Karma poisoning

I'm starting to believe that there is some higher, non-religious power out there that is paying attention to my actions in life. Over the past couple months I've had a few weird things happen which I believe may be related to the things I've done, and tonight's was the weirdest: food poisoning that I think may have been brought on by bad karma. This morning I was feeling a little sick, partly from watching the weirdass movie Tideland last night and not getting enough sleep (and having weird nightmares from it), and also, I suspect, because I didn't really feel like going to work. So I did what any good career women with extra sick days built up would do: I took a day off and called in sick due to a "stomach bug" (which in my line of work is totally believable, given that I have dirty kids coughing on me all day long and not washing their hands after they go to the bathroom). I had a pretty good day - called the real estate agent who is selling my apartment and tried to bargain with her for an extra month (it remains to be seen if that will actually work), did some shopping, bought some shoes, had a nap, read a book, watched some tv - all in all, a good day. Until I got a massive dose of what seemed like food poisoning at about 9pm, and spent a few hours in the bathroom doing what people do who have food poisoning ... my British friend likes to call it "losing the world out your ass", and I also had the good fortune of seeing my whole dinner in Van Gogh format, and needless to say what used to be one of my favourite dishes (veggie macaroni casserole-type thing) is not anymore. While I was spending my quality time in the bathroom, I couldn't help but wonder if I did it to myself, just me, and that's what really hurts - did I somehow bring about this nasty episode by lying about being sick and not going to work today? I promise to be a good girl from now on - and of course should I still feel sick tomorrow morning, ironically I'll have to go into work anyways because they will no longer believe that I'm sick, when in fact this time I would actually be telling the truth. Ah, karma - talk about it biting me in the ass this time!

The princess has been deposed

Madness, blasphemy, and heresy - I have been deposed! Once the princess of my mid-sized Canadian city, living out my peaceful existence in the turret of an apartment and working my days in a second tower in the teen area (which used to be an armoury before it was converted into a library), it seems that my crown has been stolen and I have been given the not-so-subtle hint to get the fuck out of this dump of a city. Of course no one has actually said "WM, please leave our city and our library right now", and they would never do that even if I was the shittiest librarian in the world because they know how difficult it will be to find another sucker like me to come work here.

Anyways, when our lovely (and I mean that - I like her more than most of the other staff combined at my library) outreach librarian started last October, I was "asked" if I would like to share an office with her, which basically meant that she took over my desk and office, which is situated in the aformentioned armoury tower, and I would just continue to use it for storage but would never spend any time sitting at the desk (which was purchased for me, I might add). It's obviously not her fault - she needs a place to work too - and I needed to spend more time in the actual teen area anyways, so technically it did work out ... but it also made me feel like I was imposing on my own office.

But at least I still had my castle apartment on the hill, overlooking a nice green (or white for half the year) area and prime location for viewing thunderstorms ... granted it's a greenhouse in the summer and a freezer in the winter, I have the whole pigeon problem, and I pay $1100 a month in rent, but as many people told me (and I agreed), it was the nicest apartment they'd seen in this particular city, and it was worth the money. I got home from my wonderful "library's next top model" program at the library yesterday (which was very amusing apart from the fact that my dear friend J covered me with dollar store makeup and paraded me around the library, and not only is the makeup still ground into my eyebrows, but my eyes are incredibly itchy today) and there was a message from the manager of my building; it seems the asshole in Toronto who owns my apartment (and farmed the rental agreement out to our managers here) decided to sell, and I have two choices: cough up about $200,000ish to buy the apartment, or move out by July 31st. Now I know I was thinking of leaving soon anyways, but this is still fucking annoying because I always thought the choice to leave would be mine, not someone else's. Sure I can rent another apartment for a few months, but that seems dumb if I'm only staying until September and will have to move all my shit twice in 2 months, not to mention the fact that rental places are so hard to come by here that I may not even be able to find a place to live. I really wanted to stay until the end of August or September so that I could see the summer reading progtam til the end, but now I'm wondering if I should just try to find a job that starts August 1st and get the hell out of here by then. But if I go with that plan, I may need to push back my plan for world domination, and find a job in Canada as opposed to the UK, because I still have to work out all the visa shit and may not be able to do that in time.

Long story long, the princess is unhappy, and unless she can find someone's else's castle to share for a month or two, she may be leaving this city a little sooner than she thought!

What they don’t teach you in library school

I really think that library schools in Canada need to change their curriculum a bit to include some more useful classes for people who work in public libraries, in things like cleaning up after homeless people, disciplining young offenders, and most importantly, a mandatory education on drugs. I need to know what different drugs smell like (so I can tell what they've been doing in the bathroom), what stoned kids look like (for all the types of drugs, not just weed - I'm pretty good with that one now and besides, it's not as deadly as something like meth), and lately, what to do when a teen nearly overdoses. Yesterday I had a freaky experience when a seemingly good kid, who is an avid reader and really nice girl, came to my manga club and fell over the minute she walked through the door. She was conscious and could talk (sort of), but had very little muscle control, was slurring, crying, sweating and admitted to haven taken about three times as many of her Ativan (that apparently were prescribed for panic attacks) than she was supposed to have taken. Maybe I'm just not good in pressure situations, but I really didn't know what the fuck to do - I gave her some water, sat her down, and went to ask my library assistant what she would do ... we contemplated driving her to the hospital, but then eventually settled on calling her mom to come and do that, because after all, we are not her parents, and if she had been in worse shape we would have just called an ambulance. But I feel like an dumbass because this past Monday the same girl was in the library, acting a little weird, and maybe I should have picked up on the signs at that point, and she might not have gotten to this point of almost overdosing, just to get attention. According to the mom she has done this before, and this depresses me, because she is only 13 and seems like such a good kid ... but I guess any teen can overdose, given the chance. Maybe they couldn't have predicted teen services would be this way, but I really wish there had been some sort of head's up at library school that I might be dealing with such problems as a teen services librarian - I think a little less time should be spent on book talks (which I never do) and more time should be spent on real world problems that teens face in their everyday lives.

What a year it has been

Ok, it hasn't really been a year since my last post, but in many ways it feels like a year has passed in the last month. Since I last wrote, I saw Jesus (David Usher) twice in one week in concert, met a wonderful red-headed boy, got hit on by convicts at the library (a couple times), made a new friend, changed my mind many times about future job plans, had the children's editor at School Library Journal brag to her teen services staff at Berkeley Public Library about my teen programs, started some fun after-school clubs at my library, fell back onto the wagon and had some Doritos (after quitting chips last July and being clean since then), had an incredibly drunken night where I hit on my previous crush in front of my new boyfriend, planned a library top model program, watched a lot of movies and slightly less tv, endured a few April snowstorms followed by 15 degree sunny days where buses splashed big puddles of slush on me, bought some summer clothes, became addicted to Facebook, and learned to cook a couple new dishes. Wow, exciting, right? It may not be incredibly literary, but at least I'm giving an update...

At our worst

I sort of cracked the other day (not because of the shitty kids - they are the same as usual, in pissing me off every day) when I emailed the library director about this guy who runs a non-profit org in my mid-sized Canadian city and is a royal ass. Anyways, he has a project going called "at our best", where the library bought video and digital cameras so that people could sign them out for free and film pictures of people "at their best" in the community ... long story short, I got put in charge of the cameras, and not only has NOONE participated in this project, but 2 of the video cameras have been stolen. The other day the ass came and talked to me about how he should extend the deadline for the project (just give it up man - can't you just face the fact that the program was terribly vague and no one wanted to do it?) but the library should buy some new video cameras, and he wanted to talk to the director about it but he wasn't in. I think it's a terrible idea, because the library will just be wasting money on more cameras that will also be stolen ... so I headed off the ass, emailed the director, and said "feel free to disagree with me, but I think you should say no to the ass when he asks and we shouldn't buy him the camera, because his project has been a failure and we shouldn't have to suffer for that". While I was happy to get that off my chest, now I'm regretting sending the email because I've seen the director twice since that and he hasn't said a word or replied to my email, and I don't know if I should mention it again or just let it go. Then, a day later, the ass came into the library with a Shaw tv girl in tow, and said "hey, we're going to film you with the digital cameras for the project" and I was like "ok, fuck you very much I'd love to, and by the way thanks for the heads up - no call, no email, no nothing saying I'd be on Shaw tv and maybe should wash my hair". It was ridiculous because she just filmed me holding a camera, then sitting at my desk and pretend-talking to the ass ... but he's such a little bastard because not only did he say "oh, where is the poster for the ‘at our best’ project?" (which we have downstairs on our bulletin board but not in the teen area because it's ugly) but I know he's doing this so that the director will HAVE to give him the money for some new cameras, and now I look like even more of a fool for sending him that email!