A-flutter

I started the morning with the first of my final 3 classes. After Wednesday, I will be free for all of two weeks before summer sessions begin.

After class, I pushed through a crowd of sulky teenagers and bought a sandwich for lunch at Subway. I clocked into work, checked my e-mail, and spent the next two hours distracted, trying to scan the stacks for mis-shelved reference books. My professor ran into me and gave me feedback on the book review I had submitted last night. As it turns out, I'm not too bad at writing reviews, and he encouraged me to pursue it. Librarian, children's book illustrator, and book reviewer. Sounds ok to me.

Praise from my professors makes me happy. Even happy and distracted, I managed to pull 8 mis-shelved books and keep my title of champion book-finder. I ate mentos, argued with my co-workers about who was going to answer the phone, laughed at Yuri as she pantomimed an unfortunate encounter with her cat, and found myself a hypothetical job and house in South Carolina. (It feels as though we will be forced to move to the mainland next year due to absolutely insane inflation in the housing market - $350,000 for a 2 bedroom house in a crappy neighborhood? Nuh-uh.)

One thing I like about library work are the funny patron names. Today: Peter B. Hung.

no news

I like being a librarian. I like opening the library, putting the newspapers on sticks, turning on the computers and xerox machines, wiping down the counters, and making the place orderly and presentable for everyone. I have registered for my fall classes, the last classes I will be taking. Between 4 classes, studying for my oral exams, work, and a toddler, I'm going to be bald in patches and suffering nervous twitches by the time my birthday rolls around, but it will be worth it.

My mother swore she saw three ninjas dart by the back window this morning, but I assured her that ninjas were too stealthy to be seen in broad daylight. She ran outside with my camera and caught them in the act: the neighbor boys, actually dressed as ninjas. She printed out the pictures for them, and they were happy about how cool they looked. We scored points with the neighbors, I think.

Meanwhile, I had been suspecting that Gavin was a bit too happy to drop me off at work and say goodbye. Today I woke him with a kiss as I climbed out of the car and he mumbled sleepily not the word "bye", but the word "pie". Turns out his grandmother has been taking him across the street for cheesecake at the cafe every time she drops me off. Hows that for a little Pavlovian training?

One of my co-workers is an undergrad in a philosophy course. His professor gave them a self-diagnostic quiz to determine their philosophical standpoints. He didn't tell me what my answers meant about myself, but it was fun considering them:

You have to choose between the lives of a baby or a convict - who do you kill?
The convict, of course. I think a better question would be, "You have to choose between the lives of a 70-year old scientific genius and a baby, who do you kill?" (in which case, I say the baby.)

You're on a sinking ship full of men, women, and children, without enough live boats, who do you throw in the water?
The single men first, then the other men. If preserving life is the ultimate goal, it would make no sense to throw the wombs overboard. But if the swimmers were going to be rescued imminently, then I'd throw the women in, because women have been shown to have higher endurance against hypothermia. Of course, much depends on age, physical condition, etc, either way.

Death penalty? What about the innocent that get executed?
Yes. If the courts are sending anyone to death row for anything other than DNA-linked murders and ones with credible witnesses, then that's a problem with the courts.

Euthanasia?
Yes.

If you were a mother, and your village was invaded and you had to hide, and your baby started crying, would you smother your baby to save lives of the villagers?
I decided this wasn't a fair question, because it wouldn't be a conscious decision. You would either be so terrified that you pressed the baby harder and harder into your bosom until it died, or you wouldn't, and you'd be discovered and killed. Besides, this actually happened during the holocaust. The babies died. Not a happy thing.

I don't know, these questions sounded more moral than ethical. Ethical questions are much harder to answer, because they can be so subtle.
 

I obviously have no news today. I ate pita chips and hummus and strawberries. I took cold medicine. My nose is runny. I have a term paper due in a week. I'm still not in the mood. I have imaginary arguments with my neighbors. I'm brainstorming. I'm doodling. I'm just poking along as usual.

:)

Disclaimer

The really cool teenagers who hang out at the library (oh yeah, they're such rebels) elbowed each other and sniggered while I rummaged through the graphic novel racks for my next YA assignment. Because, as we all know, graphic novels are written and illustrated by acne-pocked 14 year olds, not grody old losers in their 20s who still live with their mom. Not at all.


I have been reading Lois Ann Yamanaka's Heads by Harry, and it has been making me think a lot about growing up on Molokai (the novel takes place on the Big Island, but it's about the same). I thought about my giggly Japanese friend who's father had two walls full of rifles and stuffed heads. About the cute boy she was in love with who came to hunt with her dad, the boy who shot our cats, and who drowned and died in her arms while spearfishing one night. I remembered standing with her in our underwear in her backyard at 3am while our friends played poker around the foil-covered pans of food in the garage. The book hit home, and I haven't decided if that is a fact in its favor yet. Probably. I should take a day trip to Molokai and walk through town, I haven't been there in 7 years.

Soft, 'eh me?

notes from work

The continuing wallpaper project has to wait for tomorrow; my work days are all on the weekend. The library system crashed yesterday, leaving us with several hundred items to back-date and re-shelve. The circulation desk moved upstairs, leaving one person downstairs to man the book return, fix copier machines, and keep people from masturbating on the carpets. Today, that person is me. A long day with no food or water or toilet breaks, punctuated intermittently by patron emergencies. Plenty of time to people watch, one of my more favored activities.

"Don't do anything you wouldn't want to be caught doing," is my motto, and it keeps my life clean and simple (and boring, sorry). I've recently come to the obvious realization that there are just things you can't help doing, that happen to you, that you don't want to be caught at. I don't know how to reconcile that. It goes hand in hand with my other motto, "Let it be", but the two just don't gel into one cohesive motto. "Don't do anything on purpose that you don't want to be caught doing, and just let the rest be"? Not very catchy.

caff-amphetamine

I accidentally started the long day with a jolt of caffeine that made me hyper throughout class and caused my voice to tremble when I delivered my article critique. My hands shook badly as I tried to ink my current illustration before work. This is exactly why I don't do drugs.

My hands evened themselves out after a few hours, and I huddled over my drawing in the cold A/V center all afternoon. The system was down, so I only needed to console patrons and answer phones. At one point, I jumped up to help a student and my reference photos scattered across the table in front of one of my co-workers. I was pretty sure that half-naked photographs of myself* would be against the rules, but she didn't care. Hurray for liberal university folk. I did a bit of research into starting my next Master's degree, and it looks like I'll have to wait until the fall after next to start up my art studies again, if I decide to.

After work, we had dinner at the cafe across the street. Their staff of eerily tanned kids with blonde hair are a bit slow, but they sure make good food. On the way out, Gavin swung happily from my hand, tripped, and I dropped him on his face on the pavement. I think I was more upset than he was as I wiped the blood off his lips.


*I really would prefer having different models for my drawings.

Self pity

After the games, Mike stayed with the group to break down the tea tent while my mother and Gavin went to pick me up from work. I looked forward to an evening with Mike, but the hours ticked away with no sign of him. At last, I heard the car beep as he locked it and I climbed out of bed to say hi to him. Instead I sat on the couch in the dark and talked to him about my recent feelings of loneliness and neglect. The band comes first, work comes first, the RSCDS comes first, while I'm left behind with the baby with not even a backwards glance. Mike hugged me and told me I was wrong, and we went to bed disgruntled.

I dreamed that I was sitting on the couch with an old friend. I put my head on his shoulder as we watched tv, and he shrugged me off. "What are you trying to do? You know I'm married," he said, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. I felt completely lost and rejected.

This was made worse by the realization when I woke up that I don't have a friend on hand at all. As much as I like Yuri, I don't know her well enough to horse around, let alone rest my head against her when I feel alone.

I rolled over and hugged Gavin, who squeezed me back, "Ahhh, mama!" He's not much for adult conversation, but I'm not really alone, am I?

Bad Mood

Fuck.

I shoved my belongings into a locker and indulged in a temper tantrum, jumping up and down angrily until I felt foolish enough to stomp into the library office to get a diet soda. Yuri swiveled at her desk and said "Hi!", surprising me enough to spit cola down my front. She got to be my victim to unload my problems on:

Mike was supposed to drive me to work from the Highland Games, but hadn't been bothered to get out of bed in time (he works nights and sleeps during the day).

My mother had to abandon the tea tent and lose her nice parking spot in order to drop me off (and no, I couldn't take her car, she needed it for loading purposes later on).

I decided it was foolish to abandon my yearly fish-and-chips tradition and made myself sick with an entire day's worth of grease in one sitting; furthermore, I was unable to throw up even though I felt nauseous because I have an iron stomach and a fear of slipping down the slope into an eating disorder.

I brought my notebook and current illustration to work; but forgot my textbook and pencils, rendering them useless.

I forgot my nice fuzzy jacket in the tea tent and forgot to pack a change of clothes, so I had to freeze in my inappropriate work attire.

Rar.

The Games

My mother was running around the living room, looking for her purse and fussing because she was late. I took glance around the room, and Gavin looked up from his morning episode of Thomas the Tank Engine. "Purse?" he said, and scrambled up. He fetched the case to his Thomas DVDs, pulled off the cover, opened it up, and pointed to a picture of a green train engine. "Purse!" he said helpfully, offering it to my mother. The engine's name was Percy. I must now live with the fact that my 2-year old can't say his own name, but can identify the cast of Thomas and Friends. (In my defense, he also knows the names of all the characters in his collection of award-winning bedtime books.)


In other Gavin news, he has officially started talking in sentences. Why, just yesterday, he said, "Ow! Mama hit baby in the head!" (it was an accident!)

Strolling through the week

I spent Wednesday morning interviewing the woman who handles the video collection at our library. The politics involved in wrangling funds and support from the administration was as fascinating as it was terrifying. At this point, I'm not confidant about my ability to stand up to opposition in the professional field, which will be inevitable as a librarian. I can only trust that I will survive my green years and turn into a tough old stick that can bludgeon people into agreeing with me.

After lunch at BaLe, I battled the Honlulu traffic and found a parking spot only two blocks away from the public library. 20 minutes later, holding the only copy of Dance on my Grave on the island, I argued and feigned stupidity until the parking attendant let me back into the structure without paying another fee (ok, I actually was too stupid to figure out the fee schedule and she finally wanted to get rid of me). By the time class rolled around, I had been locked in the computer lab for 4 hours doing homework. I was twitchy and exhausted. The student presentation for the evening was delivered by a woman with a slow, soothing voice that made me sleepy and then repeatedly jabbed me awake with the word "liberry". Yuri passed me a note. Gee, I hope I can work at a LIE-BERRY when I grow up. I wish I had pencils to jam in my ears.

This weekend kicks off the Highland Games. There will be dancing, music, celtic stuff, and fish & chips. Too bad I'll be working.