Library life.

I've been a little distracted lately, hence the lack of scintillating updates. Mostly I've been learning how to do my job and also learning how to live after yoga teacher training, both of which I think I'm getting pretty good at. I pretty much love my job, because I'm working in the kind of library that makes me remember why I love libraries so much: it's small, but not too small, and super busy, but not too super busy, and so far I've only had to have stern words with two kids. Anyway, you learn a lot of things about a community by working in its library, and here is what I've learned about mine so far.

1. A staggering number of people watch the show JAG. Were you aware that this show existed? I sure wasn't.

2. Runescape is still so, so popular, guys. I cut my professional librarian teeth on kicking kids off computers for swearing at each other while playing this game, and I am amazed that it's stood the test of time in this era of short attention spans.

3. Young stoners still get awesome ideas in their heads, like that they want to learn to play the spoons. Then they come into the library to get a card and ask us if we have any books on that (answer: HELL YES).

4. It's one of those neighbourhoods where well-intentioned seniors call the library for reference help because they feel like they need to keep us in business. Result: I get to answer questions about things like which tv network is showing the French language leaders' debate and whether I think Absolutely Fabulous is to racy for a bunch of ladies in their seventies (I am not exaggerating, not even a little).

5. I've never gotten to serve so many university students interested in books on how to go vegan on the cheap. (see above re. HELL YES.)

In conclusion, you know who I never listen to anymore? The Dandy Warhols.

I do.

As usual, now that I am back home with the parents', I have very little to report. Instead of reading, I spent most of my days making jam, falling asleep in lawn chairs, trying to ride a bike, and helping the neighbour children pick the cherries out of their black cherry ice cream. Thanks to the magic of cable, I have also become completely obsessed with wedding-themed reality programming. Have any of you ever watched Rich Bride, Poor Bride? This is a completely horrifying show. I guess the horror level depends mostly upon the couple being profiled in a given episode, but the one I watched the other night gave me heart palpitations. Unable to agree on ANYTHING for their wedding, the bride and groom opted to hold two separate events on two days, necessitating three dresses for the bride and two for each bridesmaid, not to mention a miniature pony dressed in pink feathers and a cape (I am not joking) to greet the guests outside the hall. They were more than thirty thousand dollars over budget. THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. As someone who has a hard time shelling out more than five dollars for a new pair of underpants, this show is several solar systems outside my frame of reference.

I guess I'm just baffled by the whole concept of a huge wedding with, like, choreographed dance numbers for the bridal party (although I still watch this damned video when I need a little pick me up, as much as it embarrasses me to admit it), and I also feel a little bit sorry for the subjects on the show, who are clearly being set up to look like complete nincompoops who fight over things like ice sculptures and fondant figurines. On second thought, I have a sneaking suspicion that anyone who would sign up to appear on television during what is arguably a very vulnerable period for any nascent partnership is probably fairly alright with having their emotional baggage on display, but that doesn't make my jaw drop any less. As a friend once said, weddings represent the coming together of two people and the complete spiritual undoing of about a hundred other involved parties. She hit the nail on the head, and also defined very perfectly what I masochistically love about weddings: love and celebration run right alongside chaos and pain. It's like all my favourite feelings together in one place. There's something appealing about a hot mess, you know?

And in lieu of a coherent conclusion, here's a feel-good love song to start your day.



Oh, and this. Which totally makes me cry. Every hell damn ass time.

Oh, Canada.

How lame is it that I'll now have blogged about the re-broadcasting of Atwood's Massey Lectures not once, but twice? She's on Ideas again, talking debt in all its odd incarnations and being referred to by Paul Kennedy as an activist for women, writers, and birds. I think this is the legacy I now need to live up to.

Right now she's talking about being send to Protestant Sunday School by her parents who worried that she might become too "religiously addled" as a child. My parents took us to the Unitarian church for the first time for nearly the same reason. That and the day I came home and asked when my first holy communion was going down and they both shuddered in fear.

Nothing says Happy Canada Day like Peggy Atwood speaking live from UBC on the CBC. We may live in a country whose landscape could destroy us (thank you, undergraduate CanLit, for that erudite theory) but man, have we ever worked hard to read and write our way around it. Have a great random midweek holiday. Here's a nerdy Canadian gift for you all--the complete first season of Read All About It. In hindsight I can't believe each episode was only 15 minutes. In my memory it was so long, and so incredibly scary.

All this town needs is a ten-minute nail place.

Because brevity truly is the soul of wit, and because I wasted most of my lunch hour walking around looking for a place to get an express pedicure (seriously Kingston, what the hell?), a brief and undoubtedly witty list.

Favourite items my new library has that my old library didn't.

My New York Diary by Julie Doucet. Something about the way she draws can make a roach-infested Harlem squat look cozy and appealing. And her slightly-off quebecois english diction is adorable.

A scrapbook of uncollected sketches and stories by Adrian Tomine, my favourite comic artist to read when you kind of feel like you might kill yourself and need someone to push you off the ledge, or at least feel pretty miserable about the state of humanity. I love comics, partly because there's something inherently lonely about the artists I read. I don't know what it is about the medium that's so navel-gazey and personally nostalgic for the writers, but I love it. If you haven't read anything by Tomine, start with Summer Blonde.

Veronica Mars. Okay, in truth I borrowed this from a fellow librarian, but we have it at the library too! This! Show! Is! Amazing! It has elements of so many things I love, from My So-Called Life to Nancy Drew to noir-ish detective fiction. And cute boys. SWOON.

Dawson's Creek on DVD. Secret shame alert. I have not borrowed this yet but when I saw it on the shelf I had a flash in my head of a weekend in February when I will unplug the phone, plug in the DVD player, and not leave my house for days.

I cannot put enough emphasis on how exciting it is to have a whole new library collection to explore. It is Nerd Christmas, friends.