Wednesday, July 4, 2001
07:55 p.m.
pesky meddling kids

in the process of getting a certain individual's towed car back from the usurious (usorious?) towing company, we wound up at the police station, where we had to wait while pieces of paper were shuffled around, and characters were entered into a terminal. as we waited, a family came in, and the tired-looking mom sent her very young son in to talk to the nice policeman. he wouldn't talk, just sat mulishly in the hallway behind us as he received a lecture on malicious destruction of property. did you know that maliciously causing more than $100 of damage is a felony in michigan? now we all do.

this morning, the fourth, after being awakened by the dregs of the Independence Day parade coming down William Street (apparently a very early parade, folks, don't get me wrong), we went to the Fleetwood for greasy breakfast. the Fleetwood is one of those Ann Arbor Institutions, a diner made from a train car or a trailer or something silver like that, where the local ne'er-do-wells and nogoodniks congregate. some kids behind us actually managed to make me pretty much lose my appetite by loudly cracking jokes about giving head, and whether or not one of them "liked it sloppy." do i sound like a librarian yet? i spent my fair share of hanging out in diners with unsavory characters in my teenage years. but i am certain that i drew the line at yelling the phrase "like it sloppy" in a diner full of amiable drunks, cranky retirees and a couple of librarians manque.

Saturday, June 30, 2001
10:55 a.m.
smarm

i'm disappointed, a bit, because i've discovered that one of the two sections i was going to teach at WCC has been cancelled. i was hoping to teach quite happily eight hours a week, and looking forward to it, and now the morning class has been cancelled due to a lack of enrollment. it is too bad. but i've really finally hit my stride with teaching, i feel. maybe i can pick up several sections in the fall.

but it's been a good writing couple of weeks. i continue to work on the library school revenge novel--slowly, slowly, who knows where it's going to go?--and i've been getting positive feedback both on the article in bitch and the questia article in finger. so i am feeling pretty confident, maybe a little cocky even.

i think the word "smarmy" is being used differently lately. i always thought of "smarmy" as meaning "sassy and cocky and a little greasy" whereas people keep using it to mean "ingratiating." language changes and meaning drifts over time. sometimes it's hard to keep up with.

Wednesday, June 27, 2001
04:10 p.m.
reasons why i can't write the library school revenge novel

it's too hot in here

i'm tired

the cat is looking so cute, i have to pick her up

i'm thirsty

my desk is messy

the kitchen is dirty again

i said i was gonna bake some scones

it's stupid

i can't write

i have writer's block

i have to make a list

i wonder what's going on in the kitchen right about now

i can't concentrate

i have to watch Judge Mills Lane

i have to invest in social capital

someone might email me

the walls are too beige

it's too cold in here

Thursday, June 21, 2001
04:22 p.m.
addendum

i should note, oddly enough, that nothing was taken, and that my car is parked in between other cars, all of which are newer and less beater-y. what is it about the dented honda with the KWUR 90.3fm sticker? i demand answers.

Thursday, June 21, 2001
04:05 p.m.
"hey, buffy, why'd the vampires take your stuff?"

this morning, after i got into the car, i noticed something was wrong. you know how you get in the car, and the window is down, and even thought the window is clear, you note its absence out of the corner of your eye--that's how it was. and the window was down, but it was down in pieces on the car seat and on the ground outside. and i said, "fuck, fuck" and jumped out and stared at it for a while. got andrew on the intercom, who came down, and then we both stared at the window, and paced around and said, "fuck." and so it happened again.

for some reason it reminds me of the episode of buffy from which the subject line of this entry is taken. and i'm not even a buffy fan, i've seen it like 3 or four times. but there is something i want to get at, something about normalcy and threat, and buffy seems as good a descriptive tactic as any. she doesn't know why the vampires are fucking with her. what do they want? her demon roommate took all her stuff and hid it away--why? and that's what i want to know. a few months ago, my house was broken into, and so now the car as well, and i am wondering why i bother living indoors, when having all my stuff outdoors would save the local jerks so much trouble.

and the worst part is that the garage is right near the building, well-lit, etc. i can't really think of anything i could take the landlord to task for. i will have to blame the people actually responsible. what a waste of good litigious rage.

Thursday, June 21, 2001
05:03 p.m.
an email exchange about a sad situation

the baby birds are learning to fly, and as the below shows, our lives are sadder for it:

--On Wednesday, June 20, 2001, 5:04 PM -0400 "Laura L. Tatum" ltatum@umich.edu wrote:

there is a huge disgusting and saddening blob on one of the media union windows here, too, where clearly a bird has crashed into it. ugh.

[deletia].

On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Abigail Leah Plumb wrote:

it was fun. we had NYPD [New York Pizza Depot, which is neither a depot of any kind nor in New York--ed.] and orangina, and discussed the squished baby birds each of us had seen that morning. apparently it is try to fly out of the nest and fail day. very sad. actually, that was not a fun part. that was a sucky, sad and gross part. nonetheless. i am listening to the pastels and grading.

--On Wednesday, June 20, 2001, 4:59 PM -0400 "Laura L. Tatum" wrote:

how was your angela lunch? i am having angela dinner.

i don't like birds much, i have to say, but i do not want the baby ones to be dashed to the pavement just when they're learning to fly. it is a too-broad metaphor, and a sad thing of nature. and i am sad inside, and feel manipulated.

Tuesday, June 19, 2001
07:32 p.m.
back back back back back

there is so much to write about san francisco that i don't know where to start. we slept hard and ate incredible food and went to the Federal Documents Task Force Update at ALA, where Fran Buckley, the Superintendent of Documents spoke. and we saw mike and beth, and adria, jen, andrea, various other people from my undergraduate past. it was like andrew's little tour of my college years, with a few major and excusable gaps.

there was an incredibly annoying man behind us on the plane ride, and it was a long way--a long sketchy way--to even get on the BART into town. which was beautiful: we watched cranes in the night speed by until the train sank into the transbay tube. we stayed at the Mission Hostel/El Capitan Hotel, which is some weird combination of hostel, budget hotel, and SRO. but "residence hotel" has certain connotations (dirty, dirty, dirty) and this was not. it was clean, the people were nice, there were no bathroom lines. it was also definitely a hostel--no room phones, no alarm clocks. but they provided towels, and soap, and a clean bed near a major bus line, and for $28/night for two of us, who can complain? i highly recommend it.

i also highly recommend Taqueria Can-Cun, upon which we stumbled very randomly, and which turned out to be the best place for burritos mojados in town. it was cheap and plentiful, and unbelievably good. please go there. it's worth plane fare, really.

more to come.

Tuesday, June 12, 2001
01:43 p.m.
making government documents sexy. again.

we had a meeting at work today. at work-3, the Documents Center. it was an impromptu meeting. it looks like there will be budget cuts, as though we are being asked to make some cuts so another unit can have more money. i like to work at documents; the people are largely nice (my fellow staff are very cool), and the problems interesting. i have learned a lot about the way the government works. anyway, i fear they will be cutting evening hours. i only have two evening hours. i hope they cut the hours, because i am lazy, but i am scared they will, because i am also broke.

we have to start working on some sort of Aggressive Marketing Scheme, because then maybe more people will come visit. i am ok doing nothing on the desk, because i have a million projects, like finger for example, but it's probably better for me to have actual reference experience.

but anyway, i was happy they wanted me in their meeting.

ALA-San Francisco is only a couple days away. i'm desperately excited; it's a total nerd vacation. i've dyed my hair (so the other librarians don't know i'm greying at 23...as if they're going to think my hair is really Stoplight Red, either) and have a ride to the airport lined up and everything. beth and mike! rory! marge! and also i will see kat hopefully. and jen. and maybe beth's friend peggy, i guess. i don't think andrew has such a social agenda out there. hopefully he will put up with my, er, fabulousness.

random memory: at a party in U. City, MO. i am 18. i don't know more than a couple of people. i am new at college. my future friend, Ed, comes up to me and says,