More isolating this weekend, though not as bad as the previous post. Saturday I slept in, took a walk (ice not much better than the previous time I tried to take a walk, but the 30+ degree weather was invigorating), and got some stuff done around the apartment (hung a framed picture I have had sitting up against my dresser for at least 2 years now).

Went to see a concert by The Festival Choir of Madison--they conveniently have concerts at Asbury UM Church which is kitty-corner from where I live, though I wouldn't recommend trying to navigate the icy paths around their parking lot right now. (Yes, I walked. I'd have felt stupid driving.) The choir has hired a new, awful darn cute young conductor, who seems to be very good (and selected a nice program, if a little too modern for my tastes). He talks a bit too much between songs, unfortunately...and he's not actually funny like, say, Bruce Gladstone who conducts various UW choirs, such as the UW Summer Choir I often sing with. Funny people can get away with a lot, I think. Even if they're charming, earnest people are much less entertaining.

The choir sounds good, though. Better, tighter, than the last couple of years. The dynamics have improved dramatically--quieter quiets, louds that are well-controlled but spirited, better phrase-shaping. Interesting situation: they now have a Musical Director who is local and rehearses with them (and guest-conducted a couple of pieces), while the conductor (Artistic Director is his title) lives in Ohio and teaches at Wright State and lives the life of a traveling conductor, probably not making it to many weekly rehearsals. Who gets the credit for the improvement? I don't know, but they both seem like they'd be good to work with. I'm going to look into joining for the 2008-2009 season, when details are up (they have one of the nicer choir websites I've ever seen, but understandably, info is not yet available on joining next fall).

Did some work on the striped medieval Islamic knit purse, originally from this issue of the West Kingdom Knitting Guild's newsletter but most recently featured on the cover of Tournaments Illuminated. That is, I did some work on it--and then discovered to my surprise that it was done. Now that's a weekend project! I did it in roughly Northshield colors: black, white, gray, tan, and gold, all in Knit Picks Palette. (Mom got me a box with every color for my birthday in 2006; apparently you can't get that anymore, or not for a discount anyway. It's been quite useful.)

All there is left to do is some tassels for the bottom, and a non-wool cord of some sort to use as a drawstring. If it's wool, over time, it will felt with the pouch and be useless as a drawstring! Eithni mentioned making some Viking whipcord (is there anything that stuff can't be used for?). So I am refraining from bringing out my lucet. I completely suck at luceting. My tension is off the charts. It's like when I was 9 and knit so tight I couldn't get the needle under the yarn. I am constantly picking and pulling at the loops with my fingernails just to get them up and over the prong of the lucet, which wreaks havoc on the yarn/string and doesn't do my fingers any favors either.

Yesterday I felt like getting some fiber, so I got veggie sushi and asparagus for dinner at Whole Foods. YUM.

Tomorrow night I have a private class in peyote stitch with Delica beads, which I've never worked with before. I was wandering town Friday night (yeah, I know I should have gone to Temple, but I just didn't feel like it) and happened on a new bead store on the far west side, Modern Bead, run by an enthusiastic woman named Shannon. When I admired a peyote bracelet she had, she mentioned a peyote beading class coming up, with which I had some kind of conflict, so she offered to do it just for me for $20! (Plus supplies, of course, but you never have to convince me to buy beads.) You can see on the website how nice her store is--simply organized, with neat lighting and spectacular attention to color flow. Something you can't see is that for all the gemstone strands she also offers a bag of half-a-dozen or so beads of that type, so you aren't spending $40 for an entire strand of garnets when you only need four for your project. AND she's got more Swarovski crystal beads than anyplace else in town. Way to carve a niche!

In the same shopping center there is a small gourmet food shop called Grape and Company, which always frustrates me because 75% of the shop is wines, not gourmet food, yet their advertising stresses the food aspect. Still, I like to stop by when I'm in the area. This time I got lucky: it's one source for David Bacco chocolates (no idea how many other places in town you can get them; he is opening a west-side chocolaterie sometime soon, but has no website), as recently featured at the now-defunct Cocoliquot restaurant. I got the last box in the store, which is now but a charming memory (the chocolates, that is, not the box--I'm keeping the gorgeous yellow box with the magnetic closure!).

I got to examine the beautiful decoration on the chocolates in good light, at my leisure, unlike when I was at the restaurant. There were 8 chocolates in an assortment of flavors. As near as I can tell, they are coated in a thin layer of cocoa butter or some other type of fat with a similar consistency to chocolate, sometimes tinted with what seems like food-grade Pearl-Ex powders, if there is such a thing. He must be working right in the chocolate molds, pre-pouring, to get the effects he gets: the cocoa butter takes shapes beautifully and has great shine, producing the effect of a color-lacquered chocolate. The Exotic Caramel, which is passion fruit-flavored, is my favorite. It actually has a thin layer of white under the metallic red and orange tinted layer, which gives it the look of those vinyl bike seat covers from the 70s, sparkle sparkle sparkle. $15 well spent.

Bronchitis is nearly gone (gauged by amount of lung stuff I cough up in the space of a day), but I'm still having coughing spates every so often, and singing is just plain out. Yes, I did yield to Chandler Thursday night and sing the Alto part in his arrangement of Evensong, but only because Owen was visiting rehearsal and he wrote the thing, and there were no other Altos. My contribution wasn't pretty, though.

I do not like skipping my period (and no, there is no reproductive reason why I should miss it). I realize it's because of the Feb. 1 surgery throwing my body off its schedule. But my hormones are all out-of-whack, I've been PMS-y for two weeks, and I don't know what to expect next month, either. Grumble.
posted by Eliane at 11:32 AM [edit]

Hooray for being just about back to normal (or what passes for normal, where I'm concerned), 15 days post-tonsillectomy! Still a little swollen and a little sensitive in the back of my mouth, and yawning hurts, but I can eat just about anything I want, and bore my parents to tears talking at them as usual.

I don't recommend tonsillectomies for fun & recreation, but mine wasn't horrible. I am NOT interested in taking opiates again anytime soon, however. Apparently when those in the health care profession say "the drugs will give you constipation", they mean, "the drugs will close your anal sphincter so tight, the consistency of the contents of your bowels will not matter one whit". I was taking a stool softener like a good little surgical patient. The result? My bowels talked to me and swished around, completely liquid, for four days until I could taper down on the pain meds and finally poop.

Constipation? I do not think that word means what you think it means...

In any case, I can talk nearly normally, I can sing for short periods (though I don't think my vocal tract is quite ready for normal breath pressure, as I sound just a little airy), and I can breathe all night through my nose, which I haven't been able to do in a long time. Time (and the disappearance of the remaining swelling) will tell whether the extra space will really help in breathing/swallowing. In the meantime, I am assured of never having tonsillitis again. In 2002 I missed a Medical Library Association conference AND a choir performance (not to mention 7 days of work) because of tonsillitis!

Enough health talk. I've found that the more I talk about my health on this blog, the more frequently health searchers visit, and I can't stand the idea that there are people actually taking what I say about my health as health information or advice. I was a consumer health librarian. I know where the good information is, and it ain't here. Go visit MedlinePlus. Your tax dollars paid for it.

My first week back was busy and very productive. I worked my butt off and, for my trouble, was able to look around Friday, recall two things I was supposed to do that I didn't get to, and feel assured that everything else had been taken care of for the week. I even watered the plants, which is normally my library assistant's job on Friday morning, but by Thursday they were looking pretty sad after nearly two weeks without water, so I did them. They will now probably die. This is what I do to plants. Oh well. They had a good run.

Tuesday afternoon I decorated the library for Valentine's Day. Hearts everywhere! Thursday morning I had the entire school in the library at one time or another--3 separate groups of kids--and two adult groups in the afternoon. I gave each person a wild strawberry heart gummy candy, from a tub of gummies I got at Ikea when Eithni and I were there after 12th Night. At the end of the day I was exhausted, but felt like I had not just done the necessary things, but had gone the extra mile to help everyone feel welcome and glad to be in the library.

I was rewarded by hearing a patient say to a staff member, as he left the library, "That was enjoyable, we really needed it".

Awww, shucks...

During my recovery time I read The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears at the World's Most Famous Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn, which is one of the most fun books about food (and the people who love it) that I've read in awhile. Kathleen loses her high-powered job and, after some soul-searching, moves to Paris to attend the famous cooking school, Le Cordon Bleu. The book is full of loving and hilarious stories about her cooking school friends, Paris and its idiosyncrasies, her very understanding boyfriend who puts his life on hold to be with her on this adventure, the chefs at the school who inspire her and sometimes intimidate her, and the hard work and fun she has cooking. It's also a very revealing look at what it's like to go to a school like Le Cordon Bleu, where the pressure to succeed is great, but the school really does give a student all the tools, including encouragement when it is most needed. Also, I learned a better way to cut onions. This was a terrific read--highly recommended.

I followed that up with the first Harry Potter book, finally. My friends know I rarely read a bestseller while it's a bestseller, but this was getting ridiculous. And I think I get what people like about it, though I'm not really able to enumerate what that is yet. All I know is, I liked it, and I think I would have liked it when I was a kid, especially with it being just a tad british in tone and humor.

Now that I've waited this long, I can wait as long or short a time as I want between each book, since they're all published now--and I work at a library that has multiple copies of each. You see...I meant to do that. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Today: tidied the kitchen, worked on challenges for Bardic Madness, sent off a poem I wrote for Their Majesties to use in a gift basket for TRMs of the West at Gulf Wars, took my first walk since surgery (much needed, esp. with snow coming tomorrow, but a bit chilly), and watched this movie (which turned out to be made-for-TV when I looked it up, but it actually wasn't bad, and I looove Tom Everett Scott). Then I went out and ran a few errands, and met my parents for dinner, then did some shopping. I even found a new Speedo swimsuit in a lovely color of blue at Marshall's for $16.99. A productive day.

Tomorrow: I need to upload the Bardic Madness website and send the link to the site autocrat for approval, return my way-overdue videos, finish the challenge list and send it off for feedback, and...that's it. Probably play some Cake Mania 2. I have such a rough life. ;)
posted by Eliane at 12:48 AM [edit]

(I very rarely post the same text on both my LJ and here, but I don't know if I can re-write this entry again!)

I think my breathing has returned to normal now...!

This weekend I went to Nordskogen's Twelfth Night, where I was pretty much blindsided by my Laurel begging a boon of King Hagan and Queen Eilis during morning Court. I was put on vigil for the Order of the Laurel, the SCA's highest award for the arts. I spent the day laughing and crying and nibbling on nutella/almond cookies and smoked Gouda cheese and hearing advice and compliments from people I knew and people I hope I get to know more over time. I didn't get a chance to shop (or, really, do anything else event-related)...but I did wear the ring I got at my first Twelfth Night ten years ago!

Thoughts:

• Aleksandre bringing four bags of Smarties from Canada for my vigil is just completely emblematic of how I felt treated on Saturday. Everything was taken care of for me.
  
• I love my friend Sarra so much!
  
• I am so glad I'm not Owen's apprentice anymore. I always wanted to be his friend first and foremost.
  
• 9 people used the phrase "It's not an elevation, it's a recognition" in their advice to me. I believe in that concept too, but it may possibly now qualify as an overused phrase.
  
• Thank G-D for Elashava's quick extemporaneous speaking skills.
  
• I believe I actually forgot my own name during the ceremony.
  
• I realized Saturday evening that I had tried on my own Laureling hood at Yule Moot a week earlier. Eithni: "Do you think this is a workable design?" Iohanna: "I don't know, maybe we should try it on someone?" Eithni: "Eliane, do you mind trying this on for a second?"
  
• Not one but TWO people wrote me poems! Not one but TWO people gave me adorable nesting boxes! And I received TWO really useful blank books, besides the gorgeous one Ingus contributed to be used as my vigil book.
  
• I am still too freaked out to read my vigil book.
  
• Cerian, Garraed, Ana, and Flieg sent letters for me. How many baby Laurels get a letter from one of the founders of the SCA on their elevation day? I was floored.
  
• One friend was so excited for me, his blood pressure became dangerously high during the drive to Minneapolis and he had to turn around and go home! (Just kidding...Dolan had a sudden medical problem and had to turn back. We missed him a lot. But he did call during the post-revel. Feel better, Dolan!)
  
• Iohanna put up my hair in a crown braid, and did the Italian Hair Taping thing for me. It turned out beautifully! I had asked her to do this at Yule Moot, completely clueless about the fact that she had just been taken aside and informed about my impending Laureling! She is the best.
  
• Shava commissioned an illuminated, calligraphied rendition of my song "Three Words" from a Lady in Jara whose name is pronounced identically to mine. It's gorgeous. Shava cried when she gave it to me and told me what the song meant to her.
  
• My promissory scroll is nicer than many people's actual scrolls. And it's the first thing I've ever owned with my device on it. Mysie is amazing. I so wish she could have been there...but I know life sometimes dictates otherwise.
  

Big thought: I AM READY FOR THIS. I'll be patient with myself and with the things I don't know yet, but this is a logical step and I am glad to be taking it. I may have been surprised Saturday morning (though I guessed in enough time to put down what I was holding, exchange a smile with Colleen, and hand my camera to Dahrien), but overall I don't feel unworthy or unready. For that I feel lucky.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to everyone who helped, gave me a gift or a needed item or advice, listened to me babble, offered me small but meaningful choices on a day when I only had one huge decision to make (and it was a foregone conclusion), furnished my vigil room, drove me around, escorted me at the event, assisted at the ceremony or spoke for me, recommended me, or just gave me a smile and a "Congratulations!". You all make me feel so grateful for the SCA and the friendships it has given me.

Since the event: smallish but fun bardic circle in Owen/Flori's incredible multi-level tardis home, Sunday morning had a refreshingly fun casual conversation about religion with Kyle and Staci in the hotel room, hung out with Eithni and Master John from the East, mildly disappointing trip to S. R. Harris fabric warehouse (but I did get a nice length of blue linen and a piece of trimmed black shearling), an extended visit to IKEA with Eithni, and then a very talk-y drive home.

Today: slept entirely too late, did laundry, did dishes, have been tidying a little as I realize that my mom has to be here for 24 hours after my tonsillectomy, and my apartment looks, as she would say, "like a goat exploded". I have a little under two weeks to clean, so it's not urgent, but it's easier for me to clean in smaller chunks over time.

Tomorrow: going to work. I'll be interested to see what I answer when people say, "So what did you do this weekend?"!
posted by Eliane at 11:43 PM [edit]

Not a fully-fleshed out post for right now, but some info people have asked me for:

Where to get Master Avatar's early music books (and Istanpitta CDs): http://www.istanpitta.com/i_009.htm. "Medieval Songs and Dances" is the one I usually practice psaltery with, since it has more vocal music than his other book.

Where I got my plucked psaltery: Musicmakers' Kits. It's called a Hognose Plucked Psaltery and it's under "Other Musical Kits". Prices have risen a little since I bought it, but it's still a very good deal compared to other instruments out there, and they do good work. If you look at other models on the web, compare the range--Musicmakers' has a full two octaves and a wooden bridge, plus the more period hognose shape. Other models are often smaller, have fewer strings, metal bridges, and a more trapezoidal shape. The Russian-made models are very mass-produced-looking in my opinion. More information on psalteries is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psaltery. Be aware that the bowed psaltery is NOT a period instrument, despite the fact that there are a few SCA folk playing and teaching it as though it were.

My Israel pictures, about 60% captioned, are at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gillyflower/sets/72157603647886253/. The captions are really my main way of journaling the trip. Go see, and I hope you enjoy!
posted by Eliane at 11:21 PM [edit]

Things are going better than in the last post. I don't feel quite so flattened. But I'm not fully inflated, either.

It's the seventh day of Hannukah and I've only forgotten to light the candles once. So proud of myself...! Last year I don't think I did it even once. It's not that I feel some sort of compulsion to follow "Jewish rules" and light the candles every night. It's that, in Reform Judaism, we are asked to follow the traditions that mean something to us--and lighting candles means something to me. Light means something to me. I'm still exploring what that is, but besides having a family history of seasonal affective disorder, there is the fact that my alma mater's motto is "Light, More Light", that the symbol of the Northshield is the Compass Star, that I love christmas lights and now have a tradition of displaying them in my bedroom in December since that's my birthday month...I could go on.

I even lit candles at Dahrien/Mysie's Saturday night. A non-Jew guest complimented me later on "the little song you sang when you lit the candles". He took me by surprise since I think of the Hannukah prayers as just another set of Jewish prayers, not really a song, and sing the generic tune I learned as a little kid.

Today: much cataloging at work. (Monday is my relatively quiet day, only one group scheduled to come visit the library.) Things are still going great. My boss is truly wonderful and I'm still in love with the library space and all the things I can do with it. Last week I took down the slightly floppy magazine rack labels (the magazines kept getting stuck on them as people picked them up from the rack, not to mention they were stuck on with masking tape which was damaging the finish) and put up all new ones, leaving spaces for new magazines for 2008. Friday before I left I stood and admired my handiwork. It is much easier to read, much neater-looking, and it's quite the well-rounded magazine collection if I do say so myself.

I love this kind of stuff. I hope I never become an administrator and get all isolated from the library space and the patrons. That would be very sad. I need to remember that small works of "library magic" are what I thrive on.

This past weekend: Boar's Head. I needed to stay in town Friday night for the Israel trip send-off at Temple, so first thing Saturday morning I drove Sarah the Foole and Aurora to the event. The early part of the day was a little sad as Sarah just missed the sign-in period for participants in the Princess' Sleeve tournament, and friends had challenged her to enter it and got her all worked up to participate. I felt bad for her.

The day was good, in general. For my first SCA event in three months, I didn't LOVE LOVE LOVE it like I thought I would. This is the third Boar's Head at the current site near West Bend, and it's a nice but uninspiring site. Kudrun taught a morning class on period Christmas carols (which I thought she put together beautifully, even if we didn't get more than halfway through her list of carols), I spent an hour serving lunch in exchange for free food, and then there was some aimlessness in the early-mid afternoon during which I introduced Annora to the Queen's attendants so she could gift Her Majesty with really cool clay tokens. I also shopped, meeted-and-greeted with various friends I ran into, defended Masha from Grimmund, and attempted to go to a class on the Cantigas de Santa Maria (but the teacher had been unable to make it to the event).

The Pippins (a choral group from the Chicago area) were in attendance, and the Jararvellir-Choir-and-Friends met up with them at 4 for a random sing-in. I adore the Pippins. Got some good singing in.

Kit, the Kingdom Webminister (and husband of Addah, my site autocrat from Bardic Madness when it was in Shattered Oak a few years ago), drew me aside in the early afternoon to ask whether I would be willing to set to music/perform in court some statistics about the new Kingdom website to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas". The idea was too absurd to turn down. I blinked a few times, thought about it, and said, "You betcha". Kit and three people who were instrumental in the project were being called up to court to be recognized (and Kit was inducted into the Order of Tyr a minute later) and I was to deliver the statistics in a fun way.

Mid-afternoon I sat down to write. Kit had given me a list of eleven stats along the lines of "Over 50 award recommendations received" and "Task list currently at 30 items, have processed 140 tasks related to changes recommended by users". Not very medieval, but that wasn't the point. Basically I changed each point so it nearly scanned to "12 days" (forced scansion being something that adds to the humor, and something I can handle when singing, more than some other singers anyway). I think I was crouching down near my stuff for all of 11.5 minutes writing. This was not a hard task. Coming up with a 12th point was tougher...I originally put "Kit Marik is fabulous!" but Kit (such a gentleman) scotched that and suggested "4 tired webministers", which stuck to the format better anyway.

The performance was pretty good in my estimation--I got laughter for some of the lines, and after I stuck in a quick "Guys, c'mon, sing along, don't let me do this alone!", people were actually singing along. I had a sense of deja vu after standing up to sing; I must have sung in Court last year, but I don't remember what. People complimented me for the rest of the event, which was nice, but Owen agreed laughingly with me that this was a one-off: it was what it was, it fit the occasion, and the lyrics need to be saved, but outside the bardic book.

It is definitely good to know that I can handle a quick commission, under the right circumstances and given something that's easy to work with. I've never been able to write at events, and my improvisatory skills are minimal. So this was a very positive thing for me.

Dahrien did not seem offended that I really didn't understand his elaborate Agincourt-based game during dinner. All the diners got glass gems and special cards, and a staff of runners took challenges between the French and English diners. I kept winning challenges without really knowing how I'd won. The feast was delicious but a bit overwhelming, especially with the game going on at the same time; by the last course I was tiring of the whole shebang and had already eaten my fill. (I did get to show off my European language pronunciation skills by heralding the names of the feast dishes, from four different countries.)

The Bardic Barracks was rather quiet this year, even with the two first-time barrackers I brought; several of the "regulars" did not attend, including the families that often come for Boar's Head. Bardic on Saturday night was mostly conversation with the occasional poem or song thrown in. (That's okay; Midrealm Bardic Madness is coming up this Saturday!) It was good to be with the friends who were there, and the conversation was good, but it wasn't really the highlight of my year that it has been in the past.

It's in me, this inability to really have fun. I know what it comes from, but part of it is pathological and part of it comes from the treatment for that pathology, and it's not possible to separate them. I'm working on it. Slowly.

This week: several holiday meals on various units at work, should I want to attend them; my departmental lunch tomorrow; a visit to my mom's friend Hilde who has invited some of the Israel trip-goers to her house to see slides from her past Israel trips; possible work on my new cotehardie, which is nearly assembled (but the prospect of aaaaaaaall the buttons and buttonholes keeps me from wanting to finish it); then packing/leaving for Midrealm Bardic Madness. I also need to get some phone calls made, then start actual constructive packing activities for...

My trip to Israel! I'll be gone Dec. 22-Jan. 4. The shopping has been done (the new backpack, the hairbrush so small it makes me go "awwwww", the travel-knit long skirt that will function as a Shabbat-services dress-up piece as well as over my jeans for Muslim holy sites) and now I need to get my regular wardrobe washed and ready so I can pick out what I'll wear on the trip. I'm thinking I'll bring my large (non-expandable, but I have an additional folding bag if needed) suitcase, but haven't really tested its capacity; the small one is expandable, but less steady on its wheels, and may not be as big as the large one even when expanded. We'll see.

I'm not really planning on a spiritual awakening on this trip. To be frank, I've been looking at this as a chance to see wonderful sights, get to know a country I've never visited, do some amazing shopping, and even do some SCA-period historical sightseeing. Israel is huge in the consciousness of modern Jews, but I am more of a realist; I see it as an interesting and perhaps necessary experiment, that unfortunately has become so embroiled in political and human rights issues, that its culture is now one of war. (This does not mean I'm pro-palestinian. More I cannot say right now. I'll be happy to discuss it with friends when I come back and know more about how I feel about it.) Judaism, at least as I know it, seems so...peripheral to what Israel is these days. I'm not going into this as an Israel cheerleader excited to see "my homeland" for the first time (I already have a homeland). But I'm going to try to be keep an open mind about things, and let's face it, I wouldn't be the first person to have an unexpected spiritual experience in Israel!
posted by Eliane at 10:35 PM [edit]

It's been a week. And I don't mean, "It's been a week since X happened...". I mean, it's been a week. Some week.

My paternal grandmother, Ida Friedman, passed away early Monday morning. I was not particularly close to her, but it was still a blow. Tuesday I was on my way home to pack in order to leave with Mom for the funeral, and I was having a casual phone conversation with a guy I had sort of been building up my hopes for romantically, and found out that he, too, like 95% of the guys I've been interested in in the last five years, is not just a little kinky, but lifestyle-kinky, kinky enough to have spent a year living as a slave.

Those two things knocked me over. My tears during our trip to NW Indiana (where my parents' families are from) were real and very ready to spill at most moments.

I feel flattened, and I feel like I'll never be inflated--so to speak--again.

I don't know really what else I can say here right now. So I'm going to just trail off and see if I have anything else to say later in the weekend.
posted by Eliane at 4:09 PM [edit]

I just came back from seeing The Hollywood Librarian, which is a documentary on librarians and libraries--all aspects of them. The selling point is that it collects portrayals of librarians in movies (hence the title), but what it's really about is librarians and why they do what they do, what they love about it, and what's important about it. All kinds of librarians are featured, including a corporate librarian (at Hewlett-Packard, though I remember her name from medical librarianship), a medical librarian, a school librarian, a library school student (from UW-SLIS no less!), library school professors, and directors/staff from public libraries from small to big. (Conspicuously missing were academic librarians, though the medical librarian was from an academic medical center.)

This film is worth seeing if you're a librarian or library school student, if a family member or significant other is one of these, if you're interested in community-building or education, or if you just love seeing interesting people talk about what's important to them. It'll make you laugh and cry. Most of all it made me feel so lucky to be doing what I do, and to have the great job I do.

I saw a guy (last person on the staff listing) at the screening, who was on the literary magazine editorial board with me in high school. He was a year ahead of me, frighteningly smart. I remember when I came back to Madison for grad school, he was working at the now-defunct Canterbury Booksellers, and I kept thinking I should say hi when I was there, but I was too shy. When I moved back to Madison, I saw that he was still working in the same physical space, for the used bookseller that took it over.

I kept thinking all those years, whenever I'd see him downtown: "So we know this is a literary guy, we know he loves books, we know he knows customer service. What is he doing in bookselling and not librarianship?" Surprise--he just got his MLS at SLIS in May. The lucky duck, he has an LSA job at the Kohler Art Library, which (despite working in several other campus/campus area libraries in my time) was always my favorite library, for reasons I have yet to figure out. It just always made me feel comfortable. Many times I've gone there to sit and read and relax, and recently, with my interest in painting pottery (the Jararvellir Pottery Guild meets here every few weeks), I've been pillaging the Kohler for good period pottery photos. Looooove my digital camera for that...!

Well, he's an LSA; he's probably trying to get a "real" (professional) job, and he'll move away and I'll never see him again. If I never have an actual conversation with the guy, I'll still be glad to know he came over to our side of the book biz.

Sure, I sort of think he's cute, in a cowlick-y kind of way, why do you ask? Did you sense a little wistfulness in that last paragraph? Ah, you know me so well... And did you notice I did not use his name in this post? He's Google-able...but he's not Google-able here.

*congratulates self on successfully maintaining high-school-ish shyness and covertness around cute boys*

*thinks a little bit*

*gives a little sigh of frustration with herself*

In all seriousness, whether he's married, gay, whatever, I don't have the foggiest idea. But I am starting to get irritated with my general reticence around men. It is so much easier not to date, than it is to open myself up to the scads of pitfalls in dating. I'm working on it, but it's hard to get myself to step up. I haven't had seriously bad experiences...just a lot of unpleasant ones. Sure I'm an optimist, but dating is enough to test anyone's optimism.

*another sigh*
posted by Eliane at 10:00 PM [edit]