Thanks for the Sore Throat

My friend Ryan Ladell always sends out a message after his shows thanking everyone who attended. I attended one of those shows and I'd also like to thank some people. I'd like to thank the bar I was at, the Liquor Box, for having terrible air circulation. I'd also like to thank all the smokers that surrounded me with their death smoke. This show was on Saturday. Today is Monday. My throat continues to be sore. So, thanks everyone. Thanks for helping me march toward death a little quicker.

Curious George

I was listening to the Sept. 16 Writer's Almanac podcast - a must-listen for all writers - and heard the amazing story of Hans Augusto Rey and Margret Rey, the creators of Curious George. The two built bikes, took their manuscript and fled Paris in 1941, escaping Hitler's terrible reign. They got to the Spanish border, made it to Brazil and finally to New York, where they published the wonderful books. I thought that was a neat story.

Internships, Assignments and other school things I won't be involved with...

This has easily been the strangest fall ever. For one, I'm not going back to school. I vaguely remember not going to school for a year after undergrad, but that was spent looking into graduate school. It was nice, but I knew the calm wasn't permanent.

All this lack of going to school has made me think about school more often, ironically enough. This could also be due my just being hired by my alma mater Wayne State University. I sort of always thought of myself as a person who'd be most comfortable in academia. Academia, after all, has been very good to me, especially in the internship departments.

The first internship from the University of Michigan-Dearborn was something I couldn't have imagined: I wrote articles for the Detroit Red Wings. As with a majority of undergraduate internships, this one was unpaid. Yet, money couldn't buy that kind of experience. Even now, almost six years later, I still pinch myself. I am still struck by how awesome it is to write about something that you love.

At the end of my graduate degree, I hopped onto the staff of Southfield Public Library as an intern. I just wrapped up this internship last week. It was amazing. I met lifelong friends there, got the full library experience and beefed up my resume to aid in getting a good job. This was a paid internship, but let's face it: it was still an internship. Again, the payoff was in the experience.

After a few months of hunting for jobs (in Michigan, of all places), I started getting down on myself and my accomplishments. I wondered what the point of being involved in school was. I wondered if these internships were too amateur and weren't helping me. I wondered if I would have to turn to freelance writing. I wondered why the library world didn't have room for me. I waited for a sign as my anxiety mounted. I imagine I was practically unbearable for my colleagues at SPL, but they remained incredibly supportive.

Then my internships did the talking.

Within one week, I had been contacted by the Wings to cover opening night. Then I interviewed and snagged a position at West Bloomfield. Then I interviewed for a position at Wayne, which would become my current endeavor. Then the litigation consulting picked up. Some publishing consulting reared its head. There's even an archival possibility in the midst. It has been quite a ride.

So, although I started getting mopey, looking back I think I did a lot of things right. Perhaps my patience wasn't my strongest point, but the experience gained through internships and assistantships really pulled me through to the Promised Land (read, full time employment). My advice: get involved with school, find an internship and NETWORK. Frankly, nobody cares about your GPA.

What to read next?

I know that I'm going to immerse with Dante's epic poetry, but I must mix something else in. I don't want to go mad.

My buddy Christine once blogged that giving a librarian a reading suggestion is sort of like giving a doctor medical advice. I agree, but I think I see the end of my "location" reading and I need ideas. First there was India, then Chicago, currently New York City. My last stop in this "location" reading is California; I'm thinking Los Angeles, specifically Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey. It s seems a little long, but I really like the excerpt I heard from an iTunes interview with the author. I'm a little weary. Partly because this guy fibbed in his book Million Little Pieces, but I figure this is a fiction book, so no harm no foul, right? However, I also read a pretty bad review about it in the L.A. Times. In the same breath, I found a good review in the New York Times, which is a paper I'll pick over most others. I found it interesting how Frey just gushed over how L.A. is the cultural capital of the United States. Even thought I really did not care for Frey in the interview, his writing really got my attention. We'll see.

After I get passed California, I want a new direction in my reading. I think I'm going for a miscellaneous pick: Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. After that, I don't know...

I don't want it to be a location, so what is YOUR suggestion for a topic? Should I continue on to Stephen King's Dark Tower? Should I go genre and read an urban fiction book? Should I pick a country and read one of it's best known authors? Perhaps throw a dart at at a classics list? Eeeeek, or should I grab a non-fiction slice?

I'd love to hear suggestions. Here's a couple I received:

• The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
• Beautiful Children
• Ishmael
• Fountainhead

I know, a couple of those are kind of heavy. With keeping in mind I'll be working on the Divine Comedy, tell me where would you take my reading?

West Nile Virus

Although autumn has descended upon the U.S., particularly the Midwest, I still heard about West Nile Virus. Thankfully, the number of cases have decreased because mosquitoes and their larvae couldn't outlive the long winter. I guess that's one really good reason to hope for a long winter.

Anyway, I was mentioning this to my boyfriend and he asked what West Nile Virus did to humans and whether it a serious threat. I looked it up and found that although it is tearing through bird populations, it is not really a human detriment.

According to an article about the virus in Clinical Reference Systems:

• It's seasonal, with peak times in Aug.-Sept.
• Most people that get it recover fairly quickly and only 1% of cases are serious.
• People over 70 are most likely to develop a serious case of the virus due to their weakened immunity systems.
• Symptoms of infection may include: fever, headache, muscle aches, backache, skin rash, swollen lymph glands.

If you're a bird, that's another story.

Last day as an intern

Yesterday was my last day as an intern at Southfield Public Library. I thought about how strange it is to turn in a two-week notice. My transition to a new job has never been quite like this. Before it's always been "My contract ends on so and such date."

It was not necessarily a sad day. I loved my experience at SPL, but I am really excited to take the next step and shed the intern title. I will actually serve as a substitute librarian there, but I'm going to miss seeing the people on a daily basis. The staff was full of excellent people and everyone from the head guy to the volunteers were critical to running the library like a well-oiled machine. No library is perfect, but SPL is pretty dang awesome. It was a fun ride.

So, I was sitting here trying to figure out what to write about my last day at SPL and found it was nothing too compelling. I had a few little projects floating around, including Ebay research for a class and leaving a pirate message on my boss's voicemail (see International Talk Like a Pirate Day). Some tasks I finished on my own. Others were ongoing and needed to be passed on.

We enjoyed coffee and donuts. We rocked the reference and fiction desks. I skipped lunch, because I chowed on one too many donuts and wanted to shoot the breeze. At about 3:30, I really started feeling the lame duck status sinking in (read: crashing from donut sugar high).

That was it. There were no sappy goodbyes or tears, which was great. I'll take laughing and telling stories over weeping like a dork any day! We all understood that I wasn't leaving the state. I was sticking around as a substitute. Of course, I'm still a patron and I found friends there that I'm pretty sure are going to be lifers.

I think I'll write about how both of my internships changed my life at a different time, but it's safe to say that working at SPL was one of the coolest places to work, ever. Not perfect, but close.

Anti-inflammatory food pyramid

Found this anti-inflammatory food pyramid on Nutrition Data's Blog. There's an interactive version on Dr. Weil's website. Interesting stuff, but, uh, where does BBQ pulled pork fit in the pyramid?

Pleasure Reading: Divine Comedy

I think I'm going to try to read Dante's Divine Comedy. Then, I'm going to write dystopian novel about it. The reason for the latest Ray Bradbury love fest was that the point of the exercise was to help you realize how YOU want to sound as a writer. Admittedly, I'm to shy to flirt with fiction, so this was a good way to try and hear what I'd like my storyteller's voice to sound like. If at all possible, I'd like to sound like Ray Bradbury.

Various books I've enjoyed, including Fahrenheit 451, Last Book in the Universe (OK, I didn't enjoy this one too much) and Brave New World. In all of these books, society no longer accepts books or other forms of literature as normal. Some are persecuted, others are ridiculed, other are put to death. I'm not sure why, but I love this kind of stuff. So it's my hope that the Divine Comedy will bring me some inspiration for a dystopia where poetry is against the law.

Sharing of books and such

Dave Ewick, the director of Southfield Public Library, said that as long as he could remember, he felt that public libraries are all about sharing. I agree in many ways.

One of these ways was very different and something that I've never been exposed to: a shelf of books to share with others. At the West Bloomfield Township Library, there are a few shelves reserved for books that aren't in the catalog, don't belong to anyone and can be borrowed for as long as the reader needs. I was told that the library tried to phase it out and there was an uproar. So patrons continue to be able to share their books on a specific shelf.

That, along with Friends groups, here's another interesting way of sharing and extending the lives of books: Outdoor Bookshelves. I figure why would people be dishonest about something like this? If you're done with it and you know you're going back to where you got it, you'd return it eventually, right?

Sometimes friends tell me we should all share books and I like that idea much more than buying books. I always feel a little weird about buying them because, well, I work at libraries. Libraries have free books. That's pretty awesome.

Lame: Gas Prices & Denial

Yeah, I know, I'm stating the obvious here. Hurricane Ike was tragic in all types of terrible ways. Here in the Midwest we got pounded with non-Ike rain and then Ike took a soaking stroll right through the region over the weekend. Plenty of flooding to go around, to be sure.

The hike in gas prices were to be expected, as they always are when refineries in the Gulf are shut down or damaged by weather. Yet, it's a little extra frustrating when for the first time in 6 months, oil prices dropped below $100 per barrel. It closed at $95.71. I paid $4.16 for a gallon of gas today. That is not right. I should contact the Attorney General and file a price gouging complaint, cause that's horse manure.

Oh, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says that the economy is sound. And that was after the collapse of a variety of financial firms. Wall Street had it's worst daily loss in seven years, so is Paulson serious? Economists - talk to me.

Technology Slave

Somewhere in the virtual world, an old friend of mine named Kevin A. Wells wrote about his online habits - what he does, what websites he visits, etc. I thought this was a great idea and stole it, except I added a few more dimensions of technology. What can I say?

As writing always helps me understand things better, I thought this would be a good way to learn about my online habits, my constant need to be connected and my addiction to electronics. I want to have written proof of how completely and hopelessly addicted I really am to my technology, especially my computer, the Internet, my iPod and my glorious BlackBerry. Don't get me wrong, these addictions aren't detrimental to my health, relationships and other stuff like bad addictions are. I like to call all these items productivity tools and such. Besides, acceptance is the first step to recovery.

So, on an average day:

1. I wake up to my BlackBerry alarm. I check the weather on it and then take a quick glance at my GMail. Next, I check out my to-do list. Then I get out of bed.
2. If I exercise, I listen to my iPod. Sometimes I'll do yoga classes found free on the Internet.
3. While I wash up and get ready for work, I listen to my iPod conveniently located on my little iPod dock.
4. After that, I turn on my computer and immediately open iTunes to update my completely absurd amount of podcasts. I'll never get to half of them. I totally don't care. I need them there. Just in case.
5. To get to work, I either get on my bike and listen to iPod or plug iPod into the car stereo. I hate my life if I forget iPod at home.
6. At work, I sit at a computer for a better part of my day. I open my work email and work with our Integrated Library System called Millennium for all kinds of library things.
7. When I get a second at work during downtime, I open up GMail to more thoroughly review anything important. Sometimes I'll chat with my mom through GChat.
8. When the email is officially done with, I get to the Google Reader. Again, I have an absurd amount of articles, recipes, poems, quotes, podcasts and blog posts to sift through throughout the day. If I don't check it by 6pm, it's well over a 1,000 items to check.
9. At every break I check the BlackBerry for missed calls, messages, etc. I also check off my To Do's as I complete them. The calendar, which syncs with my Google Calendar, is also checked obsessively.
10. I go home at night, sit at my computer and read the feeds that I clearly couldn't get through at work, generally like 900 items. (This step is optional, especially after I work a late shift.)
11. I check my Gmail again and my Google Calendar for the next few days. I plan out my days and anticipate when I can do what. At this time I also fill out my "Food Journal" which sometimes really makes me feel ashamed, but I think that's the point.
12. I also check Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, my blog stats and my Twitter account. Come Fantasy Hockey season, I'll be all over Yahoo! as well.
13. Finally, I turn the computer off and open up a book. This may seem like when I disconnect, but it's not. When I find a word I don't know, I pull out the BlackBerry and cruise to Dictionary.com to find the definition. Then, I Twitter it.

So, after reviewing my 13-step routine, I have decided that it's fine. I know, lots of people are looking at it and going, "Wow, she's sick." Yet, this is how I keep my life together. I keep on top of the news, read poetry, look through witty and helpful quotes, talk to my family and friends, stay organized and manage my life. I use a lot of stuff to do that, but that's how it's done.

Millennial Blog

I have come to the conclusion that I am, in fact, a Millennial. I'm on the cusp, being almost too old to be included. Yet, my outgoing personality, my craving to learn and write constantly and my pathetic need to be connected at all times drops me in the category that consists of teens that IM while doing EVERYTHING; people that get hurt by walking and texting at the same time; people that check their Fantasy Leagues on their phones; and people that make plans using Facebook. Yep, I'm that person. And I love it.

A little while back, the Atlantic had an amazing article about the way technology changes the way we think called "Is Google making us stupid?". It's a pretty good article and it really made me realize how my thinking has been affected by technology. This was also the point that I realized that I was a Millennial, even if I was an "old" one.

The article addressed all kinds of stuff. It talked about Nietzsche. It talked about how Chinese characters make different parts of the brain work versus the alphabet. It talked about the invention of the clock and how we got to sleep, eat and all that by the clock, not by our natural senses. It talks about Taylor's industrial philosophy and what an algorithm is: the idea of living by precise directions. The author wraps it up with some ancient philosopher talk. It's a seamless article and the author gets creative with the 2001 reference and what Kubrick meant. I understand the movie more then ever. I thought the article was really well written. I loved it and the understanding it brought me. It wasn't strictly about Generation Y, but it definitely hit on a few Millennial points.

Hence, I have been a little more aware of literature about my alleged generation. Here's a couple of other things I picked up:

Millennial Voters - Washington Post
This is a review about the book Youth to Power by Keli Goff. The book looks at how the Millennial generation is changing the face of politics. Looks interesting.

Faces of the Future - CNN
Here's a slide show of twenty-somethings that are leading the charge in some of the biggest, baddest companies around. It gives all those folks my age looking for work hope.

Job-hopping Gen Yers aren't disloyal. They're smart. - CNN
This article covers how Gen Yers job hop because they don't trust the old routine of working for one employer and then being unceremoniously thrown to the curb. We're a wary bunch, the author says, and we're taking every opportunity we can. Gen Yers learned from the Baby Boomers and they're not sticking around to get screwed by the man. The Gig is a cool blog about Generation Y, so make sure to check out all the other posts, too.

Leading Generation Y - United State Army
This is a PDF of the Army's strategy to train the Millennials in the Armed Forces. It says in the conclusion that:

"The key focus of Army leaders at every level should be the mentoring and development of Generation Y. Understanding their values, appealing to their techno-savvy upbringing, providing feedback, adjusting the design of the training base, and attempting to balance work with life are all areas that leaders should focus on to help keep this new generation around for the fight."

Write what you love

Somewhere in the virtual universe there lies a blog that instructed me to do something along the lines of this: Think about what your favorite author is. Now write why you think that without looking at his/her writing. This gave me yet another reason to have a Ray Bradbury love fest.

So why do I love Ray Bradbury? Many reasons have formed since my buddy Carlie recommended Fahrenheit 451 a couple years back. It was a strange fit because I'm not into reading horror at all. I wouldn't call all of Bradbury's books horror, but some of his work is quite disturbing. I'm awful tense when I read his writing, much like when I read Edgar Allan Poe's. I love it. I love the discomfort they create and I love the imagination they shake to attention. Other times the chill comes late, minutes after I finish reading the last word of a story.

With Bradbury, I think that I've been learning more about him as a writer and as a man. In Zen in the art of writing Bradbury takes you an inspirational writer's ride. He talks about his techniques in full detail and gives clear, enjoyable advice for all writers.

I learned more about him in the last year or so and found that he was born a Midwesterner and moved to California. He started small with stories, but managed to fund a family. When I learned about his writing techniques and routines, it seemed as though his writing career was an adventure. I'm sure it was. Even his writing about writing is magnificent.

Perhaps the reason I love Ray Bradbury most is that he made me play with my imagination again. Since learning about nonfiction writing in the form of journalism, my creative side's well ran dry of stories and poetry. Every time I read Bradbury's work I feel refreshed and ready to write. And if at all possible, write with the same zest and passion that he writes with.

I think there's probably more reasons I love Ray Bradbury, but I'll save it. Besides, Ray Bradbury has his own tag on this blog.

What does a librarian do?

When I tell people that I am a librarian, they go straight for the "I bet you read a lot" blast. Indeed, I read a lot, but I do so on my own time and rarely when I'm actually working at a library. So, what do me and my colleagues do all day long? I'm entering a writing contest, so I'll be brief on this blog. We:

• do reference, meaning we answer questions.
• do reader's advisor, meaning we talk books with people and help them select their next read.
• help people find books, music, periodicals, and movies within our collections.
• select items to add to the collection.
• select the books that are old, crappy, irrelevant or completely inaccurate to send them to book heaven.
• teach classes, anything from computer to literacy classes.
• run book discussions.
• order articles and other books from other libraries for people.
• shh people who forget they're in a library.
• reunite bad parents with their neglected children.
• protect the privacy of our patrons by NOT sharing their book selections with anyone.
• celebrate reading banned books.
• fight off book challenges like the plague.

I'm missing all kinds of stuff. I haven't even touched on what management does. Haven't talked about grant-writing, library-building, lobbying, promoting stuff, etc. We do a lot, but here's a little taste.

Are there any librarians out there? What do you do that I haven't mentioned?

Book Review: Lush Life

Lush Lifeby Richard Price

Originally, I considered this book a letdown. Once I started writing about the book, however, I figured out why I sat through and finished it. Price makes really good characters and his prose reads like he's just reporting what happened to him. You can tell this guy does his homework. You can also tell he has a genuine understanding of the streets, as he grew up in the Bronx.

My reading tastes are a little bizarre. I'm an experimenter. I tried to do locations; Chicago was a great pick. India was pretty good, too. I tried a line of love stories (Namesake; Unbearable Lightness of Being; New Yorkers), which made it clear to me that I for the most part hated love stories (unless Gabriel Garcia Marquez was writing them, cause Love in the Time of Cholera was amazing.) I tried for the genre; I actually picked up a young adult book and was bored senseless with it. I do a lot of nonfiction, too, but that's neither here nor there in this discussion.

This time I tried a combination of both: a new genre (mystery) and a location that I've been really into (NYC). First, Lush Life is set in the Lower East Side, but it's far from a mystery. It's quite predictable and that's what sucked. I was hoping for the who-done-it kind of read and it was more like "No sh*t Sherlock" kind of read.

The book focused much more on dysfunctional families and socially awkward people than really being a mystery. There was Eric Cash, a loser and an a-hole. There was Ike Marcus and his family, the victims. Tristan and Little Dap, the killers. Matty and Yolanda, the main cop characters. There is something to be said about the secondary characters, too. Even with minimal description, the characters are vivid.

The cops - they were pretty sweet. The cop interactions were best the best part of the book. I once heard that Price rode around with cops to research for his writing. That's probably why the HBO series The Wire is so gritty, real and praised by critics. His perspective on cops comes out in an entertaining way. Price nails the bureaucracy, police tactics, and camaraderie among the men and women with the shield. The author is a master of dialog and though that's clearest through the conversations the officers have, all of the dialog is meaningful and well crafted.

I finished the book, but despite all its strengths I didn't enjoy that much. I kind of wish I would've taken the time to reread Fahrenheit 451. However, due to some of the strengths mentioned, I would definitely give the author another shot, especially Clockers which is apparently one of his best novels.

Book Review: Time to Write

Time to Write
by Kelly Stone

This book was a bummer, but it wasn't the book's fault entirely. There was nothing particularly earth-shattering about writing. The quotes were bad, the insight from the authors was very limited, their responses seemingly generic.

Another fault of this book is the list of online resources in the back; they were atrocious. There's about a thousand better blogs and writing resources online, but those listed in the back of this book were outdated, poorly designed, all about the money and some links didn't even work! I understand that making income off writing is important, but there's multiple times in this book where the author talks about writing whether you're published or not. Writing not matter what - that's the theme of the book and then she lays these super lame websites on me.

And, finally, for being a book about writing, it was pretty badly written. I suppose the only thing that did for me was make me think, "Aw, hell, I could write a book like that."

Nonetheless, I did manage to take a couple of notes on what I thought was most important:

1. Make a writing schedule.
2. Set a specific Vision for your writing.
3. Create a list of topics to write about.
   
4. Create list of past experiences and unique perspectives you've gathered.
5. Review publications that could be possible buyers of your work.

As you can see, nothing earth-shattering. In fact, a couple of no-brainers. In Stone's defense, I admit that I began reading Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing right in the midst of Time to Write. Bradbury touches on all of the points listed, but with so much more style and passion. Or as he would say it, with "zest" and "gusto". When I read Ray Bradbury, that is the time my Muse comes out to play. It is when I have trouble pulling away from his writing to get to my own, though I can hear the urge to write in my mind grow louder with each word. If I could be half the writer Bradbury is, I'd finally consider myself a decent writer. OK, I'm sorry, my gushing over Bradbury stops here (for now). Back to "the other one."

Time to Write was more of a self-help book for writers than a tool. All the cheer leading and "Believe in yourself" stuff didn't really apply. I believe in myself. I've been published. The book did make me realize that I have to discipline myself more, but all around, the book didn't really talk to me. Like I said, there were a couple of alright points that, although I had heard before, probably needed to hear again.

My official opinion: meh, pick up a Ray Bradbury book.