April 14, 2018

Today was filled with ups and downs. Nothing amazing or tragic, just subtle ups and downs.

I didn't sleep very well last night and I think it was mostly related to the heat. Throughout the night it was warm but by early morning I had to throw some more blankets over me.

One of the other librarians sent me a picture yesterday of our new temporary desk setup, so it wasn't a total surprise when I got there this morning but it was a lot smaller in person. One of the weirdest things is that our chairs are really short now because we're sitting at tables. Instead of being about eye-level with patrons, now we're looking up at them. One of the nice things is that we're under a ceiling fan, but I was still kind of hot throughout the day, so the fan isn't as effective as the freezing vent that would blow down on us at the desk. But at least there's a fan, even if the sound of it lulls me to sleep. I'm interested to see how this little temporary setup evolves over the next few months, or however long it takes for our new desk to come in.

I was on desk for the first two hours and that time was spent working on my homebound lists. I lost more stuff because I apparently didn't save before I went to deal with the group over-staying their welcome in the auditorium Thursday night. Live and learn. I had a walkthrough at eleven and after that I was able to finish my lists.

My lunch was spent in the cubicle. I watched YouTube videos and parts of the Coachella livestreams. I didn't even know that was happening this weekend. But it is, and they have some good acts.

After lunch I was on desk for two hours and there were a lot of patron interactions. I dealt with the group in the auditorium that was setting up for their poetry event tomorrow. The lady in charge of it is the sister of one of our regular patrons, and she's kind of the mean version of her sister. But the kind of mean that comes with a smile, which makes it more annoying. She wanted to know why the event wasn't showing up on the digital displays, and I showered her that it was and explained why it didn't say what she wanted it to say. She didn't appreciate that but I told her I would try and fix it. She then mentioned something about putting a sign up down in the atrium and I told her that we couldn't put signs up in the atrium. She wasn't very pleased with that either, so I imagine that will come back up tomorrow.

Following that interaction, I went back to the desk and called a patron that I had been in the middle of calling when I was interrupted by the sister. Then I went in and edited the poetry event for tomorrow so it would show the name of the event on the digital signs. And to round out that first hour after lunch, I helped a couple different patrons find books and printed off tax forms for a different patron. In the second hour I filled out my timesheet and got the tech classes and drop-ins for next semester added to the events calendar. I didn't put the tech workshops on the calendar yet because I want to talk to my boss about them. They were not successful at all this semester so I don't know if it is worth the effort next semester. I'm thinking of changing what day they're on, but I also thought maybe we could do a board game night instead. We'll see what my boss thinks.

I had two hours off desk after that and I went and pulled books for homebound. Then I checked them out, updated my spreadsheets, made bookmarks using my new automated bookmark template (which worked perfectly), put the bookmarks in all the books, put the books in bags, labeled the bags, and stowed them in the closet. That least bit bled into the last hour of the day, and before I knew it, it was time to go home.

On my way home I got gas and then stopped at Sonic for dinner. I have vegetables that I want to roast but I'm going to do that tomorrow night. I thought it would be faster to pull into a stall at Sonic so I did that and hit the button. And then I sat there for a few minutes. And despite being the only person there (no one else in a stall and no one in the drive-thru), nothing happened. So I backed out and went through the drive-thru, which worked out much better because they actually acknowledged me. The guy at the window was super friendly and it wasn't in that put on sort of way. He was just a nice kid and it made me happy to see an example of a good person out in the wild. Sonic is just a stepping stone to a very successful and fulfilling life for that kid.

When I got home I ate dinner and then my night kind of got derailed after that. I was going to play CoD: WW2 but then realized that even though my thermostat was set to 67 degrees, it was only 63 degrees in the house (quite the difference from 84 degrees yesterday), and the thermostat wasn't on. That's not how the thermostat works. I ended up spending about an hour looking up what could be wrong, opening up the furnace, cleaning the heat sensor, and getting nowhere.

Then I played a little bit of CoD: WW2 while texting my Dad, until he called, and then I spent another hour or so on the phone with him trying different things. And then probably half an hour talking about random other things after we exhausted everything furnace-related and thermostat-related that we could think of. Before calling a repairman I might see if I can track down a new ignitor and see if that is the issue. Unless those cost more than a service call.

I got off the phone with my Dad after midnight and went back to my office. It is now 1:30AM and I have spent the last hour writing this and watching Post Malone perform at Coachella. He was drunk, high, and smoking cigarettes. Not the best combo for a live performance that involves singing. I'll stick with his non-live music from now on. Or at least mostly sober music. Now I'm watching Highly Suspect perform. They're only two songs in, and the lead singer performed the first song with his pants around his ankles, until a friend helped him take them all the way off during the middle of the song. Interesting. But he's still singing better than Post Malone.