Renovation Ramblings

When I started at my library a little over six years ago, there was a small buzz of excitement in the air - the plans for a long-awaited renovation had been delivered a few weeks before, and everyone was still interested in the new configuration (note that I said "interested" and not "excited" - those who had been in the government's employ for longer than 4 hours knew better). What I saw was that my department would be all over the place during the process, so I purposefully did not bring in a lot of personal items into my cubicle world; no need to decorate the place up only to have to move it all around the universe every two months, I told myself. Six years, three positions and some very full desks later, half of the reference staff has retired or moved on - and the contractors are just beginning the renovation. The hold up was your typical nightmare of problems - contract problems, spending cuts, contracts expiring, squirrels made the contracts into winter nests and had babies in them - you know, the usual excuses. And now - finally - the time is nigh. They've started Doing Things to the building. This building is something like 382 years old (or 70, whatever) and nothing in it is up to code. Nothing in it even works right - except, of course, the librarians. {cough}.

• Broken boilers? Check. We all have blankets, sweaters and fingerless gloves at our desk.
• Broken Air Conditioning? Check. We all have ceiling fans, plus at least one fan on our desk. Some of us {ahem} have two. To keep it interesting, however, the A/C also breaks in the other direction - more than one person has been using a space heater on days when the outside temp is over 100.
• Bad electrical wiring? Check. The power shuts off randomly several times a month. And then there are the days that the fire alarm claims that the building has turned into an incinerator. So far, it's never been accurate, but I'll take it, since it's best that it be wrong in the right way (Aside: "Wrong in the Right Way" is an awesome name for a rock ballad, and I should get paid for it if anyone ever uses it. I'll be sure to sue and use my blog as proof should it come to that).
• They removed the asbestos last year, though, so we're already on the road to improvement!

The fun news is that the power, heat and air will grow even more unpredictable than usual over the next 18 months, since they're literally replacing everything associated with power, heat and/or air. Which doesn't make me feel very safe and secure about this building in which I've been working for 6 years, but I'm still alive so...that which does not kill me really does make me stronger. The contractors offered us some trailers to use during the Reno. This process is going about as smoothly as could be expected:

• They offered us three triple-wide trailers to be used by staff until the project is complete. They took us to view them, told us they would reconfigure the temporary walls inside to our specifications, and that we'd have them next week. That was 7 weeks ago.
• A week later, they said "Three triple-wides? No, no, no. You'll get a couple of single wides. Next week."
• "Next week" we were told "The two double wides you're getting will be here. Next week".
• Last week, the original three triple wide trailers were installed behind our building, and we were told that we'd have to deal with moving the plywood walls ourselves. We are librarians, not carpenters, people!

This week, the building started vibrating. Need I mention that buildings - especially ones anchored by the wight of over half a million books - are most assuredly not supposed to shake. I'm told it's because they are compacting the soil for the building addition, in preparation for the concrete foundation. My brain - which is rattling against my skull - is Not Happy with life and desperately wants the trailers to be ready. I'm telling myself that it's like a giant body massage, except that my brain is calling bullshit on that as it jumps around inside my skull like it's playing dodgeball with a demented orangutan. This process is bringing daily surprises to our lives, which I keep telling people keeps our brains youthful. I also keep getting dirty looks immediately after I say that. Ok, so the water main has been accidentally broken into so many times that the toilets always look like they've just been used (you are so very welcome for that visual). And yes, we've been evacuated twice because the contractors created a gas leak. But we'll have a working HVAC system sometime in the future. Optimism, people! They successfully removed the asbestos, remember? Not that I'm holding to the contractor's 18 month estimate. My current estimate is 3 years. I don't know if the Wine Cure will hold out that long - I may become immune - but it will be fun to find out! One thing that made me laugh out loud: Each triple wide trailer has two bathrooms. When we went to take a look at the trailers in the old location, there was a sign on one of the men's restrooms that read something like this:

"Gentlemen: If you need to sit down to complete your task in here, please go to Building 600".

September 11, 2001.

Being a librarian, that is a date I frequently come across - it's a subject heading, used for both books and also for articles used in the Air University Library Index to Military Periodicals (AULIMP), which my library produces. I guess, as a result of the latter, I've gotten a little immune to what it actually means.

The Professor and I talked today about what we remembered about that day. I was an undergrad - actually, I was due in one of his classes that day. I remember that I woke up and got in the car to go to class, listening to NPR and thinking that the news coverage was about the previous attack on the World Trade Center, because - surely, the US wouldn't be under attack? Surely, it was just a normal day?

After 10 minutes in the car, on my way to class, I realized (ok, belatedly, it was a long night before) that it was happening in real time; it wasn't some kind of anniversary special report. I got to the university and my class was cancelled, so I turned around and went home to the apartment.

I remember calling my mother - I knew none of my family was in New York City, or Washington DC, but I remember needing to hear her voice. I remember standing in my living room, talking to her about what was going on - not the actual words. Just that hearing her voice was all I needed then.

And then I had to work a night shift at the restaurant. It was so quiet. There were few customers, and none of them wanted to be anywhere but the bar - because that's where the TV's were.

I remember being afraid - "what if it's just the first attack? What location is next? What's the new normal?". Living in a small town, in the Deep South, I wasn't in any danger - I'm probably not living where someone would choose to hurt the US. But still, the danger was there in my mind.

I was lucky. I lost no one. But I'll never forget the fear of That Day.

Cell Phones

I caved earlier this year. I got a smart phone. I'm still not all that convinced that it's worth the monthly data plan. I have ZERO reception at work, thanks to the metal encased room in which I work. My laptop is within 10 feet of me if I'm at home. And I'm boring enough that I spend the vast, vast majority of my time in one of those two places. But I got sucked in to the Android world, and I have to admit, that I do like my shiny little piece of hardware. What I most emphatically do not like are other people's smart phones. Yes, I think it's awesome that every little piece of trivia can be looked up in 30 seconds or less. But when you whip out your phone to fact check every statement in our lunch conversation - requiring the words "let me look that up" to be uttered every five seconds - I am going to be annoyed. I went out to lunch with you, not your iPhone. I think it's wonderful that you are so close to your mom/cousin/Great Aunt Hilda that she sends you a picture to your cell phone every time she buys a new pair of shoes. But the resulting text conversation that lasted for 5 minutes while you kept saying "Sorry, just one more thing" to me? Is the reason we probably won't be hanging out much in the future. Yes, I know you can check your email/Facebook status/Twitter feed with a flick of your thumb. But I didn't make plans with you to watch you bury your face in your phone and make "uh-huh" noises at my conversation attempts. If I'm that boring, I have a simple solution: don't make plans with me. And I always feel sorry for people who are with someone who is clearly with their phone, and just happen to be sharing a booth with their dinner partner. When I was waiting tables - back when cell phones were just phones and not mini computers - I saw arguments about it (not to mention that, even today when phones in general have been around for a year or 100, a lot of people don't realize how much louder they speak on a phone). Gah! You are probably not that important! There are very few people who are. Take 45 minutes to talk to your kid, instead of saying "just draw me a picture" and then talking for 15 minutes about yesterday's round of golf. I am seriously beginning to feel like Ashley Judd in that Star Trek:TNG episode, "The Game". Any minute now, someone is going to hot glue my phone to my hand and wire my eyes open, trying to bring me into the cult. I just hope they slide open the phone so my keyboard is visible first.

Jetlag

My brain is stuffed with cotton, and that cotton has been soaking in some kind of heavy syrup for a week and then woven into the tightest weave ever before being stuffed inside my skull. I'm not sure where my brain went. I think it's hovering about 2 feet above my cotton-filled cranium, watching everything I do through a haze of cotton plants.

That is how full my head feels at the moment. I'm not drunk, although my ability to think is more impaired than usual.

Jetlag.

I can honestly say I've never experienced it before.

Speaking of travel, I never want to fly again. I say that every time I get off of an airplane, so that statement doesn't exactly express intent. I'm going to Italy next year, after all, and I'm certainly not going to cross the ocean on a freaking boat. Given the choice of 12 hours of panic-ing out (plane) versus a week and a half of hysterics (boat), I'll self-medicate and do the 12 hour thing. I've seen Titanic. I don't think I can be sedated enough to even step foot on the Queen Mary 2.

Speaking of flying, those airlines really have a thing going there. People pay truckloads of money to go to DisneyWhatever and Paramount TakeMyMoney Studios and ride those crazy upside-down-stop-on-a-dime-with-a-side-of-heart-attack machines they call roller coasters. The airlines? Give you the same sensation but charge you $600 for a ticket and $10 for a sandwich. Oh yes, they no longer give you food on trans-national flights without charging you for the fake mayo.

The only fun thing about flying is the few seconds before landing. The Professor and I have a game where we try to guess whether the pilot is former Navy (the pilot doesn't slow much before the wheels touch and the landing is hard enough that it feels like you are going to actually tunnel under the runway) or Air Force (gentle landing from a pilot that knows he has space to not kill every organism on board, that then makes you worry that he is not slowing down enough and you will plow through the buildings at the end of the runway).

So either way I always think I'm going to die. But I get a few seconds every flight to play a game. Somehow, I never find that a worthy trade-off. Yay for games?

And yesterday - or two nights ago, more specifically (I think) - two of my three flights started with the pilot saying "The first half of our flight should be fairly smooth", which leaves my brain an hour and a half to wonder what the hell is going to happen in the second half of our flight. Is there a herd of pterodactyls waiting on the other side of the Rockies? Is the fake mayo going to respond unfavorably to the change in air pressure and spontaneously combust? Why is Blogger telling me that "combust" is not a word?

So, jetlag.

Jetlag

My brain is stuffed with cotton, and that cotton has been soaking in some kind of heavy syrup for a week and then woven into the tightest weave ever before being stuffed inside my skull. I'm not sure where my brain went. I think it's hovering about 2 feet above my cotton-filled cranium, watching everything I do through a haze of cotton plants.

That is how full my head feels at the moment. I'm not drunk, although my ability to think is more impaired than usual.

Jetlag.

I can honestly say I've never experienced it before.

Speaking of travel, I never want to fly again. I say that every time I get off of an airplane, so that statement doesn't exactly express intent. I'm going to Italy next year, after all, and I'm certainly not going to cross the ocean on a freaking boat. Given the choice of 12 hours of freaking out (plane) versus a week and a half of hysterics (boat), I'll self-medicate and do the 12 hour thing. I've seen Titanic. I don't think I can be sedated enough to even step foot on the Queen Mary 2 herself.

Speaking of flying, those airlines really have a thing going there. People pay truckloads of money to go to DisneyWhatever and Paramount TakeMyMoney Studios and ride those crazy upside-down-stop-on-a-dime-with-a-side-of-heart-attack machines they call roller coasters. The airlines? Give you the same sensation but charge you $600 for a ticket and $10 for a sandwich. Oh yes, they no longer give you food on trans-national flights without charging you for the fake mayo.

The only fun thing about flying is the few seconds before landing. The Professor and I have a game where we try to guess whether the pilot is former Navy (the pilot doesn't slow much before the wheels touch and the landing is hard enough that it feels like you are going to actually tunnel under the runway) or Air Force (gentle landing from a pilot that knows he has space to not kill every organism on board, that then makes you worry that he is not slowing down enough and you will plow through the buildings at the end of the runway).

So either way I always think I'm going to die. But I get a few seconds every flight to play a game. Somehow, I never find that a worthy trade-off. Yay for games?

And yesterday - or two nights ago, more specifically (I think) - two of my three flights started with the pilot saying "The first half of our flight should be fairly smooth", which leaves my brain an hour and a half to wonder what the hell is going to happen in the second half of our flight. Is there a herd of pterodactyls waiting on the other side of the Rockies? Is the fake mayo going to respond unfavorably to the change in air pressure and spontaneously combust? Why is Blogger telling me that "combust" is not a word?

So, jetlag.

I have one thing to say to the weather at the moment:

Are you flipping kidding me?!?

Wait. I might have a few more things. I usually do.

Hot. Heat. To be heated thoroughly. I'm pretty sure that I could cook on my driveway, although I'm not all that tempted to try it.

The Bestest Friend is prone to hearing my obnoxiously sunny view of any and all weather around The Deep South. "It's raining!" she'll say. "Yes," I reply, "just think of how much my garden is loving it."

"It's raining AGAIN", I'll get a few days later. "Make it stop!".

"No," I sagely reply, "for once we're not going to have a rain deficit".

"I can't take it! It's too hot!" is usually answered with: "But this kind of heat only comes at the end of summer. It'll be over soon."

This year, I'm about to complain. I haven't yet, and this is my attempt to keep it back.

But sweet bleeding jesus, it is freaking hot. And it's only JUNE.

This is August weather. When the weather is like this, I console myself with thoughts like "This is summer trying to break you at the very end. September is a shorter month. If you survive, you get October. Lovely, fall-filled October. You love October. Just a few more days. Don't let summer win..."

This year, I'm wanting to commit murder on July and August. Because it's only June. And I'm already dehydrating.

So, instead of being sad that it's too hot to BREATHE outside, I'm going to focus on the only happy side effect of getting three months of August in one year: I'm going to make more Pina Coladas. That's the only reason God would let it be this hot at the beginning of June, right?

2011: The Year I will break every limit of wine consumption I have ever set

So there's been a small-to-middling amount of craziness at work this year. I got yet another new boss. I've been in this job for three years and I've had three bosses; I'm beginning to be glad I keep saying "no" to the possibility of a promotion. Totally unrelated: The most insane contracting processes in the world must be run by the US Air Force, meaning: I've worked for the government for 6 years, and I thought I knew what kind of paperwork comes with the job. I have rarely in my life been so wrong as I was in my perspective on government paperwork. Bonus points! We're starting a building renovation. This will make things much calmer. Especially that part where they take a third of our collection and put it in another building. Although, in the base's favor: They did add a Taco Bell Express to the food court. That makes me much, much happier than it should. And then ... For some reason, I decided to do the annual reviews for my six employees on a Monday (?!? Graduate degrees do not prove intelligence). And I learned a few things. Education is good! Right? I learned 1 of them needs slow down to half-time for about 12 weeks over the rest of the year. I learned 1 of them is getting her Master's degree in 4 months and will be getting another job (Education! It's Good for you!). I learned 2 of them are retiring in the next 6 months, possibly within days of each other - probably within days of Ms. Graduate getting her shiny new position. I came out of the review room and thought "Well, I've got a few things to learn this year..." So...Yay for Education? I like my job, and as job's go, it's really not stressful. I always tell my team "we're buying books, not saving lives" when they get over-stressed about things. I think it's time I printed that on a wine glass, so that each time I take a swig genteel sip, I'll be reminded of my own advice. My advice for you? Buy stock in Rex Goliath.

I feel the need for a rant, and it’s political, and I have a blog, and oh look! I even have a "rant" label!

So apparently a bunch of men in the House of Representatives have taken it upon themselves to decide, once again, that they know more about my body than I do (there are 173 co-sponsors, only five of whom are women*). This time, they have decided that: · If I go out and have a drink, and someone slips a drug in that drink to make me pass out, and they proceed to rape me, I should not be allowed to have an abortion because that's not "forcible rape". · If I become mentally disabled and incapable of telling a man “no”, it doesn’t count as rape and I should not be allowed to have an abortion because that's not "forcible rape". Also not allowed to decide how to handle their own bodies are women over the age of 18 who are victims of incest, because overnight you suddenly became capable of changing your life and all of a sudden it's not rape. Also, if I get raped and have been putting my money in a tax-exempt Health Savings Account? I can't touch that money if I want to get an abortion. Is this bill going to become law? It’s a pretty long shot, thank goodness. Would I even need the option to get a Medicare funded abortion? I sincerely hope not, and since I’m in a fairly privileged segment of society, the odds are long. But. That’s. Not. The. Point. The point is that the line keeps being moved for what is “reasonable”. And that line is moving closer to the extreme side. The point is that once again, people who will never be faced with this decision about their body are saying that I don’t have the right to make that same decision about mine. The point is that “forcible rape” isn’t even a legal term and isn’t defined in the law – which means it can mean whatever the hell anti-abortion people want it to mean. The point is that this will not change those mens’ lives in the least. The point is it could be disastrous for the two people whose lives it will change the most. *And to the women who co-sponsored the bill: If you stay out of my uterus’s business, I’ll stay out of yours. Deal?

That Stupid Dog

That Stupid Dog was not my dog. We got him not long after we moved in together - an event (the moving in) that still seems like yesterday even though it was almost 13 years ago. He (the dog) was Her Dog. Was destined to be her dog. I had a plan: to me, he was just going to be That Stupid Dog.

That Stupid Dog quickly discovered my paperbacks and decided that I should not waste my time reading them, when he could be wasting time eating them. I guess sometimes dogs take it upon themselves to find fiber in their diets? More than once I came home to a half-chewed up paperback with a note stuck to it that said "I promise to replace it". I still wonder if she or That Stupid Dog wrote the notes, but the books did get replaced.

That Stupid Dog loved my cats. I think for awhile, he thought he was one of them. He was outnumbered by them for a few years, after all. But then he was also one with the bunny and the hamster. The identity crises hit often with That Stupid Dog.

That Stupid Dog was not my dog, but every once in awhile he decided to pretend otherwise. It wasn't the constant devotion that she got, but then that is why I am a cat person, and he knew it. Sometimes, though, he would pretend to be my dog, and even after I moved out she would have to tell me "D, call Taz into the house", because he was completely ignoring her. But just sometimes.

That Stupid Dog pooped in my bedroom a few times, and those were not pretty times. Mostly because there was poop in my bedroom and poop is not pretty.

That Stupid Dog knew when I broke up with a boyfriend. And when I got drunk and slept on the couch, That Stupid Dog came out to check on me a few times.

That Stupid Dog. One night just last month I started cleaning out his eyes, and she commented: "he wouldn't let me do that earlier today".

That Stupid Dog got stepped on too many times because he decided that he wanted to sleep. Right. Under. My. Feet. You would think that he would learn to let me know he was there? In my defense, though: She stepped on him more than I did, and he was her dog.

That Stupid Dog got old and he got sick and he got tired and he got weak. But I won't remember that about him.

That Stupid Dog was not my dog. Mostly. He followed her around from room to room with his adoring eyes, because more than anything in the world, he was hers. He knew I didn't need or want that from him, because we had an understanding. But every now and then, when he decided to be, That Stupid Dog was my dog, just a little bit.

And that's how I'll remember him. He'll always be mostly hers. But just a tiny bit of him will always be My Stupid Dog.

That Stupid Dog

That Stupid Dog was not my dog. We got him not long after we moved in together - an event (the moving in) that still seems like yesterday even though it was almost 13 years ago. He (the dog) was Her Dog. Was destined to be her dog. I had a plan: to me, he was just going to be That Stupid Dog.

That Stupid Dog quickly discovered my paperbacks and decided that I should not waste my time reading them, when he could be wasting time eating them. I guess sometimes dogs take it upon themselves to find fiber in their diets? More than once I came home to a half-chewed up paperback with a note stuck to it that said "I promise to replace it". I still wonder if she or That Stupid Dog wrote the notes, but the books did get replaced.

That Stupid Dog loved my cats. I think for awhile, he thought he was one of them. He was outnumbered by them for a few years, after all. But then he was also one with the bunny and the hamster. The identity crises hit often with That Stupid Dog.

That Stupid Dog was not my dog, but every once in awhile he decided to pretend otherwise. It wasn't the constant devotion that she got, but then that is why I am a cat person, and he knew it. Sometimes, though, he would pretend to be my dog, and even after I moved out she would have to tell me "D, call Taz into the house", because he was completely ignoring her. But just sometimes.

That Stupid Dog pooped in my bedroom a few times, and those were not pretty times. Mostly because there was poop in my bedroom and poop is not pretty.

That Stupid Dog knew when I broke up with a boyfriend. And when I got drunk and slept on the couch, That Stupid Dog came out to check on me a few times.

That Stupid Dog. One night just last month I started cleaning out his eyes, and she commented: "he wouldn't let me do that earlier today".

That Stupid Dog got stepped on too many times because he decided that he wanted to sleep. Right. Under. My. Feet. You would think that he would learn to let me know he was there? In my defense, though: She stepped on him more than I did, and he was her dog.

That Stupid Dog got old and he got sick and he got tired and he got weak. But I won't remember that about him.

That Stupid Dog was not my dog. Mostly. He followed her around from room to room with his adoring eyes, because more than anything in the world, he was hers. He knew I didn't need or want that from him, because we had an understanding. But every now and then, when he decided to be, That Stupid Dog was my dog, just a little bit.

And that's how I'll how I'll remember him. He'll always be mostly hers. But just a tiny bit of him will always be My Stupid Dog.