Vicki's Prague Blague/Chicago Blago

Cool, man...

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:54:04 GMT

There are about 80 zillion summer festivals in Chicago every year. That goes from the first breathings of spring all the way to fall, and this year I hardly went to any. In fact, I hardly ever do. But today Jess and I went to Jazz Fest, just for a little bit. It was lovely. Not hot at all, with a breeze off of the lake right behind the stage we were at, and an audience full of the most random collection of people ever. Every race, age, kind of clothing. It was sort of awesome. And with the city looking so pretty and everybody in such a good mood, it makes me think: why would I ever want to leave here?

But sometimes I do. If my parents sell their house here (that won't happen for a good long while now), and move out of state, I'll feel like an orphan. Even if I'm not living here myself. Sort of selfish, but true.

Anyhow. It was a pretty day. The light's starting to change to autumn light, and it's just a good feeling.

You shall never be supplanted...

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 05:00:49 GMT

Tonight I told Mandie that I thought that FB had supplanted LJ. Not in coolness. Just in how much time I have to check stuff.

New job is okay. Lots of tension there because the women who were already there before Lindsey showed up have been there for about 8 to 20 years, and are pretty much just phoning it in until they can retire. It's a job for them, not a profession. Boy. They did not respond well to me and my young, virile ideas. They especially didn't like it when the kids started to like me. So, it was weird for a while. We had a majorly shitty week last week, and yeah. It was bad. We seemed to have worked things out with the people I have to work directly with, and while I don't trust any of them any further than I can throw them, it's at least no longer a hostile environment. So that's something. I miss some things about my old place, but what this place lacks in modern technology (they still use Corel Word Perfect) and basic innovation (why wouldn't teenagers like watching the movie "Aladdin"? That's a cool flick for the teeny boppers, right?), they make up for in other ways. Pay's better, nobody brings guns into the library (that I know of) and I haven't been called a bitch by an outraged preteen yet. Well, to my face, while they run screaming out of the library after I tell them they can't hit other patrons.

Sigh. If anybody wants an idea for a TV show, I have one. A reality TV dramedy set in a library. There are a lot of feelings there.

It's cool and rainy here right now. Sweater weather. I'm thinking of apple picking in Michigan this September. Don't you love that smell? You know the one I'm talking about. Apples in a bushel on a brisk day. Then a bigass 32 egg omelet at the Country Kitchen afterward.

Ah, youth...

Gotta go to bed now.

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:10:06 GMT

Sometimes I wonder what I would need to make myself happy. I read somewhere that Gen Xers tend to think happiness is their birthright. Is that good or is that bad? But whatever it is, maybe it's not doable. I have moments of happiness mixed in with general contentment. I have moments of unhappiness mixed in with general contentment. I tend to get by on a steady of nostalgia and yearning. I think that's generally what gets me in trouble. Sometimes I think my heart doesn't work properly, because I think about love, and I sometimes want it, but when I really think about it, I think I need a protective moat around me, just a very very slight one, filled with that Dr. Scholls' foot pad gel stuff. I can't stand people all up in my space. I hate it. And it seems like you can't just broker a relationship where you step into that comfortable space and silence right away. But maybe that's not true. The second I think it isn't true, the moment I almost certainly believe it is.

I just read Mandie's journal. It's making me feel alternately very sober and very flighty. As in my heart feels like it's flying around.

Oh, so much to do now.

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 04:42:01 GMT

So, the new job seems okay. There is a LOT to do. The library has lots of money, but they exist in this weird-ass vacuum. Our department's got the crappiest cataloging, the most ridiculous organization, and hasn't been updated in about a zillion different ways. For example: the computers still have Corel Word Perfect on them. The email they use doesn't allow for the opening of attachments. Makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

But I'll learn a lot. And I'll get to do a lot. So, despite the resistance that I think exists on the part of something like 60% of the people in that department, I think it's a good thing. I'll make it one.

In other news, I'm the last of my friends in my immediate circle of friends to be single. The single state doesn't really bother me. But I feel like there's an unspoken shift now. Maybe I'm imagining it...I sort of don't think I am.

Part wolf. (Warning -- graphic rabbit content follows)

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:53:03 GMT

I like to think I'm not so bad with nature. Generally speaking, I think I could survive for at least a little while out there in the wilderness, provided there were no serial killers or crazed bears stalking me. But today, our Rudy gave me pause. We have a garden alongside our fence, and it's pretty overgrown -- there's a big fat hydrangea bush there, along with tons of daylilies, and peonies, and bleeding hearts -- all things that grow up very densely. And it's our belief that there's a family of rabbits who have created a warren there. (Not a Mandie Warren, but almost as good.)

When I was in Prague, Rudy apparently went on a killing spree and got a litter of baby bunnies before we could get to him to stop. I say we, even though I was many many miles away. The Royal Rakowski We, I guess. We try to keep an eye on him, but...

So today I called him in, and he wouldn't come up the stairs. I called a few more times, and then he picks something up (hardly a surprise, as he enjoys bringing his treasures in and out of the house -- rawhide bones marinated in the garden for a few days), and trots up the stairs. And I see that it's not a toy, but a little bunny. And it's dead. And I run in the house ahead of him, hollering.

We wound up putting a bucket over the poor thing until my father got home to deal with it. I feel bad for that bunny. They're taking a risk living in our yard -- we have the best yard for wildlife on the block, I'd wager. The most plants and vegetables, along with plenty of good places to hide. There's sweet grass growing alongside the tomatoes, because it springs up faster than we can weed it. There's plenty of exit strategies, too. But there's Rudy and Lou, fearless defenders of the joint.

I hollered, and I wouldn't let Rudy put his face near mine, and truth be told, I think I offended him. I guess I can't handle nature as well as I like to think I could. The other day I was on campus and a particular aggressive squirrel didn't move as I walked by him, but rather came moving toward me, and I freaked out, and I opened my umbrella at him and screeched. While some undergrad kid was watching me. Such is life, I suppose. Now Rudy's laying on my bed, looking at me reproachfully. I have to remember that sometimes dogs will remember their roots.

He looks so innocent...

I got the fever.

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:26:48 GMT

UGH. Summer colds can go to hell. I have a fever, and I can't stop sniffling, or just outright blowing my schnoze. My mother actually walked into the room and said, "Oh, is the circus in town?" That's cold, Mom. That is COLD.

I can't wait for this semester to be over, which will be on Wednesday. Today something so uncomfortable happened in class that the instructor felt compelled to send out an email to the class, asking everybody to remember that we were in a classroom, and that we all had to dial it down a little. Here's what happened. This is a storytelling class, see, and so we work on all kinds of materials and programs. This week we've been doing personal stories and this really bizarre girl gets up and she tells a story about back when she was a student patroller at college, and it was Mother's Day weekend, and she got called to investigate this van from which there was all kind of noise and giggling. Know what the punchline of the story was? These two guys decided to celebrate Mother's Day by "banging" each other's mothers. Everybody sort of let out a noise of shock, and it was insanely awkward. Yeah, inappropriate.

But you know what surprised me? How shocked I personally felt. Sometimes I think I might be kind of a prude. Well, no. Not a prude, but rudeness really bugs me. I guess that includes social niceties and decorum.

Tomorrow's class is gonna be weird.

The fork has been stuck all up in that piece.

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:02:55 GMT

So, yesterday was my last day at my library, and on Thursday, I start my new gig at another. I'm pretty happy about it, to be honest. Pretty relieved. The old job was getting to be a grand drag -- routinely being dismissed by my new boss, condescended to, and just generally intercepting her hostility was actually less fun than it sounds. I sort of struggled with what to say at my exit interview, with whether or not to say something, and I did wind up doing so. Maybe that will come back to bite me in the ass, but I tried to say it in a tactful way, in a constructive way, and hopefully it will make life better for the people I'm leaving behind. I don't think I'm imagining how bad it got. And I know that every single person in that department feels discouraged. So, I don't know. I just hope saying the things I said means that it will get better.

I just want to do everything. I want to try to make a name for myself in this field, and that sort of surprises me. Sometimes I feel like I gave up on that vision of the future I had for myself back in Kalamazoo. I don't know what I thought I would do -- be a college teacher, be a publishing writer. I'm not saying the publishing writer thing can't happen. I still write, but I think I've let go of that old image of what that means. And it's made room for all this new stuff. I like being an advocate for literacy. I like finding the best book for a person's taste, situation and needs. I like forwarding the cause of the book. This has been sort of a lucky accident, finding this path.

So, I gotta go to class right now. Storytelling class. It's as fun as it sounds.

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 05:28:24 GMT

So, I haven't been super-posty lately. Things have been kind of nuts, and I don't know. I had things to say, but, yeah.

I'm switching jobs. My old boss hired me at her new library, and I'm really excited. My current boss (at the library I'm about to leave) has been treating me like crap pretty much ever since she took over. I can't figure out why. I can't figure out if she's bi-polar, stupid, or threatened. But whatever she is, I have absolutely no reason to put up with it. The truth is, I feel like she's been trying to push me out. I get the sense that no matter what her issue is, she simply doesn't like me. So at my new place, I'll be working with somebody who respects my ideas, my time, my efforts, and teaches me a lot about the profession in a way that urges me to be creative. So, I'm pretty psyched.

Monday's my last day at my current place. I've been saying good-bye to patrons all week, and I know some folks will come in on Monday. I feel like I'm going to be missed, and that makes me feel like I did a good job while I was there. No matter what hell happened to make things so messy for me there, I can feel proud of that.

On Monday, I have my exit chat. I don't know what to say. The director is generally not great at listening to what his employees say. And I don't want it to backfire on me. The library world is very small. But on the off chance that it will actually help the other people in my department who are putting up with our boss's intense condescension, erratic behavior (one morning she was breaking up with her boyfriend over Facebook messaging -- I know because she was using my computer to try and "teach" me how to run a report, and then wound up hijacking the GD thing for three hours), and general incompetence, I feel like I need to say something, and in a way that won't look like sour grapes.

Blah. Moving on to greener pastures, Komarads.

Suck on that, Rat Race.

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:06 GMT

School wrapped up last week (thank Jeebus) and this week I've got a weeklong break from school before I have an intensive month. It's incredible what a load off that is. I'm more or less doing the things that I've been putting off for about 200 years. For example, attacking my crafty pile. Making curtains for my bedroom (still can't choose the fabrics I want...). Not thinking about anything too hard.

And today, the dog beach. Rudes and Lou and I drove downtown and up Lake Shore Drive to Wilson Beach, where the dogs party like rock stars. I love those little pups. I sat on the beach and watched Lou try to get a split tennis ball that was stuck in the sand about a foot or so deep in the water, while Rudy barked at him. Rudy really likes order -- Lou was not doing exactly what Rudy wanted, see. Lou would get frustrated and come sit on my leg, all the while staring at the spot where he thought the tennis ball was, then go back to it. Rudy inspected all dogs who came our way. I chitty-chatted with other dog owners and pet their dogs, and the weather was perfect. About 75 degrees, maybe, and the clouds parted to give us some sun. It was great. So maybe the dog beach is one other thing I like about summer.

This was one of those days where you don't want anything. You just have what you have and you are what you are, and it's all just fine. Other days lately have felt like a string of stepping stones that I keep having to place for myself. I barely look up on those days. I'm going to go have some dinner and watch a movie, piled on the floor with my dogs.

Yes.

How is it almost July?

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:22:24 GMT

Things are going pretty well lately. Let me list some things:

1. The first summer term is almost over, and I could not be happier about it. This was a long, hard month. I took collection management (yes, the business of managing your collection -- it really is a thing), and it was just sort of this constant barrage of complicated information and procedures. But on Thursday, it will be finito.

2. I just interlibrary loaned a crapload of soul music -- The Staple Singers, The Impressions, Sam & Dave. It just sounds SO good. such a great thing to have coming through the speakers in the summertime.

3. I've kind of been ensconced in Austen world lately. Reading spinoffs, re-imaginations of her life, scholarship. I don't care what anybody says about Jane Austen. She was the balls. Deal with it. To the type of person stupid enough to say that Austen should have been bolder, go eff yourself. She stuck to her principles no matter what. We should all of us be so brave.

4. I just found an awesome book called "How to Make Books", by Esther Smith. I am stupidly excited.

5. It's in the ninties here all of a sudden. At least it's good for the tomato crop. They're starting to sprout flowers!

6. I think I need to return to yoga. My balance is for poop!

7. My dad is turning 60 this year. How is my Dad 60? How am I almost 30?

Ohhhh, gift certificates. I love em so damn much.

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:54:18 GMT

I received a $75 gift cert. to the salon where I get my hair cut and colored. Well, I already recently had it cut and colored, and I'm basically set for a while here. But now I've got this $75 in my pocket, and I just sort of keep looking at the list of services on their website like they're porn.

So it's either the deep tissue massage, the hot stone massage, or the green tea and chamomile facial. Porny porny beauty treatments. Yessss. I want em all. But I can swing one.

Today I had a day off and I spent most of the day doing stuff in the yard. I finally staked all the tomater plants and did a few of the planters. i heard that planting nasturtium nearby tomato plants attracts beneficial insects, so I'll be doing that soon enough. Just those happy little puttering things that make up a good day off.

Been to the chapel. Done the chapel.

Tue, 26 May 2009 04:14:36 GMT

This weekend Jessica got married. Everything was very prettily done up -- we bridesmaids looked nice (good hair and makeup, if slightly too much eyeliner from the professionals -- it has to be a day to night look! Not just a night look!). The groomsmen were fun and all looked foxy in their tuxes. The bride was lovely, and the ceremony meaningful (there was even a bagpiper!). I cried my eyes out periodically through the day.

I guess what struck me most were these two things:

1. A wedding day in which you're intricately involved goes very very quickly. This whole weekend was more or less devoted to this wedding. On Saturday there was a get together with the family and friends, then the rehearsal, then on Sunday there was the getting ready, the ceremony and the reception. Then an afterparty. And then glorious sleep at the hotel. But even though it more or less took up the entire weekend, I feel like it went by at lightning speed. Especially once the ceremony was over. I still don't quite have my bearings yet. I could sleep for a week.

2. I guess I finally feel sort of grown up. To quote Liz Lemon: "Things are happening...ahhhh!" And I feel pretty good about the fact that that is so. The ages 18 to 22 were pretty loosey-goosey. I didn't have to think too hard about anything but school and learning what I needed to in connection to that. Then 23 to 25 were pretty much a whirl of wind. Sometimes bad. Mainly good. 26 to 28 were pretty terrific. I was pretty happy, after sort of getting my bearings from some of the crap I'd been through. And Prague was obviously very good. 29 has been the year of newfound gravity. And it's actually sort of pleasing. Watching Jessica get married, I sort of feel like we're just at the next phase, and she's the first one to move into it. Maybe that phase isn't marriage for everybody. Maybe it's buying a place, or a new career, or a new level or your career, or just not feeling like such a GD baby all the time. Whatever. It's just the first inkling of such a feeling, but it feels good. Not scary or kind of depressing like I thought it might. Maybe my thirties will be totally bitchin'.

There's always dancin', if all else fails.

May...you so crazy.

Mon, 18 May 2009 20:58:45 GMT

This weekend I was up in Kzoo at the Hotel Sanders with Mandie and Roy. It was pretty cool -- not the least because of the legendary Bethlynn hospitality, but just nice to get some Mandie and Roy time. Miss those crazy buggers. And it's always good to see our Bethlynn.

Then I rushed back home on Sunday morning because I was attending the Destroyer show at Empty Bottle. Know what? Hipsters can suck it. They're all a bunch of lame-oh toolsheds. I just can't take the skinny jeans and bullshit anymore. I can't take the strung-out, coked up, anorexic looking couples -- it's like a much more obnoxious form of heroin chic. I feel like this city has become completely invaded by them. Boo. Boo! So yeah. A Destroyer show at the Empty Bottle is pretty much a hotbed of Hipster bullpucky.

That said, the show was fun -- just Dan Bejar of New Pornographers and Destroyer fame with his guitar. He is such a weird dude -- his stuff is compulsively listenable. If that's a phrase.

I just finished updating my resume, and I think it looks good. I'm going to give it some space, then think about it again when I get back from work tonight. This week I'll have an interview for the job. If I get it, I'll be delighted. If not, I'll live.

This weekend, the wedding I'm in (Jessica's) is going down. There's been so much anticipation and weird pockets of stress that I'm just happy it's here. We get to enjoy the day and then we don't have to stress about the leading up. And I get a fancy hair-do and possibly false eyelashes. I feel like mascara just ain't what it used to be. Either that or my eyelashes are thinning. Lady pattern baldness of the ocular region. Boo, hiss!

What else? I'm wrasslin' tomato plants. My peas just sprouted. I managed to get some very nice chamomile at Wenke's this weekend. I just wish the weather would catch up a tad bit. Five degrees warmer would be okay.

Finish my cuppa tea and off to work. Tomorrow school starts up. And in a bit, it will be June. This is nuts.

Thu, 14 May 2009 04:38:01 GMT

I feel like in a lot of ways my life has been sort of dramatic lately. Not personally, I guess, but workwise. My boss left, and then the girl directly above me (the outreach librarian) got her job. She wants me to have her old job, but I won't have my MLS until December, so the director doesn't want to hire me on that technicality. I was pretty mad about it yesterday -- I do all the work of a full fledged librarian. I bust my ass, actually, and I feel like I've done some pretty good things.

But today was such a shitty shitty day with those GD kids. I feel like it was just a constant stream of madness. One particularly bad incident that resulted in one kid's suspension from the library for the next three months. That kind of bad.

And it was one of those days that was so crappy that you need a big fat drink (I never ultimately had that drink -- just never got around to it). And I was so depressed about how hard it is to combat the behaviorial issues. It's like this impossibly difficult tide to try and hold back. I was thinking about how nice it would be to leave and work at this other place I got an offer from. Only part time -- 30 hours (10 more than I have now), at a better salary. Farther out from home, for sure, but the problems wouldn't be the same.

I feel kind of like a jerk for wanting to leave just because it's hard to deal with the kids sometimes.

When it gets like this, I try to focus on the good stuff. There are lots of kids you can actually work with, and who you're really helping. But this was a pretty effed up day. Maybe it would be better to just not sweat the crap with the director and not having the MLS till December. Maybe it would be better to just try my luck out there.

UGH.

Blaaah!

Mon, 11 May 2009 04:46:09 GMT

I've started reviewing books for Dominican's children lit center, and I hope it will lead to reviewing for other mags, ones that librarians use. I think that'd be pretty rad. I have to read the stuff anyway -- this will kind of just motivate me a little more. I have so many good intentions when I check out a pile of books. I just don't always get all the way through...

But yeah. Bringing me to this bullshit book I just read. It's a YA book for girls, called "The Season", by Sarah MacLean. I was SO disappointed. I think the cover probably should have tipped me off: it's just three girls in slutted up versions of early 19th century empire waisted dresses, looking mysterious and sexy. Yeah. A photograph, which always bums me out. Those picture covers get so dated so fast. Anyway. This book is set in Regency London. There are three girls who are beautiful, rich and smart. But they're so awesome because they don't act like other girls. They do things like read the newspapers, and discuss politics. They don't care about marriage. In fact, the main character is beautiful, the daughter of a very prominent family, and yeah. She's not gonna get married. Of course, as soon as this is uttered, we know it's not true. These three girls are all alleged intellectual dynamos, but we never really see any evidence of this. We are only told every three minutes that they are so. The main character is supposed to be this bold, empowered femininst character (in spite of her beauty -- after all, it's a total fluke that a pretty girl would be a feminist), but the only way she asserts her spirit is by rolling her eyes when her mother drags her to social events. There were two things I hated about this book. The first was the historical inaccuracy. The main character is often alone with the main male character of the book. Even at organized functions, during which there would have been a chaperone. The dialog, when it wasn't plodding along at a wretched and predicatable pitch, was completely modern and riddled with idioms that wouldn't have been the fashion at the time. It was a lame, stupid attempt at Regency England. The other thing I hated was how annoying the heroine was.

Why, dear sweet Jeebus, do authors (oftentimes female ones) think that it's cool to write female narrators and main characters who show that they independent and free by using the cliches of eye rolling and heaved sighs? Why do they think so little of their readers? Why do they pay so little attention to inventive ways of characterizing independence? (See Twilight series.) It just gets old after a while.

So, yeah. I'm going to start keeping a running list, which I will turn into a booklist at the library, of books with female characters who don't make me want to vomit. First modern lady character on this list is: Gemma Doyle of "A Great and Terrible Beauty". I will keep adding. Please help.

Auuugh!

Both sides now.

Thu, 07 May 2009 14:21:26 GMT

I'm having one of those achy Prague weeks. Sometimes when I was in Prague, I'd have an achy America week. At the time I was living in Prague, things were really in the shitter with the U.S. Bush and his cronies were doing things so evil and damaging that it was like an episode of Batman, with the Villans trying to blow something up for no good reason. Of course, things were about to get worse, but over there, I didn't really feel it as much. I just felt the relief of not having to look it in the face day in and day out. But now's a good time to be back in America. Things were bad, and they're not perfect now or anything, but they're definitely looking up. We have a sensible, intelligent president. Our economy is still in the shitter, but our national common sense is on the mend for the most part. So things aren't as bad as they were, in my opinion. But the way it was before, that was a good reason to be away.

The other day I was driving out to a meeting at the headquarters for our library system, and it was early enough in the morning that the sun still looked all fresh and lovely, but late enough that there was no traffic. The window was rolled down, and the breeze was so sublime. So springy and sweet smelling. The headquarters for the consortium of libraries I work for are out in the far suburbs, and feels like the country to me. So it was a pretty morning -- the sun and breeze rolling over the prairies (or prairies diguised as suburban fields). It's the essence of what a midwestern morning ought to be. Hard to mistake it for anything else, really. But I couldn't help but be reminded of Prague for some reason. I don't know if it was the sense of freedom I felt, or the way the breeze and the sunlight were working together, but I felt like I was there for a minute.

And then that made me think of the time back in Prague when I took my mother to the airport after she visited me in the beginning of summer. I took her out to the airport on the bus super early one morning. It was still kind of dark out when we left. I dropped her, and saw her through the gates, and I made my way back outside. While I waited for the bus back to Dejvicka (my neighborhood), it was oddly quiet (I think it was a Sunday morning). The sun had come up, but in that early morning kind of way, where it's kind of hazy. And it made me think of how a midwestern morning feels. And I missed it.

Blah. I wish I could be a librarian who has to spend six months a year in Prague. That's a thing, right?

What I think about this:

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:20:19 GMT

Did you ever take the Golden Girls Quiz on Lifetime TVs’ website? Maybe it’s not up there anymore. But I remember taking it a few times. Mostly just when I was bored, or if I was trying to get somebody else to take it – just an idle, silly way to pass the time. I was always Dorothy. Dorothy, according to the quiz, was the smartest and the savviest of all her friends. I don’t know if I can claim that for myself, but I think we can safely say it for Dorothy, or Bea Arthur.

I remember watching Golden Girls on TV, back when it was originally broadcast. Not the Lifetime incarnation. I was probably too young to be watching it – the sex jokes went over my head back then, but they never fail to make me laugh now – they’re so bawdy, so surprising. When I was a kid – too young to go out on Saturday evenings, but old enough to begin to understand what sex was about, what the nuances and truths of women’s friendships, and the beauty of a one-liner – the wicker and mauve set of Golden Girls was a part of the night.

TV from then (by “then” I guess I mean my childhood) had a different feel to it than anything that gets put out today, for better or for worse. The first shows I remember watching, aside from Saturday morning cartoons and Bozo, were sitcoms. Mork and Mindy, Too Close for Comfort, Three’s Company, Family Ties, Mr. Belvedere, Growing Pains, The Cosby Show.

TV was just part of the background noise of my childhood, but all the little details – décor, relationships, jokes become a part of your memories when you’re young, in a way that they don’t when you’re older. Mork and Mindy was weird and funny – I coveted Robin Williams’s rainbow suspenders. I can hardly remember anything about Too Close for Comfort. The details that stick out most in my head are the Cosmic Cow comic strip and the rainbow decals in the daughters’ apartment (again with the rainbows). I never missed Three’s Company, and I always wished I could go to the Reagle Beagle. It was always my idea of what a bar would look like when I grew up. My first crush was on Alex P. Keaton. I wanted to drink tea because of Mr. Belvedere’s letter writing session at the end of each episode. I never understood why Kirk Cameron’s best friend was named Boner. Nobody who grew up in the 80s needs to say a word about their emotional ties to the Huxtable family. You loved them the way you loved members of your own family. You felt like you knew what it would feel like to play with Rudy, or to be hugged and soothed by Claire Huxtable.

What about Golden Girls? What details stick out there? Blanche Devereaux’s weird jungle themed bedroom. The phrase “back in St. Olaf”. The way that Sophia carried her purse in every scene. And Dorothy’s deep, gravelly voice and her tall, shoulder-padded frame. They’re all a part of my memories, the way that details from other shows are, but something about that show sticks in my brain more. I’m trying to think about why that is.

I remember seeing articles in the paper about the Golden Girls. One Sunday morning, I remember my mother pulling out a section of The Chicago Tribune and holding it out to me. It was a feature on Estelle Getty – she had red hair in real life and her skin was a lot smoother. I thought The Trib was pulling something over on me. I could never really buy that Estelle Getty was the same age as the other Golden Girls. And I remember the tabloids at the supermarket check out lines – Bea Arthur and Betty White caught up in another catfight! I hated thinking of them as anything but best friends. I was starting to see the difference between actors and the people they played – Mork is in the movies now! Kirk Cameron has a sister in real life who’s on some show called Full House! – but I still wanted to be a part of those worlds. Maybe Betty White and Bea Arthur didn’t like each other, but I wanted to believe that I could step onto that set, and the women would be just like the characters they played. And I’d step in, as Vicki Rakowski, and not some contrived character. And we’d crack jokes and eat cheesecake, and have cool drinks out on the lanai. Something about their world was comfortingly familiar but still full of possibilities – maybe I saw them as heightened versions of my grandmothers, by whom I was partially raised. They didn’t seem like any grandmothers I knew, and yet I thought they’d naturally take me in and love me, the way grandmothers do. Blanche would give me a makeup lesson, Rose might take me to the zoo (chattering about things with made up Scandinavian names all the way). Sophia would take me to the dog track, or one of her bizarre club meetings. And Dorothy. What would I do with Dorothy?

Dorothy was a lovable loser – she never had many dates, she had been married to a chump for 38 years, only to have him leave her for a stewardess. Dorothy almost never got the man, or she did, he only lasted for the life of one episode. Her hair was sort of weird. She was enormous and formidable. She was grumpy and sarcastic. And I adored her. I never knew if she would love me back, but I wanted to get near to her to give it a shot.

I got older and the line between reality and fiction got clearer. TV characters were no longer to be confused with the people who played them. I started going out on Friday and Saturday nights. Golden Girls went off the air. Newer and flashier TV shows and their characters came along. And these characters amused me, but I never felt like I knew them personally. Not like with the characters of my youth – I guess the question then becomes: were TV characters from the late seventies and into the eighties just different from the ones written today, or is the attachment simply nostalgic?

Over the years, here and there, I read or heard interviews with the actresses who played Rose, Blanche, Dorothy and Sophia. I knew that they were separate from their characters. Of course. They did other little projects here and there, and I mostly forgot about The Golden Girls.

Then Lifetime TV started rerunning the show more or less all day. There was a period of time when The Golden Girls was on the air for at least four hours every day. I was in college when I first had cable, and I remember watching it before heading off to class. And I started to appreciate it as a grownup – it was a show that respectfully showed how women are, and that you don’t stop feeling the way you always did when you hit a certain age.

One half of the Golden Girls are now gone. It’s lousy. All of the greats are starting to go. And some day the grandparents of the world won’t look and sound like our grandparents, but rather our parents. Grandparents won’t talk about the Great Depression, or where they were stationed during WWII. The designated grandparent slot will be filled by our parents, and they’ll tell our children about where they were when Kennedy was shot, or what it was like to watch the moon landing on TV. They won’t listen to Glenn Miller, but rather to rock and roll. Bea Arthur is gone, and the world of television is one more step removed from that Norman Lear style of show – social messages and stinging one-liners.

A lot of my friends kid me about how much I love The Golden Girls. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen an episode. I’ll still watch it, even if I have most of the dialog internalized. I guess because watching it is like being a kid again. When I watch an episode, part of me is noticing the physicality – how natural and true Bea Arthur’s movement as a character is. The way she holds onto somebody’s arm when she’s excited or intrigued. How she fiddles with something in a scene. How perfect her timing is. Another part of me is noticing how ground breaking the show is – four women just acting the way women do. Talking about sex, men, hopes, fears, memories. This is what we do, and hopefully when I’m in my sixties, I’ll still have a group of my girls around me, and we’ll still be talking about the same things. The last part of me watching the show just feels like a kid again, sitting on the living room floor, next to the coffee table, watching something that’s probably not super appropriate for me, while the adults are talking in the kitchen over coffee or something, and not aware that I’m listening to some running gag about Blanche’s sluttiness or Dorothy’s dry spell.

Bea Arthur was a cool cat. She was of a time and place that’s slipping away from us – it keeps slipping away more and more quickly. It’s hard for me to separate the woman from her characters or from her era. Thank God for TV on DVD. You’re never very far away from that deep voice or those wry eyebrow raises, and remembering what it used to be like.

Bullfrog Grows Up

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:13:58 GMT

I've been pretty remiss about posting lately. Things have been totally apeshit lately. Not always in a bad way. Just in an interesting way...

At work I mentioned that I've been covering shifts for somebody who quit rather suddenly. Well about a week and a half ago, I walked into work and my boss told me that she was leaving to be the head of another library's youth services department. I was actually pretty shocked and sad about it. I really like her -- she's been a great boss. She helped me learn a lot of things and always welcomed and encouraged me, and valued my ideas. So, basically, there will be three people to do the work of five for at least three weeks, I'm guessing. What I hope will happen is that the girl who's directly above me will get the manager's position, and then she's told me (as has my boss) that if that were to happen, then I would likely get HER position. Even though I've pushed back my graduation to December. So, yeah. We've been busy and it's been rough, but we're doing okay.

Tonight was a rough night. I was so irritated and frustrated with the double whammy of being left alone with department full of crazy kids (two of them were fighting about a GD yo-yo, and I very nearly just lost it and told to them to sac up and quit playing with yo-yos-- really) and a director who doesn't seem to understand that we're insanely busy downstairs and don't have time to do all the stuff we do even under the best of circumstances. And a bunch of lazy people who are always trying to palm stuff off onto our department. It was the sort of night that made me think: well, do I want to stay here?

And the truth is, yeah, I guess I would very much like to. The area has a lot of challenges, but lots of great rewards if you're willing to invest yourself. A lot of our patrons have behaviorial issues, but they also have incredible hearts. You have to be patient sometimes. These kids need us more than ones in areas with more money. They need to feel welcome and safe and valued. Sometimes you want to scream with frustration, but those times are far more rare. I'd say that there's about a 40% chance that I will get the position above me. If I did, that would mean full time with benefits (what?!?) and I wouldn't have to stress out about finding a job in this crazy ass market once I finish. I wouldn't have to take anymore loans, and could get a good jump on paying some back. It would be pretty nice. But I'll live if it doesn't work out. I sort of just lucked into this position in the first place -- somebody mistakenly told me that they were hiring, and they weren't, but a month later somebody quit and I was on the top of the pile. So whatever winds up happening with this, I'm willing to trust my luck. I'm generally lucky, maybe more than I deserve sometimes.

It's weird. I was thinking about five year plans yesterday. I never had one before. Does this make me kind of an adult?

Snow!? What in the holy hell...

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:32:41 GMT

Yes. Yesterday I was having some grub with Rachel and Jon down in Ukrainian Village, up the street from Rach's apartment, and we looked out the window of the bar only to see heavy slushy snow. Blahhh! I love Northern Climates. I really do. I think it would be hard for me to live anyplace else in the long term. But the winters being what they are means that when April comes, you need spring-like weather. My aunt got married in April, many years back now. I think it was the middle of April, and they couldn't leave on their honeymoon because there was a blizzard. So, yeah. It happens. But we had a rough season here. And now the Sox opener has been postponed until tomorrow. Cubs are going ahead with it, I think. But still. Enough. Anyhow. We've covered the rosebush outside, and let's just hope it goes okay.

Today I was looking at student loan bills and all, and it was scaring the doody out of me. I was going to graduate in August, but there aren't really that many classes being offered right now, so I'll put it off until December. There are two good reasons for this. Firstly, I don't want to take out anymore loans. And as it stands, I"ll probably be able to pay for most of the coursework outright on my own. I've got four classes left to take. Hopefully, I can handle it. I'd rather borrow the money from my parents than take on any more official loans. And then, I'm just going to work my tail off trying to get something full time in the new year. I should finish this program in December, right around my 30th birthday.

30.

I was talking about it with Jon on the way back home. I can't believe that it's going to be 12 years since I legally became an adult. I do not feel like an adult, and Lord knows I don't live like one. I know I've gotten to do a lot of things that nobody else gets to do, or got to do, or will get to do. But sometimes I look at what I have, and I just go, "Oy". So, I guess the end of this program, the obtaining of this final degree, and everything else is sort of like the official end of any dicking around I've gotten to do in this decade. I need one of those retirement plans that I hear so much about...

Friday, I needed you.

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:16:43 GMT

This has been such a GD long week. As I mentioned, one of the staff quit. She only worked 10 hours a week, and I've inherited those hours temporarily. That's not much, not at all, but the nature of the hours she worked were evenings on reference desk. So that means you are ON. You have no off-desk time to do all of the other things you have to do. So there's that. I've also inherited her tasks. So this week was nutso. I was coming off this crazy ass cold that everybody and their mama seems to have gotten, and then the extra hours, and all these school projects due. It's good to see you, Friday. I'm having a beer tonight. I can tell you that much.

So things have been a little busy lately. It's also the end of our fiscal year, and we had to use up what was left of our budget. So I got to order an extra $500 worth of teen non-fiction. Whenever I see kids check that stuff out, I get so excited -- I want to talk to them about it, and be all, "Hey. Isn't that a cool book?" But it's usually sex stuff, and one really ought not call attention to that -- the last thing they want is to be visible in that situation. You're not really supposed to talk about what patrons are checking out at all, actually, but it's different with kids. You want to approve of them engaging in the act of reading, and validate their choices. So it's cool to say, "Oh, that's an awesome book! I loved it! Have you read..." Not with non-fiction, though. So many of the things I order are generally underground topics. I had my first theft the other week. Somebody ripped the cover with the censor out of a new book about sex. I was pissed, but then I wasn't. They're taking it because they need to know and feel they can't be open about it. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. Anyhow. I just got that order finished, and I'm stupid excited about it. I reordered the ripped off sex book, too.

Anyhow. My plan for this weekend is to read (finally got my hands on Marie Antoinette: The Journey, by Antonia Fraser, which I've been wanting to read since I saw the Sofia Coppola movie forever ago). And to hang out with friends. And try to get whatever vitamin D I can get out of that shy sun. I was just petting Rudy, and he put his little head on my chest, and I was kissing his little noggin, and it made me think of how in the summer, he and Lou sometimes smell like the beach. We'll go to Lake Michigan and the smell of the water and sand and sun just sticks in their fur. I love that smell. Dried beach all over your slightly tanned skin. Summer's not my favorite, but maybe that sensation/smell/experience is the thing I love best about it.

Vick Info Bits

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:15:28 GMT

We have this one database we subscribe to for the kids at our library. It's called Kid Info Bits. I've been lousy at blogging lately, so here are some Vick Info Bits...

1. Yesterday I went to my friend Anne's wedding. It was insane. I don't even want to think about how much money they spent on it. I just don't. The ceremony itself was at a nearby Catholic church (I always forget how Christ-heavy Catholic ceremonies are until I'm actually sitting at one). Then the reception was held in the fancy restaurant at Sox Park. The dinner itself was in the tiered restaurant called The Stadium club, and it looked very much like a 1940s supper club. On all the monitors where they game would ordinarily be playing, there were pictures of the bride and groom playing on a loop. So that meant they were also on the jumbo tron screen outside. Cuh-razy. But really neat and fun. There was an open bar from six until 12:30, and about 200 guests. There were awesome appetizers and a dessert bar. There was a hot dog station at 10. And the music was really good -- there was a lady dejay, and she rocked. Again, I simply have no concept of what it cost them, but they make better than average salaries, and why not, if that's what you really want?

2. I wound up wearing a pair of faux crocodile platform pumps with a peep toe and shiny black heels. They made about 3.5 inches taller, which was rad. And they were relatively comfortable. Downside? They were designed by Fergie, the Black Eyed Pea. But what the hey. They were also called Fergielicious. So there's that.

3. School's decent. I have a lot of projects due this week, including a folk story database, and then I have to perform a story. My folk tale is from Slovakia, and is about a girl who tells her father she loves him as she loves salt, then he gets pissed, because his other daughters say they love him like gold and flowers. Then he banishes her, but when they run out of salt, he's like, "Oh. Durr. I get it." A King Lear thing. I like that story.

4. One of the staff in our department up and quit (good riddance if you ask me) and I'm picking up a lot of her hours, which is good, because they extra money will be nice. That means more running around, but localized running around. So, that's cool.

5. It's snowing! Winter's last joke on us. Whatever. We've covered up the budding plants as well as we can. Let's hope the poor little babies will make it through. My tomato seedlings have gone mental. I don't remember them growing at this rate last year. Must be that they all came from organically grown tomatoes? No telling. Anyhow. They're looking delightful. Lycopene, come here to me.

6. I think I should wear dresses more. I have big old calves, so I don't generally like to, but a dress is a whole outfit. You don't have to match it up with pants and whatever else. Just shoes and maybe a cardigan. I think about it.

7. Mr. Belvidere and Blossom are both out on DVD. That's huge! I loved Mr. Belvidere. What was up with him and Wesley? So weird. Why did that family have a butler anyway? I still loved it. Know what? I'm investing...

8. I just saw Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, and thought it was splendid. Those kids have good instincts as actors. Plus, it's just a good story. With good music. It even made me feel a temporary affection for Manhattan. That's pretty incredible.

9. I have to go into work now. I will probably have to get out my snow boots. I did NOT see that coming. Where ARE those snow boots?

10. I almost typed snow boobs. That's news, in my book.

Shoe advice, please.

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:24:07 GMT

What do you guys think of these shoes? Do you think they're appropriate to wear to a wedding? One that has a ceremony w/mass?

The reception IS at Sox Park...in the fancy pants restaurant above the broadcasting area...

At moments, they seem impossibly cute. But then at others...just too, "Hey, Man. I gotta get to the Jessica Rabbit look-a-like contest."

Or,

"Boy, this Earth, Wind and Fire sure is a groovy band..."

Or,

"Hey I'm Betty Page! Take a picture of me in see-through chiffon!"

What do you think? Are they cool for the occasion?

Good morning, Friends!

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:27:07 GMT

It's SO pretty here lately. The weekend was sunny and the temps were outstanding. Fifty degrees after a long hard winter always feels like a reprieve from hell. Everybody just looks happy -- we come alive again. I really do love northern climates. I like the snow, I like the falling leaves. But I love when spring comes again -- the best thing about living here is that when a season changes, it's not messing around. It really changes.

Anyhow. The little itty bitty African violet I keep in my bedroom finally bloomed. You know, they bloom so rarely -- like one little tiny window of the year, and that's all you get. But look at how worth it:

Isn't that exquisite?

And look at the sprouts:

A sunny spring morning and little seedlings waking up and doing their thing -- that's a pretty cool way to start a week.

Guess I planted...

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:31:49 GMT

Last night I got home late, but I had to begin my seeds. I sometimes have dreams about flowers sprouting right in front of me. Once I remember I had a dream I was at my grandparents' graves, and right in front of me, a tree of yellow tulips popped up from the ground. Then another time, I planted a bunch of daffodils in the front yard on Park Street in Kzoo, and I dreamt a couple of days later that I was walking down the front walk, and they all sprung up full grown from the ground as I passed. Last night, I made my little seedling beds and planted tomato seeds that I collected last year (I'm focusing on these insanely sweet orange cherries, larger orange ones, and some that I saved from some tomatoes from a market on Harlem Avenue). I'm also trying columbine, because it's a half shade perennial, and there's a mix of zinnia and salvia, but I have a few more to preapre before I'm done, actually. So this is round one:

Then last night I dreamt that they sprouted overnight and were pushing against the plastic that I use for a little greenhouse effect. I woke up, and I swear that I thought there would be green there.

Instead, we have a gray rainy day outside of the window, but a promise of spring. So far, March has been a really pissy lion, but whatever. Tomato seeds are planted. The rest is up to nature.

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 06:58:39 GMT

So, it's hardly a secret that I love this town. I think I've mentioned on here that my father loves astrology, and very much subscribes to its theories and practices it on a weekly basis. This is probably the closest he gets to religion of any sort. When I was born, he noticed that my chart lined up with Chicago. He has this old ass book that's like geological astrology, and tells you what the glyphs and such were on important days in the history of a particular place. Chicago and I match up somehow. I don't need my Dad's theories to understand this, but it sort of kind of explains why I feel like I belong here.

Tonight was a friend's bachelorette party. A bunch of the girls in the bridal party got a suite in the Gold Coast/Mag Mile neighborhood (cha-ching!) and started the party around four. Jess and I met up with them at the restaurant later, an Italian BYOB. Then we went ahead to the bars. As for the bars, they were planning on heading to Rush and Division, a neighborhood that is also referred to as The Viagra Triangle. Basically, it's a bunch of bars and clubs all grouped together that are like a meat market and center for bachelorette parties and dudes looking to pick up on the drunk and weak. Sometimes older businessmen go there, looking for tail, thus the nickname. It's as terrible as it sounds. I had no intention of going there tonight. So, very fortunately, before we went there, we went to some champagne bar still sort of in the downtownish area. We got a magnum of champagne to split between about 14 of us, and I have to say, it really was the best I've ever had.

So, we're sitting there in this fancy pants place, all of us looking pretty chic (I mean it's me, so I have a limit to my chic-ness -- I can only take it so far). It was really elegantly and funkily designed, with low white couches and glass tables, along with a pretty bar that more or less looked like it was made out of iPod. Behind the couch that the bride and Rachel and I were seated on was the rainy city. It never really gets dark here -- the night sky is more or less purple. People were trying to catch cabs and running around, chasing after each other happily, trying to protect their shoes -- it looks like everything a city ought to be at night. Exciting and pretty and sort of fast-paced, complete with a champagne bar.

I've never really been that type of person. My idea of a good time is so far removed from that that it's almost funny. Board games, movies, beer, walking around, cooking with friends -- that's pretty much social splendor for me. So it didn't feel odd to me that I wasn't responding to the situation. I just don't with those scenes. That's cool -- not there for me, I'm there for the bride.

But something surprised me on my way home. I grew up all over the west side and western edge of the city. I was driving along, looking at the sad state of the buildings, and the two flats and the tiny lots. The old art deco brick factories and the huge expanse of Humboldt Park. All of a sudden, it didn't seem that interesting to me. As I said, I was surprised, but less sad than I thought I'd be. Right now, all I feel I really want is space. Very...whatever. New for me. Physical space all around me. Sometimes I think what's keeping me here is that I hate to give up my claim.

Oy, oy, oy. Maybe champagne's just not my drink.