Category — Uncategorized

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I want to be a librarian when I grow up.  (1) I want to work the scanner.  I volunteered at a library and got to do that, and it was AMAZING.  (2) I want to choose the books.  (3) I want to talk to people about books.  (4) And now, I want to be a library detective.

It started with a thread where people were listing books they sort of remembered but couldn’t name (and clearly wanted to find again) or books they had heard about but hadn’t read yet, and these librarians tracked down the books based on whatever details you could give them.  The thread is still going, and it’s now in the thousands.

This sounds like my ideal job.  It’s like solving a murderless, crimeless mystery; the best sort of mystery for someone squeamish like me.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I’m waiting for the voice of reason.  The person who will step over party lines and take a stand and say,

“Wait a second.  We treat women horribly in this country, and this has to end.  We cannot consider a person for the highest court in the land who has been accused by multiple people of aiding or committing sexual assault.  We cannot have someone passing judgments that affect all people if that person is not fair, considerate, and thoughtful.  We don’t want someone on the bench who is not our best and brightest.  We cannot rush a judge on the bench — whose whole job is to listen carefully to facts — who does not want us to carefully consider the facts and take our time to thoughtfully come to a decision.”

But that voice won’t come because we treat women horribly in this country.

Because there are people who elect people even knowing that they’ve aided or committed sexual crimes.

So I’m waiting for this adult to show up among the elected officials and lead the way.  And I don’t think that person is coming.  So the only thing I can do in November is bring in new adults.

The title says it all.  Lori was in town because she is a big deal, hot-shot, award-winning lady.  She was being honoured for her work in the adoption world, and she was in town to go to fancy parties and pick up her prize for Angels in Adoption.  I took the Metro into the city and met her at Union Pub.

That picture was taken after a lot of laughing and crying.

I met Lori on May 11, 2007 (I was wrong, Lori — I checked again and it was May 11th!) when she wrote me to join an online book club I was running for Peggy Orenstein’s book.  And then we started talking about non-book things and then met up at a teahouse when she was in town with her family and then went to BlogHer and then endured me while I bothered her through a panel called “What is Twitter” (or something like that).  And the rest is history.

Eleven years.

For eleven years, I’ve gotten to be loved by Lori and love her back.  People who know her know exactly what I’m talking about.  She lives her life with openness — an open heart and open eyes and open mind — and once you enter that circle, you are embraced fiercely and intensely and unconditionally.  She is an amazing person, and I am so lucky to call her a friend.

Old friends are good friends.

Researchers out of Northwestern discovered there are four different personality types, and the majority of us fall into a single one: average.  (I guess it’s called “average” because the members are the average not because they’re average.)  But here’s the interesting thing: your personality type is based somewhat on age and experiences.  So you may be in one group right now but shift to a different group years down the road.

That’s interesting, right?

The news release reads: “…As people mature, their personality types often shift. For instance, older people tend to be less neurotic yet more conscientious and agreeable than those under 20 years old.”

The personality types are based on five traits: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.  You can read how they define these traits, and that’s how I approached this: I looked at the traits, determined whether I was high or low, and then looked at the description of the four types: average, reserved, role model, self-centered.

And I didn’t find myself in any of the types.

I’m high for neuroticism, openness, and conscientiousness.  I’m middle for extraversion.  I’m low for agreeableness.

I’m not average because I’m high in openness and not high in agreeableness.  I’m not reserved because I’m high in neuroticism and low in agreeableness.  I’m not a role model because I’m not low in neuroticism and high in agreeableness.  And I’m not self-centered because I’m not high in extraversion or low in openness or extraversion.

I’m still trying to figure out where I belong.  Where do you see yourself in these descriptions?

This week I received an email from HarperCollins telling me that my three shipments of books were in the mail.  The problem was that (1) I had not ordered books, (2) they were being shipped to my old workplace’s defunct California address, and (3) no one at HarperCollins had any record of this shipment even though we could all track the progress of the boxes across the United States because the email contained a tracking number.

When I say this address is defunct, I mean that (1) they haven’t had an office there in ten years and (2) the company itself closed about two years ago.  And when I say that no one at HarperCollins had any record of this shipment, it’s because I spent Friday on the phone with customer service trying to figure out this mystery.  They had no record of any shipment to the company nor any record of my name or email address in the system, even though I had received a tracking email about my order.

It’s Sunday morning, and I still haven’t gotten a response on what is in the boxes.  So let’s all take a guess because there is no right answer.  After all, I will never see these books because it is going to a non-existent address in California.  The boxes will either sit outside, unclaimed, until the rain molds over their contents, or the boxes will be returned to HarperCollins.

So what’s in the boxes?

• Books that should have been sent over ten years ago that mysteriously shipped this week?
• A box of fantastic new bestsellers that someone decided I must read?
• A prank by a disgruntled HarperCollins employee?
• Ghost books?