I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex. - Vonnegut

Further explorations in Internet applications: Cuil. I am NOT impressed. This is being touted as the replacement Google and provides more privacy but in my estimation, provides no results. I appreciate that there is no personal information retained by the Gaelic-named search engine pronounced "cool" (seriously? totally geeky) but if there are no results retrieved, why would I use it? I found IxQuick, a metasearch, to be more useful and it retrieved things in my control search that Google did not. A lot more actually. I think I have a new friend. That said, the love I feel for Google will never be supplanted because Google encompasses a search plus Email, Documents, Chat, Maps . . . the list seems endless. Don't worry, my Googley darling, I'll always be true. Or until something better comes along.

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner. - Omar Bradley

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C. Clarke

Again, School Library Journal has made me the happiest little techno-kitten in the Internet yarn shop. July's issue has a long article about Twitter, one of my new applications with which to experiment and has inspired me to do two things: 1) work to get Twitter added to my library district's homepage, and 2) begin a folder with articles that further my professional development in the library field. The article gives tips on using Twitter, a list of the most followed librarians on Twitter (a new aspiration of mine!), and Twitter tools and mashups to be used for enhancements. Marvelous fun for experimentation. And ladies? Jane, Zelda, Sam, R. Batty? I expect you to get involved here.

I started reading a book called Water Cooler Diaries that follows a work day for a variety of women across America. It is mind-blowing to see the variety in women's days between states and occupations and pursuits. I love reading feminist and feminine literature, even the occasional chick-lit but mostly of the classic variety, like Valley of the Dolls or Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I have read countless tomes on the female experience, like Ophelia Edut's collections of essays on body image or essays about quinceneras or anything unique to women. Perhaps it is because I am a lesbian (sorry to the islanders in Greece who so object to sharing this term!) or perhaps it is just because I love and value women as a feminist but either way, it is just good.

To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god. - Jorge Luis Borges

Happiness depends upon ourselves. - Aristotle

Book recommendation: The Geography of Bliss

I began reading this book and am completely absorbed by the content. A correspondent for NPR decided to visit the countries with the highest "happiness rating" to determine what makes a place one of the happiest in the world. It is part-travel and part-psychology, completely intriguing. While in Bhutan, learning about collective happiness, he came to the conclusion that "trust is a prerequisite for happiness. . . . Several studies, in fact, have found that trust - more than income or even health - is the biggest factor in determining our happiness." If this is indeed the case, no wonder the US scores so low on the rating scale. Though we have great wealth in resources, trust in neighbors, the government, institutions, everything, is often absent. Another point he made later (in Iceland) caught my eye: that happiness and unhappiness are not two sides of the same coin but are different coins entirely. Icelandic people he met told him that they "cherish (their) melancholia" and that "you nurture your little melancholia, and it's like a buzz that makes you feel alive. You snap yourself a little bit and you feel this relief of how fragile life is and how tremendously fragile you are." I agree with the assessment that you must have pain to know when you feel pleasure. The book is definitely opening me up to new understanding of happiness and forcing me to recall what I learned while getting my psych degree.

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth. - George Bernard Shaw

Addendum: I finished the book and the entire thing was just as good as it began. A tip I picked up from Thailand is that relationships come before problems, and preserving a realtionship is more important than addressing a disturbance. The Thai also have a good sense of when to say "never mind" and actually forget something, instead of the bitter American "never mind" that actually means something else entirely. Excellent read.

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. - Poe

When the time comes for Google to rule the planet, I will lay down and let it (them?). Since I began this blog, I discovered iGoogle, as mentioned previously. I continue to tweak my iGoogle page to ensure that all my needs are being met, including my most recent addition of a comparative cost-of-living calculator as I fantasize about leaving Vegas and wonder if I could afford to live elsewhere. This Google obsession drew me into getting a Gmail account, since my beloved Sam has one and now we can chat while we are both at work. Then I explored Google Reader and now have feeds on my iGoogle page to update me on all my favorite sites. Finally, Google Documents. No longer will I fall prey to the tyranny of the flash drive ruling my life by requiring me to carry it at all times. Now I can access my work any time from any Internet connected computer. So frankly, Google has won my heart completely though Sam does have concerns about privacy invasion BUT I say small price to pay. Also, in a School Library Journal article I read, I learned a Google search can be limited by using the term "site:gov" or "site:edu" or anything to establish what type of source is sought. One would imagine I would have learned this already in 2 years of library school but . . .

I can't wait for work to end today because I have dinner plans with Jane then we will arise early to go swimming, a pleasure that is so regressive in the absolute enjoyment of it. Onward to sunshine and lots of sunscreen and good friends.

Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air…
Ralph Waldo Emerson

To have a really good time, you don't have to actually look good, you just have to think that you do. - Warhol

One of the pleasures of living by yourself is the privilege of being able to practice, day after day, in whatever order you wish, the rituals that define your tastes and aspirations without any threat of disruption. . . He had loved, a few times briefly but only once seriously. The love wasn't returned and so he made peace with all the aspects of single life that so many people find abhorrent. Now he valued them above all else. Over time he'd mutated from a lonely, watchful person into a completely self-sufficient one, treating himself with the same affection a love would. - Katherine Tessaro

Goodbye, Bunny.

The dead celebrities party was a danceteria success and I quite enjoyed posing as Wendy O. Williams for the night. Warhol danced with Kurt Cobain and Brandon Lee practiced Bollywood moves with Zelda Fitzgerald. Selena and Princess Di got tipsy and fell together on the couch.

We're all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars. - Oscar Wilde

I need to make one thing very clear – I detest children. I always have and they have always liked me, so it makes a perverse sense that I am a children’s librarian. However, I do believe that in choosing to have one, you have a lifetime responsibility to put that person that you created first over everything else. Which is why I am so unhappy this morning at yet another example of parental neglect at the library. A girl who is under 2 years old is running around the library and her sister of about 7 is expected to mind her. When no one was paying attention, her short little legs ran off and fortunately not out the door but over to the adult side instead. No one noticed but me. And I only noticed because our computers are down. I walked over to find her and when I crouched with my arms outstretched, she ran into them. How dangerous is this? I am a stranger; she doesn’t know me at all yet trusted me completely. The sister came to find her and I walked them both back to the parent with a firm instruction to keep an eye on her, a challenge because she had a baby in her arms and therefore wasn’t as mobile as one need be to mind a toddler. No sooner had I returned to my desk than the little one ran over to me again. Am I the most attention she has gotten in some time? Nothing makes me feel misanthropic quicker than a morning like this. Not liking children aside, I still thing they are humans and therefore deserving of treatment with affection and respect.

Enough. I am reading a FABULOUS book called Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever and it is wonderfully funny and insightful. Jane is reading it simultaneously and we are both enjoying it. We also both read Sex and Bacon which is an absolutely brilliant and sybaritic read in addition to being so applicable, Jane copied out a quote and affixed it to the fridge because it reminded her of me. Magnificent. Now I will start reading the technology issue of School Library Journal, both because it interests me and because it may have some useful information for my final class.

I miss stars. That is a huge drawback to the lights of Vegas.

The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago, had they happened to be within reach of predatory human hands. - Havelock Ellis

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars... - Jack Kerouac

“It’s METAL to like clowns” – Toki from Metalocalypse

I spent my weekend watching cartoons about metal. When Nathan Explosion had a nightmare about working for Dimmu Burger (a play on the band name Dimmu Borgir for any non-metalheads), I rolled around on the couch clutching my belly. Cartoons are so soothing; perhaps that is the appeal of Drawn Together as well. I have many preferences that indicate to the outside observer that I may pursue some rather childish interests: glitter, fairy tales, cartoons, ice cream and . . .

I adore rainbow sprinkles. (Hate donuts though)

One of the reasons why, however, is not so childish. Once upon a time in Hollywood, I went to the Erotic Museum and saw on the wall a photograph that has remained burned into my mind ever since. It was a close up of a hand covering a woman’s genitals. All of the skin was covered with a very thin layer of chocolate syrup, just enough to make it look glossy and bronzed and topped with a generous application of rainbow sprinkles. I stared in open-mouth admiration for some time and still regret not finding some way to purchase it. It was so erotic and playful and magnificent and spell-binding that I still remember it vividly. Bravo for sprinkles.

I passed my Capstone. I will graduate in 5 weeks, provided I pass my final internet applications class.

I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it. - Federico Fellini

Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life. - W. Somerset Maugham

It has never been my object to record my dreams, just to realize them. – Man Ray

Today has been a banner day at the carnival freak show that is public librarianship. There is the usual cavalcade of unbrushed and grooming optional patrons that is more extreme on certain days. The patron who calls herself “Xena Wonderwoman”, makes herself bullet-stopping bracelets from aluminum foil (she is in her 30s but has some severe developmental disabilities), and bellows at the top of her voice whatever inanity comes into her head. The gigantic 17-year-old who play Yu-Gi-Oh with kids half his age (and gloats about beating them) and wears his sunglasses in the library. Today was a priceless quote from a mother that made me clutch my coworker’s leg to stifle my laughter: “Sydney? Do those books honor God?” This was in the whiniest self-righteous voice I have ever heard and I have immediately appropriated this phrase for my own vocabulary. At lunch with Jane, I asked her if her burrito honored God. She tried not to choke. Public libraries are the strangest places.

I have been thinking a lot about books that influence me. Anything by Francesca Lia Block makes me dreamy and idle. Spending by Mary Gordon made me long for a patron so I could indulge in my artistic pursuits (nevermind that I haven’t any sort of talent). Femme’s Guide to the Universe by Shar Rednour always helps me feel bien dans ma peau. Jacqueline Susann’s books are so escapist I can hardly remember my own name. Alexei Kruchenykh’s poems expand my consciousness. Bukowski and the Beats ground me. Please note this is a very limited list as my collection is too large for complete inclusion in a blog post. I use books for everything; about time I became a librarian.

“Learn to value yourself, which means: to fight for your happiness.” – Ayn Rand

Not only was her memory as sheer as her stockings, but each thing it held shone through every other one so vividly that all were hopelessly suffused.

So says Paul Eluard.

My next big program at work is the School-Age Storytime series that starts in the fall. It is a 6-week program and this will be my first time doing one for school aged patrons. I am exhausted with the Preschool Storytime and look forward to working with the older kids. My plan is the base the entire 6 weeks on the Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl, which I consider required reading for any and everyone. There is a fabulous message of creativity and self-acceptance which are extremely important for anyone but especially elementary and middle school aged kids. Ideally I will no longer be in this library by then, having secured my degree and a position as a librarian but I enjoy the planning all the same. Though I imagine the program will be sparsely attended, if it all. I had 2 people show up for my GLBT storytime, to my grave disappointment. The statistics for my library’s zip code show that 70% of our residents live below the poverty line. Our program attendance is sporadic and nearly impossible to judge. However, the amount of young patrons who come in unattended and spend the entire day, without meal-breaks, is mind-blowing and wildly depressing.

Moving on, I look forward to a surprise day off on July 4th. I have plans with Jane and Bunny to get pho and taro shakes (because what spells YAY America more than Vietnamese food?) for lunch. Perhaps I shall spend it cleaning my house. I came across a poem that I adore though I am not sure of the author which I shall post below:

I always liked housecleaning
even as a child
I dug straightening the cabinets
putting new paper on the shelves
washing the refrigerator inside out
and unfortunately this habit has carried over and I find
I must remove you from my life

“It is better to be bored on one’s own than with others” – P. Bonard

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. - Oscar Wilde

One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else. - Eleanor Roosevelt

I dined with a friend yesterday who bestowed upon me the gift of a necklace, a tiny piece of bamboo dipped in gold and threaded onto a red string. The purpose of the necklace is to make a wish when fastening it and to wear it until the string breaks, at which point your wish will be ready to come true. Wishes are a funny territory for me; after being raised atheist, I am very skeptical of anything I can’t prove. However, I am also wildly romantic (as cited in the beginning of the blog) and my desire to believe in such things propels me forward, though I remain doubtful in the back of my mind. After dining, we returned to her house to watch the Bollywood film “Don” with Shah Rukh Khan. I adore Bollywood films because they are overflowing with music, dancing, colors, and beautiful women. Which are all things I like. And speaking of dancing, Jane, Zelda, and I are having a “dead celebrities” party wherein the guests are invited to dress as their favorite dead celebrity and the manner in which they died. I am considering Wendy O. Williams though Zelda has some odd desire for me to dress as Marilyn Monroe.

On the library science front, I have completed all my discussion posts and assignments for the government documents class. My full attention is now turned toward the internet applications class, for which this blog was initially created. Bravo to me and my (for once) wonderful group members.

My newest word acquisition is eudaimonia, to have a flourishing life. I learned it in the June issue of Psychology Today, in an article about being “authentic”. Try using it in a sentence.

“Of course it’s possible to love a human being if you don’t know them to well”
“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead”
“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.”
-all from Charles Bukowski (not the cat)