The One Where I Check My Library E-mail

As you all may or may not know/remember, along with my Day Job, I also have a job at a public library. Since I don't have a Masters of Library Science degree (yet) (?), I am a Page, which is half a step above the volunteers and a step above the people there performing community service.

What a page does is the grunt work. We check the books in, we shelve the books, stuff like that.

I love my library job. If I could work there as a Day Job, I'd do it in half a second. I work twice a week, 3.5 hours, and 4 hours every other Sunday, and I love it. Love. It.

Any kind of work in the public sector, though, comes with its share of crazy people. Like. . .legit crazy people. The library I worked at in high school had a guy waving around a gun outside one day. More than once, I walked into the bathroom to find this homeless (?) woman washing her hair. And yes. . .for some reason, people think that a library bathroom is an awesome place to have sex. (Hint: No. It's not. I don't know this because I've done it, but I know this because I know how dirty public library bathrooms are at their core. This is why the library I work at now has a staff bathroom in the back.)

Anyway, as an employee of the county, I have county e-mail I always forget I have. I opened it yesterday (Blogger will probably insist I published this on Thursday, since that's when I started it. Lies. It is currently Friday.) for the first time since the beginning-ish of June, and found that I had more than 400 e-mails.

I should note that the messages were not to ME, per se. . .they were sent to the entire listserv. I just happen to be on it, so a lot of the messages didn't actually apply to me at all. It was things like, "Hey, does anyone at any of the libraries have extra red glitter for the children's program this evening?" or "Hey, we're looking for this book that this patron requested. Has anyone seen it?" Plus, there are updates about training and special events and things of that nature.

I went through them all, skimming them, and saved a couple I thought were particularly interesting/funny/horrifying/etc.

Note: I have changed names and identifying details of the libraries. I mean. . .there are 20 libraries in the county system, and if you want to try to stalk me or someone else or whatever, your odds would not be good on being at the right library on the right day at the right time. I'm just saying. So the library call letters I'm using are fake. FYI.

First things first -- there were 12 e-mails about 12 different patrons that had trespassed on public library property. I didn't immediately get that when the e-mail said they were trespassed, that means they were banned that day. So between June 17 and July 19, 12 people were banned either from specific libraries or from all of them. Oh, and if you're intended on doing something to get banned from one of these libraries? Know that they get a picture of you, either from the police or elsewhere (I can't give away ALL our secrets!) and they e-mail it, along with your name, address, library card number, and any other identifying information, to ALL of the employees at ALL of the libraries. But, 12 people in 32 days?

Another e-mail I found funny. It came from the library where I work:

"Flash drive lady came back in today looking for... wait for it - -

her flash drive. We still don't have it."

Pretty much any librarian or library personnel you meet has a sarcastic streak when it comes to stupid patrons. And there are a lot of them.

We get a lot of mentally unstable people at the library as well. I guess maybe because there's not a lot else for them to do during the day.

"Guy on #3 [Note: that's computer #3]... kept turning around looking at me. When I asked him if there was something he needed or I could help him with, he said something I wasn't quite sure I heard well. So I went over to him and told him I couldn't hear him ...
He said something about not liking it but people talk about him ... yeah, the paranoid kind. He's also Mr. BO from Friday."

We get a lot (a LOT) of really smelly people in the library. Not sure why. And I love the nicknames these people give the patrons. Mr. BO, Flash Drive Lady. . .awesome.

This one was apparently actually sent to a patron. (Again, identifying details have been changed.) It's a delightful blend of being helpful and being passive-aggressive:

"Your Mississippi license is at the City Center Library. Please return the flashdrive you borrowed and pick up your license at the Reference Desk.
Thank you."

Heh. "We're holding your driver's license hostage. Bring us back our damn flashdrive."

"Hi All -
I had a patron the other night insist that she brought 2 books back (we all know how that goes!). They are already set to Long Overdue status. I know this is a pain, but would you please mind checking your shelves?? This woman was angry and claimed she spoke to someone at HFN who would "take care of it". Don't know if that's true or not, but I do know that she will make life difficult if I don't exhaust all options (again, we all know how that goes!).

The books are:
Name of Book by Author, barcode: (Barcode Number)
Name of Other Book by Another Author, barcode: (Barcode Number)

They are both African-American fiction. Your help is greatly appreciated!!"

Whenever a patron "insists" they returned something? 7 times out of 10 they are lying their face off. And these people get freaking MEAN!

And finally, this next one requires some backstory.

We have "regulars" at the library. People that are there all the time and that do things weird enough to where you notice that they're there all the time.

There's this one woman with long, long blonde hair who always wears this. . .floor-length velvet dress. She's always going through the classifieds and looking on craigslist, and I'm not entirely sure what it is she does, but I've heard her on more than one occasion on the phone in the foyer saying things like, "Hi, my name is Fran Gretel, and I have a business opportunity that will make you an insane amount of money in weeks. In the amount of time it has taken you to listen to this message, you could have doubled your income!"

She's a weird one.

And then we have this old woman (who, apparently, is a doctor of some kind) that camps out in this chair near the front door every. day. with her two laptop computers in front of her. I don't know what she's doing, but she's always there, in the same spot. This e-mail was a complaint about her:

"Subject: complaint regarding Dr. M (sp? aka the lady who camps out

in the comfy chairs in the front

Derek Lapin, Raleigh resident and frequent computer user said "I would like a chance to sit in one of the comfy chairs, but that lady is always camped out there - all day, everyday." He wants to know if there is a time limit for our comfy chairs."

Now, this guy I kind of agree with. That woman is a giant pain in the ass, taking up all that space. But apparently, those are the comfy chairs. I feel like maybe there SHOULD be a time limit for the comfy chairs.

So there you go. I may check my e-mail more frequently, now that I remember it's a thing and now that I know the hilarity that ensues in the inbox.

The One Where I'm Disappointed in the Arizona Judge

Food for thought:

If you cross the North Korean border illegally you get 12 years hard
labor.

If you cross the Iranian border illegally you are detained indefinitely.

If you cross the Afghan border illegally, you get shot.

If you cross the Saudi Arabian border illegally you will be jailed.

If you cross the Chinese border illegally you may never be heard from
again.

If you cross the Venezuelan border illegally you will be branded a spy
and your fate will be sealed.

If you cross the Mexican borders illegally you will jailed for two years.

If you cross the Cuban border illegally you will be thrown into political
prison to rot.

If you cross the United States border illegally you get:
1 - A job
2 - A driver's license
3 - A Social Security card
4 - Welfare
5 - Food stamps
6 - Credit cards
7 - Subsidized rent or a loan to buy a house
8 - Free education
9 - Free health care
10 - A lobbyist in Washington
11 - Billions of dollars in public documents printed in your language
12 - Millions of servicemen and women who are willing to - and do - die
for your right to the ways and means of our constitution
13 - And the right to carry the flag of your country - the one you walked
out on.

Just think about it, y'all.

The One With the Picky (Ungrateful) Eaters

I work in the training department, and it's basically my job to keep track of the training people do so they are properly trained to do their jobs. I'm pretty sure I've told you this already. A part of being in the training area is that I coordinate the New Employee Orientation days, which includes getting together training materials and ordering lunch. I think I've referenced this before. . .all the pizza?

So, the lady who's here giving the training came up to my desk and said, "They want to know if Jersey Mike's delivers, if they can have sandwiches instead of pizza, because they were like, 'Pizza two days in a row?'"

I was. . .floored. I'm fairly certain that if someone offered to buy me lunch, anywhere, I'd be like, "Sure, great. Thank you!" If it were something I didn't like/didn't eat, then I'd say, "Oh, wow. That's nice of you, but I'm going to be having ______ for lunch." Maybe it's my Southern upbringing, I don't know. But that just seems awfully, awfully rude.

So I said (and, I wasn't actually sure this was true. But it sounded correct.) "I don't think they do delivery. . .I think they just do catering, and it's like a $50 minimum order." The lady looked startled and said, "Oh! OK. That's out."

(Note: I just checked their Web site, and it does not have a minimum order, but it also asks for 24 hours' notice. And I have a feeling they'd be like. . .3 lunches? That's it?")

She comes back and gives me what the people want: a large pizza, 1/2 ground beef, onions, and green peppers and 1/2 ground beef and pineapple. I say, "You know. . .usually we just offer them pepperoni and cheese." She laughed and said that since there were so few people, she decided to be accommodating. (She is, clearly, a lot nicer than I am.)

Then she told me that one of the ladies had said, "Well, at my OLD job, they gave us something different every day!"

I told the lady that it's like the one annoying new kid in high school that, every other word out of their mouth was, "Well, at my OLD school. . ." [I knew one of those. She was in the band and was convinced she was God's gift to clarinet performance. She sat primly in the first chair position, glaring at anyone else who dared sit in HER CHAIR, until the actual chair auditions when she was placed. . .6th. Out of 7. I feel like the fact that the band director always gave her first THIRD part (sorry for the original typo. . .), regardless of where she sat, should have been her first clue. Then she switched to bass clarinet, where she was 1st chair, by default, because she was the only bass clarinet player. Who was it that got the first chair spot? Oh yeah. . .that was me. :0) ]

Anyway, after I made that comparison, she laughed and said, "Yeah, and you want to say to them, 'Then go back to your old school!'"

So I knew she understood.

But seriously?

It's kind of like last week. My company has been working the people here a lot. Much overtime. . .like, 20-hour days. So they were buying some of the people lunch. Pizza, obviously.

One of the girls called up to my desk and was like, "Sarah. . .no one else wants to ask you this, so they made me do it. Would you go ask (the head boss) if, instead of pizza, they could just buy us a bucket of chicken? No fixings. . .and a loaf of bread?"

I laughed (you have to laugh), but went and asked. I don't actually know how that ended, because the head boss guy called down to where the woman had called me from to deal with it himself.

But honestly.

The One Where People Continue to be Dumb

First of all, I want to share a little story my Mom told me last week that has nothing to do with dumb people. But I want to write it down before I forget it.

My cousin's daughter is staying with my Mom, SDad, and sister this week while she goes to the camp for which Katie is a counselor. Lily is the kid's name, and she's 5.

So Johnny (SDad) is having coffee that morning, and the following conversation took place:

Lily: You're drinking coffee. Only old people drink coffee.
Johnny: Only old people drink coffee? Guess I'm an old person.
Lily: Yeah. Also because you have a young girlfriend.
Johnny: I do? Who's my young girlfriend?
Lily: Aunt BJ! (Betty Jean. . .that's my mom.)
Johnny: (laughs) No, Aunt BJ isn't my girlfriend. She's my wife!
Lily: Nope. She's your young girlfriend!

Ah, kids.

Now, on to the dumb people.

This article was on CNN.com. . .whenever it was I started writing this post:

(CNN) -- A Texas bus driver has filed a lawsuit against his former employer, claiming he was fired for his religious beliefs after refusing to transport a client to a Planned Parenthood office, court documents showed Wednesday.

Edwin A. Graning worked for the Capital Area Rural Transportation System (CARTS) near Austin, Texas, for less than a year before he was let go in January. At the time, he told his supervisor that, "in good conscience, he could not take someone to have an abortion," according to the lawsuit. Graning is an ordained Christian minister.

Planned Parenthood, a health care provider that offers a range of medical services to women, including those related to abortion, often draws the ire of anti-abortion groups in the United States, where the procedure is legal but fiercely controversial.

Graning's last day of employment was the same day he refused service.

He is seeking reinstatement, back pay, and compensatory damages for pain, suffering and emotional distress.

"It's only because he voiced his religions beliefs that he was canned," Edward White III, Graning's lawyer, told CNN. "Employers have a legal responsibility to at least attempt to accommodate an employee's religious beliefs. ... CARTS clearly violated Mr. Graning's religious freedom."

White, who works for a public interest law group founded by evangelical Christian leader Pat Robertson, said CARTS sent a second driver to collect the client and took her and a friend to the Planned Parenthood office.

"While others may wish to make more of it, to CARTS this is just about our expectation that employees perform the duties they are hired for," David Marsh, general manager of CARTS, said in an e-mail message to CNN.

In addition to rides along fixed routes, CARTS offers some door-to-door service within its rural coverage area.

The lawsuit, in the U.S. District Court for western Texas, Austin Division, was filed on July 14.

OK. So. . .I don't even know. . .where to begin with this one.

I completely respect the beliefs of the people who say abortion is wrong. I, personally, don't really know where I stand on the subject, but I don't think that other people have the right to tell someone who wants to get an abortion (they ARE legal, after all) that they can't. If they were illegal, that would be something else entirely.

Basically, this would be like a waiter saying, "No, I'm sorry, I won't bring you the pork chops you ordered. I'm Jewish." Or a lesbian working at Baby Gap saying, "No, I'm sorry, I can't sell you this overpriced onesie, because I think it's gross that people procreate.

If you take a job, you're expected to perform the duties of that job. The article didn't say whether or not the woman was actually going for an abortion. PP does stuff other than that. . . providing contraceptives, providing the morning-after pill (which, by the way, is NOT the same thing as the so-called abortion pill), etc.

Then there's the guy's lawyer, who said "Employers have a legal responsibility to at least attempt to accommodate an employee's religious beliefs. . .CARTS clearly violated Mr. Graning's religious freedom." Um, how about, they fired him because he was pushing his beliefs onto other people (violating THEIR freedom of religion) and not doing the job he was being paid to do. If someone refused to drive a Catholic to Mass because they were Jewish, you'd better believe they'd get fired. It's the same thing.

I'm now remembering why I didn't finish this post in the first place. Ignorance makes me angry.

The One Where My Book Club Blows

Just got a message in my Spam folder with the subject line, "Sarah -- You can become the new King of Cleveland!"

. . . . . . .

I was not. . .aware Cleveland had a king. Or that a female could be king. Obviously, I am on the wrong career path as of this moment.

This kind of makes me miss the days when King Djibashae Tutalegument of Nigeria wanted to deposit 1,500 trillion dollars into my bank account. Hey, Djibashae! Where's my money?*

Book Club was tonight. Let me set a background here. I've been signed up for this meeting for the last month and a half or so. I've been super jazzed. I've been looking forward to breaking out of my social anxiety-laden shell and meeting some people and talking about books. Getting opinions and stuff.

D went with me to the coffee place, and I roundaboutly asked him (Read: Demanded) that he stay. The meeting was at a coffeehouse, so he was able to get work done while he was sitting there, listening to whatever he had playing in iTunes.

So I sit down at these tables, and realize what I did not actually expect: I am clearly the youngest person there. That always makes me feel super awkward, because people assume that young = stupid. For the majority of people my age, yeah. That's true. But not all of us are stupid. Someone asks me if I'm new, and I said yes. She says she could tell.

She could tell because everyone knew each other. Even though the meetup description said, "There're new people at every meeting!". . .well, I mean, I guess that wasn't a lie. I was new, after all. But EVERYONE ELSE knew each other.

"How're the kids, Doreen?"
"Oh, they're great, Helen, thanks for asking! Daniel is still talking about the pot roast you brought to mine and Damien's potluck dinner last week."
"Oh, hey guys! Are you talking about the potluck? Me and Greg sure enjoyed that!"
"That's right, Cynthia! I think we should all get together soon and have another potluck. . .maybe a girls' night out afterward!"

Kind of like that.

So our moderator, a woman who is most definitely going to look like Betty White in about 20 years, starts off with a fairly innocuous question. . .that I can't even remember. What I DO remember is that I had a BADASS answer to it, so I said, ". . ." (whatever my answer was.)

Except.

This other lady had the same opinion I did, and took the beginning of my sentence and then ran with it. . .effectively taking it from me. That sounds melodramatic, I'm aware, but there's really no other way I can describe it.

OK, fine. I'll wait until something else comes up.

So then there was something I wanted to say something about. I started to say whatever it was I wanted to say, and half a second after I started talking, this other lady started talking, and raised her voice to be heard over me. I tried a tactic I use occasionally when D and I argue, where, if I'm being interrupted, I continue saying what I was saying in the hope that he other person will be like, "Oh. She's still talking. I'll knock it off. Maybe she's saying something important."

But no.

She raised her voice so she could be heard over me, and I just kind of gave up on the entire concept.

One person sent my a sympathetic look when that happened, but I was like, eff a bunch of book club.

So I sat there and just listened.

And let me tell you. . .what I was listening to made me mad that I'd chosen to waste an entire evening on this thing. I've been to book clubs before, and when I did, we discussed. . .the book we'd all read. At this one? The novel had been about Alzheimer's, and this one woman went on and on in a sort of monologue for about 15 minutes about the fact that her father (or mother?) had died of Alzheimer's. And then after her monologue, it became about mental illness as a whole. And then somehow, diabetes was thrown into the mix.

I'm texting D throughout this entire travesty of an evening, telling him how bored I am, etc. He's sitting there, but he's got headphones on, so he's not having to listen to every little inane detail about what these women were talking about.

Then, somehow, it turns into a conversation about how people in their 20's take everything for granted. ("Hey, guys!" Internal Monologuing Sarah yells, "We're not ALL like that!" And then it turns into a conversation about how, if this were to happen to us in real life (a loved one having Alzheimer's) how, "Since we're women, it would be easier for us to take on the role of the caretaker." But if we, as women, had the disease, we'd expect our menfolk to just fall apart and not be able to take care of anything themselves.

Um.

I can tell you one thing with the utmost of certainty. If I had Alzheimer's, D wouldn't fall apart in the least. But if he had it? I wouldn't know what to do with myself. Maybe that's because I "take everything for granted."

And then everyone started chiming in with, "Oh! My husband's the same way! Oh, it's be so much easier for me to take care of him than for him to take care of me."

And then? They all started talking about what a brilliant book "The Notebook" is.

OMFG.

THE NOTEBOOK?

Why didn't they just say that Justin Bieber is the most awesome superstar in the history of entertainment, that Michael Jackson would be a great babysitter for your son, or that Perez Hilton would be the ideal person with whom to share your umost deepest, darkest secrets?**

If I wasn't convinced before the Notebook conversation that this wasn't the group for me, that just did it. Because Every. Single. Person. agreed with the "That was the Best! Book! Ever!" statement.

So, needless to say, only about 10 of the 90 (90!!) minutes was spent talking about the book. I'd come for a conversation during which I could feel smart because I had something intelligent to say about something I'd read. But instead, I felt like an outsider, because I had nothing to say about any of the topics at hand. Had I said, "'The Notebook'? REALLY? I HATED the movie, and I find everything Nicholas Sparks has ever read to be insipid and stupid," I probably would have gotten the exact same reaction: No one noticing I was a part of the group.

Needless to say, I will not be going back. And my experiment into the World of the Socially Un-Retarded failed. Epically.

I guess I need to find a new hobby, because reading the same thing other people read clearly isn't going to work for me.

Eff.

*Um, I never fell for this.
**Clearly, my knowledge of current events is awesome.

The One Where My Brain is On Backwards and I Can't Stay On Topic

I swear, I'm going to finish some of the posts I've started, but for some reason, I'm just like. . .they aren't shiny and new to me anymore. They were awesome when I started them, but then I started to bore myself. And when you start to bore yourself, you're in trouble. Big Trouble.

Also of note, I went from 12 subscribers to 11. That made me. . .a lot more sad than it probably should have. I don't know who it was that dropped me, or what I did to offend them so. It was like (before I stopped caring) when I lost facebook "friends." I was like. . .wow. What have I done that is SO BAD that people don't want to be facebook friends with me anymore?

And then, of course, I started weeding out my facebook friends list, went from almost 600 friends to just under 335, and I continue to weed it occasionally. These people shouldn't necessarily take it personally. . .I just don't really care that much to keep up with them.

I'm a little all over the place today, and I actually wouldn't even be here (writing, I mean), had I not read a post by the lovely Aunt Becky about why she writes. Aunt Becky is one of those bloggers that I wish I knew in real life. She's awesome and crass and heartfelt (can one BE heartfelt, or do people just SAY heartfelt things?), and I'm not even exaggerating when I say that she sometimes may even make me feel better about myself. Call me lame, call me whatever. . .that's the way it is.

I have a book club meeting tonight. I can't remember if I mentioned the book I read, but it's "Still Alice," and it's about this 50-year-old woman with early-onset Alzheimer's. This book broke my heart, and I'm excited to talk to other people who read it, to see what they thought.

Of course, reading this book gave me yet another thing to worry that I have. I'm a hypochondriac of the worst kind, and I'm also horribly, horribly absentminded. So, in my mind, of course, Absentmindedness = Alzheimer's.

Some time, I'll have to tell you about the time I thought I had simultaneous cancer and liver failure, thanks to the blue ice cream.

I'll share this with you here: I've decided that my OCD is taking over my brain to such a large extent that I am actually therapist shopping right now. I'm not. . .terribly ashamed about it, but the problem that I have is actually, I know how drugs to tone down the problem can mess with you, and I've taken those, and I do not like them. I don't like how they make me feel, and I don't like how they make me think.

That may sound kind of weird, me not liking the way brain drugs alter my brain, but what I mean is, if I'm on something like that, I'm. . .less interesting. It's kind of like putting an artist on Ritalin. They just can't do the same things when they're not a little crazy. This concerns me. I battle enough with thinking I'm boring. But then again, during a screaming match I may or may not have had yesterday, I was accused of being "paranoid and delusional," so if that is, in fact, true, maybe my brain NEEDS to be altered.

I don't really know. I don't know why I feel the need to share this either, but there it is. So if I get really boring and my subscribers list drops from 11 to 8, and then from 8 to 3, and then, one day, I only have 1 left. . .that's probably why.

Since I can't seem to keep a straight train of thought, I'll leave you with a conversation I had with D after lunch. His car is in the shop currently, so he comes to get me for lunch.

Another thing you need to understand is that my parents (my mom and SDad) are gross. Like. . .in a nauseating kind of way. In the kind of way that my mother always has flowers at her desk that he bought her, and that there are little notes around their house that say things like, "I dove my Tschugah!" or "I miss my Tschugah!" (Um. . .Tschugah is kind of a bastardization of "Sugar," and that is what my parents call each other. They do not refer to each other by name. Ever.) (Also, dove = love. This is important later.)

So, we're pulling into the parking lot, and I don't even know what prompted this (it could have been the fact that my SDad was in the parking lot, waiting for my mother), but this is what happened:

D: I dove wu!

Me: Oh my God. OH MY GOD. Never again. Never. Again. We are not longer talking. OK, you can come and pick me up at 5, but I'm not speaking to you on the ride home.

D: But. . .I DOVE wu!

Me: AAARRRGGGHHHH!!! NO!

Probably, it was funnier in person. But it made D laugh.

The One Where I'm Not Dead

I don't actually know how many days it's been since I posted. I know I've started approximately 400 new entries, and all of them have kind of sucked.

My brain kind of feels like it's caving in on itself, and I'll be back as soon as that is no longer a thing.

The One With Cheesecake Photos

My blackberry cheesecake? Was badass. Bad. Ass. Completely worth the ridiculous amount of money I spent on the ingredients.

I finally got home last night after a 14-hour workday and cut into it. My photographer D took pictures of the process, so, of course, I'm going to share them with you all. So you can be. . .you know, jealous. Of my mad cheesecake skills.

Even though I've been making cakes and cupcakes and pies for. . . ever, I'd never attempted a cheesecake before. Main reason for that being, I didn't have a springform pan. For those of you who don't know, the springform pan has a latch on it that you pop so you can take the surrounding pan off of the bottom. This is necessary for cheesecakes, because unlike with regular cakes, you can't just flip them out of the pan. . .they have to stay rightside up. So I waited until A.C. Moore had a sale on them and bought one. That was like 2 months ago, so it was about time.

I've already linked to the recipe, but I'll do it again if you're interested, because I don't feel like going through the entire process on here. The only thing I would change about it is that the recipe suggests 2 - 3 cups of blackberries. I only used two (those things are EXPENSIVE!), and I wasn't able to cover the entire top of the thing. . .I had to arrange them artfully in the middle. I'd prefer the berries to go to the edges (although. . .I seemed to have an excess of juice with the amount I used. Maybe I'd drain some of it. I don't know.

Also, I don't have an electric mixer, so I mixed this entire thing by hand. My biceps are enormous. Do YOU have tickets to the gun show?

So I made the cheesecake:

Mmmm. . .cheesecake.

Then, the berries were cooked:

Mmmm. . .berries!

And then the entire thing was put together:

OMG!

And sliced. . .

And, of course, then it was eaten.

Awesome.

The One With IRONY!

Back for another round. This round will start with a list of thoughts I feel the need to write down, and then the point of the post.

A couple things to note:

1. My iPod has been AWOL for about. . .6 months. It was recently (and randomly) unearthed, and I ordered a new battery for it (because, previously, if you charged it to full power, put it on the list of music, and then had the audacity to skip a song, that would completely drain the power and it would die immediately.) and D took the thing apart and installed the new battery. Viva la iPod!

2. I am currently in the middle of reading. . .approximately 6 books, one of which is NOT the book I have to have read for next Tuesday's book club. Um, I should get on that.

3. I think my boss has a thing for D.

4. I need to know how much is too much information on this blog. I have stories I'd like to tell, but I think maybe they're just not something everyone, their mother, and their mother's girlfriend needs to know. (What? I'm progressive and accepting. I don't care if your mother has a girlfriend.)

5. I'm freaking dying for a piece of the cheesecake I made last night.

6. I think Blogger needs the same thing Xanga has, where you can say what you're currently listening to/watching/reading. Because I'm all about mundane information about my life! The only problem here would be if I were reading my 6 books (see point 2), watching "Napoleon Dynamite" and listening to Cutting Crew's "I Just Died in Your Arms." (True story: That is what I am listening to.)

OK, so, irony.

Here's the dictionary definition (taken from dictionary.com):

i·ro·ny

¹    [ahy-ruh-nee, ahy-er-]

–noun, plural -nies.

1.

the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite ofits literal meaning: the irony of her

reply, “How nice!” when I said I had to work all weekend.

2.

Literature .

a.

a technique of indicating, as through character or plotdevelopment, an intention or

attitude opposite to thatwhich is actually or ostensibly stated.

b.

(esp. in contemporary writing) a manner of organizing awork so as to give full expression

to contradictory orcomplementary impulses, attitudes, etc., esp. as ameans of indicating

detachment from a subject, theme,or emotion.

3.

Socratic irony.

4.

dramatic irony.

5.

an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.

6.

the incongruity of this.

7.

an objectively sardonic style of speech or writing.

8.

an objectively or humorously sardonic utterance, disposition, quality, etc.

Irony is one of those things that most people just don't get the meaning of. "Wow. . .that's pretty ironic," is often said about things that are not ironic.

"Wow, you and your ex-boyfriend showed up at the same bar last night. How ironic!"

No. This is not ironic. Irony would be if a girl went out because she was trying to avoid seeing her ex-boyfriend, and they ended up at the same bar. That would be irony definition number 5. She was trying to get away from him, but he went to the same place she did. Whoa. IRONY!

(Here, I should explain that D and I had a conversation about irony the other day, talking about what's ironic and what's actually not, and now, whenever something comes up that is actually ironic, I do a weird jazz hands movement and say, "IRONY!" What would be ironic would be if D had sworn to never fall in love with anyone who used jazz hands. IRONY!)

The entirety of Alanis Morisette's song, "Ironic," is NOT IRONIC. There's nothing ironic about "meeting the man of your dreams/and then meeting his beautiful wife." There's no bit of irony in a "black fly/in your Chardonnay." And it's not ironic if you have "rain on your wedding day."

Most of these are just things that really suck.

To be fair, there is one legit irony in the song (the guy who's afraid of flying dying in a plane crash). But one out of. . .many doesn't cut it.

The irony thing is just another English Language thing that irks me, kind of like the ending -oholic being used to describe someone being addicted to something besides alcohol.