day four

Today a patron was given a stern talking-to by a security guard, another patron blew up because he was frustrated by the amount of time the public computers took to reboot, and security guards were called to handle two other patrons who almost came to blows. All of this happened just a few feet away from me during the last 10 minutes of Day Four. My new job is difficult, but not impossible, made much easier by extraordinary coworkers who instruct and explain thoroughly and patiently. I sit three different desks throughout the day, two of which are reference desks. I have never officially done reference work before because that has been verboten in my past (academic) workplaces. So not only am I learning where things are, I am also learning how to conduct reference...

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Posted on 14 Feb 2008 | 1 comment

What vs. Which

When my friends have grammar questions, they often ask me for help. I don’t consider myself a very good teacher of grammar, however, because the rules make sense to me more intuitively than logically. Sometimes, though, there are rules that make sense on both levels. The difference between “what” and “which” is one of these rules, as it is as straightforward as grammar rules come. “What” is used for topics of unlimited or unspecified number. For example, if you knew that your friend heard live music last night, but you had no idea which band it might have been, you would ask him: “What band did you see last night?” On the other hand, “which” is used for topics of limited number. For example, if you knew that your friend went to a specific...

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Posted on 9 Feb 2008 | Comments Off

packed up

Tonight I stayed late at work to clean out my cubicle and respond to some last emails.  I had saved the original packaging from my BlackBerry, so I turned it off and closed it inside the box, the first I’ve been significantly separated from it in a year and a half.  Toward the end, I resented it so much, as it enabled my obsessive worry about the website and about my place in the company. Slowly, I packed up the small things that together create an identity in a formless place: the magnetic poetry, the photographs, the books on XML and Unix and information architecture, the postcards, the sticky-notes, the notebooks filled with things I learned and will soon forget, the medicines and toothpaste and spare chopsticks, the battery-powered radio and librarian...

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Posted on 7 Feb 2008 | 3 comments

offline and on

As my eyelids deny me one last glimpse at the election coverage, I drift off on memories of the latter half of 2007, brilliantly captured with words and images by my favorite historian. There is more to tell, of course, and more upcoming so soon. For now, I am wrangling my sundry websites into their new stables so that writing online is less a matter of aligning the planets and plugins, more a matter of just writing already. I apologize if, within the past 72 hours, you were required to login to comment or your email to me bounced. All should now be sorted within the following: cygnoir.net: my online journal unlibrarian.com: my tumblelog halstedmbernard.com: my writing portfolio and...

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Posted on 6 Feb 2008 | Comments Off

intersection

intersection

The road to Clunevackie.Feb 2 Originally uploaded by bruiach1 Words written and rewritten in order to transmit the intangibility of learning an intangible subject fade as they are saved. The document is closed, or it closes itself. There is less to write now; mere days remain between this road and the intersection. A collection of lasts, then: this last mug of tea, this last familiar grouping of faces, this last northeast stairwell door shutting. Flashes of how new it all was not so long ago burst like blood vessels, erupt into dreams, leak and dribble out from half-focused thoughts. In their eyes I see the smiles detach. Once clasped formally in orbit, we disengage and float. Daily reality will become periodic nostalgia: an anecdote if lucky, or just a...

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Posted on 5 Feb 2008 | 3 comments

we can

I know what I said last November about voting or not voting, but you might want to watch this before Tuesday. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY&rel=1](via John Hodgman)

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Posted on 3 Feb 2008 | 1 comment

On writing groups.

I am allergic to groups. Though I don’t regret any of the significant groups I’ve been a part of, whether it was the Girl Scouts, the drama team, the local library association, or writing workshops, I tend not to seek them out. I prefer to do my own things on my own timeline. I also hate feeling excluded; where there is inclusion, there is necessarily its opposite, be it for a good reason or no reason at all. This fact about me is why it is so strange that soon I will celebrate my third anniversary with my writing group. Although it is not so strange; I love being anywhere near these other writers, now that we have become friends, and it is a great pleasure and honor for me to help them with their stories. We get together every other Wednesday night, and...

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Posted on 2 Feb 2008 | Comments Off