I am a Children’s Librarian living in the Portland, Oregon area. When I am not Children’s Librianing I like to play with cameras and film. I also like playing the ukulele, knitting, sketching, and hiking.
1. I am deathly afraid of high places. It can be a problem at times, espeically when go for hikes. Maybe someday I will tell you how I came to be afraid of heights.
2. I hate housework and I’m a slob. I’ll admit it. My house is a mess. It’s embarrassing and I hope I can fix this little flaw.
3. I was born at lunchtime.
4. I’m a middle child. There’s another interesting little story related to this that I will have to post on sometime.
5. I’m 5’6″. This is interesting. For the longest time, like all of my adult life, I have thought I was 5’8″. I think it even says this on my drivers license. I mean, who measures themselves when they are an adult? Well last summer when I was at home visiting my family my niece, who has been growing like a weed, decided that we should all measure ourselves. Turns out I’m only 5’6″.
At the library in which I work we have a “staff favorites” display. Each month a new staff person is featured, and this month I am the lucky one.
And so I’ve been thinking about my favorite books. I feel very scatterbrained about the whole thing. So I am going to just list them here and add to the list as I think of something. Since I can access this site from anywhere this is the perfect medium for this sort of thing. So you can either ignore or enjoy :).
Fiction
Anderson, M.T. Feed. Austen, Jane. Emma.
Cervantes. Don Quijote
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening.
Dante. The Inferno of Dante. Robert Pinsky translation. Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities.
Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex.
Homer. The Oyssey. Stanley Lombardo Translation.
Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.
Lewis, C.S. The Chronicles of Narnia.
McEwan, Ian. Amsterdam.
Norris, Frank. The Octopus.
O’Connor, Flannery. Complete Short Stories.
Pullman, Phillip. The His Dark Materials trilogy.
Rowling, J.K. Any Harry Potter Book.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth.
Picture Books
Bemelmans, Ludwig. Madeline.
Feiffer, Jules. Bark, George!
Keillor, Garrison. The Old Man who loved Cheese.
Plourde. Wild Child.
Schneider. Chewy Louie.
Skorpen. We were tired of living in a house.
Okay, as I mentioned yesterday, I wanted to post my goals for 2006 today.
Stop using my credit cards. This was one of my goals last year and I failed miserably. I am going to give them all to my husband so that he can hide them from me. Then, if I really need to use them I will have to go groveling to him. This is the year I start on the path to paying off my credit cards.
Running. Okay, every year on Jan 1st I join Weight Watchers. And three months later I stop. The problem so far has been that I spread myself too thin in the “healthy” department. I try to do too much. So this year I am going to focus only on the excercise part. I have always loved running so I will concentrate on being a kick-ass runner. I am going to train for the Bloomsday race in May, so I will have a goal to work toward. If I eat healthy in the process, fine. All the better. But I will focus on becoming a runner again.
Stop watching television. This is something my husband is doing, so I guess that means I am too. At midnight this morning he disconnected the cable wire from the t.v. so I guess he is serious.
Start reading more. This was one of my resolutions last year, too. I really do need to read more for my job. I have to know what the kids are reading these days. The former head of Youth Services at SPL (before she left a month after I started the job) told me that when she started out in the field she read 5 books a week. I don’t think I can do that. But I think I will try for at least 2 books a week. No television watching will certainly help with this goal.
Re-learn to play piano. We just got a Yamaha keyboard for Christmas and I’ve been tinkering around on it the past week. Making music, regardless of how crappy it sounds, has made me very happy. So I want to re-learn how to play the piano.
It’s New Years Eve, December 31st, time to reflect on 2005.
As far as the state of the world and the nation, 2005 sucked. It really did. It started out with the horrifying Tsunamis in Asia. That pretty much set the tone for the year. Then there was the Terri Schiavo fiasco. It was truly terrifying, to me, that Congress got involved in what should have been a private matter between family members. It amplified my distrust of the Bush Administration and his neocon minions in Congress. I was utterly appalled when Bush virtually IGNORED the Hurricane Katrina Victims in September for FIVE DAYS. Five, freaking days. I still get pissed thinking about it. There are pictures of dead, bloated bodies floating around what used to be the beautiful American city of New Orleans right on my television. And it takes the Bush Admin FIVE DAYS to tour the site of the devastation. We should all STILL be outraged.
However, the last three months I have seen some hope, politically. The indictments of neocons such as DeLay and “Scooter Libby” have been a start. I will be really happy when I see Bush’s Brain go down in flames. And I don’t even feel bad saying it. The man deserves it.
I think part of what made me want to move back to Spokane, and back to my family, is the hopelessness that began to creep in November of 2004 (when Bush won the election). I just felt the need to be close to my family. Well, and the horrible economy played a huge role, as well. The cost of living in the Bay area just became too much for us so we really needed to move. The American Dream does not exist in the Bay Area anymore. At least for people who don’t want to work 100 hours a week. And then, what’s the point? Working that much doesn’t give you a chance to enjoy the things that are important in life. So we really had no choice, even though we loved living there and miss it very much.
I was very happy and very lucky to get the job I have now as a Youth Services Librarian at Spokane Public Library. That was definitely the best thing that happened to me this year. I finally have a job that I love and that I look forward to. I love working with children and sometimes I can’t believe I get paid for what I’m doing. I also really like being a public librarian. I feel like I have found my professional niche.
I also really love living close to my family. That has been a very good thing. I’ve been able to spend lots of time with my mom and I really have enjoyed it. I feel very secure knowing that my family is so close.
The city of Spokane has much to be desired. Living here for four months has reminded me why I moved away in the first place. I just hope that I can soon gain a little more city pride. I am really ready to settle in somewhere so I just need to figure out how to like this city. Maybe I will feel better this summer when I can get outside more. If you think about it, though, I moved here from Santa Cruz, CA. I think any city is going to suck compared to Santa Cruz. It’s hard to get used to the more conservative attitude in Spokane, for one thing. For example, when I go into this little natural food store down the street called Huckleberries I expect to be shopping among old and young hippie-types. Not the case. Instead, the people that shop there are uptight and rather snobby. Even the liberals here are not very liberal, by Santa Cruz standards. So it’s been really hard to get used to.
Well, enough of my bitching about 2005. I would say something like, “let’s hope 2006 is a better year,” but I’m not. I think I am going to just go with the flow. I’m not going to have any expectations. I think that I need to realize that this is where I’m at right now and I need to be happy with it.
I do have a few goals for next year, which I will post tomorrow.
