Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

*toot toot*

I fell off the map there for a few days; caught something that first appeared on my birthday, then seemed to be going away, before then turning into a terrible cough/congestion/ear ache/fever/sore throat that kept me home for a day and a half this week. Ugh. It was terrible. It's been a week and I still feel exhausted and sore, and not quite right...hoping that going for a long walk and breathing in this glorious, chilly fall air tonight will help! Just want to share this bit of gloriousness, which was passed along by the Ohio Library Council; according to the OLC: "Ohio voters approved all but one of the 26 public library issues on local ballots around the state. Unofficial election results for the library ballot issues show that four new levies, 16 renewal levies, three replacement levies, and two replacement/additional levies were successful. One renewal levy was defeated." For the unofficial ballot results, or if you're just curious which libraries had ...

HOLY CATS! The FRIENDS group at our Library hosts a yearly Halloween party and haunted laboratory and last night I think we were the hit of the town, what with the torrential downpour, and hurricane warnings. We had over 500 people show up!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT! Our tiny library was packed! I was bummed, I only saw the first 100 or so, then had to sneak out to head down to the Columbus suburbs. Ohio Library Council (OLC) has a bunch of chapters, divisions, and committees ; I was elected to one of said groups this past spring, and today attended my first meeting. Aside from the fact that I ran into a colleague from my old library--awesome!--I didn't know anyone there, so spent the day with fellow committee members addressing issues and goals for 2014! Our group was a lot of fun and I'm glad I was able to make more professional connections! As a young professional I'm always seeking opportunities to learn more about our profession and I think getting involved at a state-wi...

B1 gave me this poem, it hangs on my fridge as a constant reminder that I came from one place and am now in another, and  those two connect me because they are connected. I'd read this poem several times when I lived in OHCity and had wondered why I never saw the mosque off of I-75. It was in the rereading that I saw my error: the mosque is off of I-75 in Ohio, not off of I-75 in Michigan--I was looking for it in the wrong place. I finally saw the mosque on my first trip back to Sticks from a weekend in Michigan, somehow it felt as though I had achieved something in the finding. Does that even make sense? Anyway, about to leave my old home for my new...look for me on I-75 S, I will be the one waving at the "corn corn corn mosque..." "A Primer" I  remember Michigan fondly as the place I go   to be in Michigan. The right hand of America waving from maps or the left pressing into clay a mold to take home from kindergarten to Mother. I lived in Michigan ...

No, this blog has nothing to do with organ donations...of any kind. I just wanted to mention that I met two other Ohio transplants last Friday night for a burger and beer at a really fun place in Cleveland. But first, let me just say, last Friday is hands down the best day I've had since I moved to Ohio; I was off from work so I spent the day walking around the glorious (and FREE!) Cleveland Museum of Art . It was wonderful. It felt nice to feel lost in a building, surrounded by art, instead of in my new city. Lovely. So who I went out with: hmmm, how do I explain this one? Ok, my best friend L's little sister Julie is engaged to Andrew, Andrew's little sister is Merissa. I met Merissa (also from MI) and her friend Kelly (from NJ) at Becky's Bar in downtown Cleveland (right next to CSU) for dinner and beers. Some thoughts I had while driving home (not in this order): I love that I can have a burger, fries and two beers for under $20. It was so expensive to go out ...

The road trip to Ohio was full of problems, but as the cliche expression goes, "it's not the end destination, it's the journey." But, I should probably back up and talk about some of the events of the week leading up to my departure. I spent my last week covering some kitchen shifts, packing and repacking and repacking, shipping boxes of my stuff, boxing things up which B1 & B2 will bring as far as Buffalo in December, just doing last minute things. I had asked M &N if they would mind if I invited a few people over for drinks one night (a last hurrah) on Tuesday--unbeknownst to me M & N had invited over the entire staff for dessert and drinks--SNEAKY! Anyway, that night I stopped by M & N's to grab something before dashing over to B1 & B2's; in my haste I left my car running in Neutral (it's a manual) on what I thought was a flat piece of road...apparently the road had just enough of a slope and my car had hundreds of pounds of my pos...

for moving day. Maybe it's because Sandburg's also from the Midwest, or maybe it's just because he promised me that everything is going to be come out alright...either way, I am moving on and this felt apropos: "Caboose Thoughts" It's going to come out all right—do you know? The sun, the birds, the grass—they know. They get along—and we’ll get along. Some days will be rainy and you will sit waiting And the letter you wait for won’t come, And I will sit watching the sky tear off gray and gray And the letter I wait for won’t come. There will be ac-ci-dents. I know ac-ci-dents are coming. Smash-ups, signals wrong, washouts, trestles rotten, Red and yellow ac-ci-dents. But somehow and somewhere the end of the run The train gets put together again And the caboose and the green tail lights Fade down the right of w...

Wednesday morning I caught a midnight train (no, not to Georgia !) to Penn Station, NYC, then boarded my next train from NYC to Charlotte, NC (the closest major train stop to my sister and her family who live just over the line in South Carolina). You can see from my route that I spent a lot of time on trains all day; going from Connecticut, to New York City, and on through Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Fortunately I had a 4 hour stop in Washington D.C., which gave me enough time to walk past the Capitol and to the National Mall (although I didn't make it all the way down to the new Martin Luther King Jr. Monument, I did get to walk past the Library of Congress though!) Thursday morning, after not enough sleep, my Mom and I roadtriped 8 hours to OhCity, OH, home of my new library job. After looking at one apartment we headed down the street and found an apartment with soul (this was one of M's requirements for me). My apartm...