Sarah Louise: Tween Librarian

 Trolled the internet today for some Tween Librarian ideas.

Here are links to a few of my favorites.

"Wholesome Hour:" a read-aloud program for ages 6-12. But it could easily work for tweens. Serve cocoa and popcorn and read a book!! 

The Lego Librarian: Lots of posts about cool programming. 

My pen died and I'm at St. Elmo's (part trois)

 I have two blog posts coming up soon. I can't remember, but they are in my calendar. At least one will be about Ashley Bryan.  

Dancing Queen, Abba.

I have Kevin Henke's Chrysanthemum next to me for writing juju.

I have the title for my book: "Sending Cupcakes, Love Suzi: a memoir" by Suzi Wackerbarth

I need to get back in touch with cupcake girl. Whatshername, she who eats Tangerines. 

Wrote an email. 

Time to walk home. 

My pen died and I'm at St. Elmo's (part deux)

 All fancy, using French in the title. The guy ahead of me has a crazy tat sleeve. Like wow. 

Jump for your love. 

The sad thing is that this is more writing than I've done in forever, listening to this loud music, typing. Is it any good? Who cares? I'm writing!!

Portions of "Love Actually" are good, like when Hugh Grant had to smoke pot to dance down the stairs. L learned the smoke pot part because I read about movies.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

And my hair is really short. I went from a full head of hair to...like very little hair. I wonder when my next one on one is. Because I need to talk to Erin about the fact that the kids scare me and I feel like I'm in the wrong job when they are around. 

A little white lady like you? Working with the homeless? Why does this come again and again back to my mind? I bought a bottle of water so that I could sit in here. And part of me wants to take it to the guy who lives outside of CVS. 

Gotta use the WC, so return for part trois. 

My pen died...and I'm at St. Elmo's (part 1)

On the way to St. Elmo's, the busiest coffee house in Del Ray, on Del Ray Ave, the same St. that Vance lives on, I found two amazing bestsellers in the Little Free Library. 

Luckily I had a bag. Luckily I had my laptop, so here I am writing. 

I just published a bunch of drafts. I don't think anyone reads this anymore. There's a woman with headphones (serious headphones) and her laptop. I don't know where my headphones are, so I'm listening to Stevie Wonder (I just called to say I love you), Diana Ross (On the Radio) and Michael Jackson (We gotta be starting something). 

I'm addicted to buying digital classes online. I have bought at least 2 Spanish programs. Plus St. Elmos in Spanish.

Meanwhile, I want new sandals, that yoga mat, and the American Dream (Do a little Dance, Make a Little Love, Get Down Tonight).

And email is not sending. Let's see if these are. 

Long time no write (from 5/30/22)

Depression has returned. 

Ugh. 

I thought writing about it might help.

Writing isn't helping. 

The truth? I'm afraid of life. Afraid of death. Specifically the death of my parents. 

Because I have seen my parents as my fall back. 

My cousin points out that my sister and brother will be my fall back. 

What am I looking for

My spiritual director gave me this image: a mosaic is made of tiny little broken pieces and if you focus on them, you don't see the whole beautiful picture, which is made of tiny broken pieces. 

I'm afraid to write. I'm afraid of what I'll find if I look inside, because I was so happy with a relationship built on sand and now I'm alone and getting back to myself but slowly. 

But I'm starting a writing class on July 11, so I'd better get writing again, back into the groove. I don't know what to write, what to write...the garden at church is a beautiful place. I wrote a haiku there. I didn't spend time in the garden yesterday like I said I would. 

Write write write. There are mosaics in Samantha Way in Highland Park. I saw them the last time I was at the Randalls in Pittsburgh. It hurts too much to remember, and remembering is what writing is. And I stink. I need a shower so badly. 

I guess I'll take a shower. 

My psychiatrist died...in September.

 I found out yesterday, because a refill didn't go through and I thought, you know, I should check for an obituary. 

I'm with a new practictioner, because in his hospital bed he was not able to manage my meds or do a Zoom call. I said goodbye to his answering machine in August-ish. (I know the time frame only because I was still at my old branch, I can see myself pacing and talking into the answering machine.) So, I didn't get a registered letter when he died. (I read all the comments on the guest book to his obituary, some people did get registered letters.) I feel guilty for not sticking with him to the end. I feel guilty for not calling him personally. I wonder if I have voice mails in my phone...

"Be brave."

(Rafael Solano to Jane Villanueva on "Jane the Virgin")

(1/11) I'm back on Blogger. I can't figure Word Press out. I just want to be able to type something and see it on the screen and Word Press requires watching a video, unless I go back to my old librarian blog, which isn't Sarah Louise but my real name. 

Anyways. 

***

I didn't know how it would happen but I'm somehow weaned off Jane. Okay, SL, unpack that sentence for us? Gladly. Since the pandemic started, I've been using my Kindle to watch Jane the Virgin. Somewhere in there I started using Jane as a sleep aid. I'd just put "her" on and fall asleep to whatever episode I was on. The past two nights I've taken my Kindle to bed with me but haven't turned it on. Yesterday I turned it on at 4 am so that I could get some more sleep. I will continue to bring my Kindle to bed with me, but I might have turned a corner!! How exciting. 

The quote that this post is named after is my favorite quote from Jane. Rafael tells Jane to be brave as she tells him she wants to be a writer, something she's never said out loud before. 

I need coffee or something. I'm still half asleep. I'll do my devotions and come back to this. Maybe have my coffee. 

***

Update on 1/18: No, not weaned. It was two nights. OH WELL. We'll get there. I'll try again at Lent. 

***

So--my dating life. I've encountered not one but two catfish, and only lost time, not money, to the first one. The second one didn't seem like a catfish, but seemed odd. I was let know by Match that he was "engaging in fraudulent behavior" yesterday and I swear, I had forgotten him so well that I only remembered him this morning as I was going over my porcelain dolls with my fingers, imagining what it might be to be blind. Yes, my latest Match is blind. So that's a new one. He seems very smart, and very sweet. He takes forever to respond, generally, but when he does, he outdoes any catfish in volume, though he is very much a real person, I googled him. And, unlike a catfish, who feeds you lines, this guy is real, more real than any guy I've encountered. We'll see. I'm intrigued. 

My coffee is brewing. Oh, it's ready! 

"Keep Going"

 (a coloring page that I have pinned to my bookcase)

It's 2021, and we're still in the middle of a pandemic. 

I haven't really talked about Covid-19 much on this blog, but here goes. My neighbor below me might have it, as I hear him (her?) coughing in the night and there seems to be a pretty stringent cleaning protocol going on in the halls. At one point, I realized someone was wiping down the outside of my apartment door. 

I have two people close to me that have it: a former neighbor from Pittsburgh, and someone from work. I wasn't sure if I had been exposed, so I quarantined over the Christmas break and took a test on Monday. Thankfully I was negative, but so many aren't that lucky. Omicron numbers are high, and people are saying that Biden has failed at ending the pandemic. 

And yet, life goes on, even if we are crawling through the fog. I do believe there is light at the end of the tunnel. 

But we are still waiting. And the crawling isn't easy. Today my phone devotional in the YouVersion app asked me to reflect on two questions: 

• God, what are you showing me in this waiting?
• How might I reclaim this waiting period for Your glory and the good of others? 

I've been talking about waiting in dating, and last night my friends reminded me that dating is a marathon, not a sprint. But I'm also waiting, with every person on this globe, for this damn pandemic to be over! Yesterday I started to get ready for my virtual story time later in January. (We do storytime on Facebook Live, Tuesday-Thursday at 10:30 EST). Because it will be posted online, I need to look up permissions from publishers to read their works. And while it helps me, it also makes me sad that permissions have now been extended by most publishers to June 30, 2022. That's six months away! Is that to say that we will still be in the pandemic in six months? I mean, ugh. 

And some people, with Long Covid, will be forever waiting for their strength to return, no longer able to run. It's really horrible. 

Last night I cried out to God for a parking space. And asking for that small thing, that He cares about, because He cares about me, prompted my heart to cry out for all the other things on my heart. Funny how it works that way. So there I was, on South 295, radio and GPS blaring, just calling out to God. 

And while I don't claim to have all the answers, my parking spot (after driving around the neighborhood in the dark) was indeed steps away from my final destination. And while I shared bread with my friends (OUTSIDE, socially distanced), they confirmed that enough was enough, I needed to let go of Mr. Saturday night. (see last post.) I needed to date "up." Wait for someone better. This was something I had been holding onto, and I had prayed about it, on 295. 

There's that cough again, coming through the floorboards. It stops me, cold. 

I know that the writing in this post is all over the place and not fleshed out. I know that given time, I could pull so much more out, make the paragraphs flow better, the transitions smoother. But it's 6:08, and I need to hit publish. 

And once again, as I look at the formatting, I realize that it may be time to take this blog to a different platform. I've been on Blogger since 2005! Old habits die hard, but maybe 2022 this blog will be on Word Press. 

"...--or only a story, maybe."

(Anon.)

So. 

I talked to Mr. Saturday Night. It played out so differently in my head. Well, I have another dating story to add to my arsenal. He was cold and distant and I thought, I didn't have THAT great of a time that I need to go out with him again. In some ways, I was following other people's lead. Other people wanted me to give him a second chance. I knew that it wasn't a match, not just a bad date. But I didn't trust myself, I trusted other people who said I should give him a second chance. 

At one point he was mansplaining what he thought I was doing...No. I do not need to text him for a third date. 

I am still learning. 

I am still learning.

I am still learning. 

NEXT! 

The problem with spelling my name: his sister has the same name, spells it a different way.

The reason we didn't walk together: he had to use the bathroom. 

Following the story to its end...

I have decided to give Mr. Saturday Night another chance. We'll talk tonight, because I can't stop thinking about him, and I was just really disappointed about how Saturday went. 

I don't have this memorized, but I knew I'd find it in the blog. 

When I grow tired of my students, as I always do--

staring at their faces till my sockets burn,

I remember one girl told me

how she followed a boyfriend home--

found him in tears--

He rocked on the bed

screamed at her to Get away

So she turned off his light

and closed the door,

and sat on his floor till morning.

When I think of this girl speaking

in her gentle voice with its rough edges

I think how teaching is like crouching sleepless

in a darkened room refusing to get up

knowing nothing will come of this,

--or only a story, maybe.

(Anon., found in Small Victories, by Samuel G. Freedman.)

I am still learning (pt 2)

Okay, here goes. I don't have therapy this week, so I can't talk it over with her. 

Dear (you know your name), 

I was very disappointed at the end of our second date. This seems to be a trend for me, but is unusual to me because since I date so infrequently, I'm pretty selective and only do first dates that become relationships every 5-7 years.

I fell asleep during the movie. I guess you did ask if I didn't like it. I said long day, dark room, which was true. 

We walked for about 30 minutes and the whole time we barely talked, we weren't even walking in concert. 

Ugh. Okay. Your family ran a bookstore mission in West Africa and you thought people needed more life things than pamphlets. It's taken me a day to process that I agree with your disappointment there. 

You've seen a lot of movies during Covid. I guess with social distancing etc that's not horrible. You pointed out that I was more careful. Well, I work in the public and I was living with my parents who were in their late 70s. 

You tried to correlate my love for my young niece/nephew with the fact that I'm a children's librarian? That didn't even make sense! They are my family. 

You didn't seem thrilled about your own family--I kind of want to be with someone who likes their family, but I guess you get what you get and I'm incredibly lucky to have a great family. 

You wanted to split a $12 taxi fare? really? 

You parked in the garage. How bourgeoisies. I was so proud of finding a spot on the street. (Hunting for it did eat up time, but it was time I had to spend.)

I don't know. I just didn't feel like I liked you enough that we could be friends. Anyways, I'm not dating the next two weekends anyways. (Christmas/New Years.) 

Oh, your comment about (redacted) made me think I didn't want to share eventually that I have mental health issues. 

But clearly you have gotten under my skin, so stay tuned.