i'm leaving on a jet plane

it's been so long since i've complained about my general maladies. hasn't it? i know you all are dying to hear about some maladies. well here goes ...

first off, with the rigorous summer reading schedule i really wore myself out. all those programs, and then us being down a manager ... it was tough. and for the past two months i've been getting sick fortnightly (i love the word "fortnight") ... so at first i tried to rest in my down time and take it easy. this of course was very boring and i missed out on lots of fun summer activities. and wouldn't you know it? it didn't even work anyway. and it was so boring.

so last weekend i decided i would ride in the nyc 20th century bike tour, even though i was recovering from illness. of course, i decided that since i was not in tip top shape the best thing for me to do would be to sleep late. so my friends began the ride at 7 am up in central park at 110th street, while i slept all cozy cuddly with the bolshevik. then at around 9:30 i got a phone call from miss fifi who had made it to prospect park already, and was politely asking me where the hell i was. oh miss fifi! so i finally emerged from bed, bid the bolshevik adieu, and got on my bike. by the time i got to propect park the riders were long gone, but then i booked it to coney island in record time and was able to reunite with miss fifi at marine park! i am SO good. and then we had a lovely time riding off into the sunset together. all in all, i rode 40 miles of the 55 mile ride (fifi rode even longer since she had riden about 10 miles just to get to the start line!)

but then dear blog readers, as i was tasting the sweet taste of success, i began to feel this strange pain in my knee. oh the pain! i've never been injured before due to sporty sporty-ness. ouch. even my free finish-line massage didn't help. so i've kinda been hobbling around ever since, applying the tiger balm and keeping it elevated and all that.

so then this week, my stupid sore throat came back AND i was hobbling around and it was all very sad. but the show must go on!

so yesterday we did something quite fab, despite my maladies ... at boy's club i decided to have a paper plane competition. i printed up a bunch of different paper plane templates from the internets, and set them up at various parts of the room. i gave the boys about 30 minutes to make as many planes as they wanted, telling them they would be judged on flight distance as well as plane style. so they had a fine time making the planes and coloring them with markers yada yada yada. i noticed a lot of them had some trouble following the basic directions, the trouble being that they refused to read them. so i think we will do more things where they have to read and follow directions. then we had the flight competitions where they threw their planes onto the "runway" and i placed little masking tape pieces where each plane landed. it was very exctiting and our top winners all received prizes. afterwards one of the boys came up to me and said he had so much fun and he didn't even mind that he didn't win a prize. ah, super sweet.

oh, and on the subject of planes i will be going on a TWO WEEK vacation very soon to argentina, accompanied by my beloved bolshevik. ay ay ay!

am i a swine floozie?

so there have been swine flu outbreaks all over our fair city, forcing several of the local schools to close. now, i am off to belize in less than two weeks and the LAST thing i need is an outbreak of the swiney flu. in response to this we have canceled some of our programs that are more "hands on," we have a barrier up by the desk so the kids can't hang all over us, we're using lots of hand sanitizer, etc etc etc.

then i thought that since the kids are out of school we should put out some stuff to entertain them (please read: keep them away from us) so i printed up some word searches about spring and dinosaurs and astronauts. and then, just for fun, i printed up one about germs. is that wrong? who doesn't want to search for the words like "virus" and "infection?" nonstop fun.

anyway, as strict as i have been about germ warfare i fell victim to cuteness today. this dad came up to me with this super shy little girl hiding behind him. and he told me that he and his daughter were here for the first time yesterday and that his daughter instantly recognized me today because she had seen me "clapping and singing" (at story time) on monday. and then he said that his daughter would really like to hug me, and then he politely asked, "would you mind please giving my daughter a hug?" how can you resist that? i hugged that little girl damnit! she was so freakin cute. and she liked my clapping!

so if i get the swine flu i have no one to blame but myself. i obviously have no self-restraint.

i could not, would not with malaria (or anemia)

many of you may remember around this time last year how i confessed to you my love of donating blood. all the sterile medical equipment, little beds, colored gauze, cookies and juice. good stuff! so when our employee blood drive was announced i was quick to sign up. (and you earn 3 hours of vacation time, not including the time it takes to give blood. yay!)

so i arrive to give blood this morning after having a filling breakfast of 2 eggwhites, 1/8 cup of fat free cheddar cheese, atop these fab high fiber flat breads that ms. bitchcakes got me. (one morning i will take a picture of this creation because it is deeee-lish. thanks bitchcakes!) anyway, point is, i was well fed. then i got a cup of tea and hopped on a bus to go give the gift of life!

anyway, after being poked and prodded a bit i was questioned about which foreign countries i have visited in the past year. urgh, this could take a while. let's see: bahamas, england, australia, costa rica, staten island. and then the nurse got all up in arms that i went to costa rica, saying that i may have been exposed to malaria. how dare she! first off, all the costa ricans i was in contact with were quite lovely people and none of them seemed even remotely sick. surely, they were not stricken with malaria. i think i would have noticed. and i have to say, i can be accused of many things: being hivey, being an allergic mess, having "girly" issues ... but i do NOT have malaria. i draw the line there.

so after much complaining on my part the nurse goes off to make some calls on my behalf. after a few minutes she returns and says that given the cities i visited in CR, i am clear to give blood. sweet! so then i am poked and prodded all over again. then she tells me that i am anemic. now, i have had low iron in the past, but i eat like a pound of raw spinach a week thanks to weight watchers so i do not see how i could possibly be anemic. also, i recently got about $900 worth of bloodwork done (i know because said results wound up accidentally getting sent to my biological father's house, where i have never ever lived. but that's a whole other story) anyway, i know my blood is good. any sick person would be lucky to have my blood. so she checks again. and sure enough according to her little blood taking machine, my iron is not high enough to donate blood. then she gives me a helpful sheet telling me that tea and coffee often block the absorption of iron. damn that lite latte i got from dunkin donuts yesterday! (made with skim milk and splenda! only 70 calories!)

so there you have it dear blog readers ... here i sit possibly with malaria and/or anemia ... every day i am not quarantined off from the rest of society is a good day.

there's no business like adult business

sometimes i worry that maybe i am getting too complainy. buit i figure that you fine people would let me know if that was happening. so here goes ...

even though i am almost fully recovered from my two-week illness, i am still getting hives every now and then. they aren't too bad and they only come every few days, so it's a huge improvement, but it's still a bit annoying.


yesterday as i was leaving work i had a bunch of little hives on my arm. no big deal. i took some benedryl and tried to ignore it. then by the time i got out of my writing class they had all grown. took more benedryl, added in some xyzal, then went to bed. but apparently, as i was sleeping they all ganged up on me and formed one giant hive which i awoke to this morning (as seen here). now it's lunchtime and it's still going strong.

but on to more fun topics. yesterday we had our summer reading club party for the k-3 kids. we made ice cream sundaes. i gave out free books, goody bags, bug masks, and little alien finger puppets. the kids were extremely pleased. one thing i have to say about these kids, is that they are always thankful for all the crappy prizes i give them. and i had decorated the room with crepe paper streamers, and at first i thought that maybe that $2 in the dollar store was ill spent, but when these kids walked in they ooohed and aaaahed about how festive the program room was. today we will be having another party, this one is for the 4th-6th grades. i think i'm going to have alot left over, so the staff here may end up eating ice cream sundaes for the next few days.

oh and i wanted to tell you about an interesting reference question i had ... a young man came up to me, he looked like he was in high school, and asked me if i could help him find a book. he goes on to talk about some book that "back when he was in college" (if he had ever really been in college it couldn't have been too long ago. like maybe it was last week) a teacher had told him would be helpful in starting a business. when asked if he knew the name of this book, he said no. then he said he wanted any book that would tell him what licenses you need to start different businesses. so i asked him what kind of business he was interested in, because i doubt we have a book that just lists all possible businesses and what licenses are needed to start up each one. he then whispered that he was starting an "adult" business. now, i am not familiar with the adult industry, but i'm going to assume that there are many many different types of businesses within said industry. just going out on a limb there. so i asked him if he could tell me what specific kind of business he was interested in, because that would be the only way i could figure out what kind of book he needs. then he laughed and it was obvious he didn't want to tell me what type of business he was planning on venturing into. so i said, "i'm going to assume that whatever business you're thinking of, we probably don't have a book on it." and then i suggested he go to the central library since they have an extensive business section. but i can't help but wonder what type of business he was interested in: brothel, adult bookstore, peep show, sex shop? now i'll never know.

goodbye asian fusion

miss me? i know you did, bitches.

you're probably all asking yourselves, miss dewey decimal ... where have you been? well, let me start off by saying that anyone who knows me well has had to take me to the emergency room at least once. (or been in a near emergency room visit situation) just part of the fun of being friends with me. yay!

so it was of only moderate shock value when after having dinner with the ladies on saturday night i broke out in massive hives that were threatening to engulf my entire body, leaving me to call upon ms. naked hero to take me to the emergency room. she's a real pal, and is already well-versed in the taking-miss-dewey-decimal-to-the-hospital routine.

and after hours of being in the ER i was sent home, only to wake up two short hours later completely covered in hives again. might i add that at this point i had ingested enough benedryl to tranquilize a small horse. back to the ER. this time to be met up by my dear directionally challenged mother (bless her heart, she made it to the ER eventually).

then after having barely slept, i was whisked away to allergists offices on long island where i was then pumped full of cortisone and given a handful of scripts. then i went back to mom's and watched some cable tv. thank god for project runway. and then the following morning, when i was taking more medications than anyone ever thought possible, i broke out in hives yet again and was whisked away to the allergists for more cortisone. yet again.

since then i have been hiding out at The Paradise (aka my apartment) trying to rest, even though resting is SO boring. i hate resting. yet the meds make me so tired. my silver lining of resting was that i did get to start and finish all 750 pages of Breaking Dawn by stephenie meyer. it was pretty good, a bit trashy, but good. anyway, now i am only slightly exhausted and only breaking out into hives minimally every few hours. yay!

but that is not all dear blog readers! i would not leave you for so long without giving you a good juicy story ... during this period of bed rest, aka house arrest, my relationship with asian fusion came to an end. i know i haven't exactly mentioned asian fusion before, but i've alluded to it all subtle like. anyway, after much hinting from me about how bored i was being home trying to rest, asian fusion did not stop by to visit me. this got me thinking ... if i were dating someone and they had been through a similar ordeal, i would visit them. because that's the kind of nice gal i am. i would at least stop by for a few minutes with some mad libs or one of those activity books with the mystery ink pen. or maybe a book of ny times crossword puzzles. if i had time i might even bring some baked goods. whatevs. you get the idea.

so last night i called asian fusion to discuss with him that i was hurt that he wasn't visiting me in my weakened state. i won't go into the gory details of our break-up, but pretty much he said two things which have stuck with me. and although i said everything that needed to be said, i can't help but have that feeling like i need to say more. luckily, i have learned that it is best not to e-mail your recent ex with additional rants and diatribes, so instead i shall write these things to you, my beloved blog readers. feel free to read on, or maybe you'd rather surf the internets for porn. it's your nickel:

1. he is not ready to be in a relationship - to this i must ask ... then why did you get into a relationship with me? why did you seek me out and try to date me? why did you say you didn't want to see other people? why did you talk to me about riding motorcycles in the mountains and starting a band? why do this if you don't want to be in a relationship. it doesn't make any sense.

and 2. he needs closure with his ex - i have learned much in my 30 years on this earth. and one thing i learned last night is that closure is a fantasy. do we ever have closure? is there ever a point where you can get in the last word and feel okay with the situation? is there really a satisfactory answer to "why don't you love me?" no, there isn't. because closure is a fairy tale.

i like to think i have a way with words, and i have certainly had my share of pithy parting statements, but at the end of the day, what good did it do? life is messy and painful and nothing ever gets tied up in a neat little bow.

with as many strides as i have made getting over the polyamorist, it still stings that he took me for granted the way he did. and even though the nubian god has recently been trying to get into my panties, i realize that i will never get over how he deserted me in my time of need. and although i am drawn to him, i know that there are no words to make up for all that we have done to each other. and likewise, no amount of discussions will ever lead me to understand why the glam rocker acted all cutesy with me, planning out our horoscopes together, only to tell me days later that he wasn't ready for a relationship (and what is it with this not-ready-for-relationship disease that is plaguing our men? does it spread like one of those weird viruses that kills trees?)

i can only assume that it goes the other way too. that there are men out there pondering why i didn't give them a chance. who knows how many sleepless nights my ex-fiance wonders what the hell i was thinking when i handed him back his ring and walked out of his life forever. only one thing is for certain: there is nothing i could have said to make him feel any better about it. because at the end of the day, there's just no nice way of saying "i don't love you the way you want me to."

so forget closure. i say we should just all move on.


xoxo
miss dewey decimal

tonsillitis still life

turns out i have tonsillitis. yup. didn't see that one coming. sinusitis and bronchitis are really my -itises of choice. anyway in honor of my infected tonsils i would like to do a little run through of my new meds:
1. antibiotics
2. allegra d - to dry out my massive congestion. my dr. couldn't see my sinuses. that's how congested i am. my sinuses cannot be found. but i assure you, they're there.
3. steroids (that's right i'm juicing) - in order to stop the swelling of my tonsils and nasal passages
4. zantac - because the steriods most likely will upset my digestive system
5. diflucan - because the antibiotics and the steroids might give me .... um ... lady trouble.
6. vitamins c & e
now, this is on top of me already taking singulair and nose spray and acidophillis and vitamin b daily. so now i am taking so many pills i can't fit them all in my old lady pill holder. impressive, no?

i will not smack my mama

UPDATES
health - i am ill. spent all of last night resting (and baking cookies, but that was very restful) and i STILL woke up with a sore throat and lots o' mucus. but my mother would be so proud of me, i have made an appointment with my ear nose and throat specialist for tomorrow morning.
environment - it is just Pleasant McPleasantville over here. i just had a nice conversation about my various allergy meds: singulair, astelin, mucinex (and a variety of vitamins). anyway, it has been 3 or 4 weeks of niceness here. i am gonna go out on a limb and say this might be a permanent change here.
crafts - today we made these lovely memorial day wreaths. oh, how i love to make wreaths out of paper plates.
my birthday - my assistant is planning a birthday party for me wednesday. my favorite kid is "secretly" making me a present. it's not so secret though because every few minutes he comes up to me and asks me stuff like "miss dewey decimal, what's your favorite color?" and "miss dewey decimal, if you could have something very expensive what would it be?" he was very perplexed when i said i wasn't really interested in diamonds and would rather have a wii.
misc - i just learned a new phrase: "it's so good it makes you want to smack your mama." i must be old because i told a child that i found this phrase offensive.

honest like a mirror

so it turns out i did not magically fight off my sore throat. it has been slowly beating me into submission. i took off of work two days last week and rested, then it got better. then saturday i ventured outside. then it got worse again. then sunday i spent the day on the couch reading, and it got better again. then i went to work the past two days, and now it is bad again. why? why, i ask you? i won't even tell you about the "mucus incident" this morning. you don't want to know.

hold on a sec ... gotta go check on my cookies. i'm baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies instead of writing my novel (which, might i add everyone in my class LOVES. the novel, not the cookies. although i may bring cookies tomorrow)

ah! still not done!

anyway, not much is going on ... writing, getting sick, hanging out with the kiddies ... same old stuff. but yesterday we did something very interesting. i don't know how it came about, but somehow my assistant and i were talking with the kids and they mentioned that they wanted to have "debates." so we said, "ok, let's have debates." so yesterday we did something that we named "great debates." pretty much, i looked up middle school debate club topics on the internets and came up with some issues that the kids could debate about. stuff like "should junk food be banned in schools" and "should field trips be educational" and "should violent video games be banned" etc etc. anyway, the kids got pretty into it. they debated really well, and after the all had one-on-one debates they asked if they could make "debate teams." so then we broke the kids up into teams of four and had them compete in teams for one final topic.

(cookies are done. man they're good. i'm so domestical)

anyway, the kids did a really good job. we have these two kids from africa that have been coming in. they just moved here and they're really smart thoughtful kids. the only problem is that the boy has a serious stuttering problem. i'm not sure about the etiquette with stuttering, but i've heard that you're supposed to just let the person keep going and not interrupt them. so i let this kid stutter through what he's going to say and he usually has something ver profound to say. but his stutter is REALLY bad so i wind up translating for the other kids. anyway, we had a little problem with some kids laughing while this kid was trying to debate. but i called them out and i think it was ok.

then my favorite kid had a little trouble understanding the idea behind debating. he kind of wanted to argue both the pros and cons of each topic. which, in real life, is good. we SHOULD look at both sides of each issue closely. but you do have to choose one side when debating. he didn't care for that too much.

that, dear blog readers, is what i have been up to as of late. and i will leave you with a poem that my stuttering child wrote during one of our poetry month program. i think it's pretty deep:

roses are red
violets are blue
i am honest
like a mirror

warding off illness as well as evil spirits

today i had off from work and it had been my original plan to volunteer at a writing conference during the day and then at night, mr. katz and i would go to a met game (did i tell you i got free mets tickets at work? it was very nice of them. i like free things.) but then last night i came home from work and as the evening progressed i soon became afflicted with a level of sinus congestion that i can only describe as being "of biblical proportions." and then my very educated mother suggested that maybe, after being sick for an entire fortnight, that i might want to maybe just possibly consider seeing someone about this. that someone being a medical professional. so that dear blog readers is how i spent my day off. not at a fancy pants writing conference or at a met game, but at the doctor's office. oh how life is unfair, let me count the ways.

so i went to my ear nose and throat specialist (that's right! i see a specialist!) and unfortunately my regular doctor wasn't in so i had to see someone else who is unfamiliar with my tragic series of chronic illnesses. so this someone else was kind of impressed by illnesses. "so you're sick now and you were sick back in december?" yes! i said proudly. and i didn't even mention how i was also sick in january and in march, but i just didn't feel like coming in.
then she looked at my throat and was a bit amazed by not only how irritated my throat was but also that this has been going on for some time and i've just been trying to ignore it.

then she asked what i do for a living to be sick so often. maybe she thought i was a coal miner or that i worked with asbestos. so i tell her i work with children and then she says that i really need to work harder at fighting off illness. oh really? well, i was a bit offended by that remark. so i tell her how i have an excellent diet and i don't smoke and i exercise regularly and i take vitamin C daily (and i am now officially also taking vitamin B just for the hell of it) and i use hand sanitizer. what else should i be doing? maybe i should be wearing an amulet? or perhaps i need to surround myself with crystals? (i once dated this guy who told me his mom had all of her tap water run through crystals before drinking it. i was very impressed with this, imagining she had some brita like device but made with big shiny crystals and this would somehow cut down on the mercury levels in tap water. but then he said she did it so that she could get the "power" of the crystals into her drinking water. then i said something terribly clever like "uh-huh.")

so then the doctor tells me that i should use a neti pot. do you know what this is? its like a very little tea pot and you use it to pour water through your nose and it clears out your sinuses. now, i am sure that this is a fabulous idea but i don't think this is some obvious solution that i have overlooked and warrants me being chastized. so i agree to the neti pot. why not? my evening routine has gotten so long anyway, why not add on pouring warm saline solutions through my nostrils. i will do this after taking out my contacts and brushing my teeth, but before exfoliating and moisturizing. check!

then the doctor tells me that i should really be doing something for my allergies. "you mean besides taking singulair and asteline daily?" i ask. then she looks at my chart and sees that my story adds up. then she congratulates me on dealing with my allergies properly. which was nice, i appreciate that she is acknowledging my effort (a while back i even purchased a weekly pill holder. you know, those ones for old ladies that have each day of the week on them? yup, that is how committed i am!)

then she tells me that i should take antibiotics, drink fluids, blah blah blah. and then, and i loved this part, she tells me that eventually i will become immune to the germs of the little ones. "really?" i ask, "when?"

"oh," she says, "it usually takes about five years."

great.

more fun than a barrel of bus puppets

i almost cancelled my class visit with the kindergartners today, due to the worsening of my perpetual sore throat. it kind of feels like i swallowed a large marble but instead of actually swallowing it, the marble is lodged in the back of my throat to obstruct the passage of important things like air and food. but i am a trooper. i will not call in sick or go to a doctor. that is for pussies. i will continue on with my life, martyr that i am, and in the end i did not cancel my class visit. i met with the little ones and a good time was had by all. they really love me now. we have a whole routine. i read:

is your mama a llama? (no she is a librarian!)
dear zoo

i'm the biggest thing in the ocean

baby bear, baby bear what do you see?

i ain't gonna paint no more

five little monkeys jumping on the bed

the hungry little caterpillar

it looked like spilt milk

the wheels on the bus

they have half these books memorized and they just love to shout out the stuff they know. they're so cute. somehow they convinced me to make a bus puppet with them next time. what is a bus puppet? that doesn't sound like a very fun puppet.

things which will never change: a short list

1. it has now been two weeks that i have had a sore throat. TWO WEEKS! i feel like a child. do i need to get my tonsils out? what is my problem? i have drank tea and eaten soup and stayed in and gone out. nothing works. so now i am at the point where i am just accepting this as my life. i will always have a sore throat. i will never be well again. this is the way it will be from now on. i will perpetually be on the brink of sickness.

2. i am a peach raspberry swirl. not everyone likes peach raspberry swirls. and that is okay.

one step closer to being fired

just the other day i was thinking to myself how i was having a pretty good illness-free streak. i haven't gotten any strange bahaman stomach viruses, i haven't gotten laryngitis or sinusitis in a while, i haven't scratched out my own eye. and when i did my time sheet for february i noticed that i didn't take any sick days! or have any latenesses (as usual) and or any questionable stuff at all. i was on a roll. but last night i came down with the worst sore throat ever and i was up until about 4 am tossing and turning. and then my alarm didn't go off this morning and i think it was kismet that i was meant to stay home and nurse this sore throat. it really hurts! so i called in sick. ms. manager was in a meeting so i left a message, which i pray she gets. but i realize that i will probably be sat down for some sort of disciplinary hearing when i return. and i could go to a doctor and get a note, but a) i don't think that even helps anyway and b) it is kind of a waste of my time (what's she going to say? yes, your throat is in fact sore! well, duh).
and now i am home in bed obsessing over random work stuff: oh, yesterday i forgot to buy the newspapers and now i am calling in sick. i am so awful. OR yesterday i asked ms. manager to switch saturdays with me and now i have the nerve to call in sick on top of that. do you see how they effect me so? it's not right. i should be allowed to be sick, damnit!

women's history month: a frightening tale

i have a sore throat and i don't feel like being witty today. so i will just tell you that today we discussed women's history and i asked the kids to think of famous important women. it went something like this:
me: who are some famous important women?
kids: [sound of crickets chirping]
me: anyone
favorite kid: rosa parks?
me: yes, but can you think of someone that we didn't already discuss for black history month?
other kid: harriet tubman?
me: yes, but again, we discussed her for black history month. can you think of any other famous women?
kids: [silence]
me: okay ... do you know any of the women who fought for the right to vote?
other kid: rosa parks?
me: what did rosa parks do?
other kid: she sat in the front of the bus.
me: yeah, so it's not her. any one? any famous woman? any woman from history?
kids: [far off in the distance you could hear the sound of the educational system crumbling]
me: susan b anthony!
kids: who?
me: oh god.
and it pretty much went like that for the following women: clara barton, sandra day o'connor, amelia earhart, j.k. rowling, florence nightingale, condolezza rice, sally ride, eleanor roosevelt, sacajawea, etc etc.
to his credit, my favorite kid did mention hillary clinton. so that was good. other mentions were beyonce and some chick i never heard of from american idol.

i get laryngitis and decide to expatriate

seriously, this may be turning into the files of an unorganized and chronically ill librarian. so after my new year's eve eve party and the regular new year's eve festivities i find myself without a voice. so last night after work i went straight to my couch and watched dvds of degrassi junior high. i ate soup and remembered to put my eyedrops in and i did some work on the mittens i'm knitting. when did i turn into a 70 year old woman?
after degrassi was done i decided to watch sicko by michael moore. its probably not a good movie to watch when you are actually sick because it kind of makes you feel more ill and gets you wondering about what other health problems might be in store for you in the near future. although i do recommend viewing it if you're well. i actually was crying at the end because i was so sad at the way we treat other human beings in this country. anyway, there was this part where he visits his friends in france and the say that they are allowed to stay home from work guilt free when they are sick. because, they explain, "when you're sick, you're sick."
wow.
so i called in today because i can barely speak and i am coughing and yesterday i felt so awful by the end of the day. (i also wound up yelling at a trouble maker kid and it really hurt my throat) i don't care if my manager and her buddy are going to insult me to the other employees. i am sick. and when you're sick you're sick. but i am thinking i might want to move my ill self to france. except i don't speak french. i just know this one phrase:
je suis allergique aux noix.