Caveat Lector

I checked the credit-union website today, wondering what the checking account was looking like.

Not too shabby. My offhand calculation is that we took in some $750 less this month than when I was full-time and David was TAing. And despite paying almost $600 in university fees (which are not remitted along with tuition) and a couple of hefty-ish credit card bills, the account is in roughly the same spot now as this date last month.

I’m guessing (and I’m honestly not sure; we’ll see what the paystubs look like tomorrow) we haven’t got more than another hundred or two monthly to lose. Looks like we can handle that. I’m glad to know I haven’t entirely let go of the art of living like… well, a graduate student.

Something the Michigander said about feeling mildly superannuated hit me in a soft spot.

Nah, nah, it’s not the age thing. The wide age range among students (at 31, I am right smack dab in the middle) is one of the things I purely love about library school. Though, okay, okay, I admit that some of the Wet-Behind-the-Ears set turn my superannuated teeth on edge now and then. I hope I wasn’t quite that bad when I was 23, though I suspect I was in fact worse.

No, it’s the Technology Thing. I am a great howling geek as proto-librarians go, and it shows. Perhaps too much.

My reference professor was pointed out to us during orientation as a technophobe. I don’t think she is, really; like most people, she’s all over stuff that actually works. That classroom has a digital-camera setup that lets regular paper be projected like a transparency. Quite a sensible idea. She loves it.

She just gets that deer-in-the-headlights look whenever I threaten to go off on a techno-tangent. Am I going to say something she won’t understand? Am I going to turn into a sudden techno-messiah? Am I about to proclaim the technology-induced Library Apocalypse, as too many techno-messiahs and frightened librarians have?

Well, I’m not. David can tell you that I’ve spent much of the last few weeks seething about the (unnecessary) shortcomings of current-gen library technology. (Proprietary database vendors have a hell of a lot to answer for, in my not-terribly-humble opinion.) I’m wholly on the side of the angels librarians in many of their concerns about databases and ebooks and electronic text generally. And techno-messiahs irritate the living daylights out of me. But she doesn’t know that, poor woman, and I never get a chance to explain it because she shuts down so fast.

I don’t precisely feel unwelcome, in part because this woman makes a serious point of being open and welcoming. But I sure do think twice before I say the word “ebook” in that classroom.

A few of my schoolmates look at me with respect laced with envy. Because I know how to put together a basic Web page, for Pete’s sake! They seem to think that I’ll snap up their jobs before they get to them, when the truth is I’m after jobs they’d never want. (Can you see me in a school library? Shee-yeah. As if.)

One asked me yesterday during break in reference class how I learned what I know. “Being dropped in the deep end,” I told him honestly. There’s this weird sense that technogeekery is a higher calling, a priesthood. Nah. It’s what ordinary people do to keep from throwing very expensive pieces of equipment out top-story windows.

There’s also a sense that we technogeeks think what we do is a higher calling. And I suspect that’s substantially our fault, and it irritates me because it makes techno-evangelism (when it’s warranted) just that much harder. But—and here I will whinge a little—for all their techno-envy, these people will not stir a step to learn from me and people like me. I’m about to cancel my CSS workshops, because nobody is coming.

I don’t wear a geek-clerical collar or techno-tefillin. I do still strongly believe that nothing I do is beyond the grasp of an ordinarily intelligent person. I would, just once, like to be met halfway. Even one-quarter-way.

I’m still trying. Spurred by me, our LITA group is considering a Markover Day in the SLIS lab, where people can come in and work on their websites (new or existing) together. I hope that refurbishing existing projects in a congenial atmosphere will prove a better lure than an hour of passively listening to me. (Hey, I’d take that deal. Even I don’t like listening to me for an hour.)

But, sheesh. Does it have to be this hard?

My remote blogroll just added Our Life in Michigan, by another new library-school student. Terrific stuff, especially the rip on critics of critics of the Patriot Act.

Oh, but I’m afraid I’m all sulky over this blogger because he works where I want to. (But then, he can give the lowdown on what working conditions are like. Never a bad thing to know.)

His program appears a good deal more academically rigorous than mine thus far. I am, however, somewhat encouraged to realize that (taking into consideration differences in what classes we’re taking) I don’t seem to be learning any less from mine than he from his. Honey and vinegar, folks, honey and vinegar. This fly likes honey just fine.

Right. So I have the front page for the new textartisan.com looking the way I want it to look on my local hard drive. Go me. Let’s make it live.

Except for reasons unknown my machine flatly refuses to open an FTP connection to my Cornerhost account. I do not know which technology god I have offended, but if said deity will kindly let me know the appropriate sacrifice, it’ll be on its way momentarily.

(There’s also a freaky delay when I try to access this account via HTTP or POP3 from this machine. I do not know what is causing this. I do know I want it to stop.)

Off to twiddle with Windows stuff that I really don’t want to be twiddling… because I really want this damnable site up before it drives me insane.

Update: Well, I have things kinda-sorta working, emphasis on the kinda-sorta. Lot of 404s on stuff not yet written, lot of server-side includes not working right, not a few pages I still need to retrofit… but, damn, it’ll be cool when it’s done.

But right now I would need a stiff drink if I drank at all, which I don’t.

I just got approved access to the files for an Ars Magica play-by-email. In the house rules, I found this:

If you’re not enjoying the game though, let the sg’s know why and we’ll try to accommodate your ideas. Requests for scenes with semi-naked Nuns I can do. Asking for semi-naked monks will get you a kick in the balls next time we meet up.

Ah. Dude. Your assumptions are showing. Nor are they all that is.

I thought about writing the storyguide to register a protest, but you know what? It’s totally not worth it. I’d frankly rather storyguide my own game than try to fit into a game with a storyguide who thinks this kind of joke is funny. (So funny, in fact, that the above citation is not even the first reference to “semi-naked nuns.”)

Just for the sake of irony, I’ll point out that the character I had in mind to play was bouncy, social, overtly sexual Aino the otter-mage. Weird how these things work.

I’m unsubscribing. I believe the Pyrenees were right nice in the early twelve hundreds. Anybody want to found a covenant?

Update: The beta storyguide mailed me to ask why I unsubbed, which was nice of him, so I didn’t give him an earful, just said “based on some stuff in the house-rules document I read, I don’t think I will be comfortable in this campaign” and apologized for bailing.

And in a stunning display of cluelessness that left even cynical old me dumbfounded, the beta storyguide thought my problem was with the rules. Oh, my gamers!

Look. I’m not even going to get into the ethics of the question. It’s really simple. If you run games, and you would like gamers of the female persuasion to join your games, DO NOT DO THIS STUFF. Just bag it, ’k? No matter what a good guy you (think you) are, overtly sexist jokes and assumptions that all gamers are male are huge red flags that send gamers of the female persuasion fleeing faster than a first-level rogue from an ancient red dragon.

So just don’t do it. Thank you.

Now, I could get used to this.

I have all but 0wnz0red a chair in the SLIS library comfy-chair section. This chair has a footstool in front of it on which I can place the Silver Surfer. An electrical outlet for powering the Silver Surfer is not four feet away. The wireless signal from the second floor of College Library reaches here just fine. And whenever I raise my eyes from the Silver Surfer I can rest them on the boats still floating in Lake Mendota, or even the far shores thereof.

So here I am with my trusty Kinesis on my lap, getting ready to do my reading for next week and learning Windows keyboard shortcuts while I’m at it so I don’t have to lean forward to use the touchpad (which is the only mild downside to this setup).

Ahhhhhhhhh. Library school is pretty nice.

I knew that somebody had picked up Cassie Claire’s mantle when she laid it down, but I hadn’t managed to find the site until now.

Not as polished as Cassie’s, but do persevere until you get to the later entries. Faramir was quite… quite.

I got another plea for advice from a soon-to-be-ex-grad-student in my emailbox today. (Said student doesn’t think he’s a soon-to-be-ex. But he is. All that’s left to determine is whether he leaves with his shield or on it. Sometimes the signs are just that obvious.)

I don’t know what these people actually want from me. I probably don’t give it to them, whatever it is. I dunno. Sometimes it’s all I can do to keep from waving my arms around maniacally screaming “Doomed! You are so doomed! You are doomed beyond doomed! What the hell are you still doing here—I told you you were doomed, so go away already!”

Another bit of Ashcroftiana making the library rounds.

Right, right, officer, I’ll go quietly…

When I left grad school I didn’t have much brainspace for rumination at first. I had to find some way to support myself, pull my weight in the household. (I honestly can’t remember what David was doing at the time. I should ask him.) I didn’t start writing my tale for several months.

I temped, of course; I’d done it before, knew the temp-agency ropes, and needed the money. I worked for an architecture firm, a bank, the charitable arm of the local Catholic diocese, a few other places. Nothing exciting. Typing, filing, answering phones (and I hate answering phones).

And every tiny paycheck lifted my heart, because it told me I could make some sort of way in the world despite a resounding failure. I really could stand up, dust myself off, and keep going. I hadn’t known that. I’ve never forgotten it.

I started interviewing for temp-to-perm jobs. One such interview was with a sharp, brassy middle-aged woman who would have been my supervisor. I was overqualified, of course, and over-brained for the work I would have been doing, but it didn’t seem to bother this woman the way it bothered the law firm I’d interviewed for a legal-secretary position at.

After she explained what the job entailed, she said, “This is not, frankly, a very exciting job, though there are ways to progress within the company. Do you think you can live with it?” She gave me a look that meant no-BS, give it to me straight, sister, because I’m not going to hire you if you’ll hate me for it.

“Well,” I said honestly, “it’s not the kind of thing I want to do for the rest of my life. But I can do it, and I believe in doing the work I’m given as well as I can, whatever it is.” The look in her eye said that was the right answer.

I never found out whether I landed that job; I was interviewing for three at once just then, including the one I took that launched me on my e-text work. I do hope she found someone like me to hire, though, because both she and the hiree deserved it.

One job is not forever, not any more. It isn’t any sort of destiny, unless it’s made into one—and that can be good, or it can be hell. I’m not terribly clear why anyone, employer or (prospective) employee, engages in such thinking. Why am I, and the woman who might have hired me despite my so-called lack of suitability, so rare?

I don’t have a whole lot of personal sympathy for the do-your-dream people, and I fear it shows too much in this post.

Nonetheless.

I am still grateful that I can keep myself afloat economically. Not everyone can. The day may come when I myself can’t. I’m bloody lucky, is what it boils down to. That gratitude, that awareness of my own good fortune, runs like a loom-thread through every letter I type into that census database. I hope I never become so stupid or arrogant as to lose it.