to be strictly adhered to?
  
• Where I was (downtown-ish and the French Quarter) there was very little damage. There were still signs, like how all the street signs are bent and how, instead of Sporadic City Stench, sometimes I’d get a whiff of mildew. Or how many bright blue tarps I saw instead of roofs as my plane was taking off.
  
• Yes, I went to Café du Monde. I didn’t think that my beloved funnel cake could be improved upon (unless, of course, it’s by Kennywood and involves ice cream and strawberries). I was wrong. I was also wrong to wear a black shirt around all that powdered sugar. And I don’t know if it was just because I had been drinking crappy-pot-in-my-hotel-room coffee all week, but—damn. Best Cup of Coffee I’ve Had In Forever. Like, the kind of revelatory coffee experience your first cup is, or your first espresso. Or when you first realize that beans from different countries taste different. And now I sound like a junkie.
  
  
• Yup, everyone was pretty psyched to see us. In addition to the usual New Orleans tourist shirts (“Don’t Make Me Poison Your Food” and a lot about being drunk) and the Katrina black humor stuff (my favorites being the ones referring to the hurricane as a blow job), there were also “Librarians Do It By the Book” tshirts all over the place.

Mostly, I did a lot of librarianing, with some blatant fanboyishness thrown in for good measure. Everyone will be pleased to know that I didn’t embarrass myself in front of Sara Ryan, despite my giant Straight Girl Crush. Hopefully I’ll be equally lucky if I’m ever in the same room as Beth from The Gossip. Hopefully I will also actually have the balls to speak to her, since I didn’t with Sara Ryan.

I also bought my very own copy of Geography Club (and had it signed!), so expect me to be forcing that on all of my friends soon. Like, at Stacey et al’s housewarming party this weekend. I’d also have kickass Brent Hartinger temporary tattoos, but there was a summer reading mixup while I was gone (actually, back when I approved a form I shouldn’t’ve) and we were running dangerously low on prizes.
I also got some good gifties for some folks, and will be guest-blogging in Claudia’s Room sometime soon re: meeting ANM.
Lots of ARCs too, of course. I’m really trying to keep track of what I read with LibraryThing. And I’m chomping at the bit for my package containing, among other things, New Moon and Vampirates. Snurk.

More pictures are at my flickr account (see the badge thing over there?) and more actual conference detail is forthcoming.

Ohio:


Pittsburgh:


and, of course, good ol' Loomy:


See the rest here.