Burns Night 2024

Denver was flat and brown, with a tiny line of distant mountains obscured by smog. I had it in my head that all of Colorado was some kind of snowy mountain wonderland, but half of it looks like it was ironed. The view from the terminal while I ran to catch my connection was a bunch of parked planes, so it’s just as well there was no scenery out there anyway.

When I got home that night, the house was cluttered, the kids had no clean laundry, homework hadn’t been done, and the fridge was empty. But the kitchen ceiling was tiled. I feel really tired about all the shopping and chores being left for me, but the ceiling does look nice.

I tried hard to stay inspired and enthusiastic, but for the rest of the week I was stuck at the circ desk, helping people click "print" and pointing to the bathrooms, and then spending my evenings cooking and grocery shopping and doing laundry and helping with homework to catch up with things at home. I feel like a snuffed candle.

At least there was an event to look forward to, if I could just get through Saturday. Story time was out of control. About 80 people showed up, and did nothing to stop their kids from screaming and running through the aisles and pulling entire shelves of books onto the floor. I wished I had candies to hand out to all the people in the adult section who were hunkering in front of their laptops with clenched jaws. They didn’t complain, because they know this hour is for the kids, and I appreciate it.

After work we hurried to get ready for Burns Night, and drove to the country club to pretend we were fancy for a few hours. The club changed the rules to prohibit outside alcohol and top-shelf booze for nonmembers, so everyone was grumbling about not having a bottle at each table. They had to drink cheap scotch from the bar, instead. Scotch is my enemy, so I drank water and didn’t give a damn.

Nobody took a picture of me, so imagine a black v-neck pencil dress with a bow at the waist in that mirror selfie 

 

In other news

Baby Jesus the Stray Cat (he needs a better name) still keeps the fence between us, and he’s still thin and bony because he’s about 200 years old, but he’s feeling better and getting lazy about coming over to eat after having a big stretch and a scratch. I’m okay with him taking the meals for granted, he deserves for something to be easy.

Baltimore, Last Day

All the major literary awards were announced today, including the Printz, Caldecott, and Newbery, and I was there! I was there, too, when the selection committees went through the publisher booths and put the official award stickers on all the winners, to lots of cheering. It was pretty great.

Big winner: The Eyes & the Impossible, by Dave Eggers.

Today was the best day of the trip. And the most expensive, because I was set loose in the city as soon as the conference ended at noon, and went into full tourist mode. Walked up to Blick to buy paint and brushes, then hopped a bus and rode down to Fells Point to visit Kilwins, where I bought overpriced chocolates and fudge for the kids. I had a mission to find the statue of Frederick Douglass for my painting project, so I walked down to the harbor and wandered around until I found him under a tree. Really nice sculpture. Really weird how all the streets were completely empty. To be fair, January probably isn’t tourist season in Baltimore.

I decided to eat early so I could catch the bus back before it got dark, and walked into Harbor Tandoor 10 minutes before their lunch special ended. The server recommended butter chicken and momo with fresh naan, and so that is what I ordered. It was AMAZING. Truly special. And half the price of that stupid wet crab cake. 

I packed up what I couldn’t finish for breakfast, left a good tip, and caught the bus to the Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture. 

I only had an hour before it closed, so I gave it a quicker tour than it deserved, but I still learned a lot. The artifacts were chilling, the art and education was inspiring, and they played “Black Moses Barbie”, which made me laugh.

I bought some shirts for work in the museum gift shop, because I’ve decided to make myself more of a problem for our book banning moms.

It was only a mile back to the hotel along the harbor, so I walked the rest of the way. My watch clocked 87 exercise minutes and 6.5 miles of walking today. I’m going to have buns like cantaloupes when I fly home tomorrow. Layover in Colorado this time, which is another first for me, and then straight home to plump up in the humidity like a raisin in hot water. Looking forward to it. 

Baltimore Day 3

Man, I’m terrible at making friends, I need to step up my game, I thought as I settled into bed. I picked up my kindle to read a Jess Lourey short story and the first page I flipped to had suggestions for me. Synchronicity!

Did I break the ice with miraculous mayonnaise anecdotes this morning? No, I did not. And that is why I went to all my sessions and then walked to the harbor by myself in the evening. I was going to latch on to whatever group was walking somewhere, but they all evaporated at the stroke of 5pm. How did 2,000 people vanish inside the 2 minutes it took me to put on my coat and gloves? It’s one of those mysteries of nature.

The harbor was closed. All the fancy restaurants were shut down. I stared sadly into the dark lobster roll shack, then ran back 3 blocks and had another meal at the sad crab cake place by my hotel. This time I got a flight of local beers and the salmon, which was much better than the wet crabby patty they gave me last time.

Wow, very boat. Much historic.

There was nothing stopping me from commandeering a sea monster and going for a joy ride in the Baltimore harbor, but I didn’t do that either. Disappointing.

Drinking by yourself is okay when it’s for science. 

Stout, Nitro, lemonade Berliner Weisse, Martzen

Hard to fuck up a nice piece of salmon

What I learned today:

Nobody will attend a session when there are free cookies in the exhibition hall.

How to handle challenges/protests/violence in response to programs at the library.

What to do as a library when a natural disaster wipes out your community.

New librarians think “all conflict comes from miscommunication” and that active listening can fix anything, because they don’t know about people who poop on the floor yet.

Telling new librarians about people who poop on the floor won’t get you a dinner invitation.

I got back to my room, took a hot shower, stood huffing steam for a long time until my nose and lips rehydrated, and I am ready to watch True Detective and go to sleep buried under all 6 pillows from both beds. The heater is loud.

One more full day and night to go.

Baltimore Day 2

There is no way I am going to sleep through the night, I thought when I turned off the light at 10pm. And then my doggamned* alarm went off two seconds later at 7am.

*That is how my tired fingers typed it and I am leaving it.

I threw on clothes and went downstairs for the “free continental breakfast” in the hotel lobby. It turned out to be a pile of bagels and packets of instant oatmeal. I dumped some oats in a coffee cup, added too much hot water, and said hi to the clerk. 

“You’re still here, huh?” I asked, because he’s the night guy.

“Yeah, supposed to get off at 7, it’s already 7:45 and she’s not here yet. I didn’t get to leave until 11 yesterday. At least I get paid for it. Missed half my mom’s birthday, though.”

“Did you take her out somewhere?”

“Nah, she’s only got one leg, she doesn’t like to go out no more.”

I finished drinking my oats, realized I had packed everything except a notebook to write notes on, and the clerk tore off a few pages from a yellow legal pad for me. I said goodbye and walked across the street to sign in and get my badge. This time, I did not pop a kidney stone, and spent the entire day going to sessions and hitting up the exhibition hall for free swag. I drank a Coke Zero for lunch and just kept going. 

It was worth it.

Kate DiCamillo made us all cry with a really amazing talk, and then I waited for 45 minutes in a line to have her sign an advance copy of her new (unreleased) book - only to fangirl at her about the Beatryce Prophesy and mispronounce the name of the book to her face. I said “Chronicles” instead of “Prophesy”. It was one of those moments I’ll wake up cringing about at 2am for the next 20 years. Like when I called MC Chris “McChris” when I was 26. Or when I sneezed and farted at the same time in front of my crush when I was 9. 

Muttered to myself and slapped my forehead all the way to the intellectual freedom panel, where I got into a really great talk with a presenter who looked just like Tig Notaro. We ran out of time and she said, “I need your email!” but we didn’t get a chance to exchange info. I’ll keep an eye out for her tomorrow. 

I took a picture with Kate DiCamillo, but I was grimacing exactly like a person who was just realizing they had mispronounced the author’s book, so I cropped it out because I was too embarrassed. I’m in the FaceTime screenshot for proof of life, that’s it for today.

At the end of the day, with pages of notes and bags full of free stuff, I got back to my hotel room and realized I had yet again failed to make dinner friends with anybody. Lyft rides were $13 to the touristy restaurant area, and then I would just be over there by myself and have to come right back, so instead I looked up a seafood restaurant within walking distance and bundled up to trudge 5 blocks while it was getting dark. It was not a good idea. I got away from a scary person who was aggressively pretending to ask me for directions while sizing me up for robbing, and ran into the crab restaurant. It was huge and incongruously decorated with rococo ceilings, art deco sconces, a 10-foot golden Buddha, and enormous neon crabs. I sat by myself and was just wondering how I’d get back to the hotel without getting knife holes in my new coat, when a group of 6 people carrying swag tote bags came in and sat down near me. I shamelessly asked if they were librarians and they let me join them at a big table. They were all coworkers at a university library in Texas. We ordered seafood, and the crab legs and crawfish came out in big puffy bags filled with spicy steam. They didn’t give out cracking tools, so we all attacked our shellfish with our hands and teeth. It was exactly what I had hoped Maryland seafood would be. The younger librarians had the fanciest cocktails they could think of, and when we were done we pulled off our plastic bibs and walked back in a nice safe mob. I peeled away at my hotel and waved goodbye to them as they headed on to a bar called the Pickle that allegedly serves drinks in Big Gulp cups. I am too old for that shit, but I’m happy for them, and really glad they took me in for a couple hours.

Sorry, delicious little cockroach buddy

Talked to my family on FaceTime, took a shower, covered myself in lotion like it was mayonnaise and I was a dry hamburger bun, set my alarm, and I am ready to conk the fuck out. 

Great day. 

Baltimore Day 1

When we landed in Maryland, I pulled on my hoodie and my hair popped up out of the collar in a halo of static. Even being so close to the ocean, with the air full of fat wet snowflakes, it is so dry here it’ll suck your face to your skull.

I picked up my suitcase, pulled out my big coat, and walked outside to the first cab at the curb. We were the only tracks in the snow in the hotel driveway at 7am - the driver almost drove onto the lawn because he couldn’t see where the road ended. It was too early to check in. I stowed my bag at the desk, made small talk with the clerk, and walked around the block to find a cup of decaf and a sad breakfast wrap at Dunkin. I ate it with my gloves on and got cheese on the ‘tech touch fingers’ while walking back to the lobby. I sat for an hour, trying to get my charger to work and dozing off a bit. The desk clerk suddenly started swearing and banging, and I ran to find him stuck in the airlock between the inner and outer doors, which needs a key card to open.

“There’s heating in there for people who walk in, and I was trying to see if I could get the inside door to stay open so it would let some heat in to warm up my desk,” he said when I let him in. “Man, nobody is out in this snow. I didn’t have a single walk-in last night. I did hear some screaming, though, like fuck, shit, fuck, and found this homeless guy stuck in the dumpster. He couldn’t get out, and he was having a fit. He didn’t want help, though. So I called the police, and they helped him.”

When it was close to 10am, I walked up to the museum, stopping at 7-11 for a phone charger. I waited outside the museum doors, holding my hand out to catch snowflakes on my black glove. I wished I could hold them right up to my eyeball to see the crystals like I could when I was a kid, but I could at least make out the star shapes of the larger ones. When 10am came and went, I checked the museum’s website and instagram to find they had posted about a snow day closure 45 minutes earlier. Disappointed, I walked around the building and found a memorial park filled with snowy statues, with a cathedral standing behind it. My footprints were the only ones in the snow, and the entire city was quiet and empty. It was art enough for me, and I walked back feeling happy.

Getting my film noir vibe on, 5 seconds before dropping my hat and gloves under the automatic faucet

It was lunch time, so I went to the ale house next to the hotel, listening to a pair of librarians at a nearby table talk about policies and governance as the place slowly filled up with conference-goers. My stomach thought it was 6am, and was not convinced about crab cakes. They were mushy and bland, like fried baby food. I picked the crab off the bun and thought about trying to make friends with some of the other librarians, but they seemed like admin, and I gravitate more toward front-line people who tell horrible work stories. 

$44 with the 20% tip automatically added on and a third line on the bill for “extra tip”

FINALLY I got the key cards to my room, went upstairs to throw my luggage down, and took a very hot shower. My hair was already mostly dry by the time I put on clean clothes and dropped onto one of the beds to sleep for a few hours. I have two beds, because those are the undesirable rooms set aside for conference discounts. I could stand up and bounce from one to the other, if I wanted to see how the Baltimore ER stacks up to the Chattanooga ER.

I completely forgot to go across the street and sign in to pick up my name badge and welcome packet, so I ended up at the evening reception getting manually ticked off a list to get my free drink token, looking like a gate crasher walking around anonymously among all the librarians labeled with huge lanyards. I made a bit of chit chat with the people at my table, but nothing stuck. After the presentations, everyone crowded into the lobby to line up for food and drinks. I got pushed off to the side, looking around at all the laughing people and completely failing to make friends with anyone. I finally decided to line up and get a beer so I could work up some nerve/look approachable. It did not work. It’s not that I’m shy, it’s just that the first question people ask is, “Where are you from?” and I don’t want to tell them, because I sound like an asshole and they immediately think we don’t have anything in common. I have to insert myself into a conversation that’s already happening, get them to like me with some jokes and gross library stories, and THEN drop the H-bomb. And I was just so tired. I texted my coworker to see if she was in the crowd somewhere, but she had already bailed on the event because of jet lag. I stood against a pillar, drank the beer, put it on a tray, and left. 

Well. Maybe tomorrow I’ll do better with people who are trapped at a table with me. If not, I’ll go for another walk in the snow by myself and find some damn crab that isn’t mashed into cat food.

Crab cakes here I come

My employers have put me in steerage, near the rear toilets, with just one item allowed as carry-on. I was not sure if a giant winter coat counted as carry-on, so I decided to play a dangerous game and stuffed it into my checked bag, along with an AirTag. If I end up stranded in Baltimore and they lose my luggage, at least I can watch my coat scooting around the country without me.

And once again, I forgot that I don’t like flying until I was locked onto the plane. Headed to the West Coast this evening, and then East until dawn. Let’s go.

QUICK EDIT:

I made it! And I am too early to check into my hotel, and my phone is dying, and my charger doesn’t work, so I am doing the thing I said I wouldn’t and going out in the snow ALONE to find a convenience store and walk to the museum. I love the snow so much, but my nose and my legs are remembering why people wear scarves and thermal underwear. I will do things Survivor Man-style and work up a sweat by walking all over the damn city. My AirTag will lead the police to my body when my phone dies.

Biting off more than I can chew

To make things more complicated, I bought a giant accordion-paged sketchbook and decided to paint the entire year and then submit it to the art show as an installation piece, along with a loop of videos documenting each week. That goddamn ceramic chain mail blanket was large and had a video to go along with it, so I am going to hitch my horse to that wagon and see if making a nuisance of myself gets some results. (Videos for the first two weeks are up on Instagram.)

I knew painting fireworks would not go well for me because it counts as a landscape, but it’s just the first page and nobody will be looking at it for long. Starts the year off in a recognizable way. 

I had more fun painting week 2; first post-holiday grocery shopping. I don’t cook whole fish, but I always walk by to look at them because they have nice colors.

Today I painted snail. There has been a lot of rain, and I pick them off the library sidewalk so people don’t step on them.

It is snowing in Baltimore, and I am ready for 5 days of professional development and crab cakes. The murder rate in Baltimore is #2 in the country, but probably most of those people aren’t getting murdered in seafood restaurants. It’ll be fine.

hit the ground running

I applied for another job. This time it's close to home, but with much better pay and responsibilities. If that doesn't work out, I have the LSAT practice book, and half a mind to go to law school (4 year online JD program through UH Manoa). I did a cold test and scored about 2/3 correct, and I'll take another after studying to see if I've improved enough to sit the exam in March.

Or I could just join a pickle ball team or something, I don't know. 

Next week I'm getting on a plane to Baltimore for a library conference. I bought a nice heavy coat and some insulated boots - and so of course it is 57 degrees and raining over there. Rats. I'm wearing the coat anyway, it makes me look like a chain-smoking private detective. I'm going for a look that says "please don't rob me and throw my body in the harbor".

Gavin flies back to college tomorrow. Yesterday we binged the new season of Our Flag Means Death with cats on our laps while I baked cookies. I'm going to miss him a lot.

New Year 2024

For months, the news has been posting articles about all the tons of illegal aerial fireworks that were being seized at the docks and from hiding spaces in garages - and then the island blew up exactly as usual. 34 tons of missing fireworks made no difference at all, which gives you some idea of how many fireworks are making it through inspections every year.

The neighbors did not accidentally blow up an aerial in our yard, and the chickens didn’t fall dead out of the tree, so it was a good year for us. The cats didn’t even bother hiding under the bed, they are battle-hardened. I fell asleep for a couple hours with a pillow over my head before being dragged outside at midnight.

On New Year’s Day, we grilled steaks, the kids played darts, and we made s'mores on the patio. 

Death by telescoping marshmallow stick

It felt like a perfect summer evening. Which is annoying for January, but still. Off to a good start.