eccentrici

I'm a little incoherent right now but I had to post this. I just helped foil a robbery at the library.

I was sitting at the front desk explaining to a clueless patron how maps work (I kid you not!) when a teen/adult male approached the desk. He looked me in the eye and then grabbed the Kid's Craft Donation Jar right off the counter and ran for it. I didn't hesitate, I yelled at him and took off after him. I was close on his heels as we exited the library and I knew where he was headed. He made his way to the back of the library building. I was about 4 feet behind him. By this time, some library patrons were also in pursuit. He jumped a neighborhood fence just about the time I reached him. Luckily, one of the patrons used to be in law enforcement and he jumped the fence along with another man and caught the little bastard.

My heart is still beating fast. This is the second time we have been robbed but the first time in broad daylight while we were open. I probably shouldn't have chased the guy but my instincts just kicked in.

More later.

Dudes, I am tired. Tonight was our YA Halloween party and I spent the evening with 18 teens. I was going to take them outside to do ghost photographs but the group was too large to handle. Next year, I might do it as a Teen Read Week program.

One of the obnoxious Runescape players weaseled his way in to the party. For some reason, he was carrying around 3 large melons and/or grapefruits (don't ask me why). I told him as long as he didn't roll them around that he could join us. He behaved himself and stayed until 8:30pm. At that point, he left the library followed by some of the girls from the party. Apparently, the got into a fight in the parking lot. One of the girls threw a melon at him and missed. He threw it back and hit her in the head. Of course, he was long gone by the time the girl came back inside and told me about it. I know I can't control what happens in the parking lot but I hope this doesn't come back to haunt me.

I also met FandomNiece's new boyfriend. He really impressed me. He was fun, funny, and cute. Kind of like Oz, only taller. He dressed up as Ichigo from Bleach and even dyed his hair for the role.

FandomNiece dumped her last boyfriend because he told her that she dressed too butch and needed to act more feminine. Her reaction to his comment made me so proud. She told him that she will dress any way she wants to dress and then she promptly dumped his ass. That made me do the happy dance.

I'm rambling again so I'm off to bed.

Back to work today. I am a leaf on the wind. I will not let work take over my life. Of course, I had to work on this when I got home. It's for my journal class in November.

While I was looking for the manual for my old DVD player, I ran across my contact sheet from my 1987 8x10 Photo shoot. So if you want to see the many faces of Darla, click here. I was such a serious actor/writer/director/performance artist. Eventually, I might even find my 8x10 glossy photos complete with resume! I know they are lurking around somewhere. When I do, it's autographed photos for everyone (whether they want them or not).

Alliteration, you are my friend.

First, thanks to everyone for all the supportive e-mails during Hurricane Ike. They meant so much to me.

I'm not ready to blog about Ike yet. I don't know if I ever will be ready. I've been suffering from Blog Block. I've mentally written countless posts but when it comes to sitting down and typing them out, my mind goes blank. Usually, this only happens when it comes to meta but now it is not longer confined to that realm.

I took the past 6 days off to prepare for a visit from my Uncle Edward and his partner Steve. When they were here last year, I hadn't unpacked. A year later, I still have boxes hanging around upstairs. I have made a nice dent in the mess but I still don't know what to do with all my books. When we found this house, we were so enamored with it that we overlooked some major things that we needed like wall space for bookshelves. DOH! I'm trying to weed but it's proving impossible. Plus I think they're breeding.

While going through things I realized how much I miss LJ/IJ. You all mean so much to me. I found all kinds of cards and random weird stuff that people have sent me over the years. I also found all kinds of things that I bought to send to people! So if I have your address expect packages over the next few weeks.

I miss writing. I signed up for NaNoWriMo just so I can get the million pieces of fanfiction written that I either owe people or have been teasing people with over the past few years. It's one thing that the cleaning process has taught me: Finishing Projects=Feeling Good About Myself.

Speaking of projects, I found a bunch of cheesy postcards that my college roommate gave to me as a gag gift. Does anyone want me to send them one? Just e-mail me your address at eccentrici at aol dot com (fix the addy). I might even include bad fanart or fanfiction with it.

Once I am finished cleaning, I am also going to embark on a letter writing project. I found some vintage stationary (circa 1978) that I am dying to use. Back in college, I wrote at least 3 letters per week to various people. I miss letter writing.

Dinner is ready so I must hit the "Post to eccentrici" button. More later (including photos of my new car Oz).

I'm borrowing a laptop so I'll keep it short. We still don't have power at home or the library. The library gave me the choice of working in a dark library without a phone, taking vacation/comp time, or working at another branch. On Tuesday, things became so unbearable that I decided to literally head for the hills and evacuated to Austin. Unfortunately, I have to go back tomorrow to take care of some business. Eight days after the storm and we still don't have power. I dread going home. Send hugs.

In an effort to get my Dad's mind of the storm, I asked him about the 1900 storm. My maternal great great grandfather survived the 1900 storm in Galveston. When the storm arrived, John Keis looked out the window of his Victorian style home and saw his neighbor's house breaking apart. He grabbed some tools and ran across the street to help them. One of his grandsons accompanied him. Just a little kid tagging along with his grandfather. The wind was so strong that they could hardly stand and John realized that they were in danger. He tied himself and his grandson to a palm tree just in time to see his house wash away.

I'm on Twitter as eccentrici.

So here I am again. One month later and Hurricane Ike might be coming by for a visit.

My parents are wigging out. (BTW, Dad is okay. We still don't know what happened with him. Either he was miraculously healed or misdiagnosed. My money is on misdiagnosis.)

I am writing again. I just need to type stuff up and post it.

I survived my third summer reading program and my first professional presentation (Video Games: Rated 'E' for Everyone). I was actually asked to do the presentation/training again in Spring so more people could attend it.

I can't sleep.

BTW, THANK YOU to everyone who sent me hugs during my Dad's hospital stay. It really meant alot. I will eventually get caught up on LJ.

This week is the end of summer reading and I will rejoin the living once again. I have 5 programs in 5 days and I will be finished for the summer. Of course, this is the cue for the shit to hit the fan.

We just got back from the ER. We don't know what is wrong yet but my dad has been admitted with some kind of intestinal blockage. The only gastroenterologist on duty had a life or death emergency so he hasn't been able to see my dad. They have tried to call in some other doctors but with a tropical storm on the horizon, they are short on staff. They told us they won't be doing surgery tonight or tomorrow morning so he insisted we go home and get some sleep (which is impossible). I am barely coherent so I hope this makes sense.

Oh yeah, and there's a tropical storm/possible hurricane coming in 8-10 hours. I am so not ready to deal with any of this.

and it only took me a whole weekend to recover from it.

On Friday, I launched our teen summer reading program with a Game On (that's the theme this year) party at the library. When the teens registered for summer reading, they received a free book, an Atascocita Library pen, and candy. We also had pizza, soda, and tons of prizes. I brought the Wii so they could play Super Smash Brothers Brawl and Guitar Hero. I also had an information scavenger hunt and, as always, I included an Oz-centric BTVS question. About 40-50 kids attended so I would call that a success. Plus, the AC did not go out so score one for us.

As of Friday, I had the most registrations for the teen SRP out of our 26 library system. So eat it, you bottomless budget mega-libraries! I am small but I am mighty! I am the little library that could (kick your ass)! Now ends my moment of hubris.

I was so tired on Friday night that I fell asleep at 9:30pm and woke up on Saturday at 1:30pm. Today I slept about half the day.

I was supposed to write up my blog entries for the Social Networking module of Teen ihcpl but that didn't quite happen this weekend. I will have to pull an all-nighter this week to have it ready by Wednesday. I really hate bringing work home but our bullpen style office makes doing anything that requires actual thinking nearly impossible.

Just in case you don't know, I work in a library. Since I work in a library, I try not to lose library books. I have even devoted a shelf in one of my bedroom bookcases just to library books. That is why I get a little crazy when I can't find a certain book. This book was due in a few days and I needed to put it in my return/renew pile. I looked on my library book shelf. No book. I looked through my book bag. No book. I looked in the living room. No book. I looked over, under and inside everything in my house. No book.

I could picture the book in my mind. I asked my parents and they hadn't seen the book. I called my sister. It wasn't at her house. I was getting desperate. By this time, I had spent at least 2 days looking for the book.

Finally, I went back to my library bookshelf and pulled all the books off it. It's a bottom shelf so sometimes it's hard to see what is on it. Miracle of miracles, the book was there! It had gotten shoved behind some other books and was turned around with the cover facing the back of the shelf. I rejoiced.

BTW, the name of the book was ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life by Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau, Ph.D.

Seth on Conan O'Brien for Earth Week here (scroll down for the Hulu clip). Expect impressive facial hair, a Green Arrow reference and more!

For some reason, I lost my journaling mojo. I haven't been reading my FL or posting lately. I really haven't been doing much at all except working which is not a good sign. I told myself that I woudn't get obsessive about this job and end up without a personal life. I did that when I was an Opera Stage Manager. I did that when I owned an art supply store. Now I'm doing the same thing with my library job.

So, poke me in the ass and remind me that there is life outside the library. Remind me that even though my job lets me watch anime, read manga and comics, and create silly You Tube videos, I need to do something not related to my job now and again.

Of course, I come to this realization only a month before the Summer Reading Program (aka The Thing That Eats My Summer) begins. This summer, I am doing 58 programs, moderating a teen online book club, writing a training program for our library system about social networking and YouTube, organizing a PostSecret type project for the whole library system, and putting together a training/lecture about the positive side of console gaming. I really should get an honorary MLIS for this or at least a pay raise.

In good news, the University of Texas has approved my plan to actually complete my B.A. in Theatre (Directing concentration). I might actually graduate before my 21 year old nephew. If not, I will definitely graduate before my 15 year old niece. 16 hours of Spanish (4 classes) and I will be on my way to graduate school.

And if you have made it this far, here's something for your own amusement. I am a bad actor on YouTube! This segment was filmed for ihcpl, my library system's exploration of the "23 Things" and Library 2.0. I'm the fat chick with glasses and curly hair. And bad acting skills. Meryl Streep ain't got nothing on me.

I am breaking my vow of silence (aka extreme laziness) to tell you about a local candidate that I feel the need to get behind: Manlove! Unfortunately, he's a Republican and friend of the evil empire and an asshat. Every time I see his commercials, I seriously have to keep my inner 10 year old under control. Why couldn't you be a better person, John Manlove? Then I could proudly sport a "I Support Manlove" bumper sticker or wear a "Get Behind Manlove" t-shirt without feeling like a traitor to my personal beliefs.

For those of you who don't know, I work in a library. I am a circulation assistant/young adult coordinator/ILL person. Usually the only place where fandom and work cross over is when I'm doing my young adult programs. Yesterday was the first time that I've been able to use my fandom knowledge when doing ILLs (interlibrary loans).

I was in the back processing ILLs when I was called to the desk for an ILL emergency. No one there knew our code to get on to WorldCat (because god forbid anyone get ahold of that tidbit of information) and there was a lady at the front desk who needed some ILLs requested. I looked at her requests and was actually able to find one book in our catalog (she was using the editor's name instead of the author's name) and another readily available on WorldCat. It was the third request that was the problem.

She was looking for Out of the Shell by an author whose last name was Chrissey (I can't remember the first name). I looked in WorldCat. I looked on Amazon. I checked out ebooks. I looked on several rare books websites. Nothing. She thought it might be out of print but she had a review at home which featured the first chapter of the book. I googled, I yahooed, I dogpiled. Nothing. Nothing on the author. Nothing on the book. Finally, I told her to bring in the review she had printed out and I would try and help her track it down.

An hour later she comes in with the "review" clutched in her hand. According to her, she ran across this "review" by either doing a Google or Dogpile search. I looked at it. It wasn't a review. It was a story from fanfiction.net. Or at least, the first two paragraphs of a story from ff.net. It was a story based on an unnamed Ann Rinaldi novel. Then the fun began.

Have you ever tried to explain fanfiction to a layperson? A 70 year old+ layperson? No matter how hard I tried, she just couldn't understand it. She wanted the rest of that "book". I tried to explain how ff.net works and how she can read it online. I tried to explain fanfiction and how it works. I don't think she understood me and I don't think she believed me when I told her that Out of the Shell wasn't available anywhere but ff.net. Even my Browncoat branch manager tried to explain it to her. In the end, I showed her our large selection of Ann Rinaldi books and she found a few that she thought were interesting. (I tried to find the book the fanfic was based upon but the author didn't post that information and we weren't able to track down any of the keywords on our databases) She told me that if the other one ever turns up, she wants to read it.

Hi gang! I just wanted to wish everyone Happy Holidays! Someday I will update the journal and possibly even write some fic, but for now, have a belated Happy Hannukah, Merry Christmas, Wonderful Kwanzaa, Joyous Solstice, and Happy New Year. That should cover it for the next few weeks unless I've left something out.

We don't open our presents until tomorrow morning, but I got some early handknitted swag from my sister. She knitted two pairs of fabulous socks (one from a hand-dyed yarn that I bougt on etsy and she stole from me), 4 headbands, and a gorgeous stole. I'm so happy that I have a sister who can speed knit. I can barely do 1-3 projects a year and she can whip out a pair of socks per day. So far, Christmas is pretty fab.

I didn't manage to do any cards this year, but I do have New Year's cards if anyone wants one. Just e-mail me your address at eccentrici at aol dot com.

I am going to try to catch up on posts the next few weeks so if you find comments to old posts in your inbox, they are from me.

Current Mood: relaxed

I just had to through in that shout out for ANTM fans. It should be "My Life So Far...."

The Good

glossingwrote a fabulous gen piece for

inca_mummy_guys "Got Chaos". It's one of the best gen stories I've ever read and if you don't read it, you are made of fail.

I took Fandom Niece to an anime convention this weekend and we had a blast. I have cemented my title of "Best Aunt Ever". I am now also hooked on Death Note. I tried to resist it because I really don't need another manga/graphic novel series to read, but I couldn't resist it. It's so full of darkness and angst.

I am now the YA Go To person in our library system. I was asked to join the Continuing Education Committee and at a meeting, one of the new YA librarians introduced herself to me by saying, "I heard you were the one to talk to about YA in this system." Can't I just be granted an honorary MLIS? Damn 16 hours of Spanish!

I'm training for the Houston marathon and loving it.

The Bad
Last month, I was diagnosed as being 10 points away from being insulin resistant. My doctor has given me 6 months to make some major life changes before starting medication. That means, no sugar of any kind, whole wheat only, no white rice products including rice flour and no potatoes. Now, I love whole wheat bread but when you start looking for whole wheat without any sugar, it gets complicated. I was shocked at the whole wheat bread with corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup in it. Just because it doesn't have the word sugar in the ingredients doesn't mean it's sugar free. Also, white flour is everywhere. And wheat flour is not the same as whole wheat flour. Luckily, I've been able to find whole wheat Udon noodles so I don't feel completely deprived.

The only thing that marred the anime weekend was the overall lack of hygiene. It's called "Speed Stick". It's not expensive.

I have 16 hours of Spanish (4 courses) to complete and I'm just not feeling it. Why can't I complete anything?

The Ugly
October 26th will mark one year since we moved in to the new house. I am still not unpacked.

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eccentrici

January 2013

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Recent Entries

I Can't Believe I Just Did This

Teen Halloween Party and Flying Melons (or Possibly Grapefruit)

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Libraries: The Red Lending Menace

I'm Alive!

My Family and the 1900 Hurricane

Twittering Ike

When Last We Heard From Our Heroine....

WTF?!? I Need a Hug

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My Life in a Nutshell

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