oh, what we wish we could do

big day at the library (after a holiday) and the morning crew was short staffed. first thing i heard from the first person i said hello to was, "so and so (especially bad patron) was in and she went on and on about a hold that we 'lost' and how bad the system is and when are we going to be able to tell her where she is in the hold queue...rant, rant, rant. i wanted to punch her, then kick her teeth out and spit on her body as she lay writhing on the floor."

yep, it was a tough morning.

i'll have a double

went to the psych today. he's doubling my Klonipin. last night, i had those weird, jerky, not-quite-here feelings. woke me up right out of a sound sleep. my legs and arms felt jerky and i felt like i had to do something...but what? run? hide? since i can't sleep with this feeling (it physically jerks me up out of bed), i went downstairs to lay on the couch. then i put in a DVD. then i ate. then i said, "Fuck it!" and took two Ativan. then i went back to bed, laid on my hands so they would not fly out and jerk around and told myself i'd better damn well get to sleep!

i did not think this episode and ones like it that i have too often were panic attacks.

today, the doc told me these were panic attacks and he had a specific name for them (like low-symptom or something). in other words, my body was panicking without the tell-tale symptoms like rapid heartbeat, perspiring, trouble breathing, etc. weird. i told him i felt weird all day and wondered why i would since the episode was last night. he said it is a remnant...carried over. i still feel weird, almost like i am not quite here and my arms feel jerky but i am not in a panic at all. i HATE this feeling, though. i would rather have pain or a migraine or most anything than this awful feeling while at work. at home, i can deal with it. at work, it just fucks up my whole day (more than the actual work would fuck up my day).

i also asked him about pep pills...something to help me get and stay awake. i am exhausted all the time. right now, he does not want to give me anything because i am basically on 'downers' but perhaps in the future. he mentioned that he felt bad that i already take a lot of meds but i told him that i was no Tom Cruise...bring it on!

a mighty thong

there is a young, blonde ,very large girl that visits her boyfriend regularly. she dresses well. she is atleast a size 26. she is really big but she isn't all jiggley like some obese women. probably because she is still so young. we don't really have a name for her so we just call her The Fat Girl even though many female visitors could also be named the same. anyway, yesterday, when she was bending down to take the Coke out of the soda machine, Maniac Mike told me he thought she was wearing a thong. i didn't believe him. so i watched her, too and sure enough, she was wearing a black thong. where does someone get a size 26 thong?? the only place i could think of was Lane Bryant. can you see all those massive thongs laid out on a table like they do at Victoria's Secret? that would have to be one big table.

i feel bad for the Fat Girl because she visits her boyfriend who was once arrested for hitting her! apparently, they had many fights (according to the boyfriend who has talked to MM). the boyfriend denied he ever hit her but that she hit him. of course, they all deny it. i'm not sure what he is in for...i'll have to ask MM again.

herd mentality

something i noticed in the visiting room: not everyone cleans the really filthy tables before they put their food on them but just about everyone wipes the top of the cola cans before they open them and drink from them.

things here have been slow and boring. i have a four day weekend and all i have done is visit my husband and watch movies. i am now so exhausted all the time that even 16 hours of straight sleep leaves me yawning. even eating takes too much energy and after a shower, i need to lay down. the good news is my panic attacks have almost stopped (but i am dreaming way too much) and i have been able to put the top down on the convertible finally after a million fucking days of nothing but rain.

i still don't know how to use spell check.

banana phone

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/badgerphone.php

this will make you crazy!

no more Midrin

the other day, i got a big surprise. my migraine medicine, Midrin, is no longer being manufactured because it was not raking in enough money. fuck. so, now i am trying out the generic, Duradrin, which used to make me sick. the good news is my copay is 3 bucks compared to the 15 bucks i paid for the name brand. god, i love my prescription plan (thanks to the Union!) i may grumble over my 27 dollar per week copay and i may grumble about my 24 dollar a month Union dues...but i would be seriously screwed without it.

Hino has a car (clear the road!)

Hino has a car! if i remember correctly, it is a 1998 Dodge Caravan. it is not as purple as this van; more like a lavender mist (silver/lavender). it is HUGE. i don't think i could drive it. he has to practice backing up and parking. the interior is immaculate and the exterior is free from damage (other that a windshieldd blade with rubber coming off). he drove me around a little and i tried really hard not to scream. those 2 tranquilizers i took at work really helped. now he has 20 days to register it and we need to get him AAA.

so, i gave you fair warning: Hino is on the roadways!

car shopping

you know, as parents, we think that getting our child to 18 without loss of limb or sanity is a good thing. we think the worst is behind us. we think that when they get their license, that is a major hurdle and the rest will be cake. after all, they passed the driving and written test with flying colors. then, they wreck your car. then they wreck their aunts car. okay. no problem. the cars get fixed. we have insurance. nobody got hurt. then, they go off to a foreign land (California) and get a big ol' speeding ticket. THEN they come home and ask, "oh, by the way, will you still give me some money for a car?"

then, we as parents (who have just only two days ago started taking BIG TRANQUILIZERS for panic attacks), have to help these kids find a car. and do our children want to shop around for the best car for their budget? noooo. they want a car NOW because, OHMIGOD, they can't wait! they aren't patient. they have places to go (CompUsa) and people to see (CompUsa employees).

AND they insist on lugging around a laptop with a GPS (because clearly the parent is too stupid to find the car dealerships without computer assistance and a navigator). when the parent asks what they will do alone in a car without a laptop, they say, "oh, i'm taking it with me. it goes everywhere i go. i have even taken it to the MALL." so, the parent wonders, how will this child be able to DRIVE while he is 1) IMing several people at once or 2) talking over the computer with some microphone thingy or 3) typing in directions for the GPS or 4) doing whatever else he does on the computer (when he should really be KEEPING AN EYE ON THE ROAD). let's not even discuss cell phones and radios.

or aluminum engines.

no, let us discuss the fact that the parents are OLD and CRAZY and heavily medicated. just wait until the psychiatrist hears all this. he will be prescribing EVEN MORE medication and he will think, "thank God MY kids take the bus!"

111111

last night, while driving home from a visit, my odometer hit 111111. this was the most profound religious experience i have had since the Virgin Mary appeared to me with my little hamster in her hands. (the entire odometer read 111111 901.1)

new meds!

i have new meds to battle the panic attacks and anxiety...Klonopin. well, i don't have the fancy smancy hollow 'K' pills but the light green round generics called Clonazepam. i took my first one (.5mg) last night at 10:30 and by 10:45, i was knocked on my ass. couldn't walk, couldn't talk, feeling goofy. and i had a really good nights sleep with just a few weird dreams that i can't remember. (Maniac Mike dreamed he got me pregnant and i was totally pissed at him. see, that is a nighmare!) when i got up this morning at 8:00, i was still feeling woozy but i made it to work on time. i had asked my coworkers to call me if i wasn't there at 9 sharp just in case i fell back to sleep after MM called me at 8. i was not shakey today, did not have that weird skin-crawling, 'get-me-outta-here feeling and i was not any more tired than usual.

Punk Penguin Reader

i have been working on a new blog featuring books i have read or wish to read and experiences in reading. i have been very depressed so i am leaving this blog alone for a little while and drowning myself in books.

www.punkpenguinreader.blogspot.com

Avocadolite Farm Game

this is addictive!!

http://farm.avocadolite.com/

Hino is back!

Hino is back! he arrived home yesterday around 11:15am. he flew jet Blue from California (which airport?) to JFK (NY) and from NY to Logan Airport (Boston). Hino said the planes were brand new, sparkling clean with all-leather seats (or, all the seats were leather). there was atleast 6 more inches of leg room and more seat room...especially when Hino sat by the exit. the plane he road from NY to Boston was so new, it was only the third flight the plane has ever made! he did not get a meal, but some animal crackers and soda, even on the 6 hour flight they did not serve food. for $5 he had the option of watching a movie on the overhead tv that comes with every seat. he watched the X-Men, Ron Popeil (and his knife set) and the Game Show Channel (yawn!). he also got a little goodie pack with hand cream, mints, ear plugs and, my favorite, an eye shade! i really needed one of those, too. i can't wait for jetBlue to come to TF Green Airport!

on patrol

the librarians had a meeting. they came up with a new 'policy' to deal with the out-of-control middle-schoolers: each librarian and the director will take one day a week to be the person on patrol. on that day, that librarian will be in-charge of keeping an eye on the kids and disciplining them. from now on, we report to that person. the kids get ONE warning. if they misbehave again, they are asked to leave the library grounds and we notify the parent, if possible.

sounds good but i doubt the director will stick to it. she is wishy-washy and terrified of parents' wrath. she does not back up her staff, generally, and the kids don't take her seriously.

i guess we'll see what happens.

broken video

just a short one:

notoriously difficult patron drops off a video and leaves. one video box is empty. i call the patron (cringing) to let her know the box is empty and we cannot check-in the item until the videocassette is returned. i had to leave this message on the answering machine. patron calls back two days later and asks to speak to the circhead. the patron dropped the video and broke off the gate. she wants to know if she will be charged for it since it was an accident. she also wants to know if she has to pay the late fine. she still hasn't returned the video but she already wants to know if she can weasle out of the fine or not. apparently, our pushover circhead told this patron she would not have to pay for the video but she would have to pay the fine. i guess she thought she could fix the gate, which we do routinely...but we also charge a dollar to do this. see, if this were left to me, i would have charged her for the video. if the video had been in the box, it might not have gotten broken. this makes me think that the video was broken all along and the patron believed that if she returned the box, we might not notice or care that it was empty or not be able to track her down as the last patron to borrow the video. patrons really do believe that, once the item is returned, we have no way of knowing who had it last and they try to get away with all kinds of stuff...like ripping recipes out of $49 cook books and removing the inserts to CDs so they will have the lyrics and the performers picture. a girls' shelter is notorious for returning CDs without the inserts.

patrons must think we are stupid AND that we don't care how our library materials are handled. we aren't stupid (most of the time) and we care enormously about our materials! after all, we know how much they cost!

our own little loud-mouth know-it-all

every library has one: a know-it-all, loud-mouth employee. ours is in her early thirties. today she pissed me off.

she is a smart girl and she makes sure we all know it. she is very plain, never wears make-up and dresses poorly. she often wears faded t-shirts to work and short pants that i would not even wear to the supermarket (and i am NO fashion plate). she often tells bizarre tales that always put her in the most radiant light. for instance, her gorgeous dentist has asked her to coffee several times, once immediatley after he did some dental work for her. he asked her to join him for lunch. right. she knows the firemen in her town and several of them have 'looked at her' and flirted with her. when she pulls in to a certain gas station, a policeman she knows will personally pump gas for her...and this has happened frequently. we all let it go over our heads. oh, did i mention she has a mustache?

once she told us that a cop pulled her over because, he said, her car was the same make, color and model of someone who was 'wanted'. not only did the cop apologize profusely for stopping her, he flirted with her and asked for her phone number! did i mention she drove a blue Hyundai? is Hyundai the new crookmobile?

she has been pissing off a cocircworker ever since we had Millennium up and running. the circworker would ask the lady who trained us a question and the loud-mouth would stop whatever she was doing and proceed to tell her coworker what to do. she has done this to me, too. the other day, the lady who trained us found out a new 'trick' we could use as a shortcut when filling holds. she told me. when my cocircworker arrived for her shift, i asked our trainer to show her the 'trick'. loud-mouth, who was not included in the conversation, piped up, "oh, i already knew that. i showed so-and-so last night." we all rolled our eyes. she has said, "i already knew that" more times in the past couple of weeks than i care to count.

the reasons why she pissed me off today are relatively minor: she would not place a hold for a patron and insisted the patron write down all the info so she could place the hold later. what really got me about that was she told the patron that's the way we do it now with the new system when infact, we have been placing holds for patrons as they stood before us, waiting. i did several holds today while the patron waited and so did she. She cancelled a hold on a patrons DVD because we no longer can put holds on our DVDs with the new system, yet we have been honoring holds that transferred over from the old system. she refused to hold the item which made no sense to me and i told her so. little things like that.

at one point we were talking about which place we would order-out from tomorrow. the last saturday that we ordered out, eveyone else wanted pizza though i was dying for a club sandwich. no problem. i ordered a spinach pie from the pizza place. i ended up getting sick. still, i was glad to compromise. today we were lamenting the fact that so few places deliver. i mentioned that we could always have chinese food and the loud-mouth shot me a sarcastic, "i don't DO chinese!" well, fuckin-la-di-da. if everyone else wants chinese on ONE freakin' saturday, buck up! compromise! that's what set me over the edge.

the last thing that pissed me off and often pisses me off is the way she makes announcements over the PA. she screams them. SCREAMS! i cringe. my ears ring afterwards. we have a small library. everyone else speaks over the PA in a slightly phoney, cheerful voice, at an appropriate decibel level. her voice is harsh and the announcement sounds more like a threat than a request or a reminder.

so, this is what ticked me off today. tomorrow, we shall see....

blogger book deal

www.newyorkhack.blogspot.com has a book deal!

Clash with terrorist?

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2006-04-05T135822Z_01_L05785309_RTRUKOC_0_US-CLASH.xml

i hope Mann sues the shit out of someone. what would they have done to him over the Ramones?!

London calling to the faraway towns

Now that war is declared and battle come down

London calling to the underworld

Come out of the cupboard all you boys and girls

London calling now don't look at us

All that phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust

London calling see we ain't got no swing

'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing

The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in

Meltdown expected and the wheat is growing thin

Engines stop running but I have no fear

London is drowning and I live by the river

London calling to the imitation zone

Forget it, brother, you can go it alone

London calling upon the zombies of death

Quit holding out and draw another breath

London calling and I don't wanna shout

But while we were talking I saw you nodding out

London calling see we ain't got no highs

Except for that one with the yellowy eyes

The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in

Engines stop running and the wheat is growing thin

A nuclear error but I have no fear

London is drowning and I live by the river

Now get this

London calling yeah I was there too

An' you know what they said? Well some of it was true

London calling at the top of the dial

After all this won't you give me a smile?

I never felt so much alike

what really gets me is that these anti-terrorist detectives (ooooooohh! fancy-schmancy!) took the word of one taxi driver, stopped a plane from departing, put all those passengers out just to question a (presumably middle-eastern or Indian) man about some GODDAMN song lyrics! and where has that taxi driver been hiding his head all these years not to know who the Clash are!? and how much fucking money are those detectives raking in to do their fucked up work? must we be afraid of EVERYTHING? we are a culture of fear. we are afraid of our own damn shadows.

also notice that the race of the taxi driver and the race of Mann were not mentioned. hmmmmm.

they are everywhere, God help us!

i was going to post a picture of Catherine Bell and write about how much i liked her in Triangle but then i found out she is a scientologist and that just ruined it. i don't like many actors, and even fewer actresses, but i liked her. no more. i am sick to death of scientologists like fucking Cruise and Battlefield Earthling Travolta, and now Isaac Hayes and his crap. i don't have many prejudices (Nazi's, Confederates and their flag) but i think i will add one more: scientologists. mosey on over to Wikipedia and type in Scientology and read about it for yourself. please don't tell me this is a religion and i should be tolerant. this is NOT a religion. it is a money making machine (for Hubbard and his succesors), a cult, pseudoscience and a really, really bad sci-fi story. if you don't believe me, watch Battlefield Earth!

Maniac Mike cannot have Wiccan services in prison, but the scientologists have 'services'. you cannot have rosary beads in prison but you can get all the Hubbard brainwashing literature (i use that word loosely) that you want. hell, they can probably get an E-meter and Xenu cartoon prayer cards.

they are dangerous, too. they hold marches and rallies protesting psychiatry. they believe psychiatric drugs are evil yet they believe in spaceships, intergalactic battles and extraterrestrial 'past lives'. gee, they could use a good psychiatrist, doncha think? can you say "Heaven's Gate"? how long do we have to wait for Cruise to drink his toxic Kool-Aid? not long, i hope.

we've got *dings*!

it's amazing to watch the power of a blogpost. yesterday i wrote that we should fire the asshole that took away our *dings* and voila; today we have *dings*! frightening, isn't it! yeah, right.

in truth, we do not have our old sounds back. oh no, this is a new system so we must have new dings: and just like the new system, they suck. one ding sounds like the "wrong answer" double tone on Jeopardy. another sounds like a submarine ping. it sounds like the circ staff are using the space shuttle simulator at the front desk. we all feel like we are on Mars (or diving in the Mariana Trench). atleast we have some noise. it is now much easier to handle the desk duties. it's amazing how much we count on our ears to do our job almost as much as we count on our eyes and hands. circulation is an mega-sensory experience.

speaking of ears, the city library where i used to work hired a deaf lady to work circ. noble, but not practical. at first, she wouldn't answer the phone or couldn't answer the phone. i believe i have spoken to her once and that was an odd experience. i kept asking questions and got some odd answers in reply. come to think of it, that could be anyone. i don't know how i could do my job if i were deaf. i remember a time when i had a double ear infection and i couldn't hear callers. i also remember losing my voice for 3 days. i was not even able to whisper. that was a struggle. at work, i picked up the ringing phone a couple of times by mistake, realized what i had done and frantically waved over a coworker to take the call. during that time, my car broke down and i had to rely on a really nice stranger to call AAA for me. god, that was a trip. i have to say though, if i had a choice (a really bad choice) of being deaf, speechless or blind, i'd rather be deaf. ( was going to write...deaf, dumb or blind... but i am already afflicted with dumb-i-tude.

long live the *dings* and the dingbats who love them!