walking my mind to an easy time

My baby somehow stopped being a baby this year. Yesterday morning he wrapped his arms around my ribs in his sleep and rolled onto me. I tucked my chin over his head and felt his toes resting on my shins. I've measured him by how far his toes reach while he's sleeping on me; when he was born they curled against my navel, when he was 2 they rested above my knees. They're fast on their way to my own toes, now.

We ate cereal together and sat around on the couch for a bit. He leaned against me watching cartoons while I read. Some of his drawings from daycare are laying on the table - he wrote his own name on all of them. As we walked to the car, he slipped in the wet grass and fell onto the parkinglot asphalt, skinning his knees and hands. He brushed himself off and chuckled, "I ok, I just fell down, that's all." He cringed a bit as he climbed into his carseat. "Mom, how long is it going to hurt?" I turned and put my frozen quesadilla on his knee, and for a moment we looked at it melting there before laughing.

The ride was quiet, radio softly burning holes in me.

Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again

I've sucked it up and agreed to return to New York this summer in order to allow my boy a visit with his family, maybe a trip to Lake George. The decision disturbed some of the internal sediment, the radio regained a bit of bite. I glanced back and saw him staring hard out the car window, hands clasped in his lap, contemplating the music and landscape as well. Small glimpse into his adult self, and it looks very much like me.

not snow white

After a slow morning watching Marc perform air reference in front of the dead computer while I folded endless piles of reading logs, the day began to pick up with the first non-catalog-related reference question: "Do you know there's a bird upstairs?" A bird! We went running upstairs. Marc chased it with a cardboard box while I stretched my finger out like Snow White. Someone had turned on one of the industrial fans because of the broken a/c, and I had horrible visions of chasing the bird into it with a WHAP! of feathers. After running back and forth a dozen times with the box and the finger, we came to terms with our failure as hunters and just opened the doors. I think we may be the reason humans are omnivores.

After work, my skinny neighbor college boy and Marc lugged a used computer desk up to my apartment. Just like Gavin goes through every one of his toys when he meets someone new, I showed them around the apartment, pointing out all my books, pictures, and shiny objects. This is probably why people have housewarming parties, to get it all out of your system.

And so I finally have a full set of grownup furniture. Someone asked me the other day if Bakersfield was going to be a long-term thing, and for the first time in my life I shrugged and said, "Who knows? Got nowhere to go and nothing to do." Just waiting for something Extraordinary, and if it never finds me - well, at least I had it once anyway.

that white chick

I've been Couched.

Javier and Mike wrestled the couch upstairs into my newly tidied apartment. Once everyone had worn themselves out with the novelty of sitting and saying "ooooh", Mike packed Gavin off for their weekly sleepover night. Javier paused for a moment, then lunged for the television. He popped up the Mexican soccer game and held his hand out optimistically for a beer. I laughed, went to the fridge, and joined him on the new couch to watch the match. I did commentary. "Ooh! The guy is saying, 'dude ran down the field, he kicked! He's running the other way now! Kicks again and red guy gets the ball! Run run run run!' I am learning Spanish!" Javier hooked his arm around my head and muffled me. His phone dinged, with his free hand he flicked it open. "Sister's having a bbq. Her boyfriend is cooking - real southern black guy, that dude can cook. Let's roll."

We rolled. 

Trio of little girls dancing salsa; beefy prison guard singing falsetto to Gnarls Barkley over smoking ribs; women laughing over the rattle of the cocktail shaker; Javier swapping Vegas stories with his childhood friends. His buddy rubbed his face abashedly, "I don't know how I got up onto the roof, but I just wanted to take leak, so there I'm hanging to the side of the building and this security guard asks if I'm ok because the people on the street think I'm a jumper." I flicked on Futurama as I gnawed my bbq. "Where did you get this girl? She's darker than you are, bro. Hey, he making you happy? Treating you right?" I spit out my diet Pepsi. Javier patted my knee and smirked. 

Now it's Memorial Day.  Apple pie! Bratwurst simmering in Guinness, cheddar brats to burn our tongues off with molten cheese, fancy chips and dips. Just a three-person family to-do over a good movie and music, but with the notable addition of my fabulous COUCH!

couch couch couch

savior and destroyer

Couch shopping after work is hard. The furniture store was dark and the parking lot was empty when we pulled up at 6pm. We got out anyway to look at the hours on the door. 

"Is that a bird?" We stopped, and all three of us tilted our heads to listen. I walked over to a dumpster under a street light, and a tiny black kitten ran mewing toward me. I scooped her up, and Gavin and Mike both ran in excited circles around me as we headed back to the car. Mike gently pulled the kitten off the back of my neck when she escaped my hands, made love-eyes and started squeaking at her, and I realized I would not be keeping the kitten. He needs the company anyway.

At work today, we suffered as a group from a strange bout of clean-it-ness, punctuated by impromptu yoga (which was Heather's fault). I assembled the Summer Reading Program mobiles and stood on a table to hang one above the kids' reading area, then peeled off the colorful clings and stared in horror at the state of the web- and mud-encrusted windows. A few minutes later I was standing outside with an industrial bucket of soapy water and my dress pants rolled up. People honked and yelled words of encouragement as I attacked the massive glass-covered building with a scrubber on a stick, shooing spiders and brushing grapefruit-sized wads of cobwebs off the children's windows. I banged the window and scrubbed extra hard where Heather's face periodically pressed against it on the other side. "'Scuse me, ma'am." I turned to find two young mormon boys in suits climbing off their bikes behind me. "Can I give you something?" A hand, perhaps? A power-washer? A boost up to the second story windows? "Here's a picture of Jesus." I started laughing, wiped my hands on my jeans, and stuffed it into my back pocket. "What's so funny?" I gestured at the building, my bucket, their bikes. "Oh... I see... sorry, here, maybe I could -" I was all set to hand him the scrubber, "- come by your house instead?" Haaahaha.

And so I have saved a baby, complicated and enhanced Mike's lonely life, and murdered possibly dozens of tiny hapless spidery souls.

burn

I wasn't surprised 5 years ago when John told me about his drag performances. "Giiiirl," he told me, "I could do your makeup. I'm good, for real. I can do you up glam, or I could make you look totally fishy." "Fishy?" "You know, like a girl. A wo-man." "I am a girl." "Yeah, but I could make you look like one." Last night I answered the phone and got the latest on my dear boy, who's little brother is having a very special wedding soon; "Yeah, girl, I'm ordained. Thank you internet, I'm a minister." "Wow! Does it expire?" "Nope, as long as I keep good records and don't get in trouble, I can marry anyone in the state of Hawaii forevers. Nice, eh?"

IKE-AAAH

"Smell that mountain air, suck it in. Mmmmm." We stood at a rest area outside Frazier Park, admiring the breeze while Gavin stomped around with his lip out. "I'm tired of driving." "Well, we'll let dad drive for a bit, then." As we drove on into the Left Armpit of Hell (Burbank), Mike pointed at a fire hazard sign. "Do you think it's ever not 'high'?" "Maybe when it snows? I dunno." The drive took longer than normal because Gavin thought false pee alarms would make the trip go faster, and we arrived at IKEA around noon. IKEA had it's way with us, and as we drove back over the mountain, a wall of smoke hit us, covering the highway in a white haze for more than 10 miles. The sun was a pinprick of orange. As we got back to Frazier Park, a line of firemen were spraying the wildfire. Bushes burned on the black crispy mountainside. We slowed and stared, made bad jokes about how hot we were, and decided never to move to Frazier Park after all.

tonight

Librarians On the Town Part II. Seeking further answers to pressing questions: does everyone have a cool name except me? Should I change mine to Reina Deth? How many bars downtown have pool tables, and which ones will allow me to win?

And for posterity, the week's Reference Questions Du Jours:

Where are the spiderman books for kids who can't read? Like, with no words?
Do you have a printout I can have of all your nonfiction books? Can you make one?
How much does it cost to rent a book?
Where are the books on how to kill yourself?
What do you mean 1183 minus 1133 is 50? WHAT DO YOU MEAN? It should be much higher, in the hundreds! How does that work? HOW? What kind of calculator are you using? TELL ME.

(feel free to add here, Marc.)

Mother's Day: liver is in the air

The day began early, cat sailing out the bedroom door after yowling me awake, groggy self shuffling into the bathroom to find up some advil and take a shower to get the smell of chicken wings off me. Gavin tackled me with his Mother's Day card, which I pinned up on the fridge. We ate cereal and sat over his baby album, reminiscing. Mike and I stood in front of the stove, eating rum cake with our hands. By noon we had a mission; liverwurst. We hadn't had any since the last time we were in New York. 

The deli was closed. The other deli was closed. The deli near the library was out of business. The deli across town was closed. Supermarket after supermarket we came up empty, so finally we bought a log of mass-market stuff and I texted J. to see if he knew where to get liverwurst. This led to a long thumb-spraining explanation of what liverwurst was. On the one hand, I now have info on the location of a German meat market on the east side. On the other, I have to beat J. at pool in exchange for my earring that he is holding hostage. Wily.

But it was a good day, a good long weekend. Happy to get back into the work week.

"Yes to Methamphetamines!"

You stop blogging for a few days and everything gets wadded up around your armpits.


Gavin and I went to see a jousting tournament and came away smelling like porcupine pee. My brief appearance at the library tent before being derailed by alpacas has circulated through the higher-ups, yet nobody has said anything about a certain reference librarian's purple pantaloons. Except me. Pantaloons!

My computer was fixed for two easy payments of chocolate chip and lemon cream cheese cookies. Also I bought rum for my "Mother's Day Cake".

Some jerk at the Beale stole Superman's briefcase with his costume in it.
Showed boss the soiled anatomy book and had it confiscated, bagged, labeled as biohazard, and was ordered into restroom to scour clean. Had not occurred to self that perpetrator most likely had not washed hands to peruse remainder of book.

Marc helped me cobble the auditorium tables into a Horseshoe of Craftiness for a very successful card-making activity with snobby scrapbooking material. Browbeat xfh into bringing child to ensure own Mother's Day card. Taking this train by the horns and riding it all the way into a cliff of triumph. Also moment of bragging: my baby can write his own name.

Tonight: Pool! Jukebox! Lemons and straws!

raining babies!

I have a new cousin! Fetus Ted joins the family.



Beth and I sat around patting bellies with Chris and Gavin, back when birds twittered and ideals were shiny. Now everyone is rolling onward, and my life fell off the side of the road in an unceremonious blip. I originally made the predictable phoenix metaphor just to steer through it all, but you don't really get reborn, you just get all mangled and disgusting. 

So welcome to the world, cousin! Don't mess it up, this is your chance.

you learn something new every - oh god no!

I guess technically everything you see in life is something you can't un-see, but some of those things just really stick it to you more than others. This week I have seen 3 un-un-seeable things. The worst of these things was the video on the Bakersfield Californian news website of a Gavin-sized girl being killed by a car. They didn't even edit it, they wanted people to be mad and help find the driver. Secondly, I put my face way too close to a mysterious smeared substance that had glued two pages of our library's anatomy book together before realizing which bodily fluid I was looking at. Threw the book and took a hot scouring shower. And then earlier this week Harris wrestled the remote away from me and snapped off the television after Rachel Ray popped on grinning manically outside a familiar-looking headshop, "In this episode we explore a place dear to my heart, the place I grew up - Lake George Village!" I howled. My heart hurts.

Cinco de Mayo. In celebration of this legendary battle against the French, Gavin and I will eat chips and guacamole, watch cartoons, and go to bed. Rawk. Will try to make up for it by finding tomorrow's jousting tournament and watching men stick each other with pointy things.

wrecked

"Would she like the Amber Bock, you think?" Harris yelled across the bar. The bartender looked me up and down. I flexed. He had a shaved head, heavy mustache, thick tattooed arms, and said in a soft, high voice, "Nope, no way. I'll make her something she'll like." He clunked down a fruity Southern Comfort drink in front of me and I pretended to like it. I would have rather had the beer. We filled up the jukebox and bobbed around the pool table under faded Saint Patrick's Day streamers. I took a carefully measured shot and sent the cue ball flying out the doorway. The bartender bent down and scooped it into his hand before it hit the pair of policemen beside him, who looked at me and then followed an angry woman into the back alley. "When you retell that story, make sure to mention how you hit the cop in the leg and had to have the bartender save you." "Will do." Note to readers: edit the previous accordingly.

As the tavern filled up with nervous prom-goers with fake IDs and glassy-eyed regulars huddling protectively on their favorite stools, we ran out of quarters and gave up our pool sticks to sit around playing with coasters. He said, "I saw [my high school boyfriend and Harris's ex-bandmate's] mom on Molokai, she gave me his cell phone number." We sent him an obnoxious picture message. Back at my place for checkers and cards, Harris talked for a few hours about various substances he enjoyed, and at 5am I tried to sleep while he maintained a death grip around my ribs. I pried him off periodically, jammed the pillow over my head, then finally gave up and made breakfast.

And that was the Bakersfield nightlife. The rest of the weekend was spent around the pool with Gavin (curse those college kids with their coolers in the kiddie pool), shopping for a couch (unsuccessful but good for free coffee samples), baking cookies (using pound-plus slabs of TJ's chocolate), and visiting health food stores (picking up 5-HTP as recommended). This morning Harris crushed me goodbye, promised to come back in 6 months when his visa was up, and threatened to carry me off if I was still a love pariah. That is somewhat sooner than 10 years, I calculated on my fingers. Ack.