Another Confession

Shhh...don't tell anyone, but despite being a librarian, I am not a fan of library culture.

I think this started way back in library school, which I hated. I don't know if I could ever like someone who liked it.

I judged my classmates (several of whom later became my friends) as geeks. I am a lot of things, and I am not proud of some of them, but I am not a geek. This was confirmed when I took an online test that classified people into geeks, dorks and nerds. I came up nerd, which I was proud of given the options. I still don't think I am that nerdy other than my addiction to being online.

I maybe shouldn't have said so many shitty things about library school and it's ridiculous information transfer cycles and focus on learning styles. I think I developed bad karma.

I am getting my payback now that J. is in library school. I never wanted to talk about all those theories and models again. Actually, I never wanted to in the first place.
I can't believe I am becoming reacquainted with Bates, Belkin, Dervin Hensley, Kulhthau, berrypicking, the ASK theory, and sensemaking. At least J. hates library school as much as I did and we make fun of these people and concepts.

We read an article the other night about cross-cultural communication proposing if an information professional speaks the same language as the person with information need, the user is more likely to get his/her needs met.

How about: if you have a mouth, you are more likely to speak. If you have ears through which you can hear, you are more likely to listen.

Running Behind

I am running late on most things in my life lately, and especially the time to write or reflect on them.

I still can’t believe that I again have a new job, just when I had finally learned how to do the old one, and after only being at my last library a year and a half.

I already miss Rockwood. Somehow I doubt I’ll ever have another job where I can play Charlie’s Angels at work again.

If I’d had more than a few days to think about the job, I don’t know if I would have made the same decision. But I have been in overdrive mode for so long now that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Switching jobs made me realize that it was time to bring Ray home. He’s been sitting on my desk in a little tin since June. I never meant to bring him to work. When I went to pick up his ashes at Dove Lewis, they had lost them. I still feel badly about my interaction with the receptionist that day. It wasn’t her fault someone had lost Ray. But finding out no one knew where the ashes of my 16 year old cat that I’d just spent five thousand dollars on and who died anyway didn’t put in a very rational state. I let the receptionist know exactly what I thought and felt about the situation.

When Ray was located a few hours later, she called to let me know they would Fed Ex him overnight to wherever I wanted and I thought it would be easier to just have him sent to work. I kept forgetting to bring him home. I think I just didn’t want him there, I didn’t want to deal with my own feelings, and then I felt guilty when I impulsively brought home the cat that had moved into the parking lot of the library. At first I thought I was just fostering him. I wish I’d named him a little more thoughtfully, but I didn’t think I was keeping him, I needed something to call him, and Pete came to mind, after all the Peter Pans I have ever dated. Since I think I’m done doing that now, Pete will be my last one.

I loved Ray’s intensity, but lately, I am really appreciating Pete’s lighter approach to life and especially his fondness for rubber bands. I have had more than enough drama in my life these past three years and I am ready to relax.

Permanent

Someone gave me a temporary tattoo last weekend, a book with wings with the phrase "Read or Die" written underneath it. I put it on my left bicep, and I've been feeling kind of badass. I'll miss it when it's gone, and I go back to being the only person it Portland without a tattoo.

Despite my lack of tattoos, I have managed to put my mark on a couple of people these past few months, and I didn't even do it on purpose. I was working on the reference desk, and wrote down a couple of titles of books for a patron. My shift ended, and I went back to my desk to take a break. A few minutes later, a coworker came back to tell me that the patron I had been helping needed to see me. I went out to find her, and she told me she was about to get a line of a poem tattooed on her arm. She really liked my handwriting, and wondered if I would write down the line of the poem so that the person doing her tattoo could copy my handwriting. I was so surprised that I don't remember what the line was, or even who the poet was.

Only a few weeks later, I was again working on the reference desk when a patron came up and asked me if I knew who Wimpy from Popeye was. I told him yes, and he asked me to find some pictures of him. I did a basic Google image search and showed him the results. The patron asked me to pick my favorite, and I wish I'd been a little more choosy, and taken his request more seriously. Instead, I choose arbitrarily and then he asked print out the image so that he could take with him to have it tattooed on his bicep later in the day.