I could have a snake?

Wimps

2006-06-02T00:08:00.000-05:00

This morning, a few of my co-workers were complaining about the high humidity here in the Bay Area. I laughed so hard that they started exchanging furtive glances. Little do you know, my pretties.

Tra la la

2006-05-30T23:33:00.000-05:00

Here are a few pics taken on my road trip out west. Felix is the artiste responsible.

Fun things that have happened

2006-05-26T22:29:00.000-05:00

1. I joined this CSA and look forward to a delicious surprise box of produce every week now.

2. I read one of the best YA novels ever: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. Go read it right now if you think it would be fun to read a book about two kids that meet at a punk show and spend the night together, narrated alternately by the boy and the girl.

3. I joined KQED and one of my prizes is a coupon for a free half-pound of Starbucks coffee. Does anyone want it? I'm not a coffee drinker unless said coffee is brewed for me by someone else and then served to me over ice with soy milk, chocolate syrup and a bendy straw. First person to send me their mailing address at daisers at gmail dot com gets it.

4. I want to keep the details secret for now, but I'm going to guest-write an upcoming column about books in a library-industry journal. I'm nearly peeing my pants with delight.

Okay, okay

2006-05-20T23:42:00.000-05:00

Some interesting things that have happened in the last three weeks:

1. I moved to Northern California and started my new job. I love it, to tell you the truth. I get to weed the juvenile and young adult fiction as well as the picture books, and I'm starting a new storytime for one-year-olds (12 to 23 months only). And I'm on the desk less often than in New Orleans, and it's reference only! No checkouts, no making library cards, no telling anyone they have fines. Totally awesome.

2. Dishdash -- totally the best restaurant ever. I went with Becky, Rae, Felix and Claire and had the zahra. Felix ordered that and I ordered the sambusak and we shared, and I would never have guessed that I'd prefer cauliflower in yogurt sauce to spinach cheese pie, but yeah, that's how good the zahra is.

3. Posing naked for pictures in the Utah salt flats.

4. Taking Susie to the beach in Santa Cruz. She loved it so much that she can never, ever go back. I would actually go so far as to say I will almost certainly never bring her to a beach again for the rest of our lives.

5. The coffeeshop in my library...well. First, there is a coffeeshop in my library. Second, all the sandwiches are named after books. My favorite is the Tuck Everlasting. Also, sometimes I run into Becky there. Well, only once so far.

6. My cute little studio apartment with big fancy hotel-esque bathroom (sink and dressing table on the outside, tub and toilet on the inside). The complex is posher than the lifestyle to which I am accustomed: it has three pools and a giant hot tub and a tennis pro that gives free lessons to beginners, and a gym and a billiard room and continental breakfast on Sundays.

7. The local public radio station. I joined last week and they're sending me a messenger bag and a one-year subscription to the New York Review of Books. Awesome. And This American Life is about to start....I better go.

Special guest post

2006-04-27T10:00:00.000-05:00

I'm moving 2100 miles away in two days and can't write shit. But here is a press release from Matt M. about a new drink invented by his man. Matt says that this is an important contribution to the cocktail canon.

"Want a pop pop fizzy pop confection? Try a Parker Posey. Pour San Pellegrino over bourbon and snap crackle pop you've got a sparkly Southerner with fizziness!"

This is broken

2006-04-24T13:47:00.000-05:00

I can't submit this to Mark Hurst's site because I don't have a photo or screenshot, but I did have a broken experience at Office Depot yesterday.

I went in to ship a bunch of packages via UPS. Most of them were to my new home in California, but one was to the little girls I used to babysit in New Orleans. I'd bought them the latest Lola and Charlie book, But Excuse Me That Is My Book, because they'd loved I Am Not Sleepy and I Will Not Go to Bed, I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato, and I Am Too Absolutely Small for School when I lived near them.

So the way shipping works is that you bring your packages to the counter and use a self-service computer for the first half of your transaction, filling out an online form that asks for your address, the recipient's address, and a couple of other questions about the package including whether you packed it yourself and what the contents are. So in the "contents" field for this particular box, I typed "book." To my surprise, I got an error message that read something like, "You must list contents of five characters or more." Huh? Why? I changed it to "a book" and that worked, but: why?

Lowdown

2006-04-21T10:34:00.000-05:00

I was going to write a long post describing each day of my trip to New York, but I can't be arsed. I'm moving! to California! in eight days! So instead I will merely list a few highlights.

The poached pear I had for dessert at Dervish

Eating Herb Crusted Warm Goat Cheese Salad and shopping at Toys in Babeland with Nadia (who describes our day more fully here).

The cutest boy ever who's also almost the best songwriter ever concert

Raspberry Parfait at Tavern on the Green

My new sparkly pink I heart New York t-shirt

Champagne and blue cheese fondue on radish slices at Home, which also happens to serve the best mac and cheese I've ever had

Drinks at the Rainbow Grill. $22 for a Sapphire and tonic, but it was ten ounces of gin on the rocks and a separate bottle of tonic. They also serve the best mozzarella (buffalo milk, I think) that I've ever tried.

Too bad, so sad

2006-04-19T10:17:00.000-05:00

I just got a flat-screen monitor to replace my gigantic, impossible seventeen-incher, and the cats totally cannot get used to it. The top of the monitor is their favorite napping spot when I'm using the computer, and they keep making pathetic leaps on top of this one and then falling into the keyboard.

Lunch

2006-04-05T14:40:00.000-05:00

Today I went to lunch at a little Vietnamese-Chinese restaurant in the shopping district of town. It's a popular spot and is always crowded, and it has a gay little name that is too embarrassing to say aloud. It's located right across the street from where I get my car's oil changed, so I've been there twice before while I waited for my vehicle to be serviced. I think I was there in February and maybe December.

Today I ordered the vegetable pot stickers, as usual (they're delicious) but decided to go with fresh spring rolls instead of fried egg rolls. When the spring rolls arrived, however, they were unappealing; they looked raw, and they were huge, like hot-dog-bun size, with stretchy white human-like skin over some not-very-tasty-looking vegetables. I'm used to spring rolls having a thick wrapper and arriving sliced with sweet-and-sour or plum sauce. These came with a wicked-looking, thick, dark pungent paste. I took one bite to confirm my suspicions and then put the spring roll down. I ate up my pot stickers, which was plenty of food, and prepared to leave.

I put a tip on the table, and then headed for the register to pay. (One is not brought a check at...wait for it...B_e_a 's W0k n'R0ll.) The owner/waitress/jill-of-all-trades hurried past me with a tray for the table next to the one at which I'd been sitting. When she returned to the register to ring me up, she regarded me with great suspicion.

B: You not eat your spring rolls.

Me: Well, no, I didn't really care for them.

B: You had them before. You eat them then.

Me: No, I haven't tried them before. I've had the egg rolls, but not the spring rolls.

B: Everybody else like them!

Me: I'm sorry. They just weren't for me.

B: You always like pot stickers. Next time I only give you pot stickers.

Me: ...Or perhaps I'll order some egg rolls.

B: Okay, okay. Sorry, sorry.

The question here is: how does this proprietress of a very popular restaurant remember someone that's been there only twice before, and months earlier? Not only did she remember my face, but exactly what I ordered and whether I liked it. The hell?

Look how cute

2006-03-31T10:06:00.000-06:00

I'm about to become a California girl again, you see, and I don't think I've owned a bathing suit since I last lived there. So I just ordered this one:

Have I mentioned that my new house has a pool?

Moving

2006-03-30T20:40:00.000-06:00

So whenever someone finds out that I got a job in California, they come up to congratulate me, which is very kind, of course. But then they ruin it by acting as though I'm a complete idiot. The conversations tend to go like this:

Person: Hey, congratulations on your new job!

Me: Thanks! I'm really excited about it.

Person: So, what's the job like? Tell me more.

Me: Well, I'm going to be the acting manager of a public library branch right near a high school.

Person: Cool. Does it pay any more than what you made in New Orleans?

Me: Yeah, a lot more....like actually literally twice as much.

Person: Well, you know, it's not really as much as you might think. The cost of living in the Bay Area is really high.

Okay, I FUCKING KNOW THAT. Does every human ever born think I'm a royal idiot? EVERYONE knows that it's expensive to live there, for one thing, and plus why wouldn't I research that before accepting the job? Plus...and this is the best...I'm only going to pay $500 in rent, and no utilities. Fuck you, condescenders!

And then, as if that's not enough, they always say, "Better pack some shorts! It's really hot in California."

Yeah. Have they ever been to Northern California? Apparently not. It's bloody freezing half the time, and gorgeous the rest. I'm not moving to Death Valley, retards.

Way to end my ref desk shift

2006-03-29T09:37:00.000-06:00

At 8:58 last night, when I was just about to close up the reference desk for the night after dealing with a particularly imbecilic stream of students that had somehow been admitted to college without having ever used a library catalog, I got this phone call.

Me: Reference desk.

Girl: Hi, I have a question.

Me: Go ahead.

Girl: Do you have the book Nine Lives?

Me: Let me see.....Yeah, we do.

Girl: Sweet! Can I come and get it?

Me: Let's see.....oops, it looks like our copy is missing. But if you want, you can get it from a different library via interlibrary loan. It looks like nine other schools have it.

Girl: Can I do it from home?

Me: Yeah, just go to the catalog, search for the book, and when it tells you it's missing, it'll say "Click here to search the I-Share catalog." Just do that and then click on "Request" and put in your social security number.

Girl: That is so hot! (then to a friend on her end) Tracy, did you know you could get books from other schools?

Me: Okay, well, you have a good night.

Girl: Wait, I have another question.

Me: Go ahead.

Girl: How many books can I check out at one time?

Me: As many as you want.

Girl: Are you frickin serious!?

Me: I am indeed frickin serious. You just have to be able to carry them out the door yourself.

Girl: Ha ha! Tracy, she says you just have to carry them yourself! This library is awesome. Thank you so much.

Me: Good night.

Wow

2006-03-27T12:07:00.000-06:00

I'm totally moving to Northern California on April 29. I've accepted a job as acting manager of a branch library right near a high school. Craziness. I'll be living with Becky at least at first, and, apparently, eating a lot with *rae*, who has emailed me the following:

I can't wait to take you out to my favorite restaurants! Theres a brand new *24 hour* Indian resturant just perfect for after concerts, and my favorite diner, and zunis for cake, and all the vegetarian (i'm back on the wagon) places for fake meat and the veggie chinese resturants (there are a ton), and the place with the neat loaf (its so good -- its like meatloaf but its made with cheese and grains and you would fucking love it, but its run by a cult! a cult!) and theres this place i keep trying to go to with fake fish and theres this amazing sushi place with avoacado tempura and vegetarian unagi for rock and rolls, and boogaloos has the best best breakfast with vegetarian herb gravy on biscuits (though the pork store has one with vegetarian biscuits and gravy where theres all these crazy veggies in the gravy like zucchini), and el metate right near my house has the best nachos with seasonal vegetables and they pile them so fucking high.... god, i wish my favorite bar just didn't transform into shit, but i can take you to the lex and we can get our queer on! its dyke bar tastic. they have free pool on mondays and dollar pbr. i'll watch you play with the cute girls, cause we all know that i can't play. i have monday nights off! whoo. mmm, and maggie mudds for ice cream -- they just started making some with liquor in them that i'm dying to try, with a coconut milk base. strawberry tequilla and double rum raisin. its right across from another bar that i think you would like, wild side west. vegan pumpin ice cream and a hot toddy <3 ...i forgot to mention the vegetarian japanese place that is opening on valencia, the vegetarian homestyle place in bernal (by the ice cream parlor), the places with vegetarian cheese steak (oh my god yum), the fact that my favorite diner has fake chicken on the menu, any of the vegetarian diners (there are 2 in the city), the vegetarian indian place, the place by my house with the wonderful veggie chilli cheese fries, the three dollar chatt on valencia at the indian ice cream parlor (fig! rose! pistachio saffron!), or the two dollar tofu vietnamese sandwiches in the tenderloin...

Blargh

2006-03-25T19:28:00.000-06:00

I had the whole weekend to work on fact-checking a book about Costa Rica, but now I have another fucking cold. I just had one three weeks ago. I totally do not deserve this. I'm doing all I can to fight it -- I just took zinc and Vitamin C, washing them down with echinacea tea and tomato soup -- but I'm still pissed.

Not least because I can't find anything decent to read. I finished rereading The Kitchen God's Wife today. It was fine, but Amy Tan just isn't as awesome as she seemed when I was in high school. So I picked up a book of photographs called New York Underground, thinking it might give me some ideas for things to see and do when I make my first trip to NYC in April, but it turns out it's....literally underground. Like, photos of abandoned subway stations and pipes an' shit. I thought it would be of tattoo parlors and SM clubs and all of that. Wrong. So then I tried Choir Boy, about a kid that tries to cut off his balls so he can stay in the children's choir forever, but it was too wacky. Next is Volume 1 of Strangers in Paradise, apparently a lesbian soap opera comic. It's really hard for me to read works presented graphically, though. I'll try it, and everything, but I have a hard time remembering which character is which when I have to recognize them by their faces, and I have to carefully search each picture for plot clues instead of just reading the words, and ugh. We'll see.

In the meantime, shameless has tagged me for a short quiz, so here we go.

Guilt	What is yours?	Explain yourself
Culinary:	Home Run Inn pizza	Way better than anything you can get delivered; delicious buttery crust, tangy sauce, just the right amount of cheese. I don't even bother getting the vegetable kind or the new plum tomato version; it's solely junk food
Literary:	true crime	I love reading about real-life murders in a format that never varies. First some innocent person finds the body, and all the cops rush to the scene and we get to know each one as they climb out of bed at 5am, kiss their wives goodbye, and begin a years-long investigation. Then we learn the background of the sweet virginal dead girl, and then there are red herrings until the killer is caught. Then we have the trial, sentencing, and a a "where are they now?" about the investigators, witnesses, etc.
Audiovisual:	sitcom reruns	When I watch TV, it's usually in a hotel room where a stereo is not provided, and I'm all alone and I want something comforting from my childhood. The best ones are Roseanne, Perfect Strangers, Facts of Life, and others from the mid- to late eighties
Musical:	Jesus Christ Superstar	I know this didn't mean "musical" in that sense, but this is where the breakdown of my otherwise impeccable taste happens. I worked nehind the scenes on a high school production of JCS and have loved it ever since. The CD never gets old
Celebrity:	Britney Spears	She's totally fascinating for some reason. I love the weight gain, the "Pimp" jackets at the wedding, the Go Fug Yourself fake letters, everything

Needs no annotation

2006-03-22T16:01:00.000-06:00

In Thornton W. Burgess's 1915 work The Adventures of Sammy Jay, Chapter VI is entitled, "Black Pussy Almost Catches a Good Breakfast."

Hate: a double posting

2006-03-22T13:57:00.000-06:00

1. Whenever the local public library leaves me a voice mail message telling me that I have a book or CD ready for pickup, they always say, "You must bring in your library card to check out these items." Uh duh. And there's no way to get them NOT to call you when a book is in. There's no such option. You must just accept their repeated calls...yes, repeated. If three books come in on the same day, you will get three different voice mails.

2. I went home for lunch and while I was there, the doorbell rang. I stepped out the door of my apartment and the guy across the hall was just doing the same thing. "Did someone ring your bell?" I asked. Dude said yes. "Well, we'll see who it's for," I said, KNOWING. We went down to the building door and he let in a friend of his. "Did you just ring the bell for number six?" I asked him. "Uh, yeah, sorry," he said. I truly do not understand this phenomenon. I really don't.

Actual conversation

2006-03-22T09:20:00.000-06:00

So it's 12:42 last night and I've just finished a manic bout of housecleaning while trying to decide whether I'm going to move to northern California or Madison, Wisconsin. I make a cup of tea and turn off the motivational Le Tigre I've been playing at a reasonable volume, and as I settle into my armchair with a book, I become aware that rap music with the bass turned all the way up is blaring from the apartment beneath me at an incredible volume, considering the hour. I stand up, stomp on the floor a few times, and sit down again. The music immediately becomes much quieter. Score.

Three minutes later, there's a knock on the door. Susie springs into action, threatening to dismember the person on the other side. I sigh, not really wanting a confrontation at this hour, even one in which I am clearly in the right. I throw on a bathrobe and open the door. A guy in his twenties, who I assume lives in the apartment below me, is cowering around a corner, clearly terrified of Susie. I give him my biggest, phoniest smile.

Me: Hi there.

Him: I just wanted to apologize.

Me: Oh, hey, no problem at all. Thanks for turning it down.

Him: Yeah, you know, I respect a little foot-stomping way more than I respect...(He makes the universal telephone gesture. I guess I look confused.)...calling the police, you know?

Me: Oh, yeah, totally.

Him: So, it's nice to meet you. What's your name?

Me: Daisy. You?

Him: Marcus. Nice to meet you.

Me: You too. I begin to employ conversation-closing body language, such as putting my hand on the doorknob.

Him: So, you just chillin up here or what?

Me: I'm reading a book.

Him: A book?

Me: ....Yes.

Him: What's the name of it?

Me: It's called 26a. It's about these twins that live in England.

Him, in apparent delight: Check YOU out!

Me: Yeah, I'm a librarian. I read a lot.

Him: Well, Daisy, you mind if I come upstairs some time and read with you?

Me: ....I, you know, I...usually read alone.

Him: I see. It just ain't that kind of party.

Me: ....Yeah, I guess not.

Him: Well, you have a good night.

Me: You too. (I close and lock the door.)

This is not the first time I have been hit on in my own home by a stranger standing outside of it. Two blogs ago, I reported the tale of the man that stood in his backyard yelling propositions through my kitchen window. Now, either this sort of thing happens to people all the time, or I am a particularly gorgeous individual -- which we should not rule out -- but last night I was wearing a bathrobe, and not a sexy one, either. A big giant bright-red bulky terrycloth one. And my hair was scraped back off my head with an Alice band, revealing my freshly-scrubbed, makeup-free face. I'm just saying.

A little too casual

2006-03-19T18:54:00.000-06:00

I'm working the reference desk tonight and am actually wearing sweatpants with Adidas stripes down the side as well as sneakers with no socks. I didn't mean to, but I was in Champaign this weekend, and I didn't leave to drive back until 1pm, which should have been okay since I was on the desk at five, but then I got so tired I had to pull over and take a nap in a gas station parking lot, and then when I woke up I had to drive like hell to get back to Crappy Small Town and drop off Susie in my apartment and then fling myself back into the car and get to work. So I totally didn't have time to change. And I never wear sneakers without socks, but I forgot to pack socks, so I only had the pair I wore to work on Friday, and while it would have been fine with me to wear dirty socks rather than no socks at all, I somehow lost one in the depths of Felix's apartment. So yeah.

It was a good weekend, though. I went down there to take three introductory lessons in the Alexander Technique, and I thought it was pretty cool. I also went to the gym, the tea shop, and the natural foods store; watched some Season 7 Buffys and discovered the joys of Strong Bad; got laid a few times; and ate like a piglet at three of the world's finest restaurants. Yes.

On Friday night, I went to the best restaurant ever: Sushi County. The atmosphere is sort of like the waiting room at the DMV, but the food and prices are worth it, and I usually go there after the gym so am sweaty and clad in sporting attire. They have vegetable tempura maki, a gigantic eight-piece inside-out roll that costs $7.95 and is the only thing you need to buy, since....wait for it....their delicious miso soup is free and unlimited. There's a giant crock of it on the counter, and you just go up and refill your bowl millions of times while you wait for your sushi. I left with a (very) full stomach, and my bill including tax was less than $9. You don't even tip because you order at the counter and bus your own table.

On Saturday night, I went to the best restaurant ever: Fiesta Café. Their chips are only mediocre, but the problems end there. Their refried beans and Mexican rice are both vegetarian despite the fact that the rest of their food is authentic as fuck. The cheese enchilada dinner is $7.95 and is more food than it's possible to eat in one sitting, and the cheese and sauce are perfectly tangy. They have a very mild pico de gallo, heavy on the tomatoes, that I just love, and the margarita special was a $4.95 gobletful made with Cuervo 1800.

And this morning, I went to the best restaurant ever: Radio Maria. This is probably actually the best, in the conventional sense, restaurant in Champaign. Some might vote for Silver Creek or Timpone's, but I can't agree. Radio Maria has Caribbean/Latin fusion (roughly; it varies) and lots of vegetarian options. It's all fancy and with delicious herbs and spices and exquisitely prepared. Today I enjoyed the Torta Maria, tortillas filled with sweet potatoes and white cheese in a tomato sauce. Others in my party had lamb skewers, coconut-lime grouper, and two versions (vegetarian and meat) of the masa boat, a Radio Maria specialty. It's a cornmeal boatlike thingy filled with, oh, I don't know -- vegetables, feta, chorizo, tomatoes, black beans, sauce, etc. Yum. Oh, and I got us a big slab of the world's best coffee cake to split.

Overheard at the gym

2006-03-15T18:46:00.000-06:00

"Danielle crazy. She think EVERY SINGLE PERSON shoot off guns on New Year's."

Happy birthday....

2006-03-15T11:02:00.000-06:00

....to Bret Michaels, Diabetic.

And on that note

2006-03-15T10:59:00.000-06:00

The Society for Librarians Who Say "Motherfucker"

The further adventures of life in my apartment building

2006-03-14T09:37:00.000-06:00

Yesterday afternoon I was a little hung over after several beers with shameless at a local bar -- my very first visit to any bar in this town, some of you will be surprised to hear. Anyway, I was really tired and decided to go home early from work and take a nap since I had to fact-check an entire biography of Aristotle before this morning.

I pulled into the parking lot of my building and, as has happened myriad times before, there was a car parked in my spot. I was instantly pissed off. All I wanted to do was put on my fuzzy pink pajamas and crawl into bed, and I couldn't because of some fucker clearly disregarding the "Tow Risk" signs all over the lot as well as the obviously individually numbered space.

I parked in the fire lane and called the property manager, who asked for the car's make, model and plate number and then said he'd have it towed. I left my car illegally parked with the hazard lights on and headed toward my building. As I neared the door, I spied a kid I didn't recognize out of the corner of my eye....jogging toward my parking space.

Me: Is that your car?

Kid: Yeah.

Me: What the fuck are you doing parked in my space?

Kid: I was getting a haircut.

Me, ignoring this bizarre statement: Why the fuck are you in my space, asshole?

Kid: Don't be coming over here cursing at me.

Me: Don't be parking in my space!

Kid, looking me in the eye and then spitting on the ground just where I'd have to stand to unlock my car, were it parked where it belonged: You better move.

Me: I'd better do what?

Kid: If you want me to move my car, you'd better move out my way.

Me: I'm not in your fucking way, motherfucker.

I did take a step back, though, and allowed him to exit the lot. Then I called the property manager back and explained what had happened. He promised to trace the license plate and get a no-trespass order (whatever that means) on the kid, but I'm not really holding my breath. Asshole. Get your hair cut at a barber, genius.