The secret is out

... that I shopped at The Gap. Just kidding! Even if I had shopped at The Gap, do you think in a million years that I would ever admit it? No, the secret that is out is that either one of my resourceful co-workers has discovered my blog, that one of the tech guys has checked up on my internet history to see the job ads I'm looking through at work, or there is something about the way I've been walking in the last couple weeks that has made someone here think that I'll be leaving soon. I suppose that you could call me paranoid, but I think I have a pretty good argument on this one - although I have not told anyone here that I want to leave this summer, in the last week I have had one of the librarians send me a job ad for a children's librarian position at another library, because he "thought I'd be interested", and then two days later had a woman from Circ tell me about a job opening in reference at a local college. Which of course is very nice of them, apart from the fact that they know my dirty little secret. And that they think I would actually want to stay in this province, when I actually want to go to a different country! Which is why, and because I will be looking for jobs over the next few months, I have decided to go underground, nudge nudge wink wink say no more, and make this blog private, as soon as I figure out how to do that. Never fear, my faithful readers will still be able to access it, just not the rest of the world. It can be our own little club, and what happens on the swearing librarian blog stays on the swearing librarian blog.

But onto things unrelated to my paranoia ... first the fun Christmas fondue I went to where I had some great food, a little too much wine, was entranced by the chocolate fountain, and was totally amused when one of the women almost set the house on fire. She was lighting the meat fondue and the oil/ flame somehow got out of control, sent up a blue/orange flamey cloud of smoke, and everyone set to work smothering the flames, while knocking over all the sauces, some wine, burning one woman's glasses and creating a huge hole in her tablecloth. Luckily she had the forethought to put an extra tablecloth underneath, which just so happened to have a flame-proof covering, or else her beautiful oak table would have been destroyed as well. A little freaky, but also the highlight of the night.

Another great moment from last week was when my friend told me that the guy from the library who I used to like (but do not anymore, if you will recall) has developed quite the reputation as a flake around the city. He's known as quite the little self-promoter, but is known to never follow up with people or call them back. But the thing that cracks me up about this guy, and was probably what made me like him in the first place (and everyone else not like him) is that he is so incredibly unorganized, but that he gets away with it. He has no set schedule at all here and just shows up for an hour or two, sometimes late at night, and even though he's the coordinator of this special project at the library and another guy (who is much older and wiser) is just the artistic director for the play part of it, he totally never seems to know what he is doing. Although my favourite story so far is from a month ago or so, when he made enemies with the wrong person - our library accountant. Apparently he sent her this long email about how he didn't want to fill in a time sheet or be paid in 2 week installments, but rather just get paid $10,000 a couple times a year, and I don't think he was even joking. Needless to say, she really doesn't like him and the two ignore each other all the time now. Darling, make enemies with whomever you want, but don't do it with the lady who pays you! Dumbass.

Too good to be true?

As Janice from Friends would say, OHHHHH MYYYYYYYYYY GAAAAAAWD!

I went to our staff Christmas party tonight, which actually involved going to see A Christmas Carol put on by a local theatre group (that not so coincidentally includes staff from the library). Little kids sang, people feigned British accents, and I pondered the distinct lack of subtlety in anything by Dickens, then went to the "drinks and appetizers" part of the evening. I was sitting on a couch, having some questionable food and even more questionable wine and saving a place for my friend when this woman and her husband sat down, some small talk happened (wasn't the play lovely, isn't it cold out) and upon noticing her Aussie accent I asked where she was from - Melbourne (and lived in the same part of town where my cool Aussie friend lives) and has been in this province for three years. While in Melbourne she worked in the Yarra Plenty library system, and at St Kilda (at a cute little branch that I took at peek at when I was in Melbourne 2 years ago), and still has a contact there, who she gave me an email address for. They may not have jobs available there but the lady I email should at least know where to look for others.

The only catch (and it is a BIG BUT, as Little Wolf would say) is that she is currently a slightly bitter teacher-librarian working in a larger-sized Canadian city in the same province as me, and is pissed because her library credentials did not transfer over to Canada and she is making A LOT less than she was in her old job, where she was manager of a library. She wants me to see if anyone at CLA knows about having her credentials be accepted so she can get a real job here. Of course, I don't have a membership to CLA much less know anyone who works there, but I told her I'd look into it. Immediatly my little grey cells started formulating a plan of "hmm ... how can I talk to my boss about getting her hired as the next teen services librarian at our library so she can have the kind of job she wants in a place she likes (god knows why, but she does), and I can get a job in her hometown and everyone will be happy!"

So this is one of those situations where nothing may come of it and I may never hear from her again, but damn, it seems like an awesome twist of fate that could lead to a job opportunity, and I better take advantage of that! If I had never sat on that couch, at that time, I might never have met her and gotten this rather lovely foot in the door (that was wearing my Bond girl boots at the time) for place #1 in The Plan. Before I left I whipped out Arfur - my keychain wombat - and I think she was impressed for my spastic enthusiasm for Australia.

This definitely was the highlight of a day that previously included a lot of annoying Christmas shopping (why,why, why do we have to buy presents for each other in honour of one stupid day?). As of 4pm, after my arm had fallen off from carrying so many cloth bags and I had almost been run over 4 times in store parking lots, the highlight had been looking through the hilarious book The Hypochondriac's Pocket Guide to Horrible Diseases You Probably Already Have and so badly wanting to buy it but realizing that the best people to give it to would also be the ones who would be most offended by it. I looked through it, had a chuckle, and amazingly, refrained from buying it myself.

Life altering moments

Ok, maybe not life altering, but just a few things that have happened in the last couple days that have "given pause" on (in?) my life. If that is even the right expression. Which reminds me of the question that I saw on this province-wide online reference service the other day where the person asked "I know that the new OJ Simpson book If I Did It is morally suspect, but is it grammatically suspect as well? Should it be "If I had done it", instead of "If I did it?" The librarian who answered the question went on to cite a whole bunch of OED-type sources saying that yes, the actual title was correct, but she wouldn't recommend reading the book. But back to those moments:

1. Just finding out that my super cool archivist friend from library school got a job at Yale and she and her boyfriend - my friend, despite the fact tht he's American (but he's from Washington and has been living here for the last few years, so essentially he's an honourary Canadian) - will be moving to Connecticut next year. I am very happy for her, sad that they are leaving Vangroover, and filled with the hope that if she can get a rocking job like that this early out of library school, maybe I can too. Or at least a job that is somewhere other than here.

2. Watching the very last show ever of 6 Feet Under, which was weird to watch because when it was over, and even though it had an overwrought schmaltzy ending where they covered 90 years in 5 minutes (and all the main characters died), it was really amazing and quite bittersweet. The show ended, I turned off the tv, and sat there for a few minutes with this dazed feeling of "I'll never have a new moment with 6 feet under", as if it were a little sister or particularly good piece of pie that I was seeing for the last time. No, I wasn't smoking pot - maybe I should have been. I've seen a lot of "final episodes" in the last couple years, but that one really took the cake.

3. Seeing this guy I used to like - note the past tense - flirt with with my new library assistant in the teen area. It's sort of funny because A) I still think he's gay even though he said he's not, B) she has a boyfriend, and C) I think he knows that I like him, but either doesn't care or is trying to make me jealous. Not that I care. I don't really think this is life altering, but I find it a little amusing, in an insulting sort of way. And any list has to have at least three things on it to be considered a list, and without this I would only have two.

Who says there's nothing good on tv?

I don't know what's more painful - watching some dumbass "Sports Kids and their Parents" show on Life Network, or watching Tom Hanks attempting to do a Russian accent in The Terminal. On one hand you have a freakishly posessive mother boasting about the $15,000 she spends a year for her 7 year old "professional cheerleader" daughter, who started dancing at the age of two when mommy noticed she "had such a good arch to her foot and she didn't want to let it go to waste", and on the other hand you have Tom Hanks, the most overrated actor in the history of American cinema, trying to be Russian. Actually Tommy boy does deserve a little credit - I saw a bit of Big on tv yesterday, and along with Joe Versus the Volcano and Splash he has proven himself to be quite a talented comic actor. Too bad most of his movies aren't funny. But back to the freaky parents .... never mind the fact that by telling your kids they are winners (and must strive only to win, never to come in second place) at a young age will no likely end in utter failure by the time they are 13, if they make it to 13 without attempting suicide, but is it just me who thinks it's a little wrong to decide the fate of your children like that? You might as well just put them in the Gap baby jumper the minute they are born and call it a day, because as far as I'm concerned you've pretty much fucked up their lives permanently from that point onwards.