Cathy the Librarian

This is what I get.
I try and post a nice long message after four months and my computer has a brain fart and deletes the message. Typical.

My sister made me post some new year’s resolutions and I really have been planning on posting on my blog at some point these last FOUR MONTHS. Yee gads. Has it been that long? Sam and I were IMing back and forth on Facebook and she made me come up with a list that I promised to post on my blog. This has been Samantha approved.

This was my original one, that was going to be my only one, but she made me come up with some others:
survive until 2010

Here are some others that sprung to mind:
yell at Jeff less
… some people may say that this is the most impossible thing on my list… but those people know Jeff. 🙂
try and be more patient
more organized
write in my blog more than four times a year
… I REALLY want to work on this one
eat healthier
… I REALLY should work on this one
go out and play with Jack more
… this would be good for both of us
walk more

write a book
This is one that I would really like to do, which is why I was an English major, who started out as a journalism major. I wanted to write, but my mom thought I wouldn’t make any money just as a writer, so that I should go into journalism. I thought it was okay until the second semester when I realized that this is exactly what I didn’t want to do.

I would like to learn my ukulele.
This is one that I really want to do. I have the ukulele, I have the instruction manuals and the DVDs. Now all I need is the sticktoitiveness. Is this likely to happen? I doubt it, but that’s what you do with new year’s resolutions. Think big.

Floss and brush more.
This really shouldn’t even be a resolution. I should just be flossing regularly and brushing two to three times a day. But I don’t. It could happen though… I’d like to think it could.

The absolute cold sweat of fear and dread you get when you find out that the reason your three year old son is soaking wet is because he fell into a pool while you were watching other people’s children (not that it makes a difference, but I think there were seven of them).

Needless to say, Jack is getting swimming lessons Mondays in September and October.

Having acute pain and being able to do nothing about it. Being unable to get comfortable no matter what position you try to sit or lie in. Trying to breathe through the pain only to bring up all that steak you ate for lunch.

Then you rush to the hospital only to find out that you need to pass a kidney stone. Bleh. At 29. What’s wrong with the world?

Icy hands or ice cubes on your back when you’ve got a horrible sun burn, your skin burns to the touch and you can’t bear to have anything touch it.

I’ve lost track of how long its been. Again. This summer has just gone by so quickly.  I’ve been so busy and by the time I get to post on the blog I’m EXHAUSTED! … well and I need time for Facebook. 🙂

I was reading my sister’s blog (she is very melancholy right now, but Jenny and I are going to NC to cheer her up!) and she’s started posting “sensations“. I thought that was the neatest idea. I’d hate to steal it from her, but I may have to. Stuff like “rubbing feet on the carpet and touching a door handle”. I already have my first one prepared.

One thing that has recently taken up my time is crocheting. After watch the Last Unicorn for about the millionth time I remembered that I wanted to make a shawlly type thing like the one Molly Grue wears throughout the movie.

Its sort of hard to tell in this picture, but I couldn’t find many good ones online. Yes, I’m a freak, but I must stay true to myself… yes Jeff is probably ready to divorce me if I watch the movie one more time, but who needs him? 🙂 Just kidding. 😛

So onto the sad stuff… although the Last Unicorn might have been sad for Jeff… my boss’s last day is Friday. I really am bummed. She’s been a great boss. She’s easy to talk to, fun to be around, and she tells it like it is. If you’re being a dork, she’ll let you know. I actually had a nightmare a couple of nights ago. She was in a meeting with a patron that we fondly call “arts and crafts a-hole”. According to him arts and crafts programs in the library are a waste of taxpayers money. Anyway, they were in a meeting and she asked me to get some of our program fliers so that he could see that we actually have very few arts and crafts programs (this winter we’re going to have quite a few, but who cares about him). I left the room to get the stuff and as I was hunting around, I start hearing screaming and cursing. Then there’s a big explosion. I go out to check, although obviously everything’s not okay, and the room is gone, the boss lady and the mean patron with it. Of course that solves his problem. With no meeting room, we can’t have any arts and crafts programs.

Oh, I will miss her. She’s going on to bigger and better things. I hope. At least I’ll still be able to email her and check up on her.

Anyway. We’ve done some pretty neat stuff this summer. Sterling Renaissance Festival. Pageant of Steam. Corning Museum of Glass. Seabreeze. Of course, as many of you have the same issues, a public librarian can’t wander far from home during the summer. Especially youth services librarians. Otherwise their bosses kill them, and we can’t have that, can we? There was a hail storm while we were at the Renaissance Festival. We got some good pictures of that. I’ll have to try and post them soon.

Oh well. Tomorrow is Monday. Back to work. Luckily, in a couple weeks I get to visit one of my favorite sisters in North Carolina! Jenny and I are going to visit Sam over Labor Day. Unfortunately, that means that I have to be away from my smoochie-pooh on his birthday. Poor dear.

I’m getting sleepy, so I’ll say a fond farewell. However, I’ll post a sensation before going to bed. Good night ya’ll. Sleep tight!

While in college I was working at a public library in the city. In that public library in the city there was a lady working there… okay so there were quite a few ladies working there, but bear with me. That lady had two kids. One was a girl who was about 8 years old and one was a boy who was about 12 years old. Now the girl is off to college and the boy is practically a man with chest hair and everything who’s graduating from college and going off to do important things. Eek. I feel very very old, but old in a good way, I guess. 🙂

Of course, I see it all the time in the library, I’ve only been there about five years and yet already people are growing up before my very eyes. Its absolutely petrifying.

Now I’m off to email their mom who I haven’t seen in a million years.

BTW, that was a great story, wasn’t it? I’ll try and do better when its not past my bedtime and I haven’t imbibed a little. 🙂

Here I am again to warn you… POETRY ALERT!!
After typing down these poems, I realized that this is often how I write poetry. I try not to think about them too much, but I blast them out as quickly as possible, which is why, as you’ll find out, instead of naming the poems, I just gave them the date and time that I wrote them. Plus, I find that giving names to poems is often more time consuming than actually writing the poems.
I also want to let you know that I am not depressed. These poems may allude to a great inner turmoil. I am sad, but I’m not even sad all the time. I usually get into my “poetry mood” by putting in a Sting cd (especially “Soul Cages”) or listening to my “sad mix” on my mp3 player, mostly Whale Rider, which if you have seen it, you’ll understand. I also don’t make a habit of writing happy poems. Its not really my thing. I don’t think I will ever be allowed to write children’s poetry. Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky I am not.
***
Here’s the original message:
I’ve not been up to writing. Every time I think about writing, I see that post and.. blah. However Jeff has been pestering me to write again, so I figure I should. When I say I haven’t been writing, that’s not absolutely true. I have a paper journal that I sometimes write in. One night in June I wrote almost a dozen poems about feeling bummed and helpless. I started to think that since my sister can get up the courage to put her poetry up on her blog… I guess I can too. They’re really awful, so I warn you now. Of course you won’t see this until after you read my stuff, so maybe I should warn you after too.

BTW, I’m doing better, but then I get to thinking about it, or I see a very pregnant person and I get all melancholy. Its interesting though, if I have to let someone I haven’t seen in a while know about it I feel like I need to console them and let them know its okay. Maybe that’s the public servant in me, needing to make sure that everyone’s okay.

sometimes I feel
so beat down
so hollowed out
I no longer feel real
a rag doll
with the stuffing removed
a book with the pages torn out
an empty ripped up bag
*
I feel sometimes
like no one understands
I am alone and stranded
in a dark and treacherous land
unable to see
I trip and stumble
I scrape my knees
there is no one to guide me
no one to settle my thoughts
no one to put me at ease
no one to set me free
*
I sometimes feel
old and used up
dry and brittle
ancient and alone
waiting for the moment to come
that one moment to change my life
but it never does
I call out
hoping for an answer back
but in the darkness
all I hear is my echoing question
over and
over and
over again

****
BTW, I don’t really feel that way. I know that I am truly blessed with some great friends that look out for me and offer me support. Many of you read my blog. I’d say that you can’t even begin to imagine how much you guys mean to me right now, but I think you can… which helps even more because you know how I feel. I try letting people know that I’m okay, and mostly I am, but on nights like these I just get so bummed when I absentmindedly rub my belly, thinking the baby is there or when I see an outfit that I’ve already bought, or I think about what the baby might have been like. On those nights I just want to spend some time being sad. I’m not depressed. I can be happy. How could I not be happy when I have such a joy in my life? Jack is so precious to me. I cannot even imagine what I would do without him, and I do not wish to imagine what I would do.
Anyway. I just want to say thanks.

some moments
I just feel
so old
so used up
so tired
and it makes me wonder
why
why do people do this
day after day after day
and then
I look in his deep brown eyes
my eyes
and I hear his laughter
and I see his crooked smile
so pure
so innocent
and I begin to realize
this is why I go on
day after day after day
just to soak up his sunlight
and hear his laughter
this is why