My thing about this blog is I will not write a bad review of something terrible that I read. Bad things that happen are, for whatever reason, more memorable than good things, and so I would rather promote good things and try to re-wire my brain to remember the good things.
HOWEVER. I am going to use this blog, which no one reads anyway, to write my petty blog post about Lexington Public Library, because I have not worked there in over a year but my friends still work there and I am so tired of hearing about my friend getting consistently passed over for promotions, whether that's being interviewed for a position that admin already has someone in mind for or not being interviewed at all. When I was at LPL, I was a part timer. I was like, this is great, I have my foot in the door, I will get my MSLS and they'll promote me! I loved LPL. I worked at Northside and I LOVED Northside. The vibes were immaculate. My coworkers were all delightful and helpful. The patrons were mostly hilarious and nice. Of course there was the occasional rude person, but overall? It was a great place to work and I wanted to stay there. When I first moved to Kentucky, I was so so homesick for Florida, but after I got a job at LPL I was like, you know, I could stay here. I like Lexington (and still do). I saw myself settling down and being in Kentucky for a while. In retrospect, that was a mistake. I put all of my eggs in LPL's basket. I applied for a full time position and didn't get hired. I told myself that was ok! I didn't want to be a full time Library Assistant, I wanted to be a Librarian I. I told myself to be patient. My bestie at LPL also was a part-time LA with her MSLS. Kickoff to Summer Reading was coming up. This was a huge deal. It was like, petting zoo, outside activities, Scholastic Book Fair, just a very busy day for the branch. The branch manager asked me to come in on my day off to help. I went in on my day off to help and she told me, after the whole day was over (of course), that it was hard to move up from part time to an L1. That I needed more experience in programming, or this or that or the other thing. (It was always some flimsy excuse.) I just sat there in shock. I couldn't even speak. My classmates had just graduated and were getting L1 positions at libraries they'd never set foot in, but I couldn't get an L1 INTERVIEW at a place where EVERYONE KNEW ME? Now, I have programming experience. Any kind of non-academic thing I did in undergrad was RUNNING PROGRAMS. Movie nights, dinners, workshops, dances, Lavender Graduation, bonfires, you name it. I can run programs for adults, I can run programs for teens. I had just come out of what essentially had been running programs from 7am to 4pm for four children under the age of nine. So again, a flimsy excuse. They interviewed my work bestie and she did not get this position. The person who got the position was someone we worked with, who is a fine person, but they did not have the MSLS AND the reason they were hired was because the branch wanted someone who was bilingual. All of that is fine. I have nothing against this person who was promoted. I just think that 1) if being bilingual is the difference between getting hired for something and not getting hired for it, then that should be in the posting and 2) all I ever heard was that this person, who was hired on the basis that they can speak two languages, would only speak the second language to a patron if Literally No One Else Was Available. Otherwise it would be, "Ask _____". One of our managers was retiring and the other manager was managing two branches, so even if I did all the programming every day no one would be there to witness it. Because I had, in fact, not applied anywhere else due to pathological hope that LPL would appreciate me, I had to extend the lease on my UKY dorm because I was about to be completely screwed. My program was up, I had to be out of the housing, and I had no full-time job or the prospect of one. The person who was hired as the replacement to our previous manager listened to everything I told them about LPL, programming, how unfair they were being, and just did jack shit. (Well, not jack shit, because I've noticed that the programming that I wanted to do that I talked to this manager about wound up being programming at the library, just I wasn't leading it or getting the credit for it. As you can see, I have good programming ideas.) (I also emailed someone at Central about having a staff art show in the central branch's gallery, which, of course, happened after I left.) So now here I am a year later and I'm still mad as hell at LPL for shafting me. I went to HR after two days of not sleeping because I was incandescent with rage and all HR did was tell me, basically, You Have Not Because You Ask Not. "Is it poor leadership? Yes," the HR guy said. "But it's not illegal." I also told my work bestie to go to HR about LPL's bullshit and the HR guy looked at her calendar and kept trying to schedule a meeting for the times she was not available. She just got passed over for another promotion, AGAIN, didn't even get an interview. "Part of me just wants to cancel or stop all my programs and leave the library," she said. And I get it! But I don't think that would do anything, I don't think LPL would give a rat's ass, because they don't seem to care about the people who work for them. We would get emails about people being promoted after ten years. Ten years!! I was so alarmed. You were an LA for TEN YEARS and then you got promoted to an L1?? Here's what would happen if my friend packed her shit and left: it would mildly inconvenience everyone for about two months or more or however long it took HR to write and post an opening for her job. No lessons would be learned by branch managers or HR or LPL admin. They would add an item to their yearly meeting plan about how to retain people and prevent turnover (just like they had an item on their yearly meeting when I was there about not relying so much on part-timers, and then every month or so there would be a part-time LA position on the UKY listserv). There's nothing we can do to make them act right. They don't give a flying fuck as long as whatever they're doing isn't legal discrimination (thanks for letting me know, HR guy), and it sucks. I'm mad as hell at them on my behalf, I'm even angrier on my friend's behalf, and it's so frustrating to know that it doesn't matter.
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So I bought the pink diamond ring. It is orange-pink and changes colors in the light. I measured my finger incorrectly so it fits on my middle finger. This is fine because it means I can go to a jewelry place and measure my ring finger and get another fancy ring. This is the last book I read. I have a lot of books happening right now and I'm cutting myself off until I finish my backlog and return all my library books. I started this as an audiobook. Audiobooks are VERY difficult for me to deal with, as are podcasts. I almost did not make it because it's very difficult for me to concentrate on listening to something; I will either a) zone out and not realize it until a few minutes later or b) fall asleep. However, I managed to listen to a good chunk of this book at work and then after a while I figured it would be useful to have around so I ordered it. Daryl Surat now thinks I will be summoning demons on the back porch, which I think is very ambitious. I feel like I don't even have enough time to fit everything in a day...yesterday I wanted to clean out my backpack...but I was too tired after exercising, making the very easiest of dinners (spaghetti! it took maybe ten minutes!), and having studio time. I had to go get into a lavender baby bath. So I don't know if I have time to cultivate relationships with the demons of the Ars Goetia. (I do like the bird ones, though. They're cute.)
I told this to my bestie and she said that her daughter tried to plead her case for summoning a demon in her room. My bestie was like, No. The daughter tried to bargain with summoning an angel. I just think this is so hilarious, probably because I am a Gen X-er and I feel like due to the influence of the Poky Little Puppy, we tend to err on the side of asking forgiveness rather than permission. I am trying to imagine either of us asking our parents in 1994 if it was okay if we summoned a demon as long as we did it in our room. I don't really think I believe in "demons" in the way other people do & I definitely did not believe in demons or the devil in 1994. However, everyone thought I was some kind of Satanist and I would be happy to go back to my high school and summon a demon in the cafeteria and leave it there. Go nuts, buddy. With all that said, I will consider making some time in my schedule to consort with the spirit of Michael Jackson. I can't say I am entering my ____ era, because I feel like I'm always on the cusp of entering an era but I can never fully commit. I thought I was about to enter my punk era but now I am threatening to enter my unicorn princess era. I was thinking about starting to punctuate all my tweets with pink emojis and also exclusively use cursive twitter fonts and see how long it took someone to ask me if I was okay or if my twitter had been hacked, but i think at this point the people who follow me would mute or unfollow me and move on.
Recently I had what i thought was a terrific idea to turn a She-Ra palace into a lamp. I used to have a She-Ra palace. I bought it for $11 or $12 at the flea market. There's no way you're getting a She-Ra palace for that price now. Another She-Ra item that would make a good night light is the horse, because they made a version of the horse that was clear pink plastic. The internet knows that I am casually flirting with the unicorn princess aesthetic because now it's suggesting that I buy pink diamond rings on etsy. I'm sure that girls and women who are into this kind of thing nowadays are having a much better time than being a princess was in the 1980s. I support their dreams and their Selkie dresses. When I was a kid every ballet girl was an insufferable snob so it's been interesting to see the change in girl's girls and what is considered "weird" and also what is considered "preppy". I have never been preppy but I have always been weird and I guess I will always be weird. To other people. Not to me. When I was in college I did a diptych about girliness, for lack of a better word. I went to a women's college and I was so so sick of hearing one of my classmates complain about things being "too girly". You knew what it was when you signed up. Girly is fine. Ain't nothing wrong with it. So I did all the girly things in black and then the other side of the diptych is all the girly things in pink. HOWEVER, even though it is on my college campus, I do not have a picture of it online. I will have to add it to this post when I get home, if I can remember anything by then. It's okay to be girly. It's ok to love pink. Anyone who wants to diss you about it can eat shit. I am absolutely exhausted! I did not do anything yesterday after work except take a bath and read this book. Man, they really should have kept these Edward Gorey covers, I mean REALLY. I forgot that some of them had these back images and I found this on Google image search today. The thing about these John Bellairs books is that someone in the ebook sector has really gone above and beyond, because the ebook doesn't end at just the end of whatever book you've just read. There's at least three chapters of the NEXT book following the ending, so then you'll get enough into it that you have to go get the next one. (I have also fallen for this trap because it will not mark the book as finished until you read the excerpt from the next book in the series). I have to say that I was not intrigued by the title of this book. A killer robot? I'm not interested. This is not just your run of the mill killer robot, though. This is a robot that is also a golem?? A killer golem robot? Golem might not be the correct word, because it's not like the scientist slash magician who created the robot blew the breath of life into the robot - he killed someone and used the eyes of the dead man for the robot, which also animated the robot and made it appear to humans as human. The robot could also be stopped by a magical key called the Key of Arbaces, which is more dynamic than just wiping the word off the forehead. Also this robot was created to pitch baseballs. I am not making this up. As with most John Bellairs books, the ending is not super satisfying. One of the villains dies a very convenient death at the end, after Professor Childermass pokes the golem in the back of the neck with not the Key of Arbaces, but a sword that we find out is enchanted in the final chapter. There's a contest here for $10,000 and mention is made of Johnny's family being poor even though a cereal heiress wrote the Dixons a fat check two books ago. Johnny Dixon, who spent most of the previous book in the hospital being possessed by an evil ghost, gets kidnapped TWICE in this book and I have no idea how this kid is keeping on. This was probably the scariest of the books, though the next one is The Trolley to Yesterday and I haven't read the beginning of that one just yet. Here's the full dustjacket to The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt: Full dustjacket to The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull: And the full dustjacket to The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost: I don't know if YA books still end like this these days, haha. I guess I feel like people are more discerning in terms of wrapping up stories and you can't just be like, the cane sword we got from the pawn shop six chapters ago is actually an enchanted sword! Surprise! I know for sure that no one is letting their kids go on harebrained adventures in which they get kidnapped all the time and then listen to their neighbor when they tell them not to call the cops. Johnny Dixon has so much ptsd at this point. HOWEVER, if you do like occult mystery solving youngsters in the style of John Bellairs, you will love Friday by Ed Brubaker and Marcos Martin! I don't know when the next book comes out, but I am impatiently waiting for this one! It's so good. Anyway if you like John Bellairs, Harriet the Spy, and mystery solving friends with fun names, you should check this out!
I haven't updated this blog in so long and I have really missed it, even though I don't think anyone reads it because no one reads blogs anymore, everyone has substack and medium or patreon or whatever and why have we strayed so far from LiveJournal? Why? The unfortunate result of straying from LiveJournal is that I make too many posts per day to Facebook. I have so many books checked out from the library right now AND YET all I want to read are these John Bellairs books! I had The Mummy, The Will, and The Crypt when I was a kid. I have no idea where I got it. Sometimes I would read books aloud to my mom while she was driving and I remember reading the beginning of this one to her because I didn't understand the reference to "Come On-A My House". (I also remember reading Superfudge (?) to her and skipping parts of it...censoring a child's book that I, a child, was reading to my mother...that's wild.) What I did not know when I was a kid was that there are many Johnny Dixon mysteries. I only knew of this one. Then I was at a Friends of the Library sale and picked up the next book in the series, which I was not that into! I don't remember why. I think I read it on the plane ride to Florida and then left it in a Little Free Library at some point. These covers by Edward Gorey are so iconic. It's unfortunate that the ebook covers are super generic and don't have the pop that this one has. Hoopla has all of these books and I re-read The Mummy, The Will, and The Crypt & it was almost like reading it new because I only really remembered the end, and not even the ending, just the part where Johnny is exploring the crypt and the church. The ending was only slightly satisfying. The occult elements in John Bellairs books do not seem fully formed to me. I don't know. I am just in the mood for this and nothing else will do!! I just checked out The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost. 'The Rose-Hip Fairy', from Flower Fairies of the Autumn, Cicely Mary Baker. Last week a lady smashed into me with her SUV and it's the second time someone has hit me with their car here. I have a very large bruise that is healing well. People ask me if I'm going to sue her and for what? So I can talk to the cops?? And then go to court?? For an indeterminate amount of stress? I had to weigh the pros and cons but I am tired of getting hit by people operating two-ton vehicles that they have no business operating if they can't pay attention to the world around them. Anyway I would like to stop living in the city and become a flower fairy. It seems pretty good. No shoes. Too small to get hit by cars. Sunshine, vibing with some plants, hanging out in a tree, playing tricks on humans. I am and have always been a country mouse. And I am okay with that.
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AuthorArtist, essayist, divinity school dropout. Here for a good time, not for a long time. Archives
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