In which I have feels

(updated with link to offending vacation)

Remember my resolution never to go back to Maui, after the concussion/helicopter rescue/horror shit show that was our last vacation? Well, a family member is going there next month, and I bent my heart around the idea of going over to meet her, but there are no rooms at the inn because of summer demand, so OH WELL. I'm off the hook for that one. But it dredged up a bunch of feelings about what happened, and about the people I would have liked to see, and the people I would have liked to want to see me, and the people I never want to see again. And that dredged up even broader feelings about places I would like to go, and people I would like to see, and people I would have liked to want to see me, etc, and BAH. Going back to planning my imaginary book tour.

My entire work year revolves around summer reading, and the program has been going full crack for two weeks now, with another four weeks to go. And I enjoy the bustle of activity, with the bloodthirsty older children demanding gruesome ghost stories and gross camp songs, so it's cool. But I have been trying to carve out time at night to work on my book, and it's hard. And I need to get things ready for father's day, which is followed the very next day by my mother's birthday, and then there is the chicken coop and the cats and the bedtime routines AND AND AND. I'm getting everything done, but I feel a bit like someone with one leg on a moving train, trying to hop fast enough to get on board.

Then I got in a fight with someone who is Wrong on the Internet about whether or not children should use AR-15s. For the record, my stance is NO NO FUCKING NO. Christ on a cracker. I support gun restrictions. I support police officers and soldiers and people who are trained to handle these things for a living. I do not support my classmate, who shot his girlfriend in front of their kids, or my stupid high school boyfriend who pointed a rifle at me (and who is now in jail for stealing a door while high on meth, thank you very much. A DOOR) and I do not think an AR-15 would have helped my childhood friend when her mother turned a gun on her.

So I was slumped at my desk and feeling pitiful when one of our 13 year old volunteers (one of several kids stuck at the library because they have no child care during the summer) came to sit next to me.
"Where are the books on dark magic?" he asked. "Like, spells and stuff."
"They've all been stolen."
"Why?"
"Because people think you will turn into a witch if you read them."
"That's stupid. Do they think I'll turn into Donald Trump if I read about him?"
"Yes."
"What."
We had a nice talk about intellectual freedom, and then he noticed what I was researching on my computer.
"I'm trying to find out when people started putting photos on headstones," I explained. We clicked around, looking at old sculptural tombs and crypts.
"Those are awesome. I know what I want my headstone to be. Like, a big glass dome, with me in the middle."
"Like a snow globe?"
"YES."
"Or one of those water toys, where you push the buttons and try to get the hoop over the peg."
I pantomimed pushing a big button on a headstone, and he wooshed his arms around limply. "Ten points, grandpa!"
"Or we can have you mounted in crystal, like those tacky paperweights with a 3D eagle in them," I said.
"It would be so beautiful."

I love youths, people. I really do.