Weekend Recap
I say “weekend” as if I’m not just feverishly trying to recap life in general since I’ve had no desire to write much of anything. But that’s slowly going away, I think. But anyway, less Sox talk and more real life…
1) I went to a children’s library conference on Thursday, and I’m amazingly glad I did:
a) It was held in Bethlehem/Littleton, NH, which is about 2 hours north of Manchester, through the White Mountains. I’m not a “ooh, nature” guy, but holy crap was it gorgeous. It was a pretty crappy day, but as I got to the mountains, you could see the clouds and fog rolling off the hills and mountains, and the foliage was pretty, and I could honestly pick up shop and move up that way for good if things were different in my life right now. Just such a perfect, gorgeous, beautiful area.
b) The conference was enlightening, both personally and professionally. I’ve gotten a bit of a reputation from other librarians with the authors and events I’ve been able to get, apparently, which was a very surprising and nice thing to hear, but each panel was just as interesting as well - one on autism and dealing with autistic kids in the library was great, but my favorite was the Native American materials presentation, which really spoke to my personal vendetta against bad nonfiction in children’s collections. The whole day was really great in that regard.
The whole thing was a very uplifting experience for me.
2) Dodgeball didn’t go so well in week two, but I did nail someone in the babymaker, so that’s worth something.
3) I took Friday off, and went to meet the wonderful, amazing Jon Scieszka on Saturday:
It’s always wonderful when a guy you’ve admired for 20 years ends up being even more awesome than you could have thought. In the picture is fellow librarian friend Jackie, who joined us on the excursion. We got to talk to Scieszka for a good 5 minutes before he spoke, and he signed a couple things for me and posed for a picture. Wicked down to earth, amazingly funny - he has a Norm MacDonald-style delivery which is just hysterical - and really someone I’m happy is cool, and makes me appreciate his work that much more. Really wonderful stuff.
4) Yesterday was D&D, first time in a month. Wow, did I miss it - a really crazy battle with some undead dragon newborns, some crazy challenges, and the afternoon really flew by. Every session becomes more and more fascinating, which is great. Two more weeks? Really?
5) Currently obsessed with the following:
a) 30 Rock. We’re all caught up, finally. Talk about a wickedly funny show. Anything that can make Al Gore fun is fine by me.
b) Anathem by Neal Stephenson. A less talented author wouldn’t be able to make me care about monks who study math and philosophy, but there you have it. Rick has been trying to get me to read Snow Crash essentially since the day I met him, and I may have to bump that up considerably.
c) Mega Man 9. No video game hates you quite the way MM9 does. Yet I can’t stop torturing myself.
d) Acid Tongue by Jenny Lewis. The CD isn’t anything special, except that every song feels as if it’s better than the song before it, and you’re disappointed when it’s over. That means something, right?
e) E. L. Fudge cookies. The double stuff variety. Yeah. Cookies shaped like elves are my anti-drug.
This weekend, too my knowledge, we have nothing planned. I’m looking forward to a late-night High School Musical 3 and a lot of sleeping.