The evil book that made me hate needles

Have you ever heard of the "Value Tales" series that was written in the 70s - illustrated biographies of people like Helen Keller, Marie Curie, etc? Well I just had an epiphany about something, and luckily we had the books at the library so I was able to back the theory up. I was thinking about how I've always been scared to death of needles, and apart from the obvious reason (that they are icky) I wasn't sure where the fear came from - but then I remembered the book I read at my friend's house when I was 6 of some famous guy who invented some famous medicine and there is a picture where they show a huge needle with soldiers who will battle the infection, and suddenly it all made sense - this book is the reason I hate needles. Anyways I found the book at the library - it's the biography of Louis Pasteur, who created a vaccine for rabies, and sure enough, there is a huge picture of a needle on that has little soldiers in it who march into the little boy's arm to kill the scary monsters living there.

"In my vaccine are Magical Soldiers with bright eyes that can see in the dark. When they see the invisible enemy inside of Joey, my Magical Soldiers, who are very strong, will kill that enemy".

Joey had been put into bed. When he heard Loius Pasteur say this, he rose up a little. "Dr Pasteur", he said, "do you mean your Magical Soldiers will be inside of me?"

"Yes", said Louis Pasteur.

Joey looked puzzled. "But how will they get there?"

"Very easily", said Louis Pasteur. "My Magical Soldiers can march through long needles and into little boys. They march together, like a mighty army".

"But needles hurt", said Joey. You're damn right it's gonna hurt, Joey - look at the fucking size of that thing! It's no wonder I goddamn hate needles!

Now if only watching Jaws again could have helped me to overcome my fear of sharks - apparently it not only made it worse, but it made me a masochist as well, because shortly after watching Jaws last year I went out and rented both Open Water and Deep Blue Sea, and now I pretty much never want to go in the water ever again.

The weirdos I work with

Sometimes I think the kids at the library are less of a problem than the staff ... I just got chewed out for not taking part in the social committee's latest fundraiser of a Dancing With the Stars Pool. My argument was A) I took part in your damn Valentines raffle and I didn't even have a Valentine to share it with, and B) I don't watch that shitty show so why the fuck would I support your stupid gambling (those may not have been the exact words I used). Anyways, here was the email that I got in response:

How come you didn't buy a ticket? Just because you don't watch doesn't mean you can't still pick a celebrity and vote for fun. And to support the Social Committee. The SC Sweeties are trying to do a job here. We need support or you will have to pay full price for your Christmas Party Ticket. AND if you get sick, we won't have money for a basket or flowers for you. Then you will complain that no one cares for you; and make up a big sob story that everyone will not pay attention to and call you whiner. So, do you want a ticket or do you want to be called Whiner?

Granted the woman who wrote the email is wonderfully sarcastic, but the fact still remains that she is trying to bully me into joining this dumb contest - which I'm not going to do, plain and simple. I told her I don't need flowers when I'm sick, just days off, and that she can call me a whiner whenever she wants.

My Own Personal Jesus

I just had an important epiphany about religion, and I am personally shocked that it has taken me this long to come this realization. I am not Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or even Scientologist, nor am I an atheist, as some people believe (probably because I told them that). I worship a god of my own design, and belong to the church of David Usher. I know you may think that is a joke, or better yet, blasphemous, but I am quite serious: David Usher is my own personal Jesus. Think about it: I was introduced to Moist's music as a teenager, at that time in my life in which I was discovering my identity, and I found a certain undeniable connection with the music. That connection was shared with several of my closest friends, including my friend L, who was with me for that first David Usher sighting on Granville Street when we talked with him and Mark Makowy in Mcdonalds, my mother, who I was with when purchasing a skirt at my favourite (and long gone) store The Underground, and most recently, my friend V, who I was with when I last saw David Usher in concert 2 summers ago in my mid-sized Canadian city, and we shared a special moment when V coerced me into yelling "show us your tits" to David, which proved to be quite a humourous comment for David, me, and the other 200ish people in attendance. From 1994 to the present, I have seen Moist in concert more times than I can count (9?) and David Usher in concert nearly as many times (5 ?). Moist and David helped me through the tough teenage years when I was more than a little "alternative", helped me cope with my mother's death, helped me plagiarize for an english assignment for a university poetry class (yes I admit it, I'm a fraud - if the cute blonde teaching assistant from English 102 at SFU from 1996 is listening, here is my confession: I did not come up with the striking literary thought and if anger is the ending of the thing that we've become, for the mother and the father and the sister and the son, through the shallow without wanting realization to mistake, through the ugliness to open all the things we can't replace. The rest of the shitty teenage angst poem was mine, though - I think I was Emo before Emo existed), helped me realize the value of Canadian music, helped me spend a lot of money on tickets, tshirts and CDs, helped me create some unlikely friendships (online and otherwise), and helped me discover the true sexiness of the singer himself. Like worshipping Jesus or God, this has its drawbacks, as it's quite possible no man will ever measure up to David, and sadly, even though I may continue to come close to David from time to time over the years, he will never really be mine. He is a fantasy, not just because he is married (and gay, according to most guys I know), and even though I have made offerings to his church over the years (fan letters, a necklace with his name in alphabet letters on it at the Victoria show, and a large portion of my vocal cords), I will always just be one of many followers in his mind. Of course it is easy to fool myself into thinking, usually when being shone down upon by his radiant voice at a concert, that I am the only one, that he remembers me, hears my voice, and will sacrifice all other things in life to make me happy, but I know this is not true. What really matters, though, is that there is always a chance that could happen, like in any religion, and one day I could end up being the chosen one (or at the very least receive eternal salvation). Until then, I will continue to listen to his music, be comforted by it, try to convert some non-believers, and not give a shit about what anyone says about my religion, because the Church of David Usher has taken me in, and short of me doing something really blasphemous (like saying I don't like the black leather cord he wears around his neck or the ratty sneakers he insists in thinking are cool), I firmly believe it will look after me until I die.

Like two seasons in one day

Today was a great day, and for those of you keeping score at home, that means A) I was not at the library and B) I was not in my mid-sized Canadian city. I took the Greyhound to my closest bigger-sized Canadian city to renew my passport and after locating the end of the long line-up, had the amusing security guard come around and tell us the wait would be roughly 3.5 hours. He was a joker, kind of like a Westjet flight attendant, showing us where the exits were and that if we had to bail out we should make sure we had parachutes. One grumpy lady complained that if she had to wait that long, he was fired, and he said to her "6 hours for you, madame". It turns out that he really knew his shit, because that's almost exactly the length of time it took. Now most people would think a wait of that length would be annoying, frustrating, boring and any other number of negative adjectives, but as I have the uncanny ability of making a new friend every time I wait in a long line, the wait was not a problem for me. In fact, I made two new friends. One was a 78 year old retired oil worker whose name is, I kid you not, Rod Stewart. Not only did he get a free ticket for the home show and enjoy box seats (for the price of floor seats) at a recent Rod Stewart concert due to his name, he was also very grandfatherly and sweet and said that it was shame we couldn't smile in our passport photos anymore because I had such a nice smile. The other was a middle aged guy named David who is a paleontologist/ geologist, and has travelled all over the world (South America, China, Mongolia) on expedition digs and published numerous books on the subject, which I think is just about the coolest thing ever. Talking to him was especially gratifying because he looked like the grumpy guy who wouldn't talk to anyone, and he ended up being the chattiest guy around. Needless to say, both Rod and David heard all about my library problems, my past and future travel plans, and any other number of topics that took up the 3.5 hours. This may be difficult to believe, but those 3.5 hours flew by, and when I was stamped and approved, I was actually sad to leave the office because it meant I'd never see them again.

After being released into the bright sunshine and wonderfully warm day (all the snow had melted in this city), I visited some of my favoutite stores in the real city (and by real I mean over 1 million). Maybe it's just "grass is greener" syndrome, but while I was eager to get away from Vangroover's big city feel, it only took 10 minutes to start thinking "fuck small town charm - give me smog and traffic any day!". I walked down a pedestrian only street (no such thing as that in my current city) to my favourite bookstore, spent some money (on two graphic novels and a picure book) and when I came out an hour later, the temperature had changed about 10 degrees - from 15 degrees and sunny, to 5 degrees, windy and cold, and not 10 minutes later it even started to snow. Yes, by now you may be equating this strange weather to Chinook winds, which would give you yet another clue as to which province I live in, and to that I say "good for you". As long as you don't know my boss's name, I don't care. But regardless of rapid seasonal change (granted, it isn't officially spring yet, so these sorts of things are to be expected here) that happened while I was wearing my light summer coat, I still had a great rest of the day, especially because much of it (and my money) was spent at the Patagonia store - $300 on precious few items. For those of you who are not familiar with that brand or with me: A) it is an expensive line of outdoor clothing and B) it's fucking awesome and I am willing to spend any amount of money on things made by them, including my growing collection of $30 underwear. The good news is that the guy, who I spent an hour talking to before even going into the fitting room, must have given me some type of discount, because the items I purchased should have come to about $340. Took the Greyhound home again, and by the time I got back to my shit hole (sorry, lovely city) it was snowing sideways, and I had the lovely opportunity of walking home from the bus station wearing my previously mentioned spring clothes. And plus my heater has not been fixed yet after leaking liquid and anti-freeze on my carpet a week ago, so roll on cold night and morning!

Who doesn't love the early 1990s?

I have seen a lot of good movies in the last few years, but sometimes I think you just can't beat those classic movies of the early and mid 1990s. I just saw Shawshank Redemption last night, which is a damn good movie, and it only took me 13 years to figure that out! While Tim Robbins is always brilliant, I was quite surprised (and may have knew this already) that Stephen King was responsible for the story, because I think of him as the guy who generally turns out shlocky and unoriginal horror (with the exception of the freaky shower heads in It - I give him full credit for scaring the living shit out of the 12 year old me who watched that and has never been able to use a communal shower since. I suppose you could say it was my fault for not exercising better judgement at the time, but fuck, I was 12 - I didn't have better judgement! Anyways Shawshank is more than just a normal prison movie, and luckily I ignored all the hype about the movie at the time, because I really didn't know what was coming at the end. I thought it was almost a little Usual Suspects-ish, until I realized that hey, Usual Suspects came out in 1995 (a year after Shawshank), so maybe Bryan Singer ripped off this movie! Granted Andy Dufresne is no Keyser Soze, but it still has the "how the hell did he do it?" aspect of surprise to the ending. I'm also shocked that I didn't know until last night that a significant part of the plot is regarding the main character setting up a prison library.

Also from the classic world of the 90s, I saw Backdraft tonight, for about the 12th time, but damn, that movie never gets old. Sure it's half testosterone and half schmaltz, but what can you really expect from a Ron Howard movie? I also have fond memories of watching that in my early teens and having my best friend make me rewind (yes, we still had video tapes back then) the shower scene a dozen times so she could see William Baldwin's pubic hair. But it's the melodrama, not the pubic hair, that truly make the movie - along with Donald Sutherland as a crazy pyro who wants to burn the world, Robert De Niro turning in a classic "Uh Brian - I think I got a little problem here" (when he is blown from a building onto a spiky fence), and all the "you go, we go" camaraderie that the manly men can muster. Sure Rescue Me is a much better all around look at firefighters and crazy funny mixed with crazy depressing and fucked up, but I think I'd pick Backdraft if I were forced to declare a champion. It should be noted that Jack McGee plays practically the same character here as he does on Rescue Me ... and I think we owe a round of applause to Mr McGee, who according to IMDB, has been in 126 tv shows and movies since 1985 - wow. That's pretty impressive for a short little fat guy who is fairly non-descript.

Attack of the complaint emails

I swear to god, if I get one more fucking complaint email from a staff member at the library, I am going to go postal on their asses. In the last 2 weeks, I have had at least 4, very verbose, emails complaining about one thing or another - a couple saying I need to work sundays, that (gasp) I moved the shelves around without telling anyone, that the kids swear too much, that people don't feel safe walking to their cars because of the kids hanging around outside the library, that parents don't want their kids to use the teen area because of the "gangs" there, that kids spill stuff on the floor and computers and don't clean up after themselves, that kids are doing drugs in the bathroom and spraying hairspray in the teen area, that the druggie dropouts and street kids have to go permanently, that (and this is my favourite) the teen area is not a "wholesome" enough place. Honestly - you want a teen area to be wholesome? They are teenagers - that is not in their character!

That being said, what most or all of the staff don't seem to realize is that I agree with almost all of the things they say in their emails, and I hate the teens too, which is why I will be quitting in the summer and leaving for (rainier) pastures with a whole other set of problems (that may or may not include teenagers). I've tried to enforce rules, kick kids out, get them to stop being assholes, but they are teens, and I don't think that is likely to happen any time soon short of library brainwashing or brat camp. Granted maybe I'm not doing a good enough job, which I used to be ashamed to admit but now I just don't fucking care anymore, because once I leave the teens will be their problem to deal with. Maybe they will find a person who can magically solve all their problems, and if they do, good for them. I really do wish them luck - and I'm not even being sarcastic about that. What cracks me up the most (in that "I want to shoot myself" sort of humour) is that even Mr J, the grey-haired god of teen services himself, doesn't know what to do with my teens. He put me in contact with another cool Canadian librarian who did have some helpful tips, but to my credit I've tried most of them already, to limited success.

So is there a solution? Hell if I know. More importantly, will I find a new job before they realize how incompetent of a librarian I am and fire my ass first? Better get started on those passport and visa applications, I think...