If little else, the brain is an educational toy. - Tom Robbins

"How I love libraries, any and all libraries, those sanctuaries for the maimed and undanceable, the lowly, pimply, neurotic, overweight, underweight, myopic, asthmatic . . . Few are the flirtations in a library. Few are the assaults, physical or verbal. Libraries exist for people like me."
- Joyce Carol Oates, Expensive People

Today is my first day as a "librarian". I breezed past the breakroom, not needing to swipe my card and fairly danced toward my desk. I remain in my current library for 2 weeks but my position and pay change today. This will sustain me through my "I Sing the Body Electric" program today, where I will hand out saltines and explain the digestive process, we will breathe deeply and explain the respiration process, I will lead the patrons in a simple yoga series and try to understand what it means to fully inhabit one's body. Trying to do yoga with our jaded and thuggish little patrons? Not my brightest choice but perhaps it will succeed. I am in an anticipatory state, refining my program plans for the upcoming interview. Stargirl and Pigeons Finds a Hot Dog are my selected texts for use. Mo Willem's is a proven success with children, I read that book in my nephew's classroom to great acclaim and hope that positivity will carry over to my interview. And I have adored Stargirl since I first opened it, know it inside and out, and hope that comfort level will enable me to speak cogently and present my ideas well.

I like the loner's view of libraries presented by the narrator in Joyce Carol Oates' Expensive People, library as sanctuary for the unacceptable. I have grown up in libraries, remember checking out stacks of books up to my chin, arms extended and aching. I have always slept surrounded by shelves and shelves of books, find solace in running my eyes over them, rearranging them by subject or theoretical LC call number. (I am not yet far gone enough to have actually cataloged my home library) I bring home great stacks of materials, create extended reading lists, systematically work my way through the piles, assimilating and digesting materials from fiction and nonfiction alike. Books take me out of myself and return me improved. Reading is my joy and my solace and I am so lucky to have finally become a librarian, less than a week before my 28th birthday. Now on to more sobering personal matters.

"Only when the honey turns to dust are you free" - Rebecca Solnit, Field Guide to Getting Lost

This is a perfect summation of my current requirements, I am trying to let the honey that coats my heart turn to dust so that one of my many sighs might puff away the residue of adoration and pain. And so to will the sighs fade away, my eyes clear our the glamour that has entranced me. I likened my current state of sensation to the original "Little Mermaid" story, where she felt as though each step she took was on razor sharp knives. I feel as though each beat of my heart drives a thousand billion (the same number as cells in a human body) tiny spikes deeply into the muscle. But only when I remember her. The trick is to escape and let the honey become dust so that the memories will just be sweet and part of my arsenal of experiences. Until then, I will drown myself in books and experiences. Today's attempt? Sew Subversive, a book on creating one's own fabulous wardrobe though my talent in the domestic arts is restrained solely to the cleaning sphere. Cooking and sewing are nearly hopeless pursuits. I will keep trying though . . .

Intriguing fact from Harper's Index in October of 1989: Estimated amount of glucose used by an adult human brain each day, expressed in M&Ms: 250

Check out some of my new favorite online comics: Girls with Slingshots!, Eat Your Lipstick, Kawaii Not.