paper cuts...and other thoughts

(Thursday, November 1st)

Tis the season...for paper cuts.

If you work with books, the air is drier these days and even a book cover can cut and start that bleedin'.

I didn't go for a walk this morning. Or mass. I could have, I should have... (coulda, shoulda, woulda). It's a beautiful fall day and I still hate this keyboard even with short nails.

The day won't be a total waste, I'm going downtown to the Library of Congress for lunch with my friend D. We go to a cute diner there. We are both huge diner fans.

Will I ever get used to this keyboard?

I don't want to write about the shooting in Pittsburgh, and how numb I feel.

I don't want to write about why I stay in bed most (ALL) mornings until the very last minute.

*****

(Wednesday, November 7th)

So, the midterms happened. 100+ women got elected, it was a high turnout election, and all the races were tight. Democracy at work!!!

I was up late last night watching TV because I could--I work today at 2. But wouldn't you know it, I woke up at 7!! I'm sitting here in my jammies, writing this. I think I'm a little hypo-manic. Lack of sleep will do that to you. I should definitely go for a walk. Which I think I will, soon. But first, just some writing.

In the back of my mind, I still want to get a PhD in Children's Lit. Or do an MFA in writing. I don't see either of them really happening, but stranger things have...it's not that I don't believe in myself, it's that what are the job opps after I do something like that? I still think about Mary Kay every time I see a Cadillac of any color.

After today, I will have news. I don't know if it is good news yet. I'll keep you posted.

Lunch with D was good, but not as laughter induced as usual. Monday, we meet with 2 other librarians for our "federal holidays pizza." (They work federal jobs so have the day off, I requested the day off.)

I don't know what else to write about, except that I have a few people rooting for me as a writer and so I guess I'll hit publish one more time. Stay tuned. If I have news, you'll hear about it, though maybe not here first.

untitled

My new sneakers may not be pink. 

As an aside, I hate this keyboard. It is not made for people with nails. (AKA it was invented by a man.) 

I need new shoes because running shoes are only designed for 300 miles. Which is about 6 months if you run 7 miles a day? I didn't do the math, I'm trying to remember it from an online article I read.

I feel like I need to cut my nails to continue writing this post.

But the movie keeps me downstairs. The clippers are upstairs.

What movie, you ask? Oh, just the most beautiful, most depressing, most redemptive..."Sex and the City." I got to miss the horrible wedding part because my mom called.

OH EXPLETIVES. 

My nails are now short. Like the man who created this keyboard. 

I'm back. The movie is over but now the first episode of SATC is playing on "E."

I should go to bed soon. 

But this is a classic episode. I swear, I never thought I'd still be writing this blog at 46, unmarried. 

I almost deleted that last line.

This post reads like a thread on Twitter. Have I forgotten how to write long form? 

THERE ARE SO MANY COMMERCIALS! 

A friend called one of my earlier posts a "moment in time." Well, this moment is over. Time to sit in front of the TV instead of watching this episode in the reflection of the framed map of the world.

Cardigan day, therapy, I need a drink, what to name this post?

So, in case you have been outside Pittsburgh too long, or you don't find yourself on the RIGHT social mediums (TWITTER, Insta), today is #CardiganDay. I don't know if it's hit Facebook. Maybe I'm just being elitist. But I'm not going to pull myself away from this riveting blogpost to check.

My mother just walked in with a new haircut so my time to write is limited, I imagine.

Which is why I'm not going to get up to get a drink of water.

Today I did not want to get out of bed. Once I did, I got ready for an online job interview, sat on hold to find out how to apply to a job at my job (the aforementioned kids lead quit or something), went to lunch with my mother, got through to someone at HR, cleaned up a cover letter and a resume, submitted an application, and went to therapy. Whew!

I never want to go to therapy and I'm always tired when I'm there and when I leave but my therapist does have insights and she is the smartest therapist I've had since I moved dahn South. (That's down South for you non-Pittsburgers.)

I may go to Pittsburgh for the 50th anniversary of one of my former employers. The librarian who invited me on FB was actually their first children's librarian and I think still works there at least one day a week.

I miss blogging, but the pressure to write something riveting every once in a while as opposed to something sort of great every day is real. I think that's a run on sentence. I don't care.

And that's all, folks. A moment in the life of Sarah Louise.

Flopping...

In about a half hour, I have to make sure the freezer door is on the porch. I'm having a "flopping" morning, which is Sally's word for just, well, doing very little. By now my Kindle may have downloaded Season 1 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which I have watched three times but want to watch again because the new season drops soon.

My father has been in the hospital for pneumonia. Hopefully today he'll transition to a rehab center, I think that's what they are called. My phone is upstairs and on vibrate, so I haven't gotten the latest texts if there are any.

I still keep a "blog roll" on the side of this blog, and it's coded to let me know how recently folks have written. Kristin Cashore, a fiction writer, wrote this piece (On Writing Through Hard Times) 4 days ago and it gave me some hope as I am going through a difficult time myself.

29 minutes till I need to move the freezer door.

28  minutes.

Difficult times are hard to describe. I think the most difficult part of right now is that I haven't found a place to be yet. I'm in between. I go to work, and there, no one knows I'm a children's librarian, perhaps something I should have publicized a little more because they just hired a third "kid's lead" and it wasn't me because I didn't even know the job was available. It would be a step down from my current position as head cashier where I count money like the king in his counting house from that nursery rhyme. And I am currently interviewing every chance I get for children's librarian's positions and starting a sub position today at a local library, something I hope will be a chance for me to get my foot into the door.

I still have dreams at night about my Pittsburgh apartment, and my Twitter bio still says I live in a third floor walk up, geographically located in Pittsburgh. My heart says not yet to changing it.

21 minutes. All 8 episodes of MMM have downloaded.  

This post is turning out to be like the last one, which I wrote last February. Going nowhere, slowly. So I think I'll say goodbye, for now, and hit "Publish."

it's so much easier to think about writing...

In my mind I have created a whole new blog and it's called something fancy that signifies it's going to be a spiritual memoir. Also, in the first paragraph, I talk about how my favorite spiritual memoirs currently are Eat, Pray, Love, and Travelling Lessons. I prefer the audio to the book of Travelling Lessons, but both are great. Then I'd talk a little about N.T. Wright's quote about being born again being when the words of the Bible make sense to you, touch your heart.

And that's where my imagined writing ends.

It was supposed to snow last night and it didn't. Or if it did, there's nothing to show for it. I want to just check the weather on my phone, or be downstairs eating breakfast with my folks.

I used to just be able to chatty chatty chatty, run off a blog post. Now it is like pulling teeth to even get a few words.

I'm louder than this on Twitter!

I checked my phone. If we got the snow, it's gone, and the rest of the forecast is just wind wind wind.

This is embarrassing.

Part of it, I'm sure, is that there's a personal thing going on that I don't want to write about here and that's where my mind is all stuck.

And so I wrote about the personal thing for ONE sentence and I was done. I was feeling GREAT when I woke up, or at least not rotten, and now my balloon is pfft, no air.

This has been an exercise in futility. Which is what the spiritual journey feels like sometimes.

Digital hoarding...salt water solves everything! Featuring thoughts from Mitali Perkins, Frederick Buechner, Isak Dinesan, and of course yours truly!

For some time now, I've hit "save" on various links/posts/photos on FB. The following is the first post in a series, an exploration and repository of some of those links/posts/photos, and WHY I saved them.

"Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention." — Frederick Buechner

This was posted by Mitali Perkins, but on the same day, in a closed group, a woman mentioned that she was never a crier and now cannot stop. I am reminded of the phrase that salt water solves all problems: the sea, tears, (what is the rest of this quote?) Ah, it's a quote from Isak Dinesan: "Salt water solves everything: sweat, tears, or the sea." (I wonder if this is something she said or from one of her stories?) WikiQuote tells me it's both. She said it in Reader's Digest in 1964, and it is also in one of her stories:

"Do you know a cure for me?"

"Why yes," he said, "I know a cure for everything. Salt water."

"Salt water?" I asked him. "Yes," he said, "in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea."

            ---from "The Deluge at Norderney" (7 Gothic Tales, 1934)

When my mother was pregnant with my brother, the doctor sent her to beach at Tela to help her with a cold, and at this time we lived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where the Nurse Practitioner at the U.S. Embassy Health Unit already had us sniffing salt water. (This is from memory, so I will take correction in the comments.) There were no stories of flesh or brain eating bacterium in those days. I sense that my municipal water in Pittsburgh is not going to have these bacteria, what do you think? Ah, here we go, an article from the Daily Mail. Yes. You should not use tap water to irrigate your nose. What about gargling with salt water (mixed with tap water?)

Oh dear, that gets you into an entirely different segment of scaries--you shouldn't drink water from plastic bottles, and tap water has chlorine. I refuse to let all the scaries get in the way of getting healthy. We live in a broken world in need of healing. I can only do my best, which can vary on a daily basis.

Onward onto more about sniffing salt water. 

My thought is we need something like a bottle warmer that will warm distilled water, because part of the comfort in sniffing warm salt water is the warm part. I find that Neti pots don't work for me, I just put the salt water into my hand and sniff it from there. Also? One less thing to make sure you wash correctly, apparently bacteria can get into the neti pot if not washed and dried with care.

Must look into getting a bottle warmer or some such. I'm going a little broke buying canned saline solution from Target--4.99 for a can that lasts 3 weeks or so, or 8.79 for 100 special salt packets. If you use a packet twice a day (recommended) that lasts a month in a half. Also, less packaging/smaller footprint. Or, even cheaper, mix up your own with kosher salt and baking soda. I used to have the recipe from a ENT I went to in Fairfax.

After checking three websites, it seems the best recipe is 4 cups (1 quart) water, distilled or not (article linked does not say you have to use distilled), with 2-3 heaping teaspoons Kosher salt, and 1 rounded teaspoon of baking soda. Stir or shake before each use, dump after a week, start over. (University of Missouri ENT & Allergy Center.) A quart seems like a lot more than I'd use in one week, though. Here's one from the Happy Simple Living Blog, 1/2 cup. I don't think that would last a week. (I do like the idea of having a batch for the week.) I guess it's time to take it off the Interwebs and do some experimenting in the real world. Not today, I have more digital hoarding to clear out. But I'll let you know what I find out!

Complicated/Uncomplicated

Life is pretty complicated right now.

(Well, son, I'll tell you/ Life for me ain't been no crystal stair...)

Yeah, as soon as you read how the mother talks to her son about nails sticking up, and bare spots and "boards torn up," you start to think, Oh. And *SHE'S* STILL CLIMBING.

So I can too.

This is the power of poetry.

Hallelujah for poets. (Especially Langston Hughes.)

My friend Lilly shared this video from a poetry slam a few months ago, and it still just gets me.



"You can set the world on fire! All you have to do is BREATHE."

I've been crying on the bus this week. At first I thought it was because I was reading Flora and Ulysses--have you read it? A real tearjerker, but SO WORTH IT.  Who thought a squirrel being vacuumed up would turn him into a superhero? I can't believe it took me ALL YEAR to get to reading this book, but it was just the right time, I need the encouragement DiCamillo's words give me, RIGHT NOW.

Work is complicated right now. Let's not go there. Oh, but some guy put our library in his will! So that's joyful and joyful always = uncomplicated.

Uncomplicated thoughts? I would LOVE to go to the beach, or barring that, Sandcastle, tomorrow. (Sandcastle is a water park right outside of the Pittsburgh city limits, and has just enough rides that it's fun, but not too many that you feel like you can't do them all in one afternoon.) I generally go after 3 p.m., to a) miss the harsh sun rays of the midday and b) save some green. I'm all about taking care of my skin and saving money. Or how about making some? My foray into Mary Kay is complicated right now, see above, work is complicated. You don't jump-start your home-based business in the summer if you are a children's librarian.

(It's like retail Christmas, in case you're unfamiliar with Kid's Summer Reading.) 

More uncomplicated thoughts?

Hmmm. Morning baths and evening walks. I've been getting more of those in. The ducks at the reservoir are SO CUTE. Right now there are three families with ducklings. The teenagers, the not quite tweens who have mostly lost their fuzzy, and the fuzzy ducklings, our newest group. I hate not having a camera, but going to the AT&T store to get an iPhone 5 just seems...complicated. (Do not judge me.)

The past two days it's been coffee shop coffee and drugstore breakfast sandwiches. Money not well spent. Ah, the commute. (Catching a bus means you gotta get out of the house, pronto.) (As opposed to driving, where one minute later leaving means 1 minute, not 20 minutes off schedule.)

Oh, sorry! I got back to complicated.

Uncomplicated thoughts?

In the middle of writing this, GAY MARRIAGE is now legal in every state in the union. I prefer to only think about the uncomplicated joy that this creates for so many people that I love. (I realize it is not uncomplicated, but the JOY is uncomplicated.)

Cupcakes. Very uncomplicated.

My favorite librarian J has arrived for her Friday shift.

It's Friday and I have two days off in a row! Oh, and I don't have to fast tonight for a blood test tomorrow, because all the Shadyside appointments for my cardiologist got cancelled for next week. JOY!!

This tweet, which today makes me want to cry...

.@rbuurma: "When you use a library catalog, you are collaborating with generations of library catalogers." #rbms15

— Kelli Hansen (@Bibliokelli) June 25, 2015

(But practically anything will tip me to the tears side today.)

I need a fun book to take with me when I take myself OUT for lunch = uncomplicated. I've been good almost all week eating in. Yesterday was unplanned. (So it doesn't count?) But I had leftovers for dinner.

See? I can make anything uncomplicated, complicated.

Goldfish. Nope, one died when I was in 2nd grade.

DAMMIT!

Hi, I'm Sarah Louise, and I'm a complicated "think everything over ten more times than it needs to be"-aholic. 

Hi, Sarah Louise.

Sarah Louise and the City

In my new life as a city dweller and city worker (as opposed to my old life as a city dweller and suburban worker) I have noticed a few surprising fringe benefits.

(Not all of the fringe benefits are surprising, since I worked downtown in an earlier life.)

But here's one I didn't expect: I have started running into people I work with on the street, in city neighborhoods besides downtown. Last night, on the way to dinner, I ran into a library clerk that works at our branch, and this morning, on the way to the Busway, I ran into a woman who works at the offices in the East Liberty branch. She was presumably walking to work. It was just fun to see these folks on the street, and just say hi. That glimmer of recognition--you are someone of my tribe--was delightful.

And last night, after dinner, at the bus stop? I met an opera singer from Central Europe. We started talking about European cities we had in common and didn't stop talking until our buses came. These are connections that do not occur when you are sitting in your car in traffic. 

Other fringe benefits include more built-in exercise, as running for the bus is now a part of my daily life. Some days I take the neighborhood bus to the Busway, some days I park closer to the Busway and walk. I never take the neighborhood bus all the way downtown, as it takes 45 minutes as opposed to a variable 33 minutes to take the neighborhood bus and the Busway. It's not just the time factor: the buses are old and uncomfortable. I prefer to walk for five minutes, sit for 10 minutes, walk for three, and sit for 10 more minutes. I think once spring comes, I might try walking to the Busway from my house, approximately 2 miles, but I need to purchase better walking shoes first. I am potentially looking at the bike angle. (Although I don't bike or currently own a bike.)

I am purchasing less gas for my car, but since a Zone One bus pass costs $97, I'm not really ahead on commuting costs. Once my bus pass is taken out of my paycheck pre-tax, I will recoup some additional monies, but I'm not sure how much. Every paycheck is a surprise--the first paycheck just had the normal deductions, Social Security, Medicare, City tax, State tax, Federal tax. The second paycheck, I started getting my Flexible Spending monies deducted. The third paycheck, I'll start paying for my health care. I think the fourth paycheck, I'll be starting to pay for my pre-tax bus pass.

Unexpectedly, I miss driving my car. I miss catching up on NPR news, listening to my music, and just driving. This weekend I drove home to see my nephew Max (not his real name) and to celebrate my mother's birthday. Being out on the open road was a thrill. Yes, I was thrilled to be on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, who knew? And last night, driving home from a surprise trip to Wilkinsburg, I got to listen to Jian Ghomeshi, who is one of my favorite radio personalities. Last night he proved he can get out of a hot spot quickly with an interview with singer and British celebrity Boy George. Who would have thought that Boy George is now 52?

***

Reading right now: The Help by Katherine Stockett (umpteenth time); Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins; Calling me Home by Julie Kibler; and The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn. All but the last title are fiction.

The toil of thy hands...

Remember him -- before the silver cord is severed,
or the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring. (Ecclesiastes 12:6)

I have been putting my Raggedy Ann piggy bank back together. She lost some ceramic orange hair about a month ago when I was trying to get to one of my jewelery boxes. Poor Ann, I broke her before, when I was a girl, and put her back together again, like Humpty Dumpty. I don't have all of the pieces, so the hole in the back of her head is larger than before, and she has a triangle of air in the middle of her cheek. But she still smiles. I haven't used her as a piggy bank for years, but she is someone that has been in my life for a very long time.

The sugar bowl I bought it in Prague when I was 20 has a broken lid. It was to be the sugar bowl for when I got my first apartment. And it was. And it is. Until recently, I didn't have the proper glue in my house, so the broken pieces are all together in one place, waiting for me to glue them back together. The bowl part still holds sugar, and I am fortunate that the only bugs I have to worry about in this apartment are stink bugs and the occasional fruit fly, and neither species cares about dry sugar.

The golden bowl will break. The pitcher will be shattered at the spring. And the silver cord will be severed. (I wonder if the silver cord is our life, I haven't done any research on this verse, but you will find it underlined in just about every Bible I've ever owned.) I find it comforting that the writer of Ecclesiastes knew these things. I wonder if he ever owned a sugar bowl with a broken lid.

***

This morning, I couldn't sleep. I woke up at 4:57 and used the commode, tried to get back to sleep to no avail. I thought, oh, this might be a good time to read the Bible! and pray! (It is Lent, after all, when we are meant to put more energy into prayer...and it's been forever since I've opened a Bible outside of church.) But when you are rusty and out of practice, restlessness takes over again. I'm not used to being quiet anymore. I opened my Bible to Ecclesiastes and read some bits, but I still was too restless. So I came here. I think writing can be a kind of a prayer, so here I am...and I can hardly believe it's been since October that I've posted here, but there you go.

I'm looking at verses in different translations, thanks to Biblegateway.com. The Message is a paraphrase by Eugene Peterson. He has a way with words, he does. Ecclesiastes 5:18 contains this phrase: "what was the point of working for a salary of smoke?" (He's describing a rich man who loses all his money in a bad business deal and has nothing to leave his son. Naked he came[from the womb of his mother], naked he went./So what was the point of working for a salary of smoke?) 

I love that phrase: a salary of smoke. 

Part of why I went to bed restless and woke up with numbers in my mind is because last night I finally opened TurboTax and started my taxes. They were a little more complicated this year because I received the fellowship I think I told you about, to study rare children's books. Because I was not a student at the time, that money is perceived as self-employment earnings, and so I had to work on deductions and mileage and such. I was not reimbursed by work for a conference I attended in October. So I had to work on what the deductions were for mileage and travel and meals. My refund is half of what it was last year, and part of that is the fellowship and part of that is that I cashed in quite a few of my Savings Bonds. 

So it is helpful to read Ecclesiastes in the face of all this. The bowl will be broken. The cord will be severed. The pitcher will be shattered. And yet, the point of life is to enjoy the toil of your hands and then die. 

(I never said it was a cheery text.) 

The tax refund will pay for most of my tire bill and for my professional memberships. I was hoping that my refund would pay for all of my tire bill plus my professional memberships, but with a smaller refund, I have to divvy up the monies, and I can't put off paying for my professional memberships any longer. (I should have paid for them back in October.)

I have a new job, by the way. It is hard work, but mostly satisfying. I'm working as a librarian in a downtown location. The city shouts with beauty and dust, unlike the suburbs which try to make everything decent and tidy. I am faced with the disparities of life--people with more than enough, people with enough, and people with less than enough. These are the people I work beside and these are the people I help each day. I see how important the library is to people who cheerfully ask to borrow the dictionary from the reference desk. Or for young people who have big dreams and nowhere to express them but to borrow foreign films at the library. For the mother with a restless child who wants a copy of The Cat in the Hat. Eventually, I'll be working with children on a daily basis, but since there hasn't been a children's librarian at the downtown location for over a decade, I have to build relationships first. For now, my collection, the books, music, DVDs, these are the welcome mat I extend to the children and parents that walk into the library. It is a collection that someone else created, and that will be mostly replenished by someone else, but I am now its main mama. 

I digress. There is so much that can't be put into words. But the point I am trying to express, that I am dancing around, is that my work means I generally sleep at night. It means that I have the energy to work on my taxes on a weeknight, instead sitting in front of the television with my dinner. It means that even though I have no idea at the end of the day if I'm making more or breaking even with this new job, I am happier. And you cannot put a price tag on happiness. That is the point of the book of Ecclesiastes. Dust we were, dust we will be. But if we can find work we enjoy and we can sleep at night, that is good. 

Selah.* 

________________
*pause, and think of that.

Monday movie madness (Wednesday edition) and is the Internet making us stupid? (FB to blog)

Monday Movie Madness, *Wednesday edition.* After 3 jam-packed days at PALA (PA library conference), today was filled with laundry, learning about Skype, grocery shopping and paying bills. 

So, to round it out, I spent 93 minutes sitting in a dark theater. I went to see "Enough Said," which made me laugh and cry and laugh some more. B, don't know if you will like it, as there were awkward moments, but you might. In the theater, we were all shouting at the screen, which is one of the wonderful things about going to the movies with a bunch of strangers in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. 

****

So...after a weekend at PALA where everything internet was touted as all wonderful and the wave of the future and YOU MUST JOIN, it was refreshing to listen to the following debate show on Q with Jian Ghomeshi. So far, it's 50/50, as to whether the internet makes you smarter or dumber. 

I loved hearing from the twentysomething father who has taken his family back to 1986, complete with "hockey hair," as described by Jian.

Q debate special: Is the internet making us smarter or stupider? 

****

EXHAUSTED. The end. 

Agreeing with Neil Gaiman...on libraries.

This is fascinating. I knew there were studies saying fiction made you more empathic, and I know avid readers who are jerks, so I was wondering about that.

But this is about innovation. Apparently, in China, they were missing out on innovation. (Really?) And they did a study. Well, I'll let Neil tell it:

I was in China in 2007, at the first party-approved science fiction and fantasy convention in Chinese history. And at one point I took a top official aside and asked him Why? SF had been disapproved of for a long time. What had changed?

It's simple, he told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls.

Yeah. Stretching your imagination helps you innovate.

Read the rest here. It's good stuff. 

Agreeing with Roger Sutton...

This was going to be a comment on Read Roger. There's a study out there about "literary literature" being better for you than "popular fiction." But my comment got too wordy and I lost my nerve. But I'll post it here:

Studies are interesting animals. There is one out there that two cups of hot chocolate will fight dementia. Oh, and another one that fish oil actually ISN'T good for brain health. Well, I'm not going to start on two cups of hot chocolate a day (I think my cardiologist and waistline would protest) and I'm not going to stop taking fish oil, which does other wonderful things.

I used to think that reading made you a better person, but I have discovered that it only makes you a more interesting person to other people who read.

When I was a girl, I had a teacher who clucked her teeth that I read lots of Nancy Drew. She thought I should read harder books. But the reading that I did then? Was for escape. To get me out of my life. I actually remember some of the Nancy Drew plots MORE than some of the "literary fiction" that won awards. And I did read other books. I enjoyed BOTH Nancy Drew and Newbery Award Winning books. When I was a children's librarian, I always told parents, (especially the ones who thought Junior should be reading Anna Karenina at age 8), "Children read two levels below their reading level for recreational reading. And you WANT them to read recreationally, because it's the only way they will stay readers for the rest of their lives."

Stolen (and slightly embellished) from my FB postings. This is a safer place to keep them...

The New York Times has published an article, saying that branch libraries could be our refuge from the next storm.

Of course I love this idea, as a librarian. But it makes *a lot* of sense. More disasters will come. A personal story: when a power outage wiped out a lot of houses near the Barnes & Noble where I worked in Virginia, the bookstore was teeming with people coming in from the cold. This was before wifi was something people even knew about. But we had chairs, coffee, and books, and our heat was working.

From the article: "The New York Review of Books, apropos the closing of neighborhood libraries in London, libraries are 'the only thing left on the high street that doesn’t want either your soul or your wallet.'"

****

Thinking of other "power" readers as I plow through a book I never thought I'd consider reading after the disaster that was Eat Pray Love: Elizabeth Gilbert's novel is GOOD. Maybe she should stick to fiction? LAF, Babelbabe, are you/have you read it? I'm halfway through. Of course, my father and I could discuss it b/c he'd read the book review. (My father is like the character Tom in the movie "Metropolitan," who only reads book reviews.)

The title is forgettable though. I had to just google it to get the link, below:

http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/books/the-signature-of-all-things/

Oooh, but this link describes her research, which is what I'm interested in.  

And b/c I can't shut up about a book that could still disappoint me b/c I'm only halfway through, I'd like to point out that Eliz Gilbert has been publishing for 20 years!! So when she was "given" the book proposal money to go do Eat Pray Love, people in publishing knew she had the chops. If you haven't read EPL, I recommend ONLY reading the Italian part (Eat) b/c it really is lovely. 

(Which is why I hated the book in the end, b/c the Pray and Love parts were hideous, in my humble humble opinion.)

Ducks and author sites...and other news

I have not been down to da Point to see da Duck, but @janepitt has. Here is her Instagram of "Pittsburgh Duck", which I adore.

(Watch this space for pictures, the Duck is here in town for a month.)

Author websites, pro or con? I think Sara Zarr and Anita Silvey have proven that they can be done well and support the author's goals. The first time I googled Sara Zarr, I landed on her blog/site, and I have been in love ever since. She has changed the site with the times of her life, but I respect the hell out of that. Anita Silvey, author of the Children's Book-a-day Almanac, started her book as a blog. I can't remember when I discovered her, but we started tweeting back and forth and she shared some really fun stories about some librarians and publishers I was researching.

In other news, I'm back in the hunt for a car. A Jeep Cherokee hit the rear of my Hyundai Sonata and 9 days later the insurance adjuster said "eh, that's a total loss." It's Sunday in Pennsylvania, and you can't buy a car because of lingering Blue Laws. I'm grateful. I get to not worry about a car today. Tomorrow is soon enough. I'll change rental companies ($20/day vs. $24.50/day adds up), and my car is only paid by the insurance company through end of business tomorrow.

My mom may show up for dinner. She is one of the busiest non-employed people I know, but when she heard about my "terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day" on Friday, she offered to MAYBE come this evening through tomorrow afternoon. I hope she does.

That's it for now. Time to get ready for church.

living the questions, now (Rainer Maria Rilke-ish)

I have a friend that reminds me when I forget.

Today, I groaned that all I did this summer was go to work and come home to watch Bones. She reminded me that I had done so much more.

There's something so personal about a personal blog, and there are some things I'm not ready to write about here. Anyways, if you know me, you know that this has been one of the hardest summers of my life, if not the hardest.

So instead, I will write a litany of who I am like, similar to an older post, where I list the things I say to myself, circa 2007.

I am like Skeeter, writing, not knowing if my writing will ever be read, writing, knowing that it is dangerous, wanting so hard to get out of the life I'm living, but not knowing how. Writing, just writing, and more writing. All the while, wondering if Hilly will find out the truth, and what that might mean. I'm also Minny, thinking that truth is so wonderful, and that I want my story to be told. A bit of Abileen, thinking that I'm done with new things. (from The Help)

I am like Dicey, in Homecoming, in Dicey's Song, and the other Tillerman cycle books.

“What do you do when there’s nothing you can do,” Gram said. “I dunno, I do something else,” Dicey said. (from Dicey's Song)

I am like Anne, who is thrilled to learn that tomorrow is a fresh day with no mistakes in it. (from Anne of Green Gables)

I am like Pollyanna, who actually was a rather impish girl, not as boring as she sounds, playing the glad game. Why be glad someone sent you crutches instead of a doll? Well, be glad that you don't need the crutches. (from the book bearing her name.)

I am like Erin Brockovich, who sees a wrong and will not stop until something is done. (from the movie bearing her name)

I am like Carrie, trying to figure out love and lust and friendship. How does one sort out being a woman, find a good man, some good friends? (from Sex and the City)

I am like Brennan, nose in a book, missing the social cues. I am like Angela, after her boyfriend died in the desert, wondering if I'll ever find love again. (from Bones)

And I am me. Resilient, and not so delicate that I cannot change. But oh, how I resist it. Same same same, I say to all the good things that will not stay in my hands, like water through a sieve. Different, and now, I say to all the bad things that make me want to stay on my bed forever. But do not be deceived, dear ones. I have done so much more than stay on that bed. And I will do so much more again. Life doesn't slow down.

Tonight I walked the around reservoir. I hate to tell you that I was so tired that I sat down at every other bench, just about. But as I sat and walked, sat and walked, I thought of these women. And I did walk a mile, even if it took forty five minutes, because I kept sitting down to rest.

My mother would look at this list and also add Susan B. Anthony. So there you go. Go and do likewise. I'm just going to rest here for a moment.

Maybe I'll come back and link up the titles to Amazon or a library or something. Maybe I won't.

Twitter jail can be a good thing...

Until this afternoon, I had no idea who Hugo Schwyzer was. But I immediately recognized the anguish as I read a little bit of his Twitter feed today. Bipolar disorder is real. It is also highly treatable, but it often takes forever to get diagnosed. So in the middle, you can screw up a lot of things. But recovery is real. My life and the lives of many others are a testament that medications and therapy work.

I did a little research, and found this great quote from Sinead O'Connor, talking to Oprah about her experience with bipolar disorder: "Anything is an improvement when you've been in desolation, but it doesn't mean you don't have lumps & bumps."

Hugo's last tweet shows that he is moving in the right direction:

"I'm going to be giving my laptop to my family tonight so I can more effectively stay offline."

Best of luck, Hugo. It sounds like you have hurt a lot of people, but it also sounds like you are moving towards a healthier place. 

Sarah Louise's playlist for a rainy day

1. Bring on the rain (Jo Dee Messina and Tim McGraw) I remember reading that Jo Dee wanted this to be a generic song, not a particular calamity. I love this song.

2. Every storm runs out of rain (Gary Allen). This summer has been a lot of trouble. And I keep thinking, "every heartache will fade away, just like every storm runs out of rain."

3. I love a rainy night (Eddie Rabbit.) I remember listening to this song, circa 1980, on my radio that was in the stomach of a stuffed animal dog. It's strange to me that my siblings were not even born, that a lot of people weren't even born when this amazing song came out. This song always makes me smile.

4. Raindrops keep falling on my head (B.J. Thomas) There was a radio show when I lived in Bonn, and I remember listening to it on Saturday mornings. and "Raindrops" was the theme song. I liked making up extra lyrics to it.

5. The Sunny Side of the Street (Tony Bennett, this version) My mom played this on the piano a lot. It's just another song that I know by heart. There is no recording that I like of this song, b/c I know it from singing it, not listening to it.

6. Here comes the rain again (Eurythmics) No joke, when I went to the Sting/Annie Lennox concert (maybe 2003?), Annie Lennox started singing this song and it started raining. My friend M and I spent a great deal of the concert in the ladies room where it was at least dry. My brother drove up from (not sure where he was in 2003) for the concert. We had lawn seats, but he pretty much sat outside for the concert. Sting butchered some old Police favorites. So, yeah, no great memories for that concert, but this song sticks out.

7. Rainy days and Mondays (The Carpenters) This song makes me think of the movie About a Boy. I had heard of the song before seeing that movie, but I'm not sure I had heard the song. 

8. (You make me feel like a) natural woman. (Carole King) My senior year of h.s., I had a crush in on this guy and I told my friends that he made me feel like a natural woman. It was an innocent crush, so it wasn't meant in the earthy sense, just that I felt like a girl around him, the way a girl feels. (Sorry, my words aren't working...but just gooey and flirty and nice.) This song opens with "Looking out on the morning rain." I had two Carole King albums that I bought at the beginning of my senior year of high school. I listened to them over and over and over. I know them by heart.

9. I won't last a day with out you (The Carpenters) The lyric that gets me in this song is "When there's no getting over that rainbow, when the smallest of dreams won't come true..." I just love this song.

10. Somewhere over the rainbow (Judy Garland) This one is another one that I don't have a favorite recording. I remember my friend N. singing it at the senior's luncheon the year we graduated from college. I actually think I saw the movie Under the rainbow (a bizarre comedy) before I ever saw the Wizard of Oz. (I lived overseas. We didn't have the Wizard of Oz coming on TV every year.) Also, I remember going to the movies with my parents to see Michael Jackson in the Wiz.

I started thinking about playlists this morning while listening to the Saturday Light Brigade. Two teachers talked about "playlists" and how to cross over to history by asking what would your grandchildren think about the songs on your playlist right now, what would it teach them about who you were and the time you lived in. Voices across time, a project of the Pitt library system and the Stephen Foster Memorial, looks at songs over history and exactly what songs our grandparents listened to, and what we can learn from them.

The songs on this list are songs that I heard on the radio when they were popular, or sang them from a song book, or songs that I discovered by buying an old record or listening to standards on the radio. They all have their own place in time, as well as a place in my own timeline, in or out of chronological time.

Some stuff I found this week: 7/15/13-7/19/13

Tuesday, 7/16:

Household bill binder (I used to do this...)

Household chores binder (might work...)

Menu planner binder (hmmm...)

Cool free library benches in NYC (thanks to PopGoesTheLibrarian)

Duquesne professor helped with Cuckoo book (Rowling)

Sidney Crossbrick (a model of Sidney Crosby in Legos) 

Writing Women back into history: from the Brooklyn Museum about Wikipedia and the Dinner Party Installation.

Race (writing about it, audio) by Mitali Perkins

Why Librarians are needed more than ever in the 21st century (from Boing Boing) 

The beauty of eating at the bar (from the Atlantic) I love eating at the lunch counter at a pharmacy near the library. Marian the librarian and I used to go twice a week. With my schedule as it currently is, I often go 4 times a week.

Friday 7/19

Best 15 Red Carpet Dresses, EVER. (from Elle) 

Young Evangelicals are Getting High (Church, that is)

The mother of all grief (Washington Post) about Trayvon Martin and mothers.

Dirty Dancing is 25 plus years old. Found this article on xoJane. Article may have triggers for some.

Some stuff I found this week...

Monday:

I need to keep my stuff in a better place than Facebook, Twitter, and (used to) on Delicious.

This was a really good reminder: "stop writing meaningful things on Facebook."

Also, a friend of mine was looking for something I posted. I'm hoping perhaps I actually sent it in an email.

This is something I read about "Women's Pages." Medium is becoming one of my favorite places.

Tuesday:

"[Tootsie] was never a comedy for me." Dustin Hoffman in AFI video: http://www.upworthy.com/dustin-hoffman-breaks-down-crying-explaining-something-that-every-woman-sadly-already-experienced-3 …

A notebook company that has a blog about people that use their notebooks. Now that is something I can sink my teeth into:

http://blog.paperblanks.com/2013/07/peek-inside-sallys-journals/

Also, yesterday, a friend posted this on FB about the contents of Prince's refrigerator. The internet again is interesting.

A TED talk that I need to watch, but don't have time for at the moment, about identity.

What makes you put a good book down? (from GoodReads)

Why do kids' books matter? Here, look. (Backs up all my Florida research...) (Leonard Marcus' curated exhibit at New York Public Library.) 

It's Frustratingly rare to find a novel about women that's not about love. I thought, what about Anne of Green Gables? Oh, Gilbert.

Twitter Help Center, Advanced Search. good to know.

Tweet from Bruce Reyes-Chow: "Gets at some of the complexities, "The Torch We Pass On: Asian Generation X-ers and the Millennials" via @8Asians http://bit.ly/1b13mK7 "

While it does focus on Asian Generation X-ers (like it says it will), it speaks to the universality of other minority populations--how wonderful it is to have books and information on your smart phone even about things that used to not be talked about at all. 

Sunday: 

Dirge without music (Edna St. Vincent Millay)  

How to make great radio: an illustrated guide (about This American Life)

For Beth, some of the highlights

Red Winged Blackbirds (about my senior year of college and other thoughts)

The King of Love my Shepherd is (about being diagnosed bipolar, and other thoughts)

Comments on Comments (one of my favorite posts.)

For Erin, because I said I would (about a verse I love.)

Women never dine alone (well, I disagree.)