Example of my profession

Last week, I attended the winter portion of my professional association's annual meetings. It is less focused on programs than meetings. I attended a three hour budget meeting. Boring? Not as much as you would think. The best part was when the crazy aspect of my profession entered the meeting in the last half hour.

Chair: Well, it looks like we are going to wrap up early

Me (all comments attributed to me were just said to myself): Weee! I get to meet my friends early for martinis!

Librarian #1 (who has the best posture of any human being): I would like to make a request.

Table quiets.

Librarian #1: I would like to ask the chair to number the documents in a way that makes it easier for the committee members to follow along. (As he speaks, he takes out a piece of paper from his binder and holds it up to the group).

Me: Wow, he has a binder. I just have a folder with stapled documents. Wait, what he is talking about? There are file names on the Excel spreadsheets and headers on the Word documents. My head hurts.

Librarian #1: I have been lost throughout this meeting as we refer to documents.

Me: Huh, really? And, you wait until the end of the meeting until we bring this up? Is this why you were checking your iPhone? Were you trying to reach other librarians to help you with this document situation?

Librarian #1: Could we have them labeled with the abbreviation for the committee, MW for Midwinter meeting, and then a document number?

Me: So stunned that my brain is no longer speaking to me.

Librarian #2: I suppose that is possible. We could also take the agenda and put the document number next to the related agenda item.

Murmurs of agreement at the table.

Me (again just to myself): Really? You can't just organize the documents in the order of the agenda because it isn't rocket science to figure everything out since they all have file names???

Librarian #1 (in the most serious tone): That would be much appreciated.

Me (outloud): But, would you number them 1 or 01?

More murmuring at the table.

Me (back to myself): Couldn't resist, could you? You just wanted to hold off that chocolate martini to get everyone all riled up again. Are you happy now?

Chair: Meeting adjourned.

Me, almost a week later: I can't really believe that happened at a professional meeting. His indignation at the document names! Seriously?

Speaking of places

This site reminds me of some more Chicago places.

Roeser's Bakery: this bakery is on a stretch of North Avenue that signaled to me that I was heading into a different stretch of Chicago. For nine months, I lived in a rough neighborhood of Chicago --- West Humboldt Park. I could probably write several posts about my living experience. This bakery breaks through class and racial barriers in the customers it serves.

Schuba's: The Schlitz sign is not the thing I love about this building. I love the old, terra-cotta Schlitz globe. Okay, I also love their Bloody Mary's.

Green Mill: One of the best venues in Chicago.

Place

Lately, I've been thinking about place --- where do I find comfort, what type of environment do I want to live in, and places that I miss. My brain keeps turning to Chicago since that is where I have lived the longest in my adult life. I miss wandering the city on days when I didn't feel so great. I could take an architecture tour and instantly lose myself in another time or in the details of a particular neighborhood. Belmont rocks staring out at Lake Michigan. Walking around the Cultural Center. Sitting at Salt & Pepper and eating some diner food. Even the place would change based on the time I lived in Chicago. Some of those locations probably weren't the healthiest since it involved drinking all day at Joe's on Broadway with neighborhood characters, such as the guy who would chew up his thumb. Mindless browsing of the used cd's at Reckless Records or the sale section at Unabridged Bookstore are all ways that I would shake whatever was going on.

Either I didn't live in Eugene long enough or there wasn't enough space for me to move around in but I had a hard time finding the same comforts. I would usually wander to High Street to read the paper, drink a pint and eat some tots in front of the fire. Or, I would drive around the countryside or the hills surrounding Eugene. The dog probably received longer walks as I stared at the buttes surrounding the town.

New Jersey? I definitely enjoyed driving to Weehawken and staring across the Hudson River at Manhattan. I could get a less impressive view from my neighborhood, but I usually needed to get out of my area. Walking around the West Village certainly helped. I would put together my own tours of neighborhoods by researching architectural, cultural and political history of a neighborhood mixed in with some food and drink. It usually wasn't a solitary event since I would drag Mary with me.

Portland. Definitely going to Powell's and wandering around for awhile. Yesterday, I tried to duplicate the comfort I felt from Salt & Pepper by going to Fuller's Coffeeshop for breakfast. It helped but it made me even more homesick for Chicago.

As I walked around Boston on my last morning in the city, I visited familiar places. It is what started the thought of place and what I need in my surroundings. I need history, interesting architecture, bookstores, an urban feel, bars with good beer on tap, and people I admire to fill those spaces.

Now for the movie thing

Now that I described my book thing, I should describe my weird movie thing. My movie watching habits are often mocked by certain people who shall not be named. Here is the situation --- I was adding a ton of movies to Netflix but never getting through my queue. At the same time, a meme went around on what movies people had seen from the list. I started thinking about the AFI's greatest movies list. I decided that I wanted to see all of the movies that I had missed from the Top 100, Top 400 nominated, and the Top 5 in each category. As a result, my Netflix queue kept growing.

Then I started reviewing lists of top movies from IMDB and Roger Ebert's greatest movies. I like Ebert's list because it has more variety since it includes foreign films. I started feeling overwhelmed.

I decided to organize my queue alphabetically. I started watching all of the "A" movies. After I was mocked for including leading articles, I had to quickly adjust my "A" list. Rather than moving along to "B" movies, I decided to mix it up by switching every other letter. I am now on the "C" movies. It is nice and random to watch some classic that I never watched, along with a recent release that I missed in the theater.

Here is what I wrote on Facebook after finishing the letter "A". I am probably halfway through letter C, but the mini-series on Chicago will throw things off.

Best movies: Atlantic City was my favorite. Burt Lancaster was perfect. I also really enjoyed All About Eve and All the President's Men.

Least favorite: A Clockwork Orange (yes, the leading article thing. Because of complaints from fellow librarians, I dropped leading articles after this movie). I couldn't finish watching it. I also didn't really like All that Jazz. Yes, I thought Roy Scheider was excellent, but I am not a huge fan of musicals. It did give me a great line that I now randomly drop into conversations - "It's showtime" as I do jazz hands.

Surprises: Around in the World in 80 days. I really didn't think I was going to like this movie, but I found it a lot of fun.

Other movies I watched:
Alien (one review I read talked about the stillness that is almost unheard of in today's action films. I couldn't agree more)
American Splendor
A Streetcar Named Desire (yes, leading article thing. I am embarrassed that I never saw this movie until now. Marlon Brando? Hot)
Annie Hall (for some reason, I had never seen this Allen movie before. I eventually grew into my tired-of-Woody phase, but I loved him in this movie)
Anatomy of a Murder
Awful Truth
Adam's Rib
All Quiet on the Western Front (the political implications when this movie was released...hard to imagine what would happen now)
An American in Paris (I love watching Gene Kelly dance)
The Apartment

2009 Reading

Before I bore you with an account of how I am completely OCD about my reading list, here are my top five reads of the year (in no particular order)

Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell -- How many people think it is strange that someone would laugh out loud at nearly every paragraph in a book about Puritans? If you say yes, you need to read Sarah Vowell.

State by State by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey --- following the WPA guides that were written during the Great Depression, Weiland and Wilsey asked 50 authors to write about a state. Some of the authors had never lived in the state they wrote about, and others were very enthusiastic, life-long residents. Writers include Carrie Brownstein, Anthony Bourdain, Joshua Ferris, Susan Orlean, Ha Jin, and Alison Bechdel. Terrific compilation.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - wow and wow. It tells the story of the Nigerian-Biafra war during the late 60s.

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore -- this is another book that made me laugh out loud. I bothered Mary a lot when I read this book because I loved how Moore described people and situations. My only disappointment with this book is how they handled the storyline of the main character's boyfriend. I've heard others were offended by Moore's treatment of Wisconsin residents. To me, it felt like I was reading about home and any liberal college town in the Midwest.

Last Campaign by Thurston Clarke - I almost chose another fiction work for my top 5 but this work really affected me. I read this account of Robert Kennedy's campaign for president shortly before Ted Kennedy died. Thanks Bon for this gift!

Other top books this year:

Fiction

The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears by Dinaw Menegestu

The Outlander by Gil Adamson

Crow Road by Iain Banks

The Complete Persepolis by Mirjane Satrapi

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

Non-Fiction

Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 - Lawrence Wright

The Worst Hard Time - Timothy Egan

Islamophobia - Peter Gottschalk

Worst Books:

My Father Frank Lloyd Wright - John Lloyd Wright

Now about the reading list:

Last year, I decided I was tired of not reading enough of my unread books. I felt I needed to create some order but also force myself to read things that have been sitting on my shelves for years. During 2009, I used two different methods of organizing my reading list. First, I have several areas of unread books --- I use LibraryThing for all of my books so I can easily sort by unread books. I use a WorldCat List for all of the books that I don't own but want to read (I have a list to add to the list). I started off with an alphabetical ordering by author's last name and title and then reversing it. The only exception to the alphabetical ordering was adding in titles from Powell's Indiespensable Book Club (best damn thing ever created).

Starting in late 2009, I decided to mix things up some more. I still make exceptions for Powell's books, but I pick a book from shelves or from pages of the WorldCat reading list. Think I am crazy yet? This will convince you.

Start with a Powell's book

Book from one shelf of a bookcase that is fiction

Book from one shelf of a bookcase that is non-fiction

Book from one page of the WorldCat list

Book from one shelf of a bookcase that is in my bedroom (these are usually new books I purchase and really don't want to wait too long to read)

Start over

OCD.

So long 2009

2009 wasn't a bad year. It wasn't a great year. It was just a good year. The worst part of the year was how it started and ended. I started the year mourning a co-worker who died over the holidays. I ended the year mourning the deaths of two former co-workers. Also, I saw friends of mine have to part with their animals as they passed away. Throughout the year, I was confronted with these reminders of mortality. I'm more mindful of time and relationships as I start 2010.

The best part of 2009 was reconnecting with friends and family. I have to thank Facebook for facilitating this process of reintroducing long lost friends. Whether it is friends from high school or college, I am pleased with the opportunity to reconnect and stay current with people. I've also become closer to family members who are at a great distance. A trip to Illinois this summer helped me reconnect with family, family friends and my best friend. Despite aggravating my general homesickness, I treasured the time spent in Freeport and Chicago. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see everyone I wanted because of the time of year with family vacations or I was trying to balance free time with a conference.

For financial reasons, I was unable to travel as much in 2009. I used some of my extra money to cover conference expenses in Denver and Chicago. I also spent quite a bit of time in Davis. I spent one week just sleeping and reading as Mary worked. We were able to spend a wonderful day with one of my aunts. We also went on our annual trip to Charleston, South Carolina. Not only is it one of my favorite cities, but it is also one of the best library conferences. The best trip in 2009 was spending time with 4 close friends on a Texas ranch. Tubing down a river with a cooler of beer was probably one of the most relaxing moments of 2009.

I started 2009 with many frustrations over my professional career. It wasn't until the late fall that I started to feel better about things. I've always relied on my professional network to help me through difficulties on my local level. It was the same thing this year as I really struggled with morale. Things are settling down and I'm working on some interesting projects.

I am healthy. I keep working through medication issues but I have nothing to complain about. Elston is fine even as her whiskers grow a little whiter and she needs help jumping up on things.

I don't really remember my 2009 resolutions except the one that I would figure things out. Ha. My main 2010 resolution is to try and do a better job of keeping in touch with people. I am horrible with maintaining communication. I also want to do a better job of sustaining my Portland community of friends as I try to figure out where 2010 will take me.