The time of year has come for school visits to the library. Seniors learning deep research for their final papers. Juniors dipping their toes into the waters of "what is database and peer review?" Sophomores and freshman asking questions such as "where is the bathroom?"
"You can always let a hole be cause if you try to fill it, you can't ever get it just right," Mrs. Joyce said over me as I tried to pack the dirt back tight.
When someone asks me what my favorite television show growing up was, I have to think about that. Hands down, I could say MacGyver because I still think it's better than leftover cornbread with onions. But then I think on all the sitcoms and action shows of the 1980s and have to give it up to a genre: weaponized and sentient vehicles.
When performing an expert u-turn on a small suburban street in the middle of the night, watch for curbs. And small animals. But mostly the curbs because the small animals have sense to get out of the way even when finding themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. You will pop a tire and end up calling someone to bring you a jack at three in the morning.
As I write this, a hazy smoke has enveloped the Pacific Northwest and the high desert whatever the hell biosphere I live in at the moment. There may be a picture accompanying this, but if there is not allow me to describe it: Gray haze with shimmering figures in the distance that resemble mountains inhabited by old chain smoking yeti figures who have run out of shit to eat.
I should have been paying more attention when the boy went into the stacks. I told him not to go, but boys disappear sometimes.
I tell you all that to tell you this: corporations do not give two craps about local needs
How many times have you been working the reference desk and thought, man alive I could use a meal? Too many times, am I right? Born and raised in the deep South, my meals tend to lean toward the "chicken fried" variety, so I submit to you my own recipe for cooking up chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes, green beans, biscuits, and gravy in the library break room.
When I was in kindergarten, some kid named Derrick said he did not want to be my friend. That hurt. Kick me in the stomach, cannot breathe crying hurt. Rejection is the monster that we all run from and from time to time will knock you down and tear out your heart.
As you all know, Wichita Falls library has been desperately seeking a name for its racoon mascots. These mascots have a long and treasured history with the library system, much like the fabled lions that grace the New York Public Library. I promise you, by the end of this blog entry you will know the name or names of these branded creations.
Having food poisoning and driving a car might seem like a bad combination, and I am here to tell you they are. If you can avoid getting food poisoning, I suggest you do. If you do get food poisoning, stay out of your car for all of our sakes.
Over at the University of Southern Denmark in the country of Denmark, they found book that could kill people. Not some incendiary texts like Mein Kampf full of crazy stupid ideas of harm, but actual books with poison on them.
The other day I am sitting at the reference desk and a student of the local college comes up and interrupts my game of Minecraft. The kid in question asks for help finding sources for a reference paper.
The annual American Library Association conference has come and gone. New Orleans took the brunt this year, the warm wild city welcoming librarians from all over as well as Michelle Obama and Emilio Estevez. I for one am excited with how Young Guns 3 seems to be shaping up.
Thoughts of New Orleans are coming to mind this week as the annual ALA conference comes up. I will admit, I am a lot homesick and wishing I could be there.
When I was little, I loved summer reading. I would go down to the library and other kids would actually be there. I got to fill out a form and tell all about the books I had been reading.
Mike Myers the comedian once said in the movie So I Married an Axe Murderer that most Scottish meals are based on a dare. Cooking in the South is based often on hope.
My mother taught me to cook the traditional way. She'd say, "ST, use the microwave if you don't want cereal. We're late for school."
Jason wakes up in a world without a sky. Check out this cliche story that by the end will have you wondering.... Wait, are we still in a dream? SHARED DREAM: It'll make you SLEEPY.
From the year 2000 to 2003, I worked in a lot of varied jobs to pay my rent while I went to college. A lot of those jobs were in kitchens, those hot and sweaty and crowded dens of iniquity. Years after, I read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain and was transported to those times and those people with a strange sense of nostalgia and love. This past week Mr. Bourdain took his own life, casting my mind back to other memories of that time.
The man stacked books. They started small. A few little book stacks on tables here and there left at the end of the day. People do that. Shelver Becca called me in one day to look at them.