Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

This is so lovely. Exactly how I felt today after ChicagoBoy left. "Silence"   There is the sudden silence of the crowd above a player not moving on the field, and the silence of the orchid. The silence of the falling vase before it strikes the floor, the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child. The stillness of the cup and the water in it, the silence of the moon and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun. The silence when I hold you to my chest, the silence of the window above us, and the silence when you rise and turn away. And there is the silence of this morning which I have broken with my pen, a silence that had piled up all night like snow falling in the darkness of the house— the silence before I wrote a word and the poorer silence now.   Billy Collins

Because I love poetry. Because I love Bill Murray. Because I love Billy Collins. All this made this article a wonderful morning read. What We Miss Who says it's so easy to save a life? In the middle of an interview for the job you might get you see the cat from the window of the seven- teenth floor just as he's crossing the street against traffic, just as you're answering a question about your worst character flaw and lying that you are too careful. What if you keep seeing the cat at every moment you are unable to save him? Failure is more like this than like duels and marathons. Everything can be saved, and bad timing pre- vents it. Every minute, you are answering the question and looking out the window of the church to see your one great love blinded by the glare, crossing the street, alone. --Sarah Manguso

A couple months back my friend and former Farmer, Ian ,  mentioned that he'd be leaving his job in NY State and heading back home to Minnesota for the winter and might be able to stop by en route. So, I was pleased as punch to get a message that he'd be stopping by Monday night, and in true Farm fashion I offered to put him up in my house overnight. I love that we were all so close at the Farm, and that even though time passes, we can reconnect as if no time has passed at all! My Farm friends will all be like family to me; we saw each other through too much. In no time Ian was walking through the front door to Sticks Library, grinning as I frantically waved, smiling like an idiot--I'm not going anywhere for Christmas this year, deciding to do my own thing for the first time, and since I have no visitors coming this visit felt particularly special. We headed out for dinner, Ian humoring me as I bombarded him with 100 questions about the Farm, about his job in NY State, a...

For all of its' flaws, Facebook is great on your birthday. I woke up to a way-too-early-alarm-clock and the pinging of Facebook updates. Through blurry eyes and whiskers--Hemmy decided to wake me up by laying on my neck--I read the first of many birthday messages. Instant gratification. I felt loved. Aside from the fact that I had to go to work today, and couldn't stay in my pajamas all day, it was a good day: the ladies were sweet as pie and bought me lunch; I managed to get all my annual work evaluations done (DREAD OVER! WOO HOO!); I responded to the 80+ emails that had accumulated over my long weekend; I got caught up on paperwork, and by golly, my desk is cleared off! A good day, indeed! Now I'm home and getting ready for a birthday dinner with Grumpy and Prairie Dawn. Grumpy is a townie who I've recently begun hanging with; he's one of those slightly-chip-on-his-shoulder-grouchy-heart-of-gold-guys, like Luke on Gilmore Girls, or Nick on New Girl, or Grump...

“Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected, how one decision leads you another, how one twist of fate, good or bad, brings you to a door that later takes you to another door, which aided by several detours--long hallways and unforeseen stairwells--eventually puts you in the place you are now.” --Anne Patchett Anyone who has truly left home--ventured out into the world and tasted it; lived away , with enough distance between you and that place to forget the view of the horizon; gone long enough to remember what the city or town or village looked like--will understand the nostalgia of going back. The sadness and sinking when the city looks less like it did in your years, and more like every other city in America, suffering from that same disease which grabs hold and spreads chain restaurants and chain stores like sores. Gone are many of the Mom & Pop family owned stores, replaced by those where they pretend to know you, asking ...

I love poetry. And I love Billy Collins. And I love kids. So what can be better than putting together a Billy Collins poetry reciting toddler? Too cool! (Mummy, thanks for sharing this!) "Litany" You are the bread and the knife, The crystal goblet and the wine... -Jacques Crickillon You are the bread and the knife, the crystal goblet and the wine. You are the dew on the morning grass and the burning wheel of the sun. You are the white apron of the baker, and the marsh birds suddenly in flight. However, you are not the wind in the orchard, the plums on the counter, or the house of cards. And you are certainly not the pine-scented air. There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air. It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge, maybe even the pigeon on the general's head, but you are not even close to being the field of cornflowers at dusk. And a quick look in the mirror will show that you are neither the boots in the corner nor t...

And another favorite; Collins is brilliant. "Thesaurus" It could be the name of a prehistoric beast that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary, or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book. It means treasury, but it is just a place where words congregate with their relatives, a big park where hundreds of family reunions are always being held, house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs, all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos; hairy, hirsute, woolly, furry, fleecy, and shaggy all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes, inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph. Here father is next to sire and brother close to sibling, separated only by fine shades of meaning. And every group has its odd cousin, the one who traveled the farthest to be here: astereognosis, polydipsia, or some eleven syllable, unpronounceable substitute...

I haven't read this poem in forever, but I stumbled upon it again tonight. "Nightclub" You are so beautiful and I am a fool to be in love with you is a theme that keeps coming up in songs and poems. There seems to be no room for variation. I have never heard anyone sing I am so beautiful and you are a fool to be in love with me, even though this notion has surely crossed the minds of women and men alike. You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool is another one you don't hear. Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful. That one you will never hear, guaranteed. For no particular reason this afternoon I am listening to Johnny Hartman whose dark voice can curl around the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness like no one else's can. It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette someone left burning on a baby grand piano around three o'clock in the morning; smoke that billows up into the bright lights while out there in the da...

As I hear about the snow that is being dumped all over parts of the East and the Midwest and well, everywhere it seems, I look at our blank canvas wondering if we really will get the forecasted snow. I like winter, but I am ready for spring at this point. Reading this article by Friend of the Farmer  made me long for summer, when the Farm's gardens are in full bloom and the Kitchen is reaping the enormous bountiful benefits by way of vegetables and fruits up the wazoo. Winter at the Farm is a time when I am reminded of how much I miss fresh Farm grown produce; forced to remember as I lean into the freezer and paw with cold fingers, pulling out bags of processed and frozen Farm veggies. Thinking of supporting local got me to thinking about our cows, (this is beginning to sound like If you give a mouse a cookie ), actually one in particular, Sasha--who was one of the cows I learned to milk on about 6 years ago!--who was just taken to the slaughterhouse. It seemed str...

"Vermont, Early November" It was in between seasons, after the thin twitter of late autumn but before the icy authority of winter, and I took in the scene from a porch, a tableau of silo and weathervane and a crowd of ferns on the edge of the woods-- nothing worth writing about really, but it is too late to stop now that the ferns and silo have been mentioned. I drank my warm coffee and took note of the disused tractor and the lopsided sign to the cheese factory. Not one of those mornings that makes you want to seize the day, not even enough glory to make you want to grasp every other day yet after staring for a while at the plowed-under fields and the sky, I turned back to the order of the kitchen determined to seize firmly the second Wednesday of every month that lay ahead. ~ Billy Collins And so we begin another fall month and watch as the leaves on our beloved New England trees move to the next stage of their journey. The first leaves fell gracefully and now wh...

It is almost 2am and I can't fall asleep. I am not sure why I am so WIDE AWAKE, but while I wait for sleep, I am thinking about nostalgia. In fact, I have been thinking about nostalgia a lot lately. I had mentioned that fact to Mummy Dearest a while back and she said that I should blog about it, so Mummy, this is for you. Dictionary.com defines nostalgia as: a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time. I am not entirely sure what has sparked this recent need to delve into thoughts of my former life; maybe it's Dad being gone and me missing him, who knows? But I'm there. Stuck in the middle of it. Embracing my nostalgic-ed-ness as of late has meant delving into the familiar and strange in a variety of ways: Roomie M and I decided to watch Little House on the Prarie from Season I on. We are almost done ...

Another new year and I have nothing but good feelings for it. Things can only look up after last year. And the year ends in an even number so that's a good thing. I feel I have been a thousand miles away from my online community lately. The visit to the farm was good, though I confess I was a little internally restless, which paired with the flu bug I caught while I was there, made for an odd visit. Visiting with friends was good and balm to my soul. New Year's Eve B1, B2, and I made it safely to the farm around 7pm due to an earlier start from Buffalo than expected, good traffic, and great weather. The three of us, Amos & CJ, Mummy Dearest & Hubby, and Nevada celebrated a--for the most part--quiet New Year's Eve exchanging Christmas presents, munching on Mummy's hilarious hors d'œuvres (some variation of these), drinking (Amos brought back some sneaky liqueur from Bolivia and I brought Michigan beers for the boys' Christmas presents, which consequ...

When I was a kid we moved a lot-7 times by the time I was 7 years old-and as happens with many children, I was very lonely even with older brothers and a an older sister to play with. The house we finally settled in, the one that my parents still live in today, and the home where my nieces and nephews now play was like the house in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe , when I was a child. Though not as large, at seven it seemed endless and possibilities abounded, having moved into the country from the city of Detroit. There was even a time when we were playing hide n' seek, and I like Lucy, the youngest of four, hid behind a doorway. Unlike Lucy, regrettably, instead of a world in Narnia, I discovered a land of adventure yes, but more so of my own imaginings. It was on that very rainy day, when hide n' seek had ended-the older children tiring of it sooner than I should have liked-that I discovered a doorway into new worlds. I grabbed some books and hid behind my fathers old, so...