notes for future novels - february 2003

Friday, February 28, 2003
The thing with me is that I have no discipline. I spend at least several hours each day wishing that I would write a book of some value and importance to the world, or at least one to entertain small children. If I spent those hours writing, it would be done by now. If I spent them even outlining or brainstorming or something then there would be movement and progress. Instead I whine, I moan, I have tantrums for no good reason.
Last night it was because Wes called home to ask me to make lentil soup which threw me into a tizzy of wifely backlash. In the end I made the soup and it was yummy and perfect for a cold winter night. And he brought home the good bread and the fruit market next to us even had Fontina cheese so we had "bread boats" in our soup that soaked up the yummy soup. And we watched silly TV and cuddled on the couch and I started a new set of striped booties for one of the twelve gazillion babies we know of. I say know of because we haven't met most of these babies. All were born recently to Wes' work friends and none of them have invited me over to coo over their babies or give them any of the backlog of crocheted baby gifts sitting in our gift closet. This is because Wes' friends sort of suck and never invite us to do anything and probably hate me. Also because they also have new babies and are busy and tired but mostly because they hate me. So most likely I will keep all these baby gifts in a closet pathetically waiting for the future S****-G**** baby to be born about a zillion years from now when I am sane. Ha. Like I'll ever be sane.
The only thing I have ever done successfully (so far) is quit smoking and it was the hardest thing ever. It was weeks of torture and it is still hard several times a week. It was so hard that I am proud not to have given in. It is the only thing in my life that I have done for which I give myself proper, deserved credit. It took will power and discipline and I did it. Maybe I used it all up?
I saw a children's author named Sh*ron Cr*ech speak yesterday up at fancy-schmancy D***** School and she was lovely. She spoke of getting an idea and starting to write a story and some characters without ever knowing what was going to happen. In some ways it bugs me when authors speak about writing in this sort of strange and mysterious way, like it's magic and they don't know how it happens. But I also know what they mean. I just wish they would spell it out for me more clearly. Tell me how to do what they did so I can feel again that I have done something important and worthy of praise.
I stopped in the Barnes and Noble near the subway up there on the Upper Eastside and found myself in the writing section and bought things. So I'm reading Stephen King's On Writing at the moment and even though I am not a fan of his (having actually never read any of his books, to be honest, as I get nightmares) but I am loving reading it anyway. I am loving spending the time thinking about writing.
// posted by ms.bri @ 10:50 AM

Thursday, February 27, 2003
Ah, the reunion. It was lovely to see our great teachers and have them give short speeches on how great we all are and how influential we each were to the school.
I am sad that Mr. Rogers died. Some combination of hearing that news this morning along with attending the reunion has made me long for my youth in a silly, I-wish-I-were-a-little-girl-again way. I wish I could go to ballet class and pretend to be a butterfly waking from my cocoon. I wish I could climb the masturbatory rope in PE class. I wish I could be on the loveseat in my father's living room reading Are You There God It's Me Margaret for the 21st time. I wish I could lay in a dark room listening to Dr. Demento late on a Sunday night when I'm supposed to be asleep. I wish I could be playing with Fisher Price Little People on the floor of the kitchen while my babysitter/housekeeper/Momma B is ironing and General Hospital is on TV. I wish I could choreograph a dance number or two to Sesame's Street's Greatest Hits. I wish I didn't have to be a grown-up right now.
// posted by ms.bri @ 11:24 AM

Wednesday, February 26, 2003
I lost my work keys about three weeks ago. I have found that I don't actually need them so much. I need only one of the six or seven that were on the ring. I don't have it yet, so I turn down all requests to use the copier when the other librarians aren't here. And I just don't worry about any of the work things that I can only discover in the files in the office. I wait until my part time assistant is here and ask her.
My point is that it has led me to think about all the other things that maybe we don't need to do at work. What can we get away with not doing? I have realized quite quickly that I can get away without doing all sorts of crazy staffing chain of command documents and histories of staffing request documents and requests for this or that other person. The answer will be no, you can't have an AV person. I have learned this now. Also, I can quietly skip evaluating my assistant or the person who does the shelving in the afternoons even though there seems to be evidence in the files that my predecessor did constant and lengthy evaluations of all of her staff. Oh well. Not getting done. Not so important, obviously, because no one has said anything about my not doing it and I have been the Department Chair for one year and 4 months now.
I think this may be the key to a happy life. Figure out what you can get away with not doing. And then blog instead.
// posted by ms.bri @ 2:55 PM

Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Wes and I have decided that for purposes of abbreviation, we will now be referring to the evil Dr. Lee as Dr. Leevil.
// posted by ms.bri @ 7:41 PM

OK. So my horrid, abusive, idiotic, food-and-wine-snob ex-boyfriend from when I was 15 will be at the NYC Urban Reunion tomorrow evening. And he will be bringing his ridiculous fiance. I don't know her or anything, but I'm assuming that she's ridiculous because one would have to be to agree to marry a horrid, abusive, idiotic, food-and-wine-snob boy like him.
I am so curious to see if his acne cleared up, to see if he still has dandruff and wears the same black pants too often, to see if the engagement ring really does resemble mine, to see how it can be that this big jerk turned into someone who was so excited to get a Kitchenaid mixer that he posted a picture of it on his blog. That is something I would do, for heaven's sake.
In other news, I still have the Lexapro headache.It is more than three weeks so I finally called that evil Dr. Lee who put me on it. I am going off of it now and trying something new, but it will take a week of tapering off. Then I will be trying Effexor, which is the same drug my darling husband takes, which is awfully convenient. I hope it works so we can share crazy drugs. That's just so romantic.
// posted by ms.bri @ 2:14 PM

And now, my thoughts on teenage boys.
Apparently, teenage boys are somewhat different from teenage girls. Apparently, it is not unusual for them to attempt to pass their entire adolescence in a state of what looks like coma - either sleeping, watching TV, or playing video games. This appears to be laziness, but it is in fact very close to my own method of avoiding anxiety and stress. If you just do exactly what you like to do all the time and try very hard to avoid doing anything you don't want to do, like work of any sort, then you can glide smoothly, calmly through your life. For a couple of years now my father and stepmother have been complaining about my brother's laziness and that it's all because of his depression and all his troubles blah blah blah, but actually I think it is because he is a teenage boy. I have formulated this new idea based on my own parenting of a soon-to-be teenage boy and also on some reading I did over the weekend - Get Out Of My Life, but first can you drive me and Cheryl to the mall? by Anthony Wolff which is a good book about parenting teenagers.
I have used the word "teenage" throughout that last paragraph. Should it be "teenaged" instead? I don't think so, but maybe I'm wrong. Alana?
// posted by ms.bri @ 10:59 AM

Monday, February 24, 2003
Today the blogs of Alana and Martha are far more exciting than mine. At least the comments on them involve tickle fights and girl on girl action. So go read them. I'll just be here. Boring old librarian that I am.
// posted by ms.bri @ 2:52 PM

Here I am at work. It was a really long weekend and I am exhausted. Saturday we went to the Barney's Warehouse Sale and then I had dinner with my stepmother and sister and saw Flower Drum Song with them. And Sunday I went to Meeting and was "on the door" (as a member of the Welcoming Committee, I shake hands with everyone as they arrive and welcome any newcomers) and then drove my sister back to Northampton in the rain and back home with my stepmother in the ice.
And now my back hurts like nobody's business and I have to go observe a Lexis-Nexis lesson and then I have to lead a Department Meeting and then it will be time for lunch and then I will read to Kindergarteners and then there will be a full faculty meeting at which the architects will present the process of the Space Assessment Study and I will be secretly reading or doodling or something (damn - I should have brought my crocheting!) because I am on the Space Assessment Committee and have already seen this presentation and then after that I will go to therapy and I, of course, would rather not. Surprise surprise.
Tomorrow I will play Dictionary with some 4th graders and read a Cinderella story to some 3rd graders and my afternoon class will be gone for a field trip and so I will observe a librarian teaching a horrid group of 8th graders and then I will attend a long Space Assessment Committee meeting. Wednesday I will teach 4th graders more about atlases and I will read Cinderella stories to 2nd graders and then I will attend a small high school reunion in Grand Central Station at which I may or may not see my horrid, abusive, idiotic, food-and-wine-snob ex-boyfriend from when I was 15.
Thursday, I have decided, will be a snow day.
// posted by ms.bri @ 10:54 AM

Friday, February 21, 2003
I am way past sick of this week. The worst part is that this week was only three days long for me. I had Monday and Tuesday off! What is wrong with me?
I think I forgot to take my crazy pill yesterday.
I think my husband is mad at me because I got mad at him for saying life is poop.
I think my stepmother and father are superficial but I love them anyway and am frustrated by them.
I think my brother is a brilliant robot maker and I am hoping he is doing well at his competitions this weekend.
I think my sister is awesome and I hope she is having fun running around Manhattan with her mother who is not so adventurous without our father around.
I think my husband is the most wonderful man on the planet and I hope he isn't really mad at me. And also I hope that his day didn't reinforce that bad life-is-poop feeling from this morning because I get to hang out with him tonight for the first time since Monday and I know it's unreasonable but whenever I am excited to be with him and he is not feeling perky and happy to be with me it makes me mad. I know I should be more understanding about moods and depression and anxiety and all that both of us are up against. But it still makes me mad. I feel like I am trying so, so hard. Of course, he has spent months and months trying so hard, too. Trying not to scream with frustration when I won't leave the house for some ridiculous reason. I know that. I didn't say I was a rational human being.
I think that I cannot possibly stop eating the large amount of junk food I have lately been eating. Today, so far, I have had two donuts, one eclair and a cupcake with gobs of lemon frosting (Callum's half-birthday) (we teachers get gooey cupcakes every other day, it seems, for someone's birthday or half-birthday!). I think it is a sort of illness and that I am sublimating something onto junk food. It's not the first time.
I think I'll go downstairs to Room ***'s belated Chinese New Year celebration and see if there are any more goodies. Only maybe I won't because I am not fond of Room ***'s teachers.
I think I want to go home now.
// posted by ms.bri @ 1:54 PM

Here is what happened in Room **'s library period between two five year olds:
Annie (mad): Bri, Ava said I am not allowed to say one word!
Me: Ava, what's going on with Annie?
Ava (rubbing her temples like she's 45 years old): It's just that I have this headache and she just kept on annoying me with her words.
Annie (furious, trying to interrupt): I can't say nothing!
Me: OK, Ava, well there's a better way to say that. You could say, 'Annie, I have a headache right now so could you not talk for a little while?'
Ava: I did say that!
Annie (so mad that she puts her hands up like a little animal and snarls): I'm just supposed to say nothing??? Like (she puffs her mouth out and makes a face as though she is being quiet in a stupid way)?? FINE! I will never say anything again!! (She snarls up her face, crying, does a graceful ballet-like run over to the fairy tale section, braids flying out behind her and buries her face in her hands in the corner)
I love five year olds.
// posted by ms.bri @ 10:59 AM

Thursday, February 20, 2003
There is a Haitian poet in the other room doing a poetry reading in French for some teenagers. I used to speak French but it's too hazy now to understand him. But I like listening to his voice.
I have a new parent volunteer whom I like very much named Alyssa. She's a real librarian. She went to the same library school that I went to and liked the same professors. She has two small children and a dog that looks like Lexie. She is so excited about kids and books and is doing this because she doesn't have time to get a job being a full-time librarian yet. But I think she'll make a great librarian when it comes time.
Seeing her reminded me of how much fun this job is when it's just about the kids and the books. I am so, so sick of all the rest of it. I have decided that S*. L***'s will inevitably hire a Lower School Librarian someday and that even though I won't be a Department Chair or any of the other snazzy stuff I am here, I will move over there in a heartbeat just to work in a place where computers are not my job. I don't care one bit about computers. I love using them. I think older kids should learn to use them. I think teenagers absolutely need to be good at using them to succeed in almost any future job at this point. But I Just. Don't. Care. I just cannot get passionate about being the one to teach those skills and certainly not about supervising several surly other people who teach those skills. I am passionate about kids and about their enjoyment of books and of finding information. But I like to be the first person in that chain. I like being the one who teaches them to alphabetize and sing silly songs and find out that Cinderella was actually first told in China in the 10th century. I don't like being the one to teach them to use Lexis-Nexis and to help them research their report on primates (OK, I like researching primates, too. I just don't like teenagers.). Our school is all cutting edge because we combined the tech and library departments into Information Resources. I fully support that. I just don't like spending my time worrying about it.
This is boring. I wish it were lunch time. I am now going here to check on what lunch might be. It's pasta. That is also boring.
On the plus side, I am playing three part chamber music in my violin class and it's gorgeous.
// posted by ms.bri @ 11:33 AM

Wednesday, February 19, 2003
I am pretty sure that I just fell asleep for a moment. It looks like I am going to need coffee in order to get through the Department Chairs Meeting I have to go to in half an hour. Dammit. AND I have a violin lesson this evening that is preventing me from going to the cheese restaurant with the family. Double dammit.
// posted by ms.bri @ 3:03 PM

A Long Blog Which Disintegrates Into A Diatribe About My Family
I am exhausted. I try not to drink caffeine in the mornings, choosing Decaf Green Tea to accompany my Cliff Bar breakfast. I do not want to wake up one morning and find that I must have coffee before I can function. For some reason this is a big thing for me. So I don't usually have coffee except on some weekends when darling husband offers to make it so sweetly that I can't resist, and then he makes it in his snazzy special coffee mechanism (the name is escaping me right now - anyone?) puts in just the right amount of soy milk and sugar and uses the strange little whipping machine GMB gave us to froth it up and make it like a latte. Then I enjoy coffee. But I don't drink it here. And perhaps because I rarely drink caffeine, it seems to upset my stomach which makes me less likely to drink it.
So here I am exhausted and with no classes today (one class on a field trip, the other cancelled for assembly rehearsal) and nothing much to do. Sure, lots of work to do. Just no motivation to do it. I would like to read all day and so I will most likely spend a large portion of my day reading but pretending to work when I think someone's looking. And I have a sneaking suspicion that I may blog a lot. And I will think about the snow that is now piled as high as me. And I will think about the protest that we left early because it was getting a bit scary and we couldn't get past 3rd Avenue, and about how it made me so mad at the time until later when I heard about the police riding horses into the crowds and then I was relieved that I had taken my baby sister on out of there. And I will think some more about my secret screenplay and how it has absolutely no plot and I will worry about whether I will ever really write it, when if I would spend this same time writing rather than worrying it would be done before I knew it. And I will think about lunch which occurs in approximately 90 minutes. And that will make me think about the tiny little pill I have to take after lunch. And that will make me think about my sister who I discovered this weekend has a similar anxiety problem complete with many of my same neuroses and who started taking medication the same day as me without either of us knowing.
<family diatribe kept private>
// posted by ms.bri @ 10:43 AM
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Friday, February 14, 2003
I would now like some advice as to what romantic yet inexpensive thing I can do for my husband this evening. The plan must take into consideration that if something needs to be bought than it must be available in Union Square or on 7th Avenue in Park Slope. Also, the plan must take into account that I will be attempting to rise at 5 am to go and get my sister from Northampton, MA tomorrow morning and still make it back for the peace rally. So it can't be late night fun. And preferably the plan won't include any heavy-duty cooking. Our plan so far is to get Thai or Japanese take-out and drink pink champagne that I bought a few months ago. Maybe we will also listen to jazz and be classy. Also I will be attempting not to have any tantrums and hoping that the medication does not cause the headache too badly (today is day one of full dose). So, anyone?
// posted by ms.bri @ 10:35 AM

Our school is having this problem with the Upper Schoolers and this rose thing they do. It's some sort of fundraiser where kids buy roses for each other and apparently it's gotten a bit out of hand and there's concern about the girls who don't get any. Yawn-o-rama. I truly believe we have a bad batch of kids at this school if there's nothing better for them to be worrying about than who gets a damn plastic flower and who doesn't. We are supposed to be a community of peace-loving activists. We should be developing our meeting place and plans for tomorrow's big rally. But instead, they are whining about roses. Boo-fucking-hoo.
I know it's the rare teenager who can get outside of themselves for very long. But I beg that they try once in a while. We were far better teenagers in San Francisco in the early 90's. We got very riled up about the last war in Iraq. We skipped school and tried to close down the Municipal Building. We marched onto the Bay Bridge and stopped traffic. I spent nights fighting with my dad and discovering my identity as a pacifist in a just-barely-emerging-from-being-Phoenix-Republicans household. I made mix tapes full of anti-war songs like that lame remake of "Give Peace a Chance." I thought Julian Lennon was hot. I went on the school trip to DC and fought with the teenagers from Texas (Really - can you imagine - this program we were on thought it a good idea to stick teenagers from Texas and teenagers from San Francisco in a room together and then say "Abortion. Discuss." We nearly ate each other!). I wanted so badly to live in a world that was rational to me. And neither Bush is rational to me at all.
We live in New York City and we will not be leaving. We will not be purchasing extra duct tape. We heard an expert on the news this morning say that the chances of actually dying in NYC in any sort of attack are about one in a million. Yes, terrorism is far scarier because it is unknown, but we are more likely to develop cancer or heart disease or get hit by a bus. Our government is going to go to another country and kill people in our name and it is not right. I will be sitting in Meeting on Sunday in silence waiting for "way to open" for me to understand what I can do and praying to the powerful force of love to help us see clearly. Right now it just feels like time to move to Iceland.
// posted by ms.bri @ 9:36 AM

Thursday, February 13, 2003
I now offer My Thoughts on Marriage
Marriage means that if I die on the way home, someone will notice before the night is through. It means that when I am sick someone takes care of me, unless I turn really whiny and annoying and stretch the illness out for as many days as I can. Which is what I do sometimes. But being married means that he knows when I am stretching it and when I am actually in pain of some sort. It also means that I can't go spend large amounts of money on everything I want to exactly when I want to. If I want something, I need to think about the bigger picture and discuss it with him. As opposed to before when I might have decided that I needed something very expensive, like, say, a new computer and I would have stopped at Circuit City on my way home. In all honesty, we used to do that sort of thing together. Like the time we spent $900 on a coat for him. That was a long time ago, though. We don't do that anymore. 'Cause we're married now. Also, being married means that no matter how much we hate each other in a given five minute period, we had better find some way to deal with it. Often that means calling one another poop. We have called each other every form of poop we can think of. This way, we are not actually being extremely mean or cursing each other out or anything. We are being silly and actually sort of creative when you think about it. And so usually we end up laughing. We swear that this is the secret of our happy, nearly 11 month old marriage. We laugh a lot. Being married means that you can call each other poop a whole bunch, and that I can blame him for my having to take psychiatric drugs even though that's ludicrous and that we have vowed to find some way to make all this ridiculousness keep going for our whole lives. Sometimes I get terribly scared of the idea of divorce. Scared that somehow we really won't be able to do it. That's not surprising given that my mother was twice divorced. I guess, though, that getting married means taking on this mighty, scary challenge of staying together. That you will put up with as much as you possibly can to try to reap all the amazing benefits that come from knowing another person almost as well as you know yourself.
// posted by ms.bri @ 3:11 PM

I am so mad right now. I hate the teenagers. They do not listen to me even when I tell them to get out of the library. I have now shut my door, which I don't even like to do, but I can still hear them through the window wall. I hate them. Fortunately there are only 15 minutes left in the school day.
// posted by ms.bri @ 3:00 PM

Just so you know, I am fully aware that my blog has become wholly uninteresting to others. Well, tough. This is a good use of this space for me. It's my blog, dammit. I'm tired of trying to entertain you. Just go away if you don't like it.
Things hanging over my head
1. Write letter to Meeting requesting consideration for membership. Yep. I'm gonna be a real live Quaker.
2. Take pictures of kitten and load onto Shutterfly and order prints and bring to school. Also get kitten his final shots ASAP and get kitten neutered before he starts spraying or something, for heaven's sake.
3. Really, truly clean my desk at work.
4. Really, truly get my office organized at home. Hang up that quilt sitting on that shelf waiting to be hung up.
5. Go to Ikea and buy some more boxes - for storage room and for yarn.
6. Find some security software for home computer. Try to avoid all that spam.
7. Buy some baking pans.
8. Consider screenwriting software.
9. Develop a system of making sure that I write to my grandmother every week.
10. Finish lesson plans for the rest of school year and do the necessary photocopying.
11. Write up thoughts on space needs for the department.
12.Go through my work notebook and see what tasks I've been avoiding for the last several months.
13. Develop more organized method of finishing up craft projects - a notebook or something to remind me what I'm in the middle of before I start something new. Start Julie and Patrick's wedding present.
14. Find a way to convince myself to do that damn ballet tape again.
15. Dinners. More of them that don't consist of toast and jam, even though I love toast and jam.
16. Make reservations for my friend's wedding in Missouri this summer.
17. Read some grown up books once in a while.
18. Practice violin with more discipline.
// posted by ms.bri @ 12:22 PM

Today my goal is to be like Alana. Really just in one way. Today I want to start making a list of all the things I do instead of write. I think mine will be difficult and I don't think that I will be anywhere near as speedy as her at accomplishing them. I also think living with my particularly neatnik husband may be an item on the list that cannot be helped. But we shall see.
// posted by ms.bri @ 9:47 AM

Wednesday, February 12, 2003
OK. I sort of did some really light tidying of my desk and I found two bills from October that I never dealt with. Hm. I am sure that they have been dealt with by now and there is no way I will go ask someone. Maybe I can figure it out by looking through my assistant's papers. She's not here today. The only problem is that I lost my keys a few weeks ago and now I can't get into the library office to see the papers or even to get more kleenex. I have spent this whole day doing absolutely nothing. It's been quiet and wierd here. I don't feel like I am actually here. I wish I were not. There is another bizarre faculty meeting being called for this afternoon and no one knows why. Everything is kind of poopy here. I wish I worked somewhere else today.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENYA!
// posted by ms.bri @ 12:53 PM

This was forwarded to me - it's one of those silly email jokes but it's particularly good, I think. I would have just emailed it to people but since Alana can't get her email at work, I thought I'd put it here to brighten her day.
How Many Dogs Does It Take To Change A Light Bulb?
Golden Retriever:
The sun is shining, the day is young, we've got our whole lives ahead of us, and you're inside worrying about a stupid burned out bulb?
Border Collie:
Just one. And then I'll replace any wiring that's not up to code.
Dachshund:
You know I can't reach that stupid lamp!
Rottweiler:
Make me.
Lab:
Oh, me, me!!!!! Pleeeeeeeeeze let me change the light bulb! Can I? Can I? Huh? Huh? Huh? Can I?
German Shepherd:
I'll change it as soon as I've led these people from the dark, checked to make sure I haven't missed any, and make just one more perimeter patrol to see that no one has tried to take advantage of the situation.
Maltese:
Let the Border Collie do it. You can feed me while he's busy.
Jack Russell Terrier:
I'll just pop it in while I'm bouncing off the walls and furniture.
Poodle:
I'll just blow in the Border Collie's ear and he'll do it. By the time he finishes rewiring the house, my nails will be dry.
Cocker Spaniel:
Why change it? I can still pee on the carpet in the dark.
Doberman:
While it's dark, I'm going to sleep on the couch.
Boxer:
Who cares? I can still play with my squeaky toys in the dark.
Chihuahua:
Yo quiero Taco Bulb
Hound Dog:
z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z
Pointer:
I see it, there it is. There it is, right there.
Greyhound:
It isn't moving. Who cares?
Australian Shepherd:
First, I'll put all the light bulbs in a little circle.
Old English Sheep Dog:
Light bulb? I'm sorry, but I don't see a light bulb.
CAT:
Dogs do not change light bulbs. People change light bulbs. So, the question is: How long will it be before I can expect light?
// posted by ms.bri @ 10:31 AM

Day Five of Half-Normal Medication Dose
I fear that this medication may be giving me a headache. On Monday I called it a "Room *** Headache" and assumed the Kindergarteners caused it. Yesterday I forgot to take my medication until nearly 3 pm and soon thereafter the headache began. Since then it has been diminished but present. I don't feel great. Now granted, I have also had a runny nose for so long that it's possible I have some minor sinus infection and that's causing my head to hurt. Or it's possible that work and medication are stressing me out so much that my head hurts. I don't know. But I don't like it, I'll tell you that.
The librarian meeting was frustrating because the speakers were about the mass commercialization of children's literature and while I understand the problems they speak of, they also annoyed me. The first guy said that having all the associated toys and TV shows and movies and all is actually changing the way kids read and that they don't have to visualize any more. One librarian pointed out that there are a number of kids in the world who have a lot of trouble getting into a book, mostly because visualizing is hard for them and she has a fifth grader who feels more confident reading now that he saw the Harry Potter movie, for example. I think she's right on. I think that saying that all kids need practice at visualizing what they're reading is ignoring the very different learning styles that exist in the world. I think there are tons of kids that need that practice and that we should certainly read wonderful, descriptive books aloud to children. But I also refuse to push my learning style or the way that I enjoy books onto any child. The same speaker said that he really despises the notion that "At least they're reading." He says that obviously all of us librarians care what our kids are reading because that's why we became librarians. That's a load of hooey. I want to help my kids find the books or magazines or whatever that they enjoy, not the books I think they should enjoy. Then the second speaker was a woman who started her own publishing house to reprint old, out of print children's books. She is, of course, making absolutely no money and is very bitter about this. But she was a lawyer before this and her address is on the Upper West Side and so I think she'll be fine. In any case, she spent the first half of her talk RAILING against a number of our favorite titles for 9-14 year olds, such as Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging and Hoot. She has problems with boy-crazy characters, alcoholic parent characters, any sort of message being pushed, and any sort of issue novel like Go Ask Alice. Which basically wipes out all but those happy little innocent books like Betsy Tacy or Half Magic or Anne of Green Gables. There are a good handful of kids who like to read these happy little books at that age, but mostly they want to read really horrible stuff and really depressing stuff and I think that seems to be a normal phase. This woman just kept saying that the kids deserved a real childhood and that the books they read should reflect the hope of a happy life. In any case, by the end of her talk when the librarians had risen up against her, she was saying that some of the books she was railing against were fine books but that there need to be alternatives, which is another message entirely but which was not what she started out saying. I have no respect for changing one's position mid-speech. It's tacky.
I know that was really long and rambling about a subject that very few people care about. Sorry. Maybe I need to write an article instead. Right now I would usually be teaching 4th graders but they're doing standardized testing. On the way to work I kept trying to convince myself that a good use of this free time would be to clean off all the crap on my desk, but instead I have blogged on and on and on. Not surprising, really.
I am going to go to the nurse's office now and get some of her special for teachers mega-doses of Ibuprofen for my head.
// posted by ms.bri @ 10:01 AM

Tuesday, February 11, 2003
I am finding it hard to work today. We finished watching season two of Six Feet Under and now I have writing on the brain. I even did a bit of research into the format for screenplays. I find it intimidating. Lots of abbreviations and lots of instructions about what you should and shouldn't write down given that the director will make lots of the decisions. I have decided to just start writing some stuff down and then deal with that later even though it kind of bugs me not to know what I'm doing.
I did one big burst of work when I first got here this morning, but it was work for my consulting job on the side and not actually for this place I am sitting in at the moment. Ah well. I don't mind limping through my job right now. I just hope nobody really knows how little I am doing. It is times like this when it is rather good to be everyone else's supervisor.
Therapy was good yesterday and there were all these revelations but when I got home and tried to explain it to Wes I found I couldn't. It was like I forgot all the good parts. I hate that.
Hopefully I will have something interesting to add later today. I am going to a meeting of the Hudson Valley Library Association this afternoon. Large gatherings of librarians always make for amusing anecdotes.
// posted by ms.bri @ 10:11 AM

Monday, February 10, 2003
Get ready. This is very long.
There are a few things I'd like to write about today. I am tempted to write an agenda, but the thing with me is that even though I do well with agendas in real life and I am really good at keeping a meeting on track and watching the time and all that crap I have to do here, in my private life I don't do so well with the To Do list or the order of events. It's the same as the way that any idea is a bad one unless it originates with me. Somehow, once I write down the things I should do the list becomes an outside force trying to bend me to its will. And I will not be bent, I tell you. I will do exactly what I want to when I want. I'm the boss of me, dammit.
That said, I saw the doctor on Friday and it was fine. Even though I have remained vague and pouty about the whole thing with Wes, and even though I sounded like a teenaged boy grunting the drug name to Orla on her voice mail, this Dr. Lee fellow seems fine. Too early to say any more than that. I am taking something called Lexapro, which is supposed to be sort of a new, purer form of Prozac (doesn't that make it sound like cocaine or heroin or something?) with fewer side effects. At least it sounds a lot like my dog's name and so far hasn't nauseated me.
We went to Boston to surprise one of my readers, as per instructions from another of my readers. That is, we went to see Jenya and Alana 'cause it's Jenya's birthday this week. Even though we were not a surprise any more by the time we arrived, it was definitely the best weekend I've had in a while. I really feel the need to gloat about the fact that I did not have any major breakdowns and that I participated in all activities, even encouraging Wes to go take pictures of the frozen river and I sat with him and didn't act impatient or anything! Any time something goes this smoothly, I like to point it out to Wes as proof that I am now ALL BETTER! He does not seem to buy it and everyone insisted that I take the silly pills anyway.
Aside: Can I repeat how much I hate teenagers and how trying to make them be quiet is truly a Sisyphean task? Telling them that they have to be quiet always makes me feel like I am 12 years old and the least cool kid in school. When will I feel like a grown up and truly not care that they think I'm lame and mean? Well, within 5 years I should have a new library for only grades K-6 and then things will be so much easier.
Anyway, back to more about me. I want to write something good so badly (hee hee - that's such an odd sentence). I am now pondering an HBO series like Six Feet Under. I have decided that it will be about the five housemates in Tuckahoe many years later. Of course it will not really be about these five people, but they will be the models for the characters. That means it has Jenya in it and Alana, of course. They are the sexy lesbian couple working through their issues and hosting lovely parties. Their parents will also feature prominenetly. Blogging will be an important part of the show, utilizing voiceover or some more interesting method. All main characters will have blogs which will give insight into their minds. I will be a character with Wes and GMB and probably a court battle with GMB's bad dad over custody. Possibly my crazy mother-in-law. Certainly my extreme insanity. Also the musicians known as Girlyman and their various issues, which I will have to invent and stetch into major drama. I know that there are a few people that a couple of them have dated or been interested in. And I know that Tammy is scared of living in NYC after 9-11. And I think she's a Buddhist. So we'll make all that fascinating and funny somehow. There was also A***, but I don't think we'll do much with him other than have him as an interesting counterpoint to my current relationship. He will certainly be present in the many flashbacks which will give the show more suspense and drama. The flashbacks will mean that you are only slowly understanding why things are the way they are and how the relationships formed. That means that it will show Tammy and Doris in 3rd grade when they met. And it will show Alana sitting outside Bates waiting for Jen and meeting me for the first time. And Jenya sitting on my college roommate's bed and meeting me for the first time. And I could swear she was wearing glasses at the time. Is that right? And it will show Jenya and I sitting in Piazza Santa Croce at night not wanting to go home and flirting. And me climbing into Alana's dorm room bed because she has to get in there sometime and I'm flirting and drunk. And me picking out a kitten at a shelter in Westchester County with Doris. And Nate reading the novella I wrote about my mom at 3 in the morning and telling me it's good. And it will show Doris' handwriting on a message that someone named P** G**** called me back and here is her work number and then me making the phone call crouched into practically a fetal position in the corner of my room, so nervous because even though I didn't know that we'd end up legally married and straight-appearing, I knew that I would spend the rest of my life with this person even before we met. It will show me knowing that. It will be funny and sad and moving and interesting and the world will love it. If I just write it all down.
// posted by ms.bri @ 11:02 AM

Friday, February 07, 2003
Today I read a story to some Kindergarteners called The Old Woman and Her Pig. It's a very simple cumulative story about a woman who wants her pig to leap over a small wall but he won't and so she asks the dog to nip the pig and the dog says no so she asks the stick to poke the dog because the dog won't nip the pig and the stick says no so she asks the fire to burn the stick and on and on and on until you get "Cat, cat chase rat, rat won't gnaw rope, rope won't lasso rider, rider won't spur horse, horse won't drink water, water won't quench fire, fire won't burn stick, stick won't poke dog, dog won't nip pig..." and one of the kids said. "She just shouldn't have bought that pig in the first place."
// posted by ms.bri @ 10:42 AM

Thursday, February 06, 2003
Yesterday I was intimidated into silence by the debate over whether it was better to blog about nothing in particular or not to blog at all (See Alana and Martha) but I do realize I fall solidly into the camp of blogging about absolutely nothing most days. I blog often and rambling. I blog the streamofconsciousness that keeps goingandgoingandgoing. I blog all the mean voices inside and try to remember to blog the outside positive forces even when I don't think they're positive. I blog sad and funny and silly and mad mad mad. I blog to let other people into my head because my instinct is to not ever let anyone know about all this shit and apparently my instinct is bad. I blog because I've always loved having other people read my journal. I blog because I love attention. I blog a bit of outside brightness and real life into my days surrounded by very wealthy young children whom I love to pieces but who make me tired. I blog away stupid adults. I blog even though I think the name blog is silly. I blog even when I think no one cares. I blog to keep Orla happy and to be sure that Wes knows what's actually going on when I get too scrambled up to tell him. Please don't stop reading. This is all there is right now.
// posted by ms.bri @ 11:22 AM

Tuesday, February 04, 2003
I can't believe that I feel a bit better simply because I told Orla that I'm mad at her. I wouldn't have thought there would be any power in it, considering that she reads this blog and I have ranted and raged against her repeatedly on here. But saying it to her face seemed to make some difference. It was some sort of release. I can't say I feel great. But there's some increased interest in what's going on. Sort of like I'm watching this movie and up to now it's been so dull I wanted to die, but now the main character has finally done something a little bit interesting.
It's ludicrous, however, to say that the movie of me would be that dull. I am fascinating.
// posted by ms.bri @ 9:15 AM

Monday, February 03, 2003
I am home from therapy, which was not quite as bad as last week. Mostly that's because it amuses me that this was the final two minutes of therapy:
Orla: You need to try to set aside that part of you that feels a need to validate what Wes is saying and just hear him. Really hear him when he tells you you're beautiful or kind or whatever. It feels impossible but don't think of it as that. Just think of it as something you have to do, like a math problem.
Bri: Like something Orla is telling me to do?
Orla: Right.
Bri: Yeah, two weeks ago that would have been great and I could have gone home and said, OK I am going to really try to hear what Wes is saying because Orla told me to. Only now I'm mad at you. So I don't want to do what you say.
Orla: Yeah. Hm. I don't really know how to get around that.
Bri: Well, Wes is having the same problem with me so maybe the two of you could get together and figure it out.
I am highly entertained by this. It's probably only funny to me, though.
// posted by ms.bri @ 7:35 PM

I have just attended a long and boring faculty meeting in which the highlight was two second grade teachers nearly coming to blows about who would have to take on a hypothetical additional second grader next year.
I now have to run off to therapy, which is amusing since I can't truly talk yet. Just croak. My students sometimes call therapists and the like the "talking doctors." I guess that makes Orla a "croaking doctor." Or something like that.
That was sort of dumb.
I don't want to go to Orla. See me sitting here like this? This is me, sitting here, not wanting to go to Orla. I would rather sit through another hour of Lower School faculty meeting. I would rather strip naked and walk through the library. I would rather eat a really hot pepper like they did on Celebrity Mole Hawaii. I would rather be surrounded by zillions more hypothetical second graders every day than go to Orla right now. Also, I would rather be home in my bed.
// posted by ms.bri @ 4:54 PM

I have just created a truly excessive number of tiny, laminated directional labels for my library, which I have completely reorganized. After moving all of the books to new homes, I decided the kids would never be able to find anything ever again and therefore I needed to make some signage (which is how librarians say "signs"). I am overly delighted with my signage, even though I only used reagular tape to put them up and they will therefore fall down soon. But that's why they are laminated - I can put them back up.
Last night was extremely bad. I really couldn't stop thinking that Wes would be so much better off without me. I think I scared him. I kept zoning out and not being able to easily bring myself back to, say, teeth brushing. I just kept wishing I wasn't there.
I can't stand being at work. Thus the signage instead of the revisions of the '03-'04 Course Catalog due Friday or the Curriculum Proposal for 7th and 8th Grade Computer Electives due Wednesday. Signage is entertaining to say, at least.
// posted by ms.bri @ 12:21 PM