The Days & Nights of the Lipstick Librarian!

The Gods Must be Huffy

Looks like the library conference gods bestowed upon me retribution for my less-than-flattering comments by making me sicker than Ben Affleck after an all-week bender at a strip club. Right after strapping into my seat for take-off from Albuquerque, I noticed a ever-so-slight tickle in the back of my throat. By the time I hit Portland, my throat was so raw, not even my favorite pho couldn't assuage the pain. I have no idea how I got this--maybe the maid at the hotel exacted her revenge on me for not tipping her one day? However I got it, I now have a jim-dandy case of laryngitis. My husband, however, is loving every second of silence.

If I don't get any better by the end of the weekend, I will be forced to make an offering to the aforementioned gods by building in my front yard a pyre of ALA Read t-shirts and back issues of Library Journal, topping it with my gasoline-soaked conference badge and setting the sucker aflame.

Moral of the story? Hide your toothbrush very carefully in Orlando this summer....

What I'm Reading (between fits of nose-blowing): Lucia in London by E.F. Benson. I can never get enough of Lucia & Company.

What I'm Listening to: Second Avenue by Tim Moore. I'll admit it: deep down inside, I'm still wearing my bear-traps and puka shells, my hair cut into a Captain and Tennille-esque bob. My long-standing affection for this song provides the sordid proof.

What Not to Act

Well, I've just returned from the SLA Leadership Summit and I only have this to say:

People--we have got to learn how to do the conversation thing.

I mean, really--are we that incapable of making small talk that doesn't involve the L word? For the past three days, I don't think I had a single conversation that didn't center around what we do. I know it's a librarian conference and all, but heaven help us, I'm sure even nuns get tired of talking about their work, no pun intended.

So I have some suggestions. With extensive practice, I'm sure even the most introverted of us would put Mike Douglas in his hey-day to shame.

Do Not:

• Use any variation of "librarian", even if you're explaining why you don't look like the stereotype. If I look like the stereotype, chances are you do too. So there.


• Drop the names of any vendor, no matter how oblique the connection. ("Boy, those folks at New Balance sure are something, aren't they?")


• Employ such hoary words or phrases such as "service-oriented", "consortium", "OPAC upgrade" or "homeless problem". If you can't resist the urge, try waiting until after dessert is served during the vendor-sponsored lunch.


• On a related note, do not utter the phrase "are you going to finish that?" at any function involving food.


• Stare at a fellow attendee's name tag if it's hanging from a lanyard at chest level. This goes for men and women alike.


• Try to dance. Ever.

Try beginning conversations with the following icebreakers:

• "What up with Bennifer these days?


• "I hear that Orlando Bloom is one serious hottie." (Note to the male presidential candidate of a certain professional organization: this will sew up the election for you. Trust me.)


• "So do you think the failure of the Mars rover is the work of aliens?"


• "Just how many states did Howard Dean list in his rant?"


• "Captain Kangaroo was still alive?"


• So how do you pronounce the name of your county again?"


• "What up with Nicole's forehead in Cold Mountain?"

And don't forget to thank me when you're the life of a vendor-sponsored party at ALA this year. Just don't try busting a move.

What the Hell Are they Teaching??

Well, I'm off to Albuquerque tomorrow for the 2004 SLA Leadership Summit to learn me some leadership skills. I'll be back on Saturday ready to conquer the rough-and-tumble world of librarianship. In the meantime, please enjoy the following missive I received today:

hello i would like to know so important facts about
lipstick like what it is made of and other importatn
thing i am doing a science project and i would like to
know. thank
student

You Will Know Me by the Trail of Reserve Slips

As some of you may know, I've gained some notoriety by poking fun at the librarian stereotype. And many of you have asked me why the devil did I create the site. I have my serious, pre-pub answer ("in the mind of the patron, the stereotype of the librarian as gate-keeper impedes access to services"...yada,yada,yada.); my flippant answer ("I went to my first ALA conference in 1992 and realized to my horror that we do look like the stereotype"); or my semi-honest answer ("I have no clue"). But there's one answer I've never given, one that speaks volumes (no pun intended):

I look like a librarian.

How do I know? The evidence speaks for itself:

• San Francisco, 1991: Talking to my sister, I moan about library school, telling her I never thought I'd wind up a librarian. I could almost hear the eye-rolling over the phone accompanying her reply: "what else would you be??"
• 1997 ALA Annual Conference, San Francisco: After a three-year exile, I am back on my home turf. I rip off my badge (only tourists wander around wearing those "rob me!" signs), race out of Moscone Center and head down Mission Street. I get no farther than a block before I'm stopped by a bewildered woman clutching her free Baker & Taylor bag. Her question? "Are you a librarian? Can you tell me where the conference center is?" I slink towards Marshalls on Market & 5th to assuage my feelings, only to find the place crawling with sensibly-dressed (or vaguely ethnically-dressed) women wearing conference badges, struggling underneath piles of knocked-down clothing towards the check-out line. Sighing, I pick up three black sweaters and join the fun.
• 1999 ALA Annual Conference, New Orleans: After a long day of caging free scones from vendors, my best friend Guy, Jill and I head to a gay bar just outside of the French Quarter for some dancing. As I twirl to If You Could Read My Mind by Stars on 54, I notice an extremely attractive boy sitting at the back of the bar watching me. I can't believe it--a twentysomething guy eyeing me, a fortysomething librarian, dance the night away. I am flattered; I pull out my best late-80's moves (the last time I did some serious dancing). After watching me for ten minutes, the guy gets up and heads towards me. I blush as he moves his lips close to my ear. "So--are you enjoying ALA this year?"

  Guy and Jill didn't stop laughing until the next day.

The list goes on and on: I inevitably get stopped in other libraries and book stores by people wanting to know where the self-help section is located. When walking with friends, I'm the one people approach when they need directions. In other words, I simply ooze helpfulness.

Looks like I was doomed from the start.

What I'm Listening To: Jewel Song: 20 Great Soprano Arias. I finally replaced my battered cassette tape of fave arias.

Semi-Interesting Librarian Factoids

Wendy Rosenow of Shawano, Wisconsin is a runner-up in the World Champion Liar Contest. Her entry? Wendy fibbed that everyone was so curious about when winter would arrive that even the geese were flying in question mark formations.

One of the first members of the Manson Family was Mary Brunner, a librarian at UC Berkeley (though I suspect she was a library assistant or clerk, judging from her bio).

Apparently the most common Myer-Briggs personality type in librarianship is ISTJ. (Great--I test as an ENTP--what the hell am I doing here??)

(Can you tell I'm snow bound?)

What I'm Listening To: My Time by Boz Scaggs. I am into anthologies and reliving my teenage years at the same time....

Cabin Fever Crazed

So--I have been trapped in my house since Monday (actually, I was trapped at a friend's house Monday night, but that's another story). Why? Because Portland, Oregon has been under snow and ice since early Tuesday morning. And if you've ever lived in PDX for any length of time, you'd know that this town shuts down when there's only one inch of snow, much less 6-7 inches. This "snow event" (as the round-the-clock news reports are calling it) has brought the entire area to a standstill. My trash can is still sitting on the curb, waiting to be picked up. Fortunately it's covered in ice, so I know it ain't gonna budge until everything thaws out.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because after two days of watching 24-hour weather reports ("Winter Blast" is my favorite coverage tagline so far) I'm slooowly going crazy from being inside for over 48 hours. Even a devout television addict like me found it bit difficult to watch a news reporter excitedly describe a six-inch slush pile in Salem for the umpteenth time. I've also been trying to watch some movies from my rapidly-growing DVD collection, but as I suspect like many of you, once I own a film on DVD, I have absolutely no interest in watching it ever again. (However, if it shows up on TV, I somehow manage to watch it then--go figure.) I did manage to watch some of the Alien Quadrilogy set I got for Christmas, plus Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. I also did every bit of laundry that needed to be done, not to mention cleaning my oven. These are the only time-killing options left for me at this point:

• Make cookies--the time-honoured girl pastime. The problem is, my still-frozen butter has a "best used by" date of July 7, 1998.
• Organize my bills and tax records for 2003. Now let's not go overboard....
• Take drugs. Okay; ibuprofen, but hey--it counts.
• Take down the Christmas tree. I'm talking about my Christmas tree from 2002.
• Read. Are you kidding me?? If Antonio Banderas can't motivate me, what makes you think I'll read on my own?
• Finish that knit blanket I started in 1998. (1998 was a very domestic year for me) It's made up of twenty panels--only fourteen more to go!!
• And as a last resort, read every message from all my subscribed electronic library lists from the past year. May god help me.....

If you have any suggestions for me to pass the time, let me know. If they're dirty/pornographic/smutty, keep them to yourself, or better yet--write 'em down and try selling them online....

What I'm Listening To: Chunks of ice falling off my roof. Also: Mack The Knife by Bobby Darin, a compilation of his early hits. Can't wait for the Kevin Spacey bio movie on Bobby....