not rollerskating ... almost as fun as actually rollerskating

so last night after trying out greenpoint's new korean restaurant (little korea, very yummy), miss fifi and i went to down and derby at studio b. here's the idea: take a bar, put down a roller rink type floor for an evening, then invite hipsters in short shorts and afro wigs to go skating whilst consuming alcoholic beverages. it's a great idea, hence why miss fifi and i were there. but it totally sucked. here's why: first, we got there 15 minutes after the doors opened. it is unheard of to arrive anywhere so early. and yet we had to wait 45 minutes in the cold. let me start off by saying that i heart gay men. i really do. i have never met a gay man i didn't love. until last night.
we were standing in front of the most obnoxious group of whiny queens ever. these boys did not shut up. also, these boys had no idea of personal space and almost steamrollered poor miss fifi who is not as vertically endowed as some of the rest of us. anyway these queens went on and on about how they just couldn't believe they were in brooklyn waiting on a line for a party. in brooklyn. oh my god. get over yourself. if this were 7 years ago i could understand where you are coming from. but alas we are in the now, so get with the times sister.
then once inside we had to wait on yet another line to get skates. of couse miss fifi had brought her own skates (being a roller derby goddess) but she was a good enough pal to wait in line with me. so after about 30 minutes on the skate line we eventually get into the skate rental room, where we are immediately told that only women's size 4 skates are left. that would have been very helpful if i was an 8 year old girl. sadly, my 9 1/2 feet are not squeezing into a pair of 4s.
so miss fifi and i were left to wander around and stare at hipsters, which is of course fun in its own right. but not as fun as roller skating.
at around 12:30 we went back to the skate rental room to find complete and utter chaos. it was kind of like the floor of the stock exchange. the masses were shouting out the sizes they needed and then every so often the girls behind the counter shouted the sizes they actually had. and that is when i noticed that the girls behind the counter had a lot of skates that they weren't distributing. and that they were kind of messing with the crowd and joking around in a oh do you really want skates? kind of way. how bad do you want your skates? it was pretty ridiculous. and that is when i turned to miss fifi and said, let's get the hell out of here.
and then we left and got some hot chocolate. sassy pictures of me and miss fifi in our skating outfits (sans skates or any actual skating) will be posted later on flickr.

i'm a writer ... not an alarm clock

i think there are only three people in the world who will understand the title of this post (i hope you know who you are, my fellow bahama adventurers). don't expect me to explain it to the rest of you suckers.
i had quite a revelation this morning ... i realized that i am in fact a writer. i write this blog every day. EVERY DAY. not only that, i am currently writing a novel. i am not just saying i am writing a novel. i am actually doing it. so what do you call a person who is writing every day, both in blog and print form? well, i believe that person would be considered a writer. pretty cool, no?

thank you gods of justice and rock n' roll

on the one hand, the month of march has taught me that everyone reads my blog and i should probably just shut the hell up. but by golly, you just can't keep a good woman down ...

last night i went to see my friend's band, the naked heroes, play at trash bar. they are awesome by the way, everyone should worship them.

anyway ... i wore liquid eyeliner. i looked hot. my bestest friends were there. we danced around. i drank cheap beers.

in walks the glam rocker, and my god did i play it cool. oh hello there glam rocker ... why yes it is lovely to see you as well ... i read this article that may be of interest to you ... take care then, ta ta! seriously, i could not have played that situation any cooler. point 1: me!

most likely nothing will come of this situation, but damned ... it felt nice to have something go right for a change. and at the end of the night i walked myself home through the empty streets of brooklyn, singing songs on my iPod and feeling good.

stress dreams, story times and my desire to sign with primates

this morning i had another story time, today it was with my usual kindergarteners. i think i am getting way better at this because today these kids just ate up everything i did. we read: Mouse Paint, Go Away Big Green Monster (they CHEERED when i brought this book out), I Ain't Gonna Paint No More, Don't Let Pigeon Drive the Bus, Piggies, Wheels on the Bus, and a special jungle version of If You're Happy and You Know it. instead of the usual happy-and-you-know-it things there were animal related ones like roaring if you are happy and you know it. or scratching your fur if you are happy and in fact know it. they LOVED it. it was really fun. so there you have it, i am now an expert story timer. who would have thunk it.
in other news .... i have had several signs from the universe about the glam rocker. now, i haven't seen him in months, but i happen to know that he will most likely be at my friend's show tonight. that's not really a sign. however, two nights ago i had this weird dream of romance past and the glam rocker was there and so was my ex-fiance as well as an ex-not-to-be-named. and in the dream i needed to do something work related and i was going to be late and i was all stressed out over it, and all these Xs were getting in the way. weird.
but that is not all!
then this morning one of the glam rocker's songs came on my iPod. i didn't even know he was on my iPod!
so i believe the universe is trying to tell me something. of course, i have no idea what that something is. maybe it is saying that i need to go through and clean up my iTunes.
i must return to my work of finding sign language websites for kids. you would think there would be many, but alas there are few. i did however find this wedsite with pics of that gorilla who learned sign language. gorillas are so interesting. they look all thoughtful like big hairy people. it really made me want to hang out with gorillas and sign to them. so far i have only learned how to sign the phrase, "hello my name is miss dewey decimal. what's your name?" not all that helpful when communicating with primates.

observed

i don't think that i mentioned (or maybe i did) that as part of my "new librarian" training i had to be observed doing a story time. now, i have become a lot more comfortable in my story times with the little ones, but i was still apprehensive about being observed. who likes to be observed? not me. but anyway, the woman who is charge of observation is the sweetest lady ever and i like her a lot, so i knew it couldn't be that bad.
my class of 16 two and three year-olds came in, fifteen minutes early. and it was great. i was totally ON. here's what we did:
1. greeting my friend monkey, the monkey puppet
2. farmer nat (lift the flap book in which kids guess which animal farmer nat will be visiting)
3. "touch your nose" game (i especially like the part where you touch your knees then pretend you have to sneeze)
4. where's spot (the kids have actually memorized which animals are hiding where. all from last week! these are smart pre-schoolers)
5. itsy bitsy spider (so easy ... and yet so entertaining)
6. five little monkeys (with puppets)
7. stretch break, with game "head and shoulders"
8. brown bear, brown bear by eric carle
9. zookeeper sue (surprisingly similar to farmer nat, but in a zoo)
10. i'm a little teapot (i wasn't crazy about this. didn't go over as well as i'd hoped. i will not pretend to be a teapot in the future. i mean really, i am nothing like a teapot. i am not short and stout. i am more tall and lean. what kitchen items are tall and lean? a rubber spatula maybe? i don't think that would make a good song.)
11. charlie chick (pop-up book, oh how i love pop up books)
12. it looked like spilt milk (who doesn't like guessing what spilt milk looks like?)
13. wheels on the bus song (with oversized book)
14. goodbye song
whew ... i did a lot of stuff. oh, and somewhere in there we sang if you're happy and you know it. anyway, after the children left the observer told me that she thought i did a great job and that i am a natural with children. yay! then i admited to her about how nervous i get and she said that everyone gets nervous before storytimes, even after they've done them a million times. oh, and this part is the best, then she said that she had never seen zookeeper sue before and she loved it because zookeeper sue is such a positive female role-model. so true, too often women are excluded from careers in zoology.
and that, my dear blog readers, was my morning. not too shabby.

happy belated easter

i bet you are not aware of the trials and tribulations which face peeps everyday trying to use the library. oh yes. peeps have a long and hard road before them. thankfully, the good people at the millikin university library have documented their study on peep library usage (see picture at left of peeps learning about library of congress subject headings). this easter, i urge you to click here and familiarize yourselves with the plight of the peep.

taking a break

so when ms. assistant and i come up with our monthly calendar sometimes there are holes in it and we have no idea what to put there (we have not even started our april calendar yet. gasp!) last month when we were all frazzled and burnt out with no idea what to do on the last two mondays of the month, we turned to my favorite kid and said, "hey ... favorite kid, what should we do on the last two mondays of march?" and he said that we should make fake money and color it in.
now, that it NOT a good idea for a program. not at all. but then i thought about it and i decided what WOULD be a good idea for a program would be if we had the kids make fake money and buy fake stuff from fake stores and then make fake change. because when i am helping the kids with money related homework problems they need a lot of help. A LOT of help. and thus the program Spending Spree was born.
so today was the first day of spending spree ... i explained what a business is and then the kids decided what type of business they would like to make. each kid made a sign for their business and a list of a few items their business would sell. next week we will make fake money and the kids will go around to the various businesses and buy fake items with their fake money and the business owners will make fake change. it's fun ... and they'll learn stuff.
who is brilliant? me.
so after a while i went back to my desk to work on my book order and one of the kids came out and told me that he was on a fifteen minute break.
"huh?" i said cleverly.
"you know," he said, "from work ... at my business. i'm on a break."