June 2, 2018

This morning I woke up, got ready, and dropped the academic librarian off at her house on my way to work.

It was our summer reading kick-off day, so after counting money with the assistant, I went over to the children's area to set up a Makey Makey, potato piano. I like the whack-a-book game better but the theme for summer reading this year is music, so the piano made more sense. It was a little tricky figuring out which keys activated each piano key, we had to look at the code, but we got it sorted and as far as I know everything worked out pretty well.

I was on desk until 11:00PM and in that time I caught up on emails, helped patrons, and briefly talked to the academic librarian who stopped by to work on a presentation. I also talked to a guy I graduated from high school with and ran into several years ago at the grade school because he was an IT guy for the district. He apparently quit around the same time I did, went out to California for a year, and now he's back in town working for a software company and he's happier. Good for him.

Then I had a walkthrough and covered a break at the tech desk. I followed this by refilling audiobooks and DVDs, made a cheat sheet for summer reading prizes, and printed/folded fifty brochures.

I ate lunch in the third floor meeting room and I hooked my Chromebook up to the giant TV so I could watch YouTube videos. In the last fifteen minutes I was joined by one of the tech desk workers for her break and we watched the first video in a new Neebs Gaming series, where they play Far Cry 5 and film it as if it is a documentary. It's pretty funny, and the tech desk worker laughed a lot, so I think I've created a new fan.

I was on desk for two hours after lunch and spent the majority of that time starting a list of romance books for the romance display. I briefly thought I lost the list, because I was compiling it on our website while logged into my account and at one point my account timed out, but when I logged in later, the list was there, so it was only a minor scare.

After that I covered another break in the tech center. The academic librarian was teaching a class in the classroom, and when she was done, I went in and turned everything off and talked to her for a little bit. Then I ran upstairs to grab the personalized reading list notebook because it is summer and we have been getting a lot of requests recently. And then I helped a patron find a travel book. He said every year he goes on a roadtrip with his daughter and was looking for some non-touristy places to stop. After that, I requested a new book by John Atkinson, where he uses two comic panels to summarize classic books, and it looks really good.

A family member for one of my homebound patrons stopped by and said they were wanting to pause the service for awhile. This is the patron who gets sixteen large print nonfiction books each month, and we were getting really close to running out of books. The pause is not a surprise because she has been having some issues the past few months, but I'm hoping for the best.

Throughout the day I unintentionally updated my catalog tutorial because I kept finding previously unknown icons for the various materials in our collection. I added them to the slide I have all the other icons on. I also figured out a way to find all of the possible icons, by editing the web address for one icon with various other numbers, and pulled out all the icons. They aren't labeled with the material they represent, but I figure I'll be ready if I come across something else.

After work I picked up the academic librarian and we headed out of town to go to an outdoor concert. It was a nice drive. We laid a blanket out in the grass and ate a dinner which the academic librarian prepared. It included roasted vegetables with rosemary, and roasted green beans with lemon. They were all vegetables but two distinct dishes. Both were really good. Her friend was playing in the symphony and she stopped by to talk for a little bit before the concert. It turned out to be a really beautiful night and the music complemented it nicely. I never would have thought to drive out of town for a concert after work, but it was definitely worth it.

June 1, 2018

The academic librarian had to go to breakfast at 6:00AM this morning but she brought me back a veggie eggs benedict and it was really good. Then I dropped her off at the public library and headed home, because I had the day off.

My main focus for the day was catching up on this, my typed journal, because I have been falling behind due to my new relationship. I'm still keeping up with my daily notes in my notebook, however, which allows me to easily type this up, but I still have to find the time to do it. I'm getting it figured out.

I got sidetracked from my journal by trying to figure out why my refrigerator was making a bunch of noise. I tried to pull the front grill off the bottom but couldn't get it figured out. In the process I turned a thing that ended up not being something I should have turned, because it led to a minor flood. I don't know what I did, but I think it overflowed the drip pan, which then ran all over the floor. It was kind of a good thing because my floor needed a good cleaning, but it was still annoying. Also, I can see the water shut off between my counter and fridge but it's just far enough out of reach that I have to pull the whole refrigerator out in order to get behind it and reach the valve. While back there I took the cover off the bottom, and was able to use the shop vac to suck up all the excess water from the drip pan. I still don't know why the fridge is so loud all of a sudden.

Sometime after that the academic librarian biked to my house, which is impressive because it is all the way across town and there are hills. We watched the Laurel & Hardy short Me and My Pal, about a jigsaw puzzle, and then she took a nap while I continued typing my journal. Then I dropped her off at the park for a concert with her boss and came back home to eat dinner and watch the Doctor Who livestream on Twitch for awhile, before going back to pick up the academic librarian.

May 31, 2018

Last night I went to bed early and slept late. It was fantastic. Then I made eggs for breakfast and hung out with the academic and librarian until it was time to go to work at 1:00PM, an hour later than normal to make up for the weekend.

I was off desk when I got to work and spent it catching up on emails and talking to my coworker. During the next two hours I was on desk and caught up on the news, helped patrons, and worked on prize labels.

After dinner I was off desk for an hour. I made a new personalized reading list sign-up sheet and talked to my coworker about library things, mostly. Then I was on desk for an hour and decided on a new design for the summer reading prize labels. They looked much better than my original idea. I was able to finish making them and when I printed them out they were the perfect size, thanks to measuring the prize jugs first. When I got off desk I put out a new jigsaw puzzle, refilled audiobooks and DVDs, read articles, and printed out my DVD display sign so I will be ready to put it out on Saturday.

When I got home I played CoD: WW2 and in one of the games I got completely destroyed. It was due to a combination of factors but it was impressive. I'm glad that isn't how things usually turn out. After that I went and picked up the academic librarian and we went back to her house. She ate some sketchy looking homemade yoghurt and then started making some more. I will not be partaking.

May 30, 2018

I dropped the academic librarian off at her house before heading to work for our all-staff meeting. It lasted about a half an hour and it was mostly about the new name badges, with a brief bit about safety updates to the phone (the addition of a panic button and a PA button, so we don't have to type in a code to use the PA). The new badges will be active next Monday and will be used to let us in the building and on a few doors in the building. Should be safer and more convenient than keys.

I talked to my coworkers for a little bit until we opened, then I went down to our new work area in the tech center. I spent the rest of the morning coming up with a display idea for the DVD display next month and making several versions of a potential sign for the display. I didn't do anything crazy in the design, just looked through a bunch of stock images, but I like it. I also got a brief start on making labels for the prize containers for summer reading.

I talked to the academic librarian for a few minutes before heading to my Mom's house for lunch. I was on desk for two hours when I got back. I handled interlibrary loans and a phone call related to academic articles, once again thanks to the university library fire. I also responded to an email from my boss about the tour I gave to grad students last year (set up by the academic librarian), because they want to do it again but were interested in more academic resources, because of the university library fire. That damn fire. And I helped one of the other librarians set up the summer reading prize table by putting the plastic skirt on it, and suggesting putting the big signs on an easel.

I refilled audiobooks and bestsellers during my walkthrough and then taught another tech desk person how to reserve rooms. And then I was on desk for an hour. I made a sign, helped patrons, and read the news.

Picked up Chipotle after work and that took awhile because they were training a new guy who was super slow, hopefully because he was new. Then I headed to my Mom's house. We ate, watched videos (despite it taking forever to get the videos to work for some reason). After dinner I drilled holes outside and put in hooks so my Mom can hang some more stuff on the back porch. I also reset the router because my Mom has been hearing a lot of stuff about resetting the router to disrupt possible malware.

When I got home I was able to play a little CoD: WW2 for the first time in what feels like forever. Then I went and picked up the academic librarian and came back to my house.

May 29, 2018

This morning I got ready and dropped the academic librarian off at her house, then drove around a little bit before heading to work.

When I got there I found out the schedule had changed and I wasn't actually supposed to come in until 10:30AM (to make up for the coming weekend), not 9:00AM. Instead of leaving, I decided I would just take a two and a half hour lunch. But then later in the day my boss wanted me to train someone in the tech center how to reserve rooms, so that through a wrench in that plan.

Because I wasn't on the schedule, I went upstairs until eleven o'clock. I spent that time reading articles, catching up on the news, working on a personalized reading list, and listening to music. Then I had a walkthrough and taught the tech person how to reserve rooms. My boss thought it would take at least forty-five minutes, but it took maybe ten minutes, because it's actually a pretty simple process. It gets more complicated when creating events, but just reserving a room is straight forward.

I talked to my coworkers until my lunch break, which I got to add a half hour to, so I went home, because that extra time would cancel out the travel time, and I could actually enjoy a nice break at home. Twitch has started a marathon of the original Doctor Who series, so I started watching that. I don't know if I would have been a fan. The original Doctor had some annoying vocal ticks, like say “hmm” a lot.

When I got back to work I was on desk for two hours, which I spent catching up on the local news and working on the personalized reading list. Then I was off desk for an hour. I printed the signs I made for the summer reading prize table, and then finished the personalized reading list.

We had our monthly librarian meeting, which lasted about thirty minutes, and we mostly talked about summer reading. I spent the rest of the hour reading library magazines.

I met the academic librarian downstairs, because she was there working. We walked her bike to my car, set the rack up and loaded her bike, stopped at her house to get some stuff together for dinner, and then slowly got around to eating dinner at my house while watching another episode of Psych. Then I took down my projector so she could borrow it tomorrow for her presentation, in case the room she had didn't have access to a projector. And then we got sidetracked by talking, which is always fun.

May 28, 2018

Today I was off work for Memorial Day. I woke up early so I could take the academic librarian out to the airport (where she was going to rent a car). I got picked up by my brother, Dad, and sister back at my house around 8:00AM and we headed out of town.

Our first stop was the Beverly cemetery. There was a small ceremony for Memorial Day that involved a group of old veterans shooting their guns. Their guns were loud and it gave me chills, picturing these old men in their late teens, firing their guns for real, fighting for their lives. I can't even imagine. After the ceremony my grandma and aunt showed up. We put flowers on my grandma's parent's and brother's graves, and then walked around the cemetery while my grandma pointed out the graves of various family members and friends. The funniest one was a guy who used to be a plumber. She said he was the only plumber for miles around, but there wasn't really much need for a plumber back then.

We then drove several miles away to Hammer Cemetery, where we saw more past family member's graves. We wandered around a bit and then sat under a tree and talked for awhile. It was mostly my Dad, aunt, and grandma reminiscing about going to these cemeteries on Memorial Day when my Dad and aunt were younger.

On the way back we drove by the old farm that my grandma and grandpa used to own, and through the small nearby town, all led by my Dad who was working of his memory from when he was four years old. We didn't get lost, so it worked out pretty well.

We stopped at Spangles on the way home, and I always enjoy a change to eat at Spangles. I ate too much food, but it was worth it.

When I got home I took a nap. Then I talked to my friend out in California for a bit until his phone cut out. We've been playing phone tag, so it was good to talk to him at least a little bit.

After that I went to my Mom's house for dinner, which was good times as always. I went back home for a little bit after that before going grocery shopping with the academic librarian and then going back to my house.

May 27, 2018

Today was a nice lazy Sunday, especially compared to the active day yesterday. Slept in and then made a poor attempt to catch up on writing these entries while the academic librarian worked on her online music class. Then we ate lunch and started watching a Danish movie called Adam's Apples before taking a nap in her tent, which we set up in my living room.

Throughout the day I also did laundry, and washed a bunch of dishes, so that was productive. For dinner I made spaghetti and then we finished watching Adam's Apples. It was a good movie, but an incredibly dark comedy.

And that's all I have for today. After yesterday it was nice staying in and doing nothing, but it also doesn't leave much to write about.

May 26, 2018

I helped bake sourdough bread before getting ready this morning. The process actually started in the middle of the night, because why not. I didn't make the starter or the dough, but I provided the oven and the pot to put it in, so I'm going to take some of the credit for how it turned out.

When we were ready we drove out to a farm that has four camels, with the goal of combing the camels. By the time we got there the camels were taking a break, so we hung out in an old barn and ate a cookie. Then we went up to a loft room that looks like it was straight out of an Indian Jones kind of movie. Like a worldly adventures room from the 1930s or something. It was pretty cool. And then we combed a camel. Camels are big. And at one point one of them came up from behind me and bumped me out of the way so she could smell the academic librarian. Just a little bit scary, but I survived.

We went back to my house for a little bit after that, giving me enough time to change out of my damp clothes (because it was hot at the camel farm), and then we headed out of town again to go to a birthday gathering at a cabin by a lake. I was a little worried it would be out in the middle of a field, so the cabin was a nice surprise. Although we spent most of the time out on the back porch, so I was once again hot and damp. We ate good food and then the instruments were pulled out. Ten different people had instruments, and some of them switched between multiple instruments. The academic librarian brought her accordion, there were guitars, mandolins, a banjo, harmonicas, and a saw, which was probably the most impressive. At one point the lady on the saw played Happy Birthday, including the “and many more” addition at the end, and it was great. The saw is like a theremin, but actually good.

We left around ten o'clock, and there was talk of camping, but the campsites were closed, and I was really hot and tired after a long day, and really just wanted to take a shower and sleep in my own bed, so we headed back to town.

May 25, 2018

After several nights of not getting a lot of sleep, I was out like a light as soon as my head hit the pillow last night. I slept through the night and it was great.

The morning at work disappeared. I talked to the other librarian about a lot of work-related things, and also things that were not work-related, and I helped research a couple different reference questions, because they were coming in fast this morning. One of them was from the city looking for an ADA document of their own, which they had misplaced and hoped we had a copy. We apparently used to have it many years ago but got rid of it several years ago (along with a lot of other city documents) because we're not an archive and no one ever used them. The other questions was about a mysterious trailer park that used to be in town fifty or sixty years ago but I only found passing references to it, nothing that substantial.

I met with my boss for our monthly meeting. There wasn't a lot to talk about but I would still say it was productive.

I helped the academic librarian with a question about metadata. I couldn't find anything useful in our collection (which isn't surprising), and ended up sending her the example for one of my metadata assignments in grad school. I also tried helping her with an ebook situation on her phone and laptop. And I got a request from a patron to find a picture of his Marine Corps platoon from 1981. That didn't go anywhere. I found a lot of possibly useful sites but the class number he gave me proved elusive.

I went to the academic librarian's house for lunch, which was again nice because the travel time is significantly less than going to my Mom's house, so I get more of a break without having to stay at the library.

On a walkthrough after lunch I got cornered by one of our regulars down by circulation. The academic librarian knows her and it apparently came out that we were dating, so I think that was the reason for the initial contact, but them she rambled on about a lot of other things. Among the stream of consciousness was an offer to teach me a song with the academic librarian's name in it, and a request to help her transport a piano. I was eventually able to get away, but it took far longer than it probably should have.

Then I continued looking for the Marine Corps picture, before going on another walkthrough, refilling the audiobooks, and covering a break in the tech center. After that I talked to one of the other librarians for almost an hour. There was a lot of random stuff, but also some work stuff, so I feel okay about it.

I spent the last hour on desk, read the news, and worked on a personalized reading list. Then I went home, ate dinner, eventually picked up the academic librarian, and watched an episode of Psych before going to bed.

May 24, 2018

This morning I woke up, got ready, and dropped the academic librarian and her bike off at a coffee shop. Then I drove around for a little bit because I was a tad early for work. When I got to work I had two hours off desk. I pulled more books for my biography display and then sat behind the desk and talked to two of the other librarians. In a completely natural way it came up that I'm dating the academic librarian, and it really wasn't awkward at all. What was slightly more awkward was having to go tell two teens to put a little more space between them, because they were being a little too friendly in a public place.

I had three walkthroughs in a row after that. I refilled audiobooks, talked to people in circulation and childrens, talked to a man sleeping outside our front door on one of the stone benches (which seemed really uncomfortable but he seemed to be enjoying it and it wasn't against our policy, but we kept checking on him just to make sure he was doing alright), talked to my fellow librarians more, and kind of got a start on a new personalized reading list.

I went to my Mom's for lunch and she happened to be in the garage when I opened the door. She was pretty confused by the bike rack on my car, so I told her about the academic librarian, and I don't think I've ever seen her so excited. It was nearly at a comical level, and it was ridiculous, but also pretty cool.

After lunch we were shown how to set up the technology in our different meeting rooms, and then I was on desk for two hours, after taking a bunch of new donated games down to the basement. I spent a decent amount of time tracking down an academic article for a patron. We're getting more requests for scholarly things due to the university library being out of commission due to the fire. We can handle some of those but our library isn't really equipped for that, so it can be a bit frustrating not having the ability to help people. I got lucky with the patron today because I found a pre-publication version of the article online. I also had some time to actually start on the personalized reading list.

I had a walkthrough after that, covered a break in the tech center, continued working on the personalized reading list, and did my best to stay awake, because I was tired, and when I'm tired I have a tendency to want to fall asleep.

After work I picked up Chipotle, swung by my house to pick up the autographed books from Alan Lightman (because I didn't want them sitting on my porch if it rained), and went to my Mom's for dinner. We ate, talked, and watched videos. Then I drilled a couple holes in a new bird feeder so my sister could add dowels to it, and fixed a mildly dangerous fire trap behind the TV, because my Mom had way too many things plugged in.

May 23, 2018

Woke up and ate leftover pizza in bed for breakfast. It is almost as good cold as it is hot. After that I had just enough time to run home and get ready before going to work.

I had two walkthroughs when I got there. I refilled the audiobook and talked to the academic librarian a little bit. She stopped by to work because the campus library won't be available for the foreseeable

future.

I was on desk for two hours after that and most of that time was spent helping patrons. I answered a lot of phone calls, helped a patron print our list of possible book club kits, and helped a patron open Solitaire after he was trying to find a crossword puzzle by typing his phone number into Google to log into an account that he didn't actually have. It was odd. I also helped one of the other librarians edit her new handout, and I talked to her husband about the job he just got. It's as a middle school science teacher, so he doesn't start for awhile, but he will be starting a masters degree for teaching this summer.

I was off desk for the next two hours so I went upstairs to the meeting room. I caught up on the news and created signs for the summer reading prize desk.

For my dinner break I went to the academic librarian's house. It is a few blocks from the library so I was able to enjoy a longer break.

I was on desk for an hour when I got back and caught up on the news. Then I was off desk for two hours. I checked out a couple books, read the local newspaper, and spent a lot of time making new end caps for the newly shifted books. I was a little smarter about it this time, so it went slightly faster than my previous attempts, and I got everything right on the first try, but it is still a pain in the butt.

I picked up the academic librarian after work. I also picked up her bike, so now I have a bike rack on the back of my car. I've never had a bike rack on my car, and haven't had a bike since I was a kid, but it makes me look like I'm ready for adventure. I need to go on more adventures.

May 22, 2018

Not a lot of sleep again, and then I dropped the academic librarian off on my way to work. As we were headed across town, I had the realization that she made me want to drive the speed limit so that I am with her for a little bit longer. That was pretty cool. Then I drove around a little bit longer to kill a few minutes before heading to work.

I was off desk for the first two hours so I went up to the meeting room and updated the webpage for today's tech class. That went pretty smoothly, and I was able to read a few articles, as well.

I then had a walkthrough and covered the tech desk for about twenty minutes so that worker could take a break. I also made a sign for two of our meeting rooms because even though the construction happening in and around them is obvious, we keep finding people in them. The last straw was a patron today who had to walk by a ladder and all the other stuff, and then told me he didn't realize it was off limits because he “didn't see a sign.” So I made a sign.

The tech class was after lunch. Two people were signed up, one didn't show, there were two walk-ins, and I had made four copies of my handout, so that worked out perfectly. The class itself went pretty well. It could have been better, but even if I thought it was perfect I would have wanted it to be better. There's no winning.

Following the class I spent forty-five minutes behind the reference desk, talking to my coworkers before going down to cover the tech desk for an hour. I was able to catch up on the news, read a few library articles, and talked to a couple teens about their game volume and talking.

I was on desk for the last hour and learned about a fire at the campus library. The best guess is that it was started accidentally by a worker welding on the roof near the ventilation system. It didn't seem to be that bad at first but then the news kept getting worse. I was getting updates from the academic librarian, as well as my Dad who was getting updates from his scanner I assume.

After work I went to the academic librarian's house. We decided to have our first official date and tried to do typical date things. We went and picked up a pizza from downtown (tomatoes and broccoli), sitting at a picnic table outside while it was being made, which was really nice. Then we stopped at the library to checkout a couple DVDs. We ended up eating the pizza on her porch and talked about random things, but spent a lot of time talking about old video games that she played growing up, which was unexpected but really cool. Also, the pizza was really good. I had never had it from that restaurant before but I want to have it much more often in the future. She also received continuing updates on the library fire, which only got worse.

When we were done eating we went for a walk around the neighborhood. This ended in a stop at her friends' house. We were invited in by the husband while his wife put the kids to bed. He offered us pineapple, and I don't think I've had cold pineapple in quite awhile, but it is still very refreshing. His wife eventually joined us and we had a good conversation until about 10:00PM, when we heading back to the academic librarian's house.

May 21, 2018

Last night I got about four hours of sleep. Then I had to get up early so I could go get a haircut before work. Ideally I wouldn't schedule a haircut before going to work at 9:00AM, but I was overdue and this morning was the earliest possible time. I had just enough time afterward to come home and change shirts before work. On the way to work I dropped off the academic librarian and made it to the library with time to spare.

I had two hours off desk when I got to work so I went upstairs to the meeting room. I caught up on emails, and I was able to switch weekends with one of the other librarians, so now I can go to a weekend symphony thing next month. I also had a little time to play around with Google Maps stuff in preparation for the upcoming class.

I was on desk for two hours after that and that was basically completely spent working on Google Maps stuff and helping the occasional patron.

And then I had a four hour lunch break. The person in the tech center who was supposed to work tonight was sick, and it was last minute, so of the two of us who were there, I volunteered to work a split shift and cover the tech center tonight.

This worked out pretty well because on the way home I was able to go to the grocery store, which was a much better time than going at 6:00PM. The produce selection was pretty sad in the middle of the afternoon, but at least it wasn't crowded. When I got home I took a nap before eating dinner and heading back to work.

I covered the tech desk for the next four hours and it was kind of nice. There is a lot less responsibility compared to working at the reference desk, so I was able to do zone out and work on things, after covering the regular tech desk responsibilities. I set a patron up on the creation station, helped a patron print, figured out how to properly turn off the projector in the auditorium (by using an iPad instead of the remote), made a list of audiobooks so that one of the other librarians could pull them for me (because I hadn't had time with my modified schedule), figured out which keys opened which doors in the tech center with that same librarian, and also helped her unjam the shredder.

All of that didn't take too much time so I was able to put in a decent amount of time on the Google Maps class. Thanks to being able to zone in, I was able to get all of the screenshots I needed and this allowed me to finish the handout/presentation for the tech class. This also made the night go by pretty quickly, which is always appreciated.

On my way home I picked up the academic librarian and we quickly called it a night.

May 20, 2018

Today was a pretty straight forward day and there really isn't much to write about. I slept in a little bit (but still didn't get much sleep), and then dropped the academic librarian off at church. Then I started my laundry, cleaned up around the house, took a shower, and clicked around the internet, one of my favorite pastimes.

After lunch there was a two hour nap, which helped quite a bit with the lack of sleep, and then we made sourdough French toast for dinner and watched Psych. So not a very exciting day, but it was very relaxed, and I needed that after being social and so far outside my comfort zone yesterday.

May 19, 2018

Last night I slept pretty horribly. Like four hours kind of horribly. Most of it was due to sleeping in a new environment, but I also spent a lot of that non-sleeping time talking to the academic librarian, which was good times. It was like a sleepover, lots of talking and not a lot of sleeping. Also, there was a storm, and the window was open, and because I was awake, I got to hear the rain roll in from off in the distance. That was pretty cool.

When we were all up, we hung out at the house until lunchtime. We went to lunch at a hippie vegan place in the basement of a church. I got a roasted potato burrito, which ended up having multiple types of potatoes in it, and it was very tasty.

After lunch we went to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. It's huge, with a lot of different exhibits, and there is even stuff outside. We walked around for quite awhile and it was really interesting. The piece I liked the most consisted of two light bulbs hanging from the same hook on the wall. After a time, the second bulb turns off. It is meant to symbolize the loss of a partner, and was created in memory of the artist's partner who died of AIDS. Really sad stuff, and it got to me.

From there we went to the National WW1 Museum. We didn't actually go into the museum but it has a good view of the downtown skyline and Union Station. I got some good pictures. We also saw at least three different wedding parties having their pictures taken.

On the way back to the house we stopped at Trader Joe's. I have never been to Trader Joe's before and it is an experience. They have such a wide variety of food and it all looks really good. I think it might be a good thing we don't have one in town. And it would definitely be a mistake going there while hungry.

When we got back to the house we again hung out in the backyard for awhile before packing up and heading home around 5:30PM. We stopped at the academic librarian's house to pick up pizza ingredients and then came back to my house. We made pizza, watched The Good Place while we ate, and eventually watched one of my favorite Laurel and Hardy shorts, Berth Marks. It is hilarious every single time.

May 18, 2018

Last night I slept horribly. I think it was a mix of anxiety related to the weekend and the book situation with Alan Lightman. I also think I stood to long yesterday while covering the tech desk and my legs were feeling very restless.

And on top of that, I got up early, so I could leave early, and go to the UPS Store before work. That trip turned out to be entirely useless and pretty frustrating. I explained that an author was sending me books and I wanted to send an envelope or box with the shipping paid for to him. Or maybe contact the author's local UPS Store and set something up so the author could drop off the books and I could cover the charges. The kid behind the counter wasn't having it and wasn't interested in trying to help me figure something out. He told me they would never ship books in an envelope so that wouldn't work. I have gotten dozens of books in envelopes, so that was obviously bullshit. Then he said he needed to know the dimensions for the inside of the box and the weight. I said I could look up the size of the books and he said he didn't care about the books, he needed to know how big the box would be. I tried to tell him that if I added up the size of the books we would know how big a box I needed, but he kept saying he didn't care about the books. It was like a broken record and we just went around and around. It was probably the worst customer service interaction I've ever had. UPS is known for their precision and accuracy, and that has helped them become a dominant force around the world, but their customer service (based on this very insignificant interaction) is atrocious.

I was off desk for the first three hours when I got to work so I went upstairs to work in the meeting room. The first thing I did was send Alan Lightman an email, updating him on the shipping situation. I am still hoping we can figure something out. It would have been much easier if I had been able to directly ship him a book with a return label, but time constraints didn't allow that, and I had to ship him the books from the original sellers, so now we're here. After the email I spent the rest of the time looking up information for the tech class next week.

I had two walkthroughs during the noon hour. I used the folding machine upstairs to fold a bunch of brochures. It took me a little while to get it set up again because it seems like every time I use it, someone else has used it and moved things from where I had them previously, but I got it figured out. I also talked to the person at the children's desk for awhile after each walkthrough, and talked to my coworker at the desk to round out the hour.

After lunch I covered the tech desk and mostly just looked at articles. Then I spent the rest of the hour, about a half an hour, sitting behind the desk and talking to my coworkers.

I spent my two hours on desk mostly working on the tech class for next week. I started coming up with my idea for a slideshow that I could then use for a handout. I took a lot of screenshots and did a lot of tweaking of the slideshow to make it look how I wanted. The summer reading site also crashed multiple times today, so we dealt with that throughout the day.

I spent the last hour of the day talking to my coworker. The entire hour. And we covered all the random things. None of which were work related. It was nice.

Near the end of the day I heard back from Alan Lightman and he said he would pay for the shipping. How cool is that? That was a huge amount of stress lifted from my brain going into the weekend. I'm definitely sending him a Thank You note. And I'm going to find out how much it cost to ship (which will require going back to the awful UPS Store) so I can include a check.

When I got home I did all the things. I packed, changed clothes, washed my windshield (because it has been dirty forever and this seemed like a good excuse to finally clean it), ate dinner, and finally left the house around 7:45PM. This was forty-five minutes after I planned on leaving but I wasn't surprised by the delay.

The drive went smoothly, largely due to the GPS. That thing takes a lot of stress out of the end of a trip when you're off the highways and interstates and dealing with exits and side streets. The GPS did suggest an illegal/impossible U-turn, but other than that it was spot on. I also needed a little help with the house because the numbers weren't clearly marked for most of the houses on the street, but the academic librarian's friend jumped up and waved her arms in the front yard after I had parked a few houses too far down. We went and sat on the back patio for awhile before calling it a night.

May 17, 2018

I had another good night of sleep last night. Tonight won't be as good because it's already almost eleven o'clock and I would like to at least start packing for tomorrow. But last night was good.

When I woke up I read in bed, finished Einstein's Dreams, looked at the travel book for this weekend, did a load of laundry, ran on the elliptical, got ready, ate lunch, and went to work.

I was on desk for two hours when I got to work. I updated my homebound spreadsheets with the feedback I got from the bookmarks yesterday. I also updated tech class attendee information for the off-site class yesterday, and I read some news.

Then I had a walkthrough and cut out 200 username/password slips for summer reading, so we can write down that information for people when we register them. Then I checked out a laptop and went up to the third floor. I set up shop outside tech services and started by reading a Library Journal article about podcasting. And then I spent the rest of the time looking up stuff related to the article.

After dinner I had a walkthrough and covered the tech desk. That time was mostly spent looking at news articles, and catching up on my written notes for my journal. And then I was on desk for an hour. I know I did some things but I can't remember any of it.

That hour was completely overshadowed by the rest of the night. Right before I got off desk I got an email from Alan Lightman, and he said he wouldn't mind signing a copy of his book. The catch is I need to get it to him by next Wednesday. So I spent the next hour figuring out how to get him a book. I wanted to get a first edition, and I found one, and thought it would be shipping from New York, so I paid for expedited shipping and had it sent to the address Lightman sent to me. But after I hit the order button I found out it was actually shipping from California and the estimated delivery date was May 30^th. I sent an email to the seller to see if I could expedite the shipping even more and get it there by next Wednesday.

In the meantime, I got on Amazon and ordered a normal book that way. I had it shipped to me so that I could ship it with a return envelope/postage, but then realized it would cost a ridiculous amount of money to ship it to Lightman. So I canceled that and ordered a another one (which was $0.34 cheaper two minutes later) and had that shipped directly to Lightman. It will be there on Saturday. Now I have to figure out how to get him the return envelope/postage. I'm going to go to the UPS Store tomorrow morning and see what my options are. My first thought was to sent one envelope with two return envelopes inside (because right now there are two books headed to his house). My second thought was that it would be really convenient if my UPS Store would be able to set something up with Lightman's UPS Store, so he could just drop off the books and they could get them to me.

This whole thing went from a long shot, to a reality, to slightly stress, really quickly. But I have confidence I can figure out the return shipping thing and everything will turn out well. Fingers crossed.

After work I stopped by my sister's house to borrow the GPS thing again and pick up a typewriter. We talked for awhile and then I headed home. And I have spent the last hour writing this. I want to go to bed now but I want to throw at least a few things in a suitcase, or maybe clean out my trunk. We'll see.

May 16, 2018

Last night I got nine hours of sleep. And it was a restful nine hours, I don't think I woke up a single time. That needs to happen more often. Then I read in bed for awhile before running on the elliptical, getting ready, eating lunch, and going to work.

I was off desk for an hour so I went upstairs to call my homebound patrons. Then I read emails, and worked on my newspaper article, editing it based on suggestions from two of the other librarians.

Then we went to deliver homebound books. Our first stop was to buy a newspaper, then we went to a new patron's house, which turned out to be an apartment inside of a house that was a little tricky to find, but the other librarian had to do all of the finding, and she found it, so it worked out.

My first patron wasn't home, but this is the patron who is hard of hearing and not very mobile, so she leaves her door unlocked and I let myself in. Which means I didn't realize she wasn't home until I was already in the house and had walked back to her room. It went from feeling normal, to feeling a tad awkward. I stood there for awhile thinking, and then looked around for her books from last month. I found the bags but six books were missing. I ended up taking them anyway and left the books for this month. I went back out to the van and told the other librarian what happened and asked if she thought I should leave this month's books or not. She thought maybe just one bag (this is also the patron that gets sixteen large print books each month), so I went back in, which was still awkward, and grabbed one of the bags.

My second patron was home, and she's the one I end up talking with awhile because she used to work at the library at the university and she's just fun to talk to. We talked for quite awhile today. Following that, the rest of the deliveries were pretty usual. When we were done I drove right by the library toward the public parking lot. I was talking to the other librarian and was just on auto-pilot, because I usually drive by the library and park in the public lot. So we drove through the lot and then turned around and went back to the library. It was actually kind of funny.

I had about a half an hour after we unloaded all of the books, so I refilled my audiobook display and then talked to my coworkers. Instead of going to dinner at four o'clock (which is the normal time when closing), I was on the desk at four o'clock and had dinner at five o'clock. A decent chunk of that hour was spent talking with one of the other librarians about my article, and making several tweaks that were made more difficult because I was so close to the 750 word limit, and all of my changes involved adding words, but then also having to get rid of words to get me back down to 750 words. It's like a puzzle. I finally got it sorted and sent it off to the newspaper so I could stop thinking about it.

When I got back from dinner I was on desk for two hours. I had one phone call almost immediately, and the line immediately went dead. Later on I had another call that sounded like whoever dialed the number somehow managed to call two people at one. I would swear there were two people on the line that hadn't started a conversation yet but sounded surprised that I was there. It was weird. With the rest of my time on desk I caught up on the local paper and signed a teen up for the summer reading program.

Today was the first day to register for the program but when I got to work at noon and checked our website I couldn't find anything about it. It should have been featured prominently on the homepage but there wasn't anything. And there wasn't anything until almost five o'clock because apparently there was a lot of miscommunication. But the information is there now, and the world didn't end, so we will carry on.

The last hour was spent off desk, which means I was just sitting at the second computer. I caught up on my written notes for the day and registered my Mom and sister for summer reading. It was a really slow, quiet night at the library. Usually when I say that I just mean upstairs, because back where our old desk used to be we really couldn't hear anything outside of a small radius from our desk. Now we can hear everything on the second floor and pretty much everything on the first floor, too, and that's usually where the action happens. But tonight it was silent, and it was nice.

The weather had cooled off quite a bit so I drove home with the windows down. I'm a little worried I'm going to wake up and my left eye is going to be messed up from allergies or something, but we'll hope that doesn't happen.

When I got home I ate a snack (cold cheeseburger pie is very tasty) and then watched the first four episodes of the first season of Santa Clarita Diet because I had forgotten most of the first season. While watching that I worked on typing this. And now I'm listening to music while typing this because watching things while typing things is very distracting.

Now it is after midnight and I am going to go to bed because I'm tired. I close again tomorrow. Can't wait. But then it will be Friday. The plan is still to head out of town after work on Friday and meet up with the academic librarian and her friends. I'm excited to see the academic librarian, but I'm also mildly anxious about driving two hours away to a town I haven't been to since I was a kid and certainly never drove to. And I don't know exactly where I'll be going or what the parking situation will be like or the environment, and I'll be meeting new people and I'm awkward when meeting new people, and when I'm around someone I like in front of new people. So I'm stressed a little bit, and I have a couple more days to be stressed about it, but then I'll be thrust into the situation and life will go on. I'm going to bed now.

May 15, 2018

Today was an interesting day. It started with maybe five and a half hours of sleep. That nap yesterday really screwed me over. And then I woke up several time throughout the night after short naps, which took me forever to fall back to sleep after. Not a great night.

When I got to work I did the usual opening things and then I was on desk for two hours. I caught up on emails, read through my newspaper article one more time before sending it to the tech. services manager for her opinion, filled out my timesheet, and helped several patrons find books. I don't think I've ever walked so many patrons out to the stacks to find books. It felt good. I also sent an email to Alan Lightman at MIT to see if I can get him to autograph a copy of Einstein's Dreams. I don't foresee getting a response but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

After my desk shift I went up to the high school with one of the children's staff members for summer reading outreach. We were there from 11:30AM to 1:00PM, covering their two lunch periods, and I think it went pretty well. It took a bit of work to figure out where we were supposed to set up, but after asking someone in the library, we got it all sorted, and got our table set up. We talked to seventy-one teens, two adults, and gave away a lot of books, candy, and earbuds. And we ended the trip with the children's staff member backing into a curb, which was really jarring, but thankfully we managed to just miss the concrete posts.

I got back from lunch around 2:30PM, caught up on emails, talked to my boss and fellow librarian, and started drawing a bike in Paint. Then I was on desk for an hour. I continued talking to one of the other librarians, got my article back with editing suggestions that got me up to exactly 750 words (previously it was 749), and looked at the news.

I had a walkthrough for the last hour of the day. After which I had to talk to some teens about running in the library, but that went smoothly. Then I finished the drawing of the bike and added it to a post on our staff blog. For several days now there has been an unchained purple bike in the bike rack in the staff only area. It hasn't moved so my boss wanted to know if it belonged to a staff member or if a random patron put it there. She took a picture and was going to use that for a post. I figured if the bike belonged to a staff member, asking about a purple bike would be enough to jog their memory, so using a crude drawing would be fine. We'll see how it goes over. After the post I had a little bit of time to look at the news before the hour struck five.

When I got home I watched a few videos and then had leftover cheeseburger pie for dinner, with strawberry ice cream and peanuts for dessert. And then I played CoD: WW2. It was a mix of a bad connection night along with a night of playing against a bunch of really high max levels. Thankfully they were typical max levels that are only focused on killing, not playing the objective, so my team generally came out on to, usually thanks to me. Not to brag, but when my domination caps are in the double digits and the rest of my team may have two or three at most and they're maybe breaking even on kills and deaths, I'm going to take some credit. I think I'm somewhere in the mid-40s of my ninth prestige, drawing ever closer to level fifty-five and then tenth prestige. And then I just have to get through that one and I'll max out. And then I can move on with my life.

I spent the rest of the night trying to write this while falling down a rabbit whole of music videos on YouTube for cover songs. That is a deep, very distracting hole. And now it's 11:30PM, so I'm going to go read in bed for awhile before going to bed. I close tomorrow and Thursday. I'm looking forward to sleeping in, but it would be nice if I would stop closing on so many Wednesdays because it really messes with Chipotle night.

May 14, 2018

This morning I woke up, read in bed for awhile, and then spent the rest of the morning clicking around the internet, watching videos, and kind of starting on my article. While I ate lunch I continued watching Santa Clarita Diet.

After lunch I went to my room with my Chromebook, crawled into bed, and started working on my article in earnest... after I took a nap. Sometimes naps just happen. But then I really started working on my article. I had planned on writing about random books in different genres that I typically don't read, but things took a turn and I ended up writing about two books I have read instead. I'm going to have people proofread it tomorrow and we'll see if it makes sense.

I put the finishing touches on the article by 6:30PM and then ate dinner and finished the last couple episodes of the second season of Santa Clarita Diet. I want to go back and rewatch the first season, because I don't remember most of it, and I'm just enjoying being in that world right now. The writing is how I would want to write a show or even a story, quick and witty back and forth dialogue. They nail it.

I played a little bit of CoD: WW2 and had a few decent games. Then I took a shower and ironed my pants for the week. Future me will really appreciate past me for doing that. Now I think I'm going to read for a little bit before going to bed. It's eleven o'clock and I open tomorrow, but thanks to that nap this afternoon I don't think I'll be able to fall asleep for awhile.

May 13, 2018

This morning I woke up, read in bed for awhile, and then fell back to sleep for a little bit. It was pretty nice. Then I ran on the elliptical, got ready, ate lunch, watched part of an episode of Santa Clarita Diet, and went to work.

After counting money and sharpening pencils and all the other opening stuff, I was on desk for two hours. I worked on my newspaper article and spent a lot of time talking to the other librarian, because that is inevitably what happens when we work together. We have similar interests, so that doesn't help. But I enjoy our conversations, and never turn down an opportunity to procrastinate.

In that conversation, Flowers In The Attic came up. We both remember being mildly traumatized by the move when we were kids, but couldn't actually remember what actually happens in the movie. I looked it up, and it turns out it is completely awful. And it's part of a series, each subsequent book is just as awful, if not worse. There's abuse, rape, incest, torture, poisoned donuts, and a lot of other things. Good grief. Somehow it was a really success book. I thought Fifty Shades Of Grey was bad but it doesn't even come close to the demented plots of the Flowers series.

When I was off desk I went down and covered the tech desk so the tech person could take a break. I caught up on my daily notes in my notebook and looked through the tech center handbook. And then I went to pull my homebound books. I got really lucky and didn't have to go back and look up extra books, because I had added enough extra to my list before heading out to the stacks. Then I checked them all out, updated my spreadsheets, and printed out bookmarks before I was back on desk for the last hour.

That hour was spent cutting the bookmarks, stuffing the bookmarks in books, stuffing the books in bags, and labeling the bags. A successful day. Except for the fact that I didn't get anywhere close to finishing my newspaper article. I'm going to write it tomorrow, which I'm not supposed to do because I don't work tomorrow, but I'm not going to have enough time on Tuesday or Wednesday and it is due Wednesday. I just won't tell anyone. It'll also be easier to write at home, without all of the distractions at work.

Before closing I changed my shirt because my Mom was picking me up to go the visitation for one of the kindergarten teacher's father, and I don't like wearing shirts that tuck in without my jacket because I think they look frumpy. So I changed into a shirt that I don't tuck in. The visitation was nice and I only had one accidental glimpse of her father in the coffin. Whenever possible I try not to look at people in coffins. I got to talk to several people from the school, which was nice, but it's always unfortunate when your only chance to catch up with people is when someone has died.

After the visitation I ran home to grab my Mom's presents for Mother's Day, as well as some trash and recycling. I got to my Mom's house around 7:30PM and we at cheeseburger pie for dinner that my sister made. Mine was made with fake hamburger, but it was pretty spot-on. For desert we had homemade strawberry shortcake, which my sister also made from scratch. I'm not really a dessert person but it was really good. It wasn't too tart or too sweet, it was just good. After dinner, my Mom opened her gifts, and then we talked until after 9:30PM.

When I got home I played a little CoD: WW2. Things went better than last night but I've had better days. And better teammates. But I had fun, and I never felt the need to resort to racial slurs, like people tend to do in the chat, so that's always something.

Now it's late, and I can't afford to sleep through half the day tomorrow, so I'm going to go to bed.

May 12, 2018

This morning the power blinked out and it really did a number on my old desktop. It seems that it can't find Windows all of a sudden. Or maybe it's a motherboard issue, because it doesn't seem to have any interest in going into the BIOS. I didn't have time to mess with it this morning, and haven't had any luck in my brief time spent on it tonight. It's frustrating.

I am working with another librarian this weekend, and that made opening go a lot faster. No offense to the assistants, we just seemed to get a lot done. After we counted the money, I printed out the room schedules (because that wasn't done last night). And after we opened, I went around and put up the weekly staff newsletter. Then I had a walkthrough and put more audiobooks on my display.

After that I was on desk for two hours and worked on my evaluation. I only ended up adding one thing to it and eventually just submitted it so I could move on to other things. Like my homebound lists, which I worked on on and off throughout the day. I also answered several phone calls, one of which was from a dorm on campus that had found a set of keys with a library card on them. I was able to look up the patron and gave them a call to let them know their keys had been found and where they could go to pick them up. It's been awhile since I've had one of those calls but it makes me glad I have a library card on my keychain.

I ate lunch upstairs in the meeting room because our cubicle is no more and the cubicle computer is now in the meeting room. I read a little bit but spent most of the time watching videos and catching up on my daily notes because I hadn't written anything in my notebook all morning.

When I got back from lunch I went to find the tape dispenser I had misplaced while putting up the newsletters earlier. It ended up being in the kitchenette off of the tech center. I also retrieved one of the newsletters I had put in the wrong place, and moved it up to the third floor breakroom, which was the correct place. And I restocked my audiobooks again.

Then I was on desk for two hours. I spent a decent amount of time talking to the other librarian because we were both trying to avoid stuff. But I eventually went back to my homebound lists and I think I pretty much finished them. Tomorrow I'll go pull books and we'll see if I need to add more. I'm a little worried for my patron who gets sixteen non-fiction large print books every month, because we may have finally reached the point of her having read our entire collection. I'll find out tomorrow.

I had a walkthrough during the last hour, worked on my lists, talked to the other librarian, and helped one of our regular patrons with Google Slides again. And then the day was over.

When I got home I ate dinner and watched Black Panther. I really enjoyed it. There were badass women with shaved heads, cool fights, and a decent story. I liked how they made choosing sides difficult. You want to go with the “good” guys, but it's easy to see, and empathize with, the “bad” guy. The only thing I didn't like was when the Black Panther and Killmonger were fighting in their suits as they fell into the mine. The special effects weren't quite there and it looked like they were on par with the end of the Neo and Mr. Smith fight scene in The Matrix: Reloaded when they went full CGI. But other than that, I liked it.

I played a little bit of CoD: WW2 but pretty much all of the games involved a horrible connection and I was left emptying clips to no effect before getting shot and killed. Or going up against teams that spent the whole game laying in the grass or standing in corners staring at spawn points. Oh well.

I also texted with the academic librarian. In that exchange we decided to go to a music festival next month. It's something I've heard about but I've never been, so it should be fun. Once I get past the anxiety of getting out of my comfort zone.

After that frustration, I messed with my old desktop again, but that just piled on more frustration. It might involve just reinstalling Windows, which is probably the easiest route to take, but I can survive without it for a little bit, so I'll do a little more digging and see if I can find a better solution.

And now it's midnight and I want to sleep. So I'm going to go ahead and do that.

May 11, 2018

I got six hours of sleep last night. It was not enough but the reason for my lack of sleep was totally worth it.

I met my Dad for lunch at eleven o'clock. I picked a restaurant that I know he's a fan of, and it's on this side of town, which means I could get a little bit more sleep because I didn't have to drive across town. The restaurant was packed, and even though my Dad had already gotten a table, it took awhile for a waitress to acknowledge us. We talked about all sorts of things until about 2:30PM and it was nice catching up and just talking.

I should have gone out and completed my errands after that but instead I went home and ended up taking a nap. A much needed nap. And then it was five o'clock and I didn't want to go out at that time because I knew traffic and parking would be annoying.

It turns out parking was still annoying at six o'clock. I needed to go to the mall to get a gift card for my Mom and drove all over looking for a spot that was reasonably close. I ended up getting gas to kill a little time, and then still had to park on a different side of the mall. Then I went to Target. I got some food, an ice cream scoop and tongs (because I needed them), a gift and card for my brother's graduation, and a gift and card for Mother's Day.

When I got home I ate dinner and watched videos, before playing a little CoD: WW2. The latest DLC is out. I only played the new War map and I don't know how I feel about it. I do know that the third stage involves dogfighting (with planes, not dogs), and it was awful. The controls are so sluggish and it doesn't seem like they got any input from developers who actually know how to make a flying game. I might see if I can use a controller, but even with that I don't know that it can make that section fun.

Now I'm going to go to bed, so I can wake up and go to work. I need to submit my employee evaluation, work on homebound stuff, and hopefully work on my next article which is due on Wednesday. It needs to be a productive weekend.

May 10, 2018

I woke up early, but still got a full night of rest, and then watched videos and played Minecraft for the first time is a really long time. I need to get back into Minecraft. I miss it.

I went to work at 12:30PM to make up for the weekend, and that made it much easier to find a parking spot. When I have to be there at noon, no one has left for lunch yet, and that is annoying. When I got in I had half an hour to kill before being on desk. I went down the the childrens workroom to plug in the Spheros for the workshop tonight and then I went up to the third floor. Our cubicle has been taken away so that computer is now in the meeting room. I had enough time to take a quick personality test.

I was on desk for two hours and spent a portion of that time helping one of our regular patrons (the one from across the street), with a PowerPoint presentation, and suggested Google Slides after she lost her first PowerPoint because she didn't save it. I also answered phone calls and chats, worked on my employee evaluation, and talked to the academic librarian a little bit because she stopped by to work on stuff. Then I was off desk for an hour, continued to work on my evaluation, and helped a patron find fashion books.

I was back on desk for an hour after dinner and that time was mostly spent talking to one of my coworkers and catching up on emails. Then I was supposed to have two walkthroughs but I skipped both because I had to set up for my workshop. The schedule didn't really allow any time for that, going from on desk, to two walkthroughs in an hour, to covering the tech desk for fifteen minutes.

I was all over the place trying to get things set up. I went upstairs to get a cart of books, then down to the basement (after getting the custodian to turn the elevator back on) where I pushed two tables together and set up the little arena for the Spheros with books and book stands and highlighters (which I had to got to the second and third floors to collect). Then I lost a lot of time trying to get the Spheros working. Three out of the four wouldn't connect. That was frustrating. Then I went all over the building trying to find our Sphero. It wasn't in any of the locations it used to be. It may be in the basement art room but I only just thought of that.

All of that running around took me up to 6:45PM when I had to cover the tech desk so that person could take a break. Almost immediately a patron walked in and wanted to use the creation station. We haven't really had any training on how to cover the tech desk yet, and it turns out the creation station is a bit of a thing. Thankfully the patron had used it before and was able to tell me the basic process, how I needed to use a guest pass and do something on my computer to unlock the computer (after I had gone over and tried to log into the creation station and it wouldn't let me). I was able to get it figured out and we were all good after that.

The tech guy got back a little late so I was a little late getting back down to the basement. The two patrons who had signed up, a husband and wife, were already there waiting for me. And it turns out they weren't actually interested in playing with the Sphero, especially the husband because his wife just dragged him along. She's a high school teacher and just wanted to know more about the Sphero and if it would be interesting to her students. I walked them through it all and we talked for about a half an hour. I tried multiple time to get them to play with it but they weren't having it. So I spent forty-five minutes running all over the place to get things ready, just to talk to patrons for half an hour, and not actually use any of the things I set up. I ended up playing with the Sphero myself for a couple minutes just so it wasn't all entirely for naught. Then I tore it all down, put the tables back, and got everything put away.

After work I went over to the academic librarian's house. She was sitting out on the porch with her friend so we all talked for a little while before her friend had to leave. Then we went inside and talked about all sorts of things until almost three o'clock in the morning. It started with talking about her bike, because that is her primary (only) means of transportation, and I have been out of the bike game since I was a kid, and there are so many different types of bikes, so I was interested. At some point after that we got onto webcomics and she showed me a couple books she had. I recognized one by the illustrations but had never read it. The other, A Softer World, I had completely forgotten existed but was instantly reminded and ended up looking through a lot of the book because it's pretty great.

And at some point in there she said she was attracted to me, which led to a lot more conversation about the nature of attraction, past relationships, more life story anecdotes, family history things, our own perceptions of each other, and how her attempt at asking me on a date turned into us just hanging out last Friday. And then we hugged and it was really nice. Now, I no longer have to worry about whether or not she likes me. But I do have to worry about her figuring out that maybe she doesn't like me. My head can be a very annoying place.

Now it is four o'clock in the morning, and I need to go to bed because I have to wake up for an early lunch with my Dad tomorrow.