Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

OMG! BJ Novak favorited my tweet!!! I feel so cool right now. I mean it could be his assistant, or maybe BJ Novak just systematically goes through and favorites anything where his name is mentioned, or something like that, but still feeling pretty crazy happy! And speaking of crazy happy: Prairie Dawn is getting married TOMORROW! So excited for her and totally excited for Chicago Boy to come into town, and for us to get dressed up and go out. Yay Yay Yay! Happy weekend!

My dear friends Chris and Kate are getting married today, so again I find myself back home in Michigan for the weekend. Looking forward to celebrating our dear friends with the old gang; to enjoying a long weekend (we're closed on Labor Day!); to sharing time and meals with friends and family throughout the weekend. So, this morning as I get ready to watch my friends take the plunge I will share this, a very beloved poem which I had the honor of reading at a friends wedding years back. "I carry your heart" i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) i am never without it (anywhere i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)   i fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet) i want no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you   here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the...

I an in Michigan this weekend for Kate and Chris' wedding shower...Ugh...I hate showers of the wedding and baby variety. So, while I am bound to a chair playing ridiculous games and pretending to ooh and aah at household appliance gifts, the real me will be fantasizing about wandering barefoot through my old garden plot at the farm; wondering at the barefoot boy in all of us. "The Barefoot Boy" Blessings on thee, little man, Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan! With thy turned-up pantaloons, And thy merry whistled tunes; With thy red lip, redder still Kissed by strawberries on the hill; With the sunshine on thy face, Through thy torn brim’s jaunty grace; From my heart I give thee joy,— I was once a barefoot boy! Prince thou art,—the grown-up man Only is republican. Let the million-dollared ride! Barefoot, trudging at his side, Thou hast more than he can buy In the reach of ear and eye,— Outward sunshine, inward joy: Blessings on thee, barefoot boy! Oh for boy...

I am so excited for this weekend: My friend's coming for the weekend (from Chicago) Bestie Kim's wedding reception (Bro A2 & Dayna, Bestie L & K, Chris & Kate, and old roomie Melissa will all be there celebrating too!) And then next week!! A SHORT WEEK! Then headed off to the Farm and some camping HERE!! Ok, no peeking...can you guess where it is? I will give you a clue: The total area of this park is more than 47,000 acres.

Fun.: We Are Young ft. Janelle Monáe [OFFICIAL VIDEO] I LOVE LOVE LOVE this song and couldn't start my workday without listening to it first! I had my old roomie Melissa play it at least 5 times for me while she did my makeup for the wedding this past weekend. Songs like this make me feel 20 years old again, and immortal, and that the possibilites are endless...and weekends like this past weekend can do that too. :)

Tonight fellow former Farmer, Craig, is stopping by for the night. Craig is headed west to California tomorrow morning, a fitting day for travel, as after a half day at work I am headed north to the Mitten for a St. Patty's Day wedding; wish I could have two other visitors, one to head points south, one to head points east. Finally finished The Hunger Games  series, and want to review that at some point. Also, finished another Newbery book want to review that. Keep starting more new books--more, more, more! I feel like I can't read fast enough for all the books I want to read! Started--and put down for now--Joan Didion's The White Album the other night between spurts of packing up wedding and weekend attire; I really loved Didion's packing list from her reporting years and just have to share it: "To Pack and Wear: 2 skirts 2 jerseys or leotards 1 pullover sweater 2 pair shoes stockings bra nightgown, robe slippers cigarettes bourbo...

CONGRATULATIONS to COLLEGE KIM & JESSE MARRIED Today! If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy ...

It is finally spring around here; everything is green, the lawns need mowing, the daffodils are sturdy and no longer the new kids on the block, I was stung by a bee--all signs of spring. My boss is back from vacation, thank God, and I am off from work(at the Farm) until Sunday. My library hours have increased, as they have begun to train me for a new department (local history), but I look forward to the extra hours spent learning how to use tons of genealogical databases and assisting patrons in research. Plus, more hours=more money for vacation . I've been keeping myself busy lately, aside from work: gardening, reading, writing, catching up with friends, shopping for my two destination weddings (Jamaica in July; St. John, Virgin Islands in August). I spent $250 this weekend on clothes (dresses for tropical places--I wonder why I don't have stuff like that lying around...?), managing to get the dress which I will wear to my brother's wedding--I am pleased as punch abou...

Aside from being a bridesmaid for Amos and CJ, I also had the extreme pleasure of being asked to read a poem at their wedding. The e.e. cummings poem "I love you much (most beautiful darling)"--my second e.e. cummings poem; B1 & B2 had me read "I carry your heart" at their wedding. I am not sure why, but I am thinking of this poem this morning as I prepare to spend my last day home in MI--about to take Monster Niece and Nephew to the park before the rains come in again. About to again say goodbye to family and friends after a fast and short weekend home; about to again smoosh myself into a car for 11 hours of driving alone, about to again return to my home and what I love. i love you much(most beautiful darling) i love you much(most beautiful darling) more than anyone on the earth and i like you better than everything in the sky -sunlight and singing welcome your coming although winter may be everywhere with such a silence and such a darkness noone can qu...

As we crept—I swear that time has a way of knowing how to crawl at an ants pace toward the things we look forward to and then fly through the truly enjoyable moments!—through a VERY busy week toward the wedding of friends Amos and CJ there was so much to do! We all had jobs for the wedding, in preparation for and on the day of (a very cool thing which I wish more people did—it really personalizes the wedding experience for everyone when more hands go into the making of it!) B1 was on desserts; B2 was on EVERYTHING—he was bouncing around wherever he was needed; TSO was the photographer; many, many Farmers and family members were on decorating the reception area, flowers, heating and moving food; and my job was the music to be played at the reception: both dinner and dancing music. Over the past couple of weeks Roomie J and I put together playlists, Amos and CJ added on to those lists, then Jenna, S and I added more songs. I spent a day downloading music into iTunes, and finally finishe...

I wandered through our (TSO’s and my) garden plot yesterday to gather peas from TSO’s plants while he was away. Things are abloom and gathering height like a ball going downhill gathers speed. I have not yet had children, but I think that I feel a parents’ pride when I look over my advancing plants and wonder at the fruits of my labors to come. My beets are leafy green arms reaching further out of the ground, stretching toward the sun to allow for the bulbous purple vegetable to round itself; making rings in its inside like the rings inside a tree. My green onions fatten and reach skyward; sharply flavored and crisp in color. My red peppers however are stunted—possible too much rain this season? My cosmos grow ever taller, something akin to a leafy fern or a soft evergreen. I am expectantly looking for buds and yet none thus far. TSO’s peas and green beans climb and wrap themselves around poles, their fruits hanging down, absolutely begging to be picked and eaten even with dirty, weed-...

Being in St. Louis for Tizzy and HR on second 's wedding confirmed a few things: 1. EVERYONE I know is getting married (this was wedding #6 of 8 in the past year). 2. Weddings make me lonely, and also make me marvel at the fact that people can spend the rest of their lives with one person. I'm not saying I can't (there are a couple people I could imagine spending the rest of my life with: James McAvoy or Gerard Butler, for example), I just can't think of anyone that could say the same for me. Life is a crap shoot that way, no? Two people having mutual feelings of spending the rest of their lives with that other person and it actually working. Don't you have better odds at card games...or horse racing...or guessing what rat with find the cheese first?! 3. Our community at the Farm is a very unique and beautiful place that I am always so glad AND thankful to come back to. I love going away to see little slices of the world, but I am still at the point that I love com...

More to say about our lovely time in St. Louis, until then, I want to offer my congrats to Tizzy and HR on Second Ave. who were married this past Friday! I know no words of my own that are lovely enough to offer you, so I give you one of my favorite poets: Walt Whitman "Out of the Rolling Ocean, the Crowd," Leaves of Grass OUT of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me, Whispering, I love you, before long I die, I have travel’d a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you, For I could not die till I once look’d on you, For I fear’d I might afterward lose you. (Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe; Return in peace to the ocean, my love; I too am part of that ocean, my love—we are not so much separated; Behold the great rondure—the cohesion of all, how perfect! But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us, As for an hour, carrying us diverse—yet cannot carry us diverse for ever; Be not impatient—a little space—Kn...

Jet setting weekend coming up. TSO , CJ and I are leaving the farm for St. Louis, to attend the wedding of our friends Tizzy and J . Friends Kt and Becca are also heading out from Oregon and Chicago respectively--looking forward to seeing them both and catching up. I have never spent any time in St. Louis, only passing through en route to California on Route 66 ten years ago. Though I am looking forward to time away, and any place will do. The short weekend seems busy: Fly in Thursday morning Rehearsal dinner Thursday night Wedding & Reception Friday night Leave Saturday morning And yet, in those small fluxes of time between events there are a couple of sites I definitely want to see (The St. Louis Arch, The Louis XIV church and of course the St. Louis Public Library), but who knows what we'll have time for, or what TSO will want to see...hmm...just glad to be away from the Farm for a few days. YAHOO! I love traveling. Now just need to run errand...

Seems an age in middle Earth has passed since last I wrote. Somewhere in that space of time that I was away from my blog I made a trip back to Michigan to attend the wedding of my friend Stac (and Jay), which meant I was also home to celebrate my Mom’s birthday and celebrate Monster Nephew A’s 3rd birthday (a little early). I still can't believe my little monster is 3! I remember anxiously driving to the hospital to meet my first nephew; to hold this tiny little person; to make promises over this sleeping angel. And now, he is three and full of mischief just like his old auntie. Time does fly, no? "The only reason for times is so that everything doesn't happen at once." ~ Albert Einstein While home I: Slept and slept and slept on my first day home. Apparently staying up all night before I flew wiped me out. I also hadn't been sleeping well before I left so I think my body needed it Friday I went to Stac and Jay's wedding in Flat Rock, MI. My first time ...

It is nearly 11:30pm. I am leaving for the airport--to fly to MI--at 4am. These are all the things I haven't done yet: Packed Cleaned Mummy Dearests ' (and Hubby's) house where I have been staying all week while they were on vacation. It's not really dirty...just need to gather and take home my crap Wash a load of laundry (which would include the clothes that I am still wearing and the clothes that I need to PACK!) Check in with Farmer MacDonald to make sure he is still driving me to the airport at 4am I am looking forward to the time away from community, to get some perspective and take some time for myself. I am going to my friend Stac's (and Jay's) wedding on Friday. As a singleton I always feel on the outskirts of some secret society when I go to weddings. I have a sneaky suspicion that one of these days I may actually be in a committed relationship and all the non-singletons will teach me the secret-you're-gonna-get-married-handshake. Until that p...

This past weekend was nuts. Not like, "Oh my God, I had to go to my church BBQ Saturday and it was so busy all day, what with the cake walk and the BINGO for knitted doilies." No, it was rock star nuts! It did not stop. Friday after work I headed home for a short siesta (true rock star tip) so I wasn't exhausted later that night. First I had to go to a dinner picnic in the park. From there I headed over to friend Katie's apartment for a housewarming party. This is where the rock star in all of us first showed up. The theme for the party was 1980's, and as I wandered amongst examples of 80's hair bands, girls in neon colors and those whorey 80s skirts and found friend Chris who was wearing the Michael Jackson jacket (but in blue) with tight jeans and a Piston's Championship t-shirt from the 80s which he wore when he was a kid. I didn't actually wear any 80s attire since I had the craziest week so I had to wear a nametag all night that said, ...