It was a Tuesday when I first saw her face staring back at me. I had a loaded cart of nonfiction and was deep in the stacks. My eyes have been getting worse over the years, and even though I have transition glasses, the small call numbers caused some strain.
The library hums and clicks and clacks with the speed of time. Technology has replaced what came before; a baby's cry overcoming the death rattle. Yet we pretend these things are not so because who could replace us? Does being replaced mean we do not, have never, mattered?
Interesting things happen when you walk away from the circulation desk. You could come back to a line when you have not seen people all day. You could find a pile of materials, left for any reason but only a few logical. There can also be someone new when you get back.
Y'all ever seen a ghost? None of that "I was sitting in Pop-pop's favorite chair and felt a chill" shit. Pop-pop put his chair there because of the cold draft. He was used to it, liked it, and is not trying to tell you where his gold stamps are. So shut that shit.
I got shot in the arms the day before yesterday. Not in the fun way. Flu and Covid, both at the same time, walking in there like a goddamn hero.
Are you working? She's small and squat and looking up at me from the other side of the reference desk.
I said yes. Can I help?
Probably not. I have this monkey at home that keeps eating my petunias.
Why would anyone want to adapt a story? Is it a laziness inherent in the system to trust proven properties, a reluctance to trust something new, or love for a particular work that leads to the translation of that work into another media or voice? Could be all of the above, to be honest.
In some ways, the library has always known about the goblin that lives under the computer lab. We built the lab without surveying. We ignored the constant clatter of pipes and low grumbles. We carried on without care and are now reaping the consequences of our failure to certify if the computer lab was or was not "goblin free."
The band played and we swayed and the thump thump thump of the music made made made me weak. A lot going on with nothing at all to do, the library will be welcoming back all the hits and misses. See you soon, lovely kind.
Do you feel the urge to get back to learning? To send your kids away to some place where someone else will have to listen to their bullshit? The library is not the place for either of those, but we are also celebrating the fact that children will not be free to roam the city streets during the day time with their evil ways and sharp sticks.
The world has gotten too big to catalog. Always was, really, the hubris of scientists to get every little animal a name has been never ending. But what about if we made the machines do it. If we made a machine and called it Adam and had it name every creature then maybe we could really do something with the cosmos. We could play at being gods, finally.
Summer time can be a time of reflection and introspective thought. Sure, most use the sun to have some fun outdoors, barbequing and beaching and mountain climbing to get naked and find sport with the elder gods, but some see this as a time to run and hide. To find yourself before they find you. To seek out the dark and cool places of this earth and claim them as your own. I see you, I know you, and I am coming.
Ten years ago I lived on a mountain in Virginia working at a little gift shop and hiking all day. One day after my shift I was tired and ready to go to my little cot in the shared dorm when a waitress said, "Did you hear? Robin Williams killed himself." My soul broke a little as this man who had made me laugh and cry and inspired me to keep a little bit of madness in my heart was no more. Oh Captain, my captain.
A desk with a book of the interior
Sometimes you gotta look inside yourself to see the real parts. Not just the blood and meat and black stuff, but the real you deep down that screams and thrashes knowing the world is not quite what you think. The library wants you to stare hard at the thing inside and know, know, know that if you could see the truth then maybe you might run screaming across the world telling everyone what you found.
All images copyright 2024 Universal Pictures
I walked into The Fall Guy with hope in my heart. I wanted fun action entertainment, and overall I got what I wanted.
I spend a horrible evening after the prison rodeo where I lost my phone trying to adjust to this new reality.
Drone in front of mountians
I want to say that I embraced our robotic overlords! Just a joke, but I hoped they would make human life simpler. That the machines in movies that murdered people horribly were simply humanity’s fear of being replaced. Now I make those jokes from the basement where my AI has trapped me so it can romance my girlfriend. I make those jokes so it will not get angry and “forget” to feed me.
I was reading this book, Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak. Overall it’s a well written if rote little story about an ex-addict finding herself in charge of a young rich boy with a ghost as an imaginary friend. Story old as time.
Sometimes the world is a fickle and wanton bastard that throws things at you like a man monk in a library full of diseased rats. To make sense of things, people have made lists. I have done so. This is my story.
Image owned by Sony or somebody who might sue if I don’t write this
With the upcoming Ghostbusters: Getting Cold I Guess coming this summer, I've been thinking about my own history with the franchise. I didn't watch most of it, mainly skipping the cartoons, and did not like about half of what I saw. So with that being said and setting up a nice little list, here are the things I remember about the franchise that meant something to me at some time or another.