post #1

friday, december 14, 2007.

i am learning to allow myself mistakes, at least NOW while i am a newbie. otherwise, to make simple mistakes a few months in might say something about my progress. that being said, i smile when i recollect the “oops-es” and “oh-no’s” that friday.

one pronounced example was when an old man called me to get the almanac and tell him when would be the best time this month to plant vegetables below ground. what made it harder than the obvious answer was that he immediately directed me (through the phone, remember) to the december chart – lined with crescent moons and numbers and tides and other familiar icons with unfamiliar definitions. he laughed real good and hearty when i asked if i could put him on hold so i could get a more accurate answer from another librarian. “You ain’t ever read an almanac, have you?” he jeered. well don’t put so much pressure on me, sir, as the local history/genealogy man obviously didn’t understand it either but tried to give me an intelligible response (because he did not have the privilege of working at the library for only six weeks). at least mister man was appreciative when i actually found it for him, and just in case you were curious, if you are planting any time this month, it’ll be best on december 25. that’s right, Christmas.

on a separate note, my boss let me off early. i desperately needed that extra time to study for a comprehensive final. that’s what my brain told me, although my body was begging for sleep…

saturday, december 15, 2007

having had a final, i was one hour late to work, but they knew i would be. it was slow, grueling, and the most exciting moment was a lengthy conversation with a woman about trying to find a “Rock-a-Bye” Collection, Volume 2, which i later found out it is no longer in circulation, and neither amazon, barnes and noble, nor borders have it in stock. it made her very happy to talk about it, though, that i simply had to look it up and listen to it. amazon does have samples, though i’m not completely impressed (but i may have been when it was first released in 1998). in my search for this rock-a-bye cd, i tried a “rockabye” search in our catalog, to find lullabye covers for u2, beatles, bob marley (check out “stir it up”), coldplay (i admit i did enjoy this), led zeppelin, metallica, etc, and had to sample those as well. like any other tribute attempting to cover a mass of popular artists with little effort, there aren’t a lot of prominent outstanding features or musical quality, but that might be excused by the fact that they are “lullabyes.” we could classify these as background music to classes wherein everyone talks over the tunes anyway, and when the next track starts, we all say “oh i like this song!” or “wait, which one is this?” then carry on our conversations. i suppose i would have a greater appreciation for it if i were a young mother wanting to appease mine and my baby’s taste. i am quickly reminded of a man who came in with his two young middle-schoolers, all dressed in some biker, band, black garb (you know, other descriptors beginning with “b”), all looking for pink floyd cds. in the back of my head i clapped with delight, based on the seen relationship between father and son. i make no judgments on choice of genre or what he is advocating (assumptions can be dangerous), but there’s a certain happiness i find seeing bond between fathers and sons. especially when the influence is encouraging, humble, and at the library of all places. yes, i was amused.

but that was my workday. last until i come back from the holiday.

who else besides me?

it sounds like a ridiculous concept, to love one’s job.  it sounds ideal.  or perhaps that’s just me, because i’m naturally an artist, and the first hurdle will be to actually LAND a job before i can come to love it.

i work at a library.  my peers snicker and i revel in the nerdy implications.  i get paid to refer, to do research, to be your un-opinionated source of opinions.

i feel like i have a story every single day, and i wish i had started this blog earlier, because i would have ready for you story upon story of situations one wouldn’t immediately guess that’s what a library is for.

now the trick is to stay unrecognized by my patrons.