Quodlibets

I've been trying to call

I've been trying to call my friend C on S's cell phone (because mine died this afternoon and henceforth is dead until I do something about it, something I won't have time for until next week) but I keep getting a message that her phone number is being checked for problems. This has been happening since S got home from work at four. She's also not online, so I can't contact her that way. I don't have her home number (or if I do, it's captive in my phone) so I can't call her there. I need to substantially alter our plans tomorrow due to an unforeseen problem with my taxes this year that requires the help of someone more experience than I. (Of course, I've drafted my father, only because when I panic about something financial, he's the best help.)

My taxes are complicated because I sold some stock, had two jobs, have interest statements to take into account, and may be able to use two different tuition tax credits. Which is definitely cool, but I can't figure it out because I can't decode the tax-ese in the letter I got. So. Phew. I normally don't wait this long to do my taxes, but by the time all of my tax info had trickled to the apartment, it was the end of the quarter and I was locked into the project struggle from hell. Excuses, excuses. S still has to do his taxes too, but if he's not worried about it, I'm not. I just hope that I can get the right forms at the library tomorrow. (One more thing your library is great for!) And in my defense, can I just say that before this year, I've filed on the phone every time I filed, so I didn't think I'd need the forms. So please, librarians, don't hate me.

Two things: When Beck's last

Two things:

• When Beck's last CD came out (Sea Change), I dutifully told everyone how amazing it was. It was amazing, it really was. I listened to it four or five times, raved unendingly about it, and have never listened to it since. I even skip the songs from it that S puts on mixes he makes for me. So, when I listened to his new album (Guero), I was immediately tempted to tell everyone I know that it is literally the best album ever. But....pause....maybe I'll wait to give that recommedation out until I listen to it next month. Still, it seeeeems really good.
• Don't you feel bad for writers like Rebecca Wells? I am one of the millions of women who really loved the first Ya-Ya book, but I feel really sad for Wells now. I mean, does she not have any original ideas in her brain? And it's not like this is a series, is it? I confess that I'm confused. The new one is the third book about the Ya-Ya's--but they've been written over a time period of what, 15 years? With no other books in between? I don't know, but it seems like kind of a pathetic output. I feel kind of sorry for her. It's like the girl who hangs on to high school as the best time in her life and who stumbles through the rest living only marginally; Wells will just not let go of the success of Ya-Ya. Really, really disappointing. (But of course I'm still going to read it. Hello.)
  

One of the hot button

One of the hot button issues for librarians is censorship. Libraries are information centers, and the library bill of rights calls for all libraries to uphold freedom of speech, freedom to view and freedom to read.
I'm a hardliner on censorship; I'm completely radical in the notion that I believe everything and anything that might be in the library to inform/educate should be in the library. But I'm not necessarily the standard, because the people working in libraries are a little bit older (it's a demographic fact), and the people in my classes are a little bit older (another fact). I think that all things have their place in a library, and ALL patrons of the library (regardless of age) should be able to partake of every single item in the library. This means sex books (which are not regulated by law), R-rated movies (which contrary to belief, are not regulated by law), and even the internet (barring porn, which is illegal for those under the age of 18). Unfortunately, most people forget that children have rights. Children have rights; those rights can ONLY be infringed upon when the law says we can (as in the case of porn) or by the parents of that child.

Consequently, as a librarian, it will not be my job to stop kids from reading books about witchcraft, sex, drugs, weapons, gangs, etc. It will not be my job to remove these things from the shelf so that your kids can't read them. It is a parent's job, and a parent's job only, to polic their children. I do believe, however, that some women refuse to view their job as librarians, but view it as parents. At my home library, kids under 18 can't use the computers in the adult department without a parent and they can't check out R-rated movies. This, to me, is absolute bullshit. I think the librarians/Board at my library have abdicated their duty of providing all PEOPLE regardless of age with information, in whatever form that may take.

But I know that many of the women in my classes do not feel this way. They think libraries don't go far enough; that books and materials they disagree with should be removed from the library, and they express distaste with many of the freedoms that they take for granted. This is a conservative area of the country, it's true. But how can we condone suppression of ideas that might help, in the end, push us further towards our beliefs? People who wish to suppress ideas, pictures, movies, etc are simply afraid that their children won't toe the line, and will stop believing in the things that their parents do. I'm not saying that no parent should censor what their child reads (though I would never stop any child I had from reading whatever they wanted; I did, and I'm okay), but I am saying that the place to do that is not in the bookstores and libraries. These things will exist whether or not you like them. I'm so sorry for these people, that the world seems so unsafe, so scary; and that they wish to restrict the dynamism of their children, but that's the way of it, I guess.

Still, it bothers me that the very people who should be pushing further for freedom to read and speak are trying to stop people from exercising those rights. We should, as librarians, defend every viewpoint that exists, no matter how distasteful, and no matter how much we disagree with it.

Though we disagree with what you say, we will defend to the death your right to say it. And consequently, the right of other people to read it. These are bedrocks of this society, and without them, we are not the people we can and should be.

Blogger ate one of my

Blogger ate one of my posts earlier. Which isn't a problem, because it was crap. But that was at around two this afternoon, and now is the first time I've been able to compose all day. Blogger's been acting wonky and I hate it. I'm considering that maybe it's time to pay for a Typepad account, but that also scares the shit out of me. I honestly have no idea how to transfer this blog over there, and now that I've really souped up my template, I'm not sure I want to. Something for me to consider in the next few months, I guess.

In other blogger news, I'm abandoning my book blog. It'll stay up for a while, during the time in which I attempt to transfer some of the information off of it and onto a spreadsheet. I need to keep track of the boks I'm reading, but the blog is too much work. And not very entertaining, either. But I've decided that I really do like knowing what I'm reading, and when. It's a handy reference tool. It also will keep me from purchasing the same book twice, something that I have done (and yes, I am a nerd) in my life. More than once. Sometimes you just forget. Anyway, it'll be a good bit of work to do all that transferring, so I'm going to take it slow and not stress out about it. If that's possible.

You know, I'm a bit of a stress monster; I think all my headaches at the end of February and beginning of March were due to stress. I'm positive that the reason I'm so stressed is the double-whammy of school and cleaning my own apartment. If I didn't have serious doubts about the quality of the schooling, I might not be too stressed about it. But I think I'm so stressed because I sincerely hate (all apologies, COD) the program. I can't figure out what else it could be. But you know, I'm learning things, so it's not all bad. And I do feel somewhat excited to finish the schooling and actually get into a library. I just hope that it works out. (I can't imagine that I would hate grad school this much. I loved college.) I haven't had a headache, though, since the end of last quarter. I need to figure out a way to let go of the stress, and just let myself hate the program while completing it. I need to stop being so angry about hating it. That's what I need.

And you may ask yourself--if she hates the program, will she hate the library? I don't think so. I've given this a lot of thought myself, but most of what I hate about the program has literally zero to do with WHAT I'm studying. It's all about how the teaching is being done and how the learning is being done by those around me. I do know that with one online course, I'll be somewhat removed from the other learners, which is possibly the greatest thing ever if you're me; one of the other classes I'm taking is the RA one, which doesn't scare me at all. I have every confidence that the class will be enjoyable enough on its own that however the other learners behave, I'll be okay. And I think that if I am in a good library for my internship, I'll discover how much it is right for me (right now) and I think that I'll be a great asset to whatever library I'm at. That's not an issue for me.

All that remains is to make it through this quarter, and I feel like I might just be okay. Sigh.

My cellphone charger (the only

My cellphone charger (the only one I have; it plugs into the wall, not the car) broke in Florida. It wasn't a shock or anything like that; I definitely knew it was coming. Every time I pulled the charger plug-thing out of the phone, a little black plastic part would slide out partway, signaling that eventually it would come out completely. Every time it did so, the little black plastic thing would slide right back into the metal and work the next time I wanted to charge my phone. In Florida, it came out, but wouldn't go back in. So now I have no way to plug my phone in. When it dies, it's dead.

Here's the question: Should I buy a new charger, buy a new phone, or scrap Cingular altogether and check out another service? The one great advantage for Cingular is that S uses it, so we get free M2M calling. Handy, but not entirely necessary, as we don't talk on the phone THAT much. I think otherwise, Cingular's been falling down on the job--I get no reception anywhere anymore. Reception seems to have gotten worse this last fall, and it never got better. Consequently, calling anyone can be a bit of a pain in the ass, and I usually make my friends and family call me. (Oh, and did I mention that my home phone won't call about half of all cell phone/home phone numbers. I know we should call the phone company, so don't even say anything. We thought that having cell phones would be sufficient, because before moving here, we never had any problems with reception.) Grrrr. I know if I ask S, he'll do some legwork for me, and try to find me the best plan, but I also know that it will take him a while, since he's very thorough.

So if you have a cell phone, and if you love or hate your service, could you please drop a comment? I need more info before I can make a decision.

I received, by email, an

I received, by email, an article about possible reasons why women do in fact make as much as men for the same work, and that women, if they're not making as much as men, can easily do so if they make the right choices. Apparently, the author of a book called "Why Men Earn More" thinks that there are 25 things that women can do if they want to be as successful as men. Basically, they must, in the long run, choose what we think of as prototypical male choices: work longer hours, choose to work in higher paying fields, and my favorite: be more productive. Women, apparently, trade higher pay for quality of life, and if they want to make as much as the boys, they have to stop doing this.

I appreciate (no, that's lie, I don't) the sentiment of the article, but I think it's a horribly flawed argument. It's flawed because the system is flawed. Nobody should be working 80 hours a week--man or woman. We're handicapping women because they refuse to do so (because many women work a 40 hour week at home on top of the 40 hour week they put in at the office, and not very many men do the same)--because they choose to have families, but not handicapping men for the same reason. The system is inherently sexist (and racist, I might add). The author makes the argument that the system cannot be sexist, because if it was, women would be hired more often than men. You could pay them less, and thus, have a price advantage over your competitors.

But I think that's bullshit. Sexism isn't logical like that. Just like racism isn't logical. It's a system designed to keep out people who "don't belong" and it has nothing, really, to do with profit. I'm having a really hard time putting this into words--but the gist of it is, we're really ass-backwards when it comes to employee rights and the work week and women in the workplace. Oh, we pretend we're really great at all that, but we fucking suck at it. We are forgetting how to have leisure time. An eighty hour week leaves NO time for a life. We need to kill a system that's demanding this of workers, no matter who they are. We need to kill a system that is so greedy that it's no longer about profit, but about obscene, dirty profits.

And listen, it's not a coincidence that women hold more low-paying jobs. Who fucking designed those jobs? A long time ago, some white man did. Because you can bet it wasn't a black man, or a white woman, or a black woman who decided that teachers should hardly make enough to live. And frankly, you can tell me up and down and twice on Sunday that being a teacher is easy because the hours are good, but I know you're wrong (teachers work loooong hours; the job does come home with them; have you ever graded papers? I have.). The job is undervalued because WOMEN traditionally did it. That's a fucking bad reason, and think for a second about how much you pay the people who take care of your kids all day long. Who maybe spend more time with your kids than you, because you're working an 80 hour week. It's the same story with librarians--who should be paid less than teachers, but who still teach--and nurses (who make less than doctors, but do most of the caring). And you can find plenty of other professions like this.

This author seems to think that men should get a pat on the back for doing jobs that no one else will do, and so they get rewarded financially. But no one wants to be a teacher. Teaching shortages are common all over the country. And fuck you, to the author, because the real people doing the jobs no one wants to do are the immigrants, who cut your lawn and clean your toilets, for peanuts. No white kid wants to be a landscaper (unless he owns the landscaping company) and no white kid wants to clean hotel rooms. And the jobs he mentions--roofing, prison guarding and coal mining--these aren't high paid jobs! In some towns, prisons are the only industry, and so you guard because you have to. And I have news for this guy--the people doing roofing and coal mining--they're not suburban white guys. They don't have 50,000 dollar cars and flat screen TVs. Yeah, women don't do that kind of work, but neither do white men named one of the 100 most influential thought leaders. Middle class men don't do that work anymore either. It's the people who are so marginalized in this country by the ruling class that they'll take any fucking job, if it'll put food on their table.

What this issue is, really, at its heart, is a class issue. The worse a job is, the lower class the person is doing it. And make no mistake about it, in this country, women are a separate and lesser (yes! lesser) class than men. (And yes, there are exceptions. But this is generalizing, and so I recognize that this is not ALL situations, but most.) We pretend we're not a classist society in the US, but we are. We totally are. So frankly, lumping coal miners and CEO's together as a group and saying that they're proof that women can make as much money as men if they make the right choices--well, that's fucking ridiculous. The jobs are nothing alike, and the people who do them are nothing alike. And make the choices to work those jobs for totally different and uncomparable reasons.

(And I can't even talk about the jobs we value most in this country because I could go on forever: actors? sports stars? CEOs? I hate to be a bitch, but who's making that money? MEN. There are highly paid female actors, but pitifully few, compared to their male cohorts. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. The millionaires should be the teachers and cops, the fire fighters and the people who save lives. Not the men who save goals and hit home runs. And female athletes? That's still for the glory, baby, and a way smaller paycheck.)

Anyway, I could talk about this until my hands cramp up, but I'm done for now. I need sleep and some nice Puffs Plus to wipe my red nose on.

Somewhere between S's parent's house

Somewhere between S's parent's house and our apartment (about a half hour drive), my cold moved to my head. My nose is suddenly stuffed, and I feel drippy. And oh, the glory of sinus pressure. Seriously, though, how can you be fine in the nose one minute, and the next be sniffing back what seems to be a never-ending stream of snot? It's less than ideal, I'll say that. However, it also keeps me from eating too much, since I can't taste and feel like shit. On the relative shitmeter, though, this cold is far from the worse I've had, and I even won a game of Trivial Pursuit (with S's help--he knew that Ronald Reagan was a lifeguard in Dixon, IL, and so we could answer our question for the yellow pie) tonight after the pre-Easter dinner Mrs. S served us. Sometimes with a cold I'm too sick to get out of bed, but so far so good.

And did you know that Donald Rumsfeld rides a unicycle? I know that's non-sequitur, but of all the stupid facts I didn't know tonight during Trivial Pursuit, that might have been the strangest. The question specifically asked what Bush administration official (or maybe cabinet member? or advisor? can't remember.) logs the most time on a unicycle? Well, we ruled out Dick Cheney immediately. There's no way in hell he's in good enough shape to unicycle. And here I hit a snag. I suppose we could have guessed Condi, but I can't really see her doing the clown dance. We ended up guessing Karl Rove because we just didn't know, but if the thought of Karl Rove on a unicycle doesn't scare you, you're an iron person. Anyway, the answer is Rumsfeld, and I'm gripped now by the image of Rummy cycling around the corridors of the WH and Pentagon on a quaint little one-wheeled cycle. Can you imagine him showing up for a meeting on a unicycle? Me neither.

Returning to the TP, the only reason we eventually won is because our sports pie question was so obviously the luckiest question ever. I usually speed through all five other pies, and take hours to get that damn green pie. I always say that unless it's a golf question, and the answer is Tiger Woods, I'm pretty much screwed. Tonight, the final question was possibly easier than the Tiger Woods question: "What two nations are represented by the initials GB and I in golf's Walker Cup?" A golf question is always a plus on the sports side (though I did miss the one about Sam Snead's opening Masters shot hitting someone in the face), and this one was almost more of a geography question. How many countries start with GB? Not too many that are golf powerhouses, that's for sure. So anyway, you can see that I got lucky with that question. It was almost easy enough that you wouldn't have to know anything about golf to get it.

And boy do I love to win. Even in my hazy sick state, I still feel that competitiveness. I even threw three unused game pieces across the table when I got a question wrong. I couldn't help it, I was so mad at the answer. Now I can't remember what the question or answer was, but ooooh, in the heat of the moment--I really neeeeeeed to win. And right now my streak of TP wins at the S household stands at two. I think they'll never want to play with me again, and I know S only does because he gets to be on my team. I'm not so scary when you're playing with me. And of course, my family flat out refuses to play with me, which is shame because I so love it. (Or is it that I just love that I can win? Either way.)

First of all, I sat

First of all, I sat next to someone from my hometown on the flight there. Pretty odd to sit down and have the girl say, "You're from G_____, right?" She looked vaguely familiar to me too, but I never would have said that; I just wasn't sure. But sure enough, her name was familiar and she graduated a year behind me. We chatted a bit, but it was mostly just odd to be sitting next to someone who I probably saw on a daily basis for a couple years, but never, ever talked to. She was very interested in what I was doing, and I reciprocated (it's always nice to hear that someone else chose the living at home route).

As for the trip itself, I mentioned the food situation. It was extravagant--how much food we were able to eat. As for cost itself, for what we paid, it was a steal. If we had bought everything that we ate, we would have spent far more than we did. Then again, it's not likely that we would have purchased all the food we did; we would have ended up eating burger after burger after burger and spent a lot of money on counter-service meals. So it worked for us. I can imagine that for a family, especially, it's a good deal.

Our hotel was pretty nice. Disney's moderately priced hotels are pretty much all the same (there are four now), and now I've stayed at two of them. S and I had a little debate about whether it would have been better to stay at a bigger moderate hotel (more dining options, better pools), or stick with the smaller ones, so that Disney transportation is more convenient. I think I personally would go with a bigger one next time; but then, I'll never be at Disney ever again during the hellish two weeks in the spring known as spring break. I've made a life resolution.

As for how S felt about Disney, I think he's still indifferent. We had a lot of fun; the trip was very intimate, only because no internet access means lots of face time. I think we held hands more on this trip than we have in a long time--we'd been going through a bit of a rough patch there before the trip. I feel better about us in general, and me in particular. I'm not sure if it's specifically this program, but I'm tending towards falling apart at the end of each quarter, which in turn, strains our relationship. I have to work harder on not letting that happen, but at least it seems like the trip helped put us back to where we should be.

On the whole, I felt great during the trip. S and I ended up with some sore feet most days, but we survived, physically. Now I'm feeling like shit, of course, due to the evil sickness that little children and dirty hands spread. If I had a dollar for every time that I heard someone at Disney coughing up a lung, I think I'd be rich. And the person behind us in line for 50 minutes (for Peter Pan, for god's sake; but I told S that it had to be Peter Pan or Small World for second time and he chose the line) had a sick child; I know because I heard her talking to her husband on the phone about what drugs he should take. (I think aspirin was the final verdict.) So, although she was nice, and we shared pleasantries in line, if she passed on the demon sickness, I dislike her.

I'm very ready to get back to a normal routine; the apartment is in shambles, and I need to organize everything for next quarter. But grrrr. I'm sick. I want to sit on my couch and molt.

If it's not the sun,

If it's not the sun, then it is some combination of sun, sunscreen and pool water, because my chest area looks like a fucking minefield and itches like hell. My face isn't doing so hot either. And, added to that, I'm getting a cold. My throat hurts like hell and I ache all over. And it's 36 degrees out. Welcome home!

Really, though, the vacation was very nice. If I ever express a longing to go to Disney at spring break ever again, however, slap me. I love Disney, I do. I just don't love it at this time of year. S and I had a nice, relaxing vacation. I didn't have any stress headaches, and he was able to relax as well. No homework, no blogging, no reading of the internet sources--nothing but screaming kids and hour-long lines! If it hadn't have been spring break, I think the trip might have been even better--but S and I did pretty well, and neither one of us felt too much pressure to do everything or spend too long in the parks. We spent only the amount of time we wanted to, and it felt nice.

Our meal plan was very generous (I have to hand it to Disney for breaking my diet. I went with good intentions but broke very quickly. Every meal includes a dessert! And every sit down meal includes and appetizer and a dessert. I tried, I really did. But I failed, no doubt about it.), the room was fine, and the weather was lovely. I'm exhausted.

But I'm home, and it feels good--like it always does.

Because here I am at

Because here I am at almost one in the morning, blogging before the trip. Why am I up? That is a fantastic question.

I'm good at travel, except for the getting there part. And the night before is totally the getting there part. I've been feeling rather ill for the last hour. I feel like I'm going to puke. I can't figure out if that's because I'm nervous (I am, I am, but I didn't think I was this nervous) or if it's because I'm actually going to be sick. There's a fine line there, and apparently I can't make it out. I also have been having random pains in my head (which I'm sure are nothing, because they were so fleeting, but...) so I've convinced myself that I'm dying. Trip nerves + pain = me sitting on the couch convinced that if I go to sleep I won't wake up and the trip will be wasted and S will be alone.

I'm serious. I think my sister's talked about her own hypochondria--well, now you know, it runs in the family. At this point, if I had to guess, I'd say it was nerves. It has those tell-tale nerves feelings. But you know, I'd really hate to make a mistake. Also, I'd like to sit on the couch long enough to see now how long it takes S to realize I'm not in bed. Do you think he'd come get me by nine in the morning? Too, I'm hoping that if I sit here long enough my stomach will calm or erupt. One of the two. I'm sorry if that's disgusting, but that's what is. I shouldn't eat real food anymore. One night with forbidden foods and I'm up all night feeling sick. Damn the diet, damn the diet.

The decision is now: do I go back to bed and lay there? Or do I sit on the couch and do online thingys? Or read. I could certainly read. I was reading for a while in bed, and that was okay, but I was worried about keeping S up. And I wondered if laying down was good or bad for a brain aneurysm. I haven't yet figured that out.

Yes, there are two really fantastic elements to this nausea: I've convinced myself I'm dying and that scares me more than the plane, and so I get more nervous by the minute. I think. Also, now you, Internet, know how prone to nerves and freaking out I am, and I'm not sure if I'm 100% comfortable with that. But if S has to live with it, then I suppose I do too, and if that means that I write it down, so be it, I guess. I'm not convinced about this yet either. I am stopping now, because I decided I must read. That's the solution. Reading in bed all night.

Wanna take bets on how much sleep I actually get? Precious little is my guess.