Cathy the Librarian

For years I have had an irrational fear of escalators, and I thought that I was all alone in this. I have no idea how it started, but for years, even looking at an escalator I would get sweaty and my hands would get clammy, my heart starts racing and I start freaking out. It really drives my husband crazy, because sometimes we have to go out of our way so I don’t have to go on the escalator.
I read an article in the New York City News and found out that my fears aren’t unwarranted. At a movie theater, one kid’s pants caught in the escalator and the escalator was stopped. The kids behind fell “like dominoes” and they toppled down on one another. Some of the kids had to go to the hospital.
Okay okay, I know its still crazy, but I really don’t know what to do! Just because I know its crazy doesn’t mean that I know how to stop from being afraid of using the escalator.
Travelling is interesting. In California, the Universal Studios has a multi-story escalator that horrified me and there wasn’t an elevator alternative. There was a handicap van that took you down to the lower lot. It was completely embarrassing, but because I have this completely irrational fear, I had to use the handicap access. It completely embarrasses me even to talk about it, but I guess this is just a part of life, so I might as well share.
BTW I just found out that the world’s longest escalator is in Hong Kong. It’s called the Central-Mid-levels escalator.

I was reading Publisher’s Weekly from May 16… yes I know this is like two months old, but anyway. They had a review of the book Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth, this book is exactly what it sounds like. The guy photographed everything he ate and made it into a book! This must be like ultimate reality tv, but in book form. I cannot even imagine doing this and expecting that other people would care what I ate, although its usually not that interesting.

Breakfast: egg and cheese in a bagel with orange juice
Snack: craisins, chocolate and nut trail mix
Lunch: Frappucchino and tossed salad
snack: piece of cheese and chocolate soy milk
snack: yogurt
snack: granola bar

Anyway, it seems pretty boring, but all the dairy will be interesting later on!
Needless to say, I checked the catalog and no one owns the book. Big suprise. However not to my suprise, I found a web site where someone did the same thing!

I’m not yet done with this, but I wish I was. This piece of gross contemporary american literature is Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. What’s worse is that I’m listening to it on cd. Somehow it seems worse when you are listening to people talk about cutting off toes, fingers, hands and penises (well only one so far). I think I’m pretty good about handling my gore, but this is pretty nasty and unnecessary. Some of the stories (the book is a collection of short stories told during a “writer’s workshop”. I only have about 1/2 a cd left, and I’m still pretty amazed that I managed to get through it without crashing my car into a tree. Its neat that there are quite a few different speakers throughout the book to tell the characters’ stories, but that doesn’t make it any better when you listen to the description of the character pulling off fingernails. I almost decided that enough was enough when I found out that one of the women, who was pregnant, has her baby at this “retreat” and she is later fed special soup. Soup that I will never ever eat, and let me tell you, as a mother of a three month old, I almost threw the cds out the car window (not caring that it belonged to the library). I would tell you about each of the individual characters’ stories, but as they finished their tale, I tried to block it out of my mind.
I haven’t read Guts which is supposed to be by far more disturbing; making people vomit and pass out, but I’m not sure that I can handle it. I’m sure curiosity will get the better of me, and I’ll listen to it, but probably not for a while.