an occasional feature

January

I met my across-the-alley neigbor today. His name is Tyler and he sounds like he's from the bayou. He is missing one of his front teeth and shook my hand like he was sleepwalking. He said he went to a party at the Odd Fellows Hall about seven years ago and it was a real blowout.

In other meetings today I met the young adult librarian at the Ballard Branch of SPL when I was at the Grand Opening of the Ballard Family Center. His name is Nick and he's from the panhandle and we talked about how lame censorship and filtering software is. He was wearing a tie but I liked him anyhow. I invited both these guys to my party which is tomorrow.

1/29/98

1/26/98

Okay, I'm back among the living, awakeness-wise. I don't know what caused my sleepiness or what is causing my awkeness, but I'm happier being awake. This weekend I went to see a movie at the 911 Media Arts Center called The Rainbow Man/John 3:16 about the guy with the rainbow wig who became a celebrity for almost no reason at all and is now in jail serving three life sentences. It was shown with Andre the Giant Has a Posse which tells what all those stickers are about.

To celebrate my newfound awakeness, I have plans this week. They go like this:

• Monday, 9:30 pm, bowling at Sunset Bowl
• Tuesday, Vanessa Veselka at the OK Hotel
• Wednesday, pool and then 4 Hour Ramona at Sub Zero

1/24/98

From the mailbag: "January. Pesky, energy-sucking, gray, rainy, January. If you don't feel better tomorrow, just blame it on January."

I can't wake up. It's been days now and I walk around in a somnabulent stupor. It's like all the features of the muzzyheadedness you get with a headcold without the headcold itself. I'm wondering if the Odd Fellows Hall has an invisible radon gas leak or maybe it's all the carbon monoxide that comes in my alley-facing street-level window. Maybe I don't get enough iron. Maybe I just have a bad attitude and should get over it. Maybe it's parasites. Maybe it's not.

1/22/98

Between Jack and I, we won six tickets to Pomade last night. I had the intelligence to invite my dashing pal Sean who actually knows how to swing dance. He was benevolent enough to teach me a few steps and didn't seem to mind that I kept stepping on his feet. Line of the night: "Jessamyn, you're just not very good at following."

I have found something my cat will play with. It is a rope. When we play, it actually looks as if I am trying to lasso her.

I've made a new page containing every job I've ever gotten paid for. My list looks interesting to me, but I'm sure everyone's does. I'm also sure I'm forgetting one or two jobs here and there. Coming soon, a list of all the cars [and trucks] I've ever had...

1/18/98

My Dad is still in town and I haven't been home much. My cat is starting to give me the "who are you?" look. This is a picture I took with my new camera. I think it looks pretty swifty. It is retouched, do you think you can tell?

Tomorrow my Dad goes back to the Boat Show without me and then Tuesday he goes home. We saw Good Will Hunting at the octoplex downtown which is a good movie to see with one's Dad. Here is a list of things I have done with my Dad:

• Klondike Gold Rush Museum
• Boat Show
• updated his Quicken category listings [I am a librarian and thus good at this]
• got me a camera and a raincoat and a guitar book and another book on storms
• drove around Discovery Park
• looked at boats at Fishermen's Terminal
• ate [or had coffee] at the Edgewater, the Crocodile, the Dutch Treat, the Yankee Diner, Hattie's Hat, Minnie's, Nordstroms, Szechuan Noodle Bowl, Kidd Valley and the Eliot Bay Cafe.

1/16/98

You can really tell how much I love my dad because I spent nearly three hours at the boat show with him today. It was more interesting than I thought it would be. One thing I dig about Seattle is that even at these trade shows, folks don't try to give you the hard sell. Being from New England, it's weird to me how little everyone hassles you. So, it was painless. I learned a bit about sailing simulator software and my dad bought a calendar & got some information about inflatable dinghies. Then we went to Bellevue Square [my dad had some weird fascination with seeing the suburbs] and I got a digital camera. Keep watching this space for new color pictures of me and my cat!

1/14/98

So I arrived back in Seattle safely and soundly only to find that in my absence the furnace had broken. This meant no heat. Fortunately, P/Zesto has a lot of fur. I can not say as much for the barber, who was pissed. Jack [the caretaker to the caretakers] had dealt with everything adequately, but I arrived home to an icebox [hence the igloo, and you know, the Eskimos don't really have hundreds of words for snow, and they don't much like being called Eskimos either].

By the time I left New Orleans it was raining like crazy hell so I was happy to get back to the moderate mist of Seattle. By now, the furnace is fixed, and in a special midweek edition of guess what woke me up this week? the answer is: the electrician [from Blitz Electric], who came by at 7:15 this morning and started banging on my door to be let in [he couldn't get his key to work, I said he'd probably have more luck if he waited until it was light out]. When I suggested that in the future he'd be better off coming by later in the day he said "oh, do you work nights or something?"

1/12/98

Still at ALA. Yesterday I ate at the Country Flame and had yellow rice, a taco and a loaded baked potato [and a Coke] for $6. They were selling beer for $2.50 for 32 ounces. Some of the locals had a difficult time getting their head around the fact that I pay $3 for a pint of microbrew back in Seattle. I've also been to the Cafe Du Monde twice now but have yet to find a place with a Scrabble board. Does it seem like my trip to New Orleans just might be more about food than libraries?

1/11/98

Still at ALA. Ate lunch at Mother's and found it was as good as people told me it would be. Last night I walked by a guy in the park with a 12 foot telescope that, for a donation, you could look through and peek at the moon. There's a ferry that crosses the Mississippi River that you can take out and back for free which is a welcome respite from the rest of the Waterfront area [it's called Riverwalk but most of the walk by the river takes place in a giant mall with no windows]. Last night I ate at the Clover Grill where I got a burger cooked under a hubcap. Their menu said "if your order takes more than five minutes, relax you're not in New York"

1/10/98

I'm at the ALA conference at an Internet Cafe sponsored by Canon in the Convention Center. I have watched jugglers, seen too many product demos, made jokes about floral print dresses and cat pins, compared free loot and gone to a SRRT meeting where we decided our budget was a disaster. I don't think I have another meeting until Monday. I think I am the only librarian here who actually took a city bus from the airport, except for the other freaky librarian who was at the stop with me [see the link, how tough can it be?]. I am staying with the Internet Public Library people, they are cool. Big surprise that I get along well with a bunch of well-meaning overworked volunteers, huh?

1/9/98

I pissed away my free day playing with the cat, going to an Odd Fellows Building Committee meeting and winning free tickets to Southern Culture on the Skids which I then went to go see at the Showbox. Whoooeee! Great show!

1/7/98

Funny that I should have been writing about time lately... Due to a complete misconception of time [my own] I now have 24 free hours tomorrow to do with as I please. It happened like this: I keep my own calendar on my white board at home [I am not now, nor have I ever been a corporate exec, but I did used to teach test prep and I got a free old white board out of it]. I wrote my week thusly:

instead of the more correct:

1/6/98

I am going to New Orleans in three days. If there are any librarians going to ALA who would like to hang out and drink coffee let me know. If there is anyone who is going who would like to let me sleep on their couch or floor, also let me know. I hear it's 74 degrees and sunny in New Orleans, which is okay with me. I have finally gotten over my chronic overpacking and should be able to just carry a few things with me. I hear the hostel in NOLA is fairly nice, but I'm conflicted about paying a whole bunch just for lodging which I never take full advantage of anyhow [don't read the bibles, don't steal the towels, don't use the coat hangers, shampoo or shower cap and rarely watch the TV]. Besides, I'd like to spend all my available cash on food.

As soon as I get back, my Dad is coming to town. He's newly retired. He just bought a new red pickup truck. Coincidence?

This just in: the person who has the email address spaz@microsoft.com is really named Sanya Paz. Lucky her.

1/3/98

As I was coming home last night, the clock on Market Street said 12:90. Part of the clock is broken and it occasionally flashes weird times like that. My favorite is 12:99, but I wasn't going to stand in the rain for nine minutes just to check it out. I have a clock in my house that says the wrong time. When I had to lend the Northwest Bears an extention cord, I had to unplug my VCR. When I plugged it back in, it blinked 12:00 a lot. So? I know how to change it, I just don't feel like it. Anyhow, it annoyed a houseguest of mine enough that he just started the clock going. So now it tells relative time. I can tell how much time elapsed, but not what time it is [unless I do some subtraction which I'm not too good at]. Even a stopped clock would tell the correct time twice a day!

1/2/98

Well, my New Year's Resolution last year was to keep this journal up. Yesterday. I played Resolution Roulette at my omlette brunch and got a resolution not to make any resolutions. Fine with me.

This is a picture of me and my cat, P/Zesto. If she ever gets her own web page, please come to my house and wrest my mouse from my grasp. Ths picture was taken at 7 am which is an hour I normally do not diplomatically recognize in my Odd Micronation but that's when she's up and she's behind the couch so much lately that I take what I can get. She prefers not to be photographed [big surprise], hence the blurriness. I'm not trying to look extra-sincere in this photo, I'm just sleepy.