Green
I wrote a poem about liking green better than blue.

Green portends the young year's spring
When with hope the earth is gowned.
Blue is the sky and blue is the sea
Where such great hope is drowned.

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So Far, So Good
Today, unlike yesterday, I have managed to have a peaceful morning doing a Google search for pictures of the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center in New York. The place has been there about fifteen years, but I never heard of it until I went to New York with my brother in June, 2001, and I saw it mentioned in the guidebooks. It looked really cool, but on that trip, my brother and I never went that far downtown. I kinda wanted to go down there to see St. Paul's Chapel, the oldest public building in Manhattan. I wish we had now. At least the chapel is still there.
The winter garden had to have serious repair work done. At one point they thought they might have to demolish what was left of it. It used to have an enclosed bridge coming out of one end which crossed a street and joined to one of the WTC towers. Since this, of course, was gone, the son of the original architect had to design a new facade for that side. And they had to replace the palm trees.

Make It Stop
This horrible day is almost over. Nothing else traumatic has happened since lunch and I have managed to coast through my afternoon. I was feelin' all good about things this morning because I had a productive evening last night and got some more work done on Oidipous Tyrannos. I worked for an hour and got five lines done. And this horrible day came and has knocked all the self-esteem right out of me. I think when a job is so frustrating that it prohibits you from feeling good about yourself, it's time to move on.

The Day Fails to Improve
A professor here has books from the main campus library which have been overdue so long she has gotten charged $100 each for them. She told her secretary to talk to the deputy director of this library. The deputy director, being a reference librarian, because there is no cross-training here, had no idea what to tell the secretary. So he started asking me. I'm doing a fine job of explaining when my chauffer wanders by. He, of course, thinks his two cents are absolutely necessary here, and starts talking over me. He completely confuses the deputy director.
I wanted to kill my chauffer.
And then there's superseded looseleaf. The new rare book room used to a looseleaf alcove where huge sets of looseleaf binders lived. Because they were displaced, they were reclassified to go in the superseded looseleaf section. Which is, of course, on level one.
I knew this project was in theory going on, but I had no idea when I would have to deal with it.
Yesterday our very own Girl From India came over and asked me if we were ready to start shelving that new superseded looseleaf. I told her I would have to go look at the section, that I wasn't sure. So she starts bringing over cart after cart of binders.
I used to work in a public library with some of the highest circulation rates of any public library in the southeastern US. I spend more time physically hauling books around here than I ever did there. What's up with that.

A Little Venting, Please . . .
I think what's going on here is that I am growing pretty frustrating with not knowing about school and it's getting to me. And things about this place that I had grown thicker skin about are starting to bother me again.
My chauffer just asked me how to clear a hold on a book that was never picked up. He's worked here six months longer than I have.
But what I really meant to vent about here are the housekeepers. Their shift is something like three am to noon - I don't know exactly - but they probably make twice what I do.
I used to not have a problem with speaking to them, but then there was one day . . .
I try to walk through the floor of the library I'm in charge of in the morning before too many people get camped out there. Usually, a couple of the housekeepers are working their way through as well. I usually said "Good morning" to them and that was that. One day I went down there and the housekeepers were sitting around. And one of them didn't feel like letting it end with "Good morning." She started asking me stuff like where I lived. I said I live on Buchanan. And then she asked me if I lived with my mother. My mother, for chrissakes. I'm 34 years old.
And then there's this other one who hasn't worked here very long. She learned my name somehow, and every day she insists on saying good morning and calling me by name. Nothing wrong with that. But next she asks how are you?, and I say fine. And then next even if I don't ask how she is, she volunteers that she is good. It's just weird.
This probably all sounds a litle snobby. But I hate this place and I want to speak to as few people as possible, and these shallow fake pleasantries are worse than not speaking at all.

School
Still nothing has been resolved about me going back to school. It's a big "IF" and it's unsettling to me because I don't like not knowing what's going to happen.
There's an undergraduate working here who wants to go to law school. He got his LSAT scores earlier today and was running around all excited because he did really well. He said his score was one point higher than Harvard's average. It was depressing.

Monday AM
It seems to me that I woke up around three in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep. But I feel more well rested than that. I'm wondering if I dreamed I was awake.
I went to visit some friends late Saturday afternoon. They're a gay couple. They're nice guys and I have a good time with them, but - I was trying to describe them to another friend and I came up with the phrase "mainstream gay." I can't decide if that's appropriate or not. They have three miniature dachshunds which they dote on. They listen to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cher. Their house does not look like they got everything at Pier One because of them is from Charleston.
I thought I was going to have dinner with them, it being the time of day it was. But when I got over there one of the guys was drinking scotch and water, and the other was drinking coffee and Grand Marnier out of a Carnival Cruise lines brandy snifter. After I'd been there an hour and a half and nobody had made a move towards the kitchen, I finally asked. I got a lot of vague things in response. Then the guy drinking Grand Marnier announced he was going to bed. It was ten till seven.
Thirty minutes later I left and went to the grocery store.