patron today wanted to post an ad for a house for rent on craigslist. he needed to put in a photo. he had no concept of how digital photography works, or what craigslist actually is. his solution: 1. ask the reference librarian (me) to borrow my cell phone. 2. since all cell phones have cameras, he would use my cell phone camera to take the picture. 3. i would make that cameraphone photo into a paper printout. the method i would use to do this would be to wave the phone over the printer. as the patron explained, this is how his friend had successfully printed from his cameraphone. 4. i would supply the patron with the craigslist address, which he was having trouble finding. "their office must be somewhere in los angeles, but it is not listed in the yellow pages." he stated. "perhaps it is in Burbank or Pasadena or another nearby city." 5. i would mail the picture and his ad copy to the craigslist company. 6. craig and his colleagues would post it on his list, which is distributed to many people.
he seemed not-crazy and i didn't know where to start to help to disabuse him of any of these technology notions. instead, i answered point 1: "no, you cannot borrow my cell phone." and he took off for the local public library, to see if their librarians will let him borrow their cell phones.
#1 UGH: i am sick with a sickness attacking my nose/sinuses/throat. ugh.
#2 UGH: despite being sick, i am mostly mobile, and tried to do some laundry. i sorted clothes into piles by color, then picked up a pair of josh's pants and started going through the pockets. a wingless ant was crawling on the pants. no biggie; i killed it and kept going through his pockets. another ant was there. so i killed it...only to see another. and another. in all, i saw about 40 ants on/in the pants before i shrieked and hurled them onto the balcony and closed the sliding door. so now the ant-filled pants are out there and i am in here and it is too scary to deal with them.
i was sitting next to a woman with a 5-year-old girl on her lap. the girl is grabbing the hands of and otherwise playing with the 2-year-old boy in the seat in front of her, who was on his mom's lap too (the two pairs were not related nor had ever met before the bus trip, as far as i could tell). the kids are smiling and laughing and then suddenly both started making this weird crooning noise. it was a sound from deep in their throats, like saying "um" with food in your mouth, and they both rose & fell in pitch a few times before hitting this strange resonant chord that perfectly fit with the bus engine noise. they sang for about 30 seconds and then started playing and laughing again.
on the bus today, normal girl tries to start conversation with incredibly nerdy girl. normal girl asks questions; nerd answers with one word, and doesn't ask any questions in return. normal girl finally gets nerdy to talk in full sentences about upcoming vacations.
nerd girl: "and in october, i'm going to an outdoor camping and art jamboree." normal girl: "oh, sounds cool. where is it?" nerd girl: "it's in nevada. it's called burning man."
OMG i hate apartment-hunting. i hate it so much that instead of doing it today i mopped the floor. i just hate picking a place and dealing with money/budgeting and trying to figure out if i could work around the inconvenience of having to buy a refrigerator and etc.
plus, feeling morally bankrupt and dumb and young and boring as hell. cannot make small talk at parties without coming home and beating myself up for hours afterward about all the stupid things i said which i am sure everyone else forgot about right away...but WHAT IF THEY DIDN'T? and that ellipsis and ensuing panicked all-caps voice in my head is why i did not sleep last night.
i am now going to be an adult and go look at 2 open houses for apartments. i can do this. and then later "don quixote" which is a much better book that i expected it to be from its reputation. old comic novels are wasted on young adults.
actual discussion from work meeting today regarding a coworker's baby shower: "she is registered at baby time." "where is that?" "on ventura, near the holistic pet food store." "oh, metapuppy?" "no, the other holistic pet food store."
at which point i and coworker mike started laughing out loud.
plus i went to berkeley and it was fun, it is like ann arbor without any good middle eastern food. didn't get to go to any of the restaurants that spacesquid recommended, as they were all closed the days i was there or too far, but i had a great time with woquinoncoin and djjon. plus we located actual good beer in california, so i was pleased.
things have been weird/bad lately. OMG i am using subject headings and subheadings to organize my thoughts. the opac sucks! you know you loved that utube video.
goin to berkeley this sunday-tuesday. any recommendations for what i should do there? i've never been.
almost every day since i moved here, there's this ASSHOLE playing their annoying car horn, usually between 7 AM-11 PM. it is sort of a mix between the mexican hat dance and the woody the woodpecker theme music, a multi-trumpet, slightly-off-key fanfare of pissing me the hell off. they play it 1-6 times in a row, so my frustration just builds as it repeats.
i vowed to key the car that had that horn, if i ever found it.
i found it today.
it's a big white delivery van with a roll-up back. they drive, find a parking spot, then play the horn a few times. people come out, they roll up the back of the van: it's a portable store with veggies, fruits, frozen/cold foods, meats, etc. it is pretty amazing. i don't know if it's a special store or open to anyone. but i don't think i can key it, the dudes driving it look pretty buff.
i find it hilarious that "bards and minstrels" is the second-most-used tag for books on amazon.com. and even funnier, the biggest subcategory within "bards and minstrels" is "magic carpet ride." WTF?
