Mullings

Back to my usual bullet-points. The weekend seemed very short!
> I met several fascinating men this weekend, at a time when I should have been doing the opposite. Why does that happen? Why is it when one is deliberately not looking, interesting people crawl out of the woodwork and insert themselves into one's consciousness? It's not fair.
> Homemade egg rolls = fantastic! Without giving too many details, I wasn't able to enjoy them to the extent that I would have liked due to unexpected (well, not entirely unexpected, but certainly unappreciated) discomforts. And I've never been a wild, whole-hog snarfer of egg rolls in general. But these things were truly wonderful and I'm looking forward to the leftovers. (Rolled, not yet fried. Smart, eh? Thanks, Lori!)
> I need a spring jacket, somewhere between my big, thick wool with toggle buttons monster and my cute Polartec deal that is great for use with sweats or shorts but too schleppy with anything else. Basically, I need a warm-weather version of my grown-up winter coat for non-winter wear. I'm thinking of one of the new man-made suede-like fabrics, perhaps in a tan or beige. I need the Fab Five! (Or $5000 from Clinton and Stacy, although I'm not willing to give up all of my current clothes for that honor.)
> Topics to not discuss at a party until you're damned sure you're on the same page with everybody present: religion, politics, constitutional amendments, and home-schooling. It sucks to put your foot in it, particularly when you very much respect the opinion of the person with whom you're speaking.
> Last week was the work week from hell and had certain non-work aspects that were also hellish. However, it also provided me with some examples of (gasp) ways in which my life is remarkably good. I shall elaborate:
+ I really, really love what I do. Clarification: I love cataloging, and I love collection development in every regard. Cataloging is an outlet for whatever perfectionism and organization I have. It's an intellectual puzzle. Yes, I understand that I don't work for the Library of Congress. I realize that extending call numbers 12 digits past the decimal point is meaningless and irritating and in many cases even realistically pointless. But I also love the specificity - there is really, truly a place for everything in the world as understood in those four green and black books. And I understand it. I don't know it all by heart, but given enough time (which I have), I can figure it out. That's damned cool.
And collection development is really child's play. Fun time. Particularly selection, and then particularly fiction. But all of it, really. Acquisitions. Unpacking the damned boxes, even. Dealing with in-kind donations and monetary gifts. Budgeting and planning. It's an outlet for my creativity and flexibility. It requires an ability to prioritize not only time and money but also theoretical resources - have we ordered "enough" medical books this year? when we weeded the 800s, did we replace the screenplay-writing items? do we have sufficient funds left to get the new, bestselling but expensive (and not likely to circulate wildly beyond the first 3 months) Blah Blah by Mr. Blah?
+ The aspects of my job that I don't love are not terrible. Even processing, about which I've complained too much, isn't so bad. Now that I've become quite adept at it (as any idiot would with this much practice), it's an opportunity to let my fingers work while my brain can do other things. I can mull over a sticky area of thesis, or I can sing along with whatever's on the CD player, or I can have a conversation with coworker T. Or all of the above, while at the same time Vista-foiling paperbacks at the rate of one every five minutes. (Down from the original 20 minutes, 2 months ago.) It is, ironically, an outlet for both my perfectionism (lining up edges and pushing out every single bubble) and my creativity (fitting 18 cm paperbacks into 12" Vista-foil sideways rather than using 10" foil and wasting an inch and a half or more). Who would have thought?
+ I've discovered something amazing through the thesis editing process. My last draft of my thesis - the one that I'd thought was my final draft, until I got the "ahistorical" message and was sent back to the drawing board - was flabby and weak. It's a hell of a lot better now. I'm still bitter that my advisor was such a pussy about letting me know about it (i.e. not telling me until I'd taken a day off, I'd driven to Michigan, and shown up in the department office hat in hand expecting to turn the fucking thing in to the grad school so I could goddamned graduate in December). But it's a lot better now.
+ My parents are a wonderful pair of people. If I could pick two people out of the whole universe of potential moms and dads for parents, it would be them. They didn't give me everything I wanted when I was a little kid, or god knows when I was a teenager and wanted everything, but they somehow managed to give me what mattered. Dad would say, "A sense of humor and a clue." Mom would just laugh and look a little misty. Since they'll never read this, it doesn't really matter how delicately I put it: I love them to pieces.
+ People can really surprise you. Case in point: there's someone with whom I work who I've always thought was pretty wretched. I never questioned my opinion that this person (Q) was horrid. I've talked with others about Q, and they've agreed. It's been a frequent topic of conversation: Q's horrible personality; taste in clothing, hair, etc.; Q's demanding attitude, and so on. Frankly, there has been way too much time and space given to the situation. So something happened about 10 days ago that made me question for the first time whether Q is really all that bad. In fact, it was as if the scales had been lifted from my eyes. Q isn't that bad. In fact, Q is pretty damned good. A good friend, a decent person, and even - gasp - skilled and talented at Q's job. So why did I participate in the Q-ripping? Was it because I lacked the self-esteem to disagree? Nah. It was because I'd never even stopped to think about it before. I let the group make my analysis for me. And when I actually applied my brain and conscience to it, I realized that Q has never given me a reason to believe the talk. I shouldn't have. It's made me treat Q differently and I'm glad of it.

Voila. Will this week be any better?