Do I have style? Take this HGTV test!

As an aside to all this sad book banning stuff, I was reading someone else's (who happened to also be a librarian) blog and she had taken a style quiz. I, of course, HAD to take it. I'm "classy". Looking at my house, I don't really see that. In fact, if anything I would say I'm more crowded, messy modern. I like funky colors and straight minimialist lines. I really hate all that fru-fru flowery patterns, all the busy lines... The site tells me that I'm drawn to timeless lines, and neutral colors with rich accents. Umm take one look at my house and no, that's not me. All primary colors: bright and cheerful and crazy. Nothing trendy or faddish? Well, I guess that's true. I'm more about comfort.
I had to go grocery shopping last night, so I didn't have time to write about a banned book. Therefor, I'm going to write about two tonight! Stay tuned.

The Witches by Roald Dahl

I read Roald Dahl books when I was younger, but I didn't realize how much I loved this man until I became an adult. I loved the BFG, and of course Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. Upon looking at the list of the most often challenged/banned books in America from 1990-2000, I saw that #27 was The Witches. Okay, so the book is called "Witches", but the witches themselves aren't even really human. At the very beinning of the book, Dahl differentiates them from people by saying that they don't have toes. Dahl also makes witches bad creatures that need to be disposed of. You really don't feel any sympathy for the witches, in fact you really hope that the main characters do defeat the witches. Of course, if you don't like the idea of magic, good or bad, you still won't be pleased with this book. Since this is my personal blog, I will say that I don't think that there's anything so horrible as using your imagination in order to allow you to be a more creative individual. Well at least in my humble opinion.

It's okay. I know I'm crazy.

I'm going to try and get another grant... or two. I can't remember if I posted earlier about this, but I was involved in a homeschooling grant with Cathy Henderson, the librarian from Greece, Jennifer Lindsey, the librarian from Chili and Adrienne Furness, the librarian (or uber as I like to call her) from Webster. So we officially got this grant for $35,000. Woe. Anyway, each of us was supposed to specialize in a different area. Hilton was going to specialize in the Arts. Then I found out about the grants available through the Arts and Cultural Council for Greater Rochester. There's two of them: one for specific programs and one for advancing a cultural institution. Both sound great, but I'd have to have them in their office by November 10 at 5 PM. This does not give me much time to get everything set down on paper and completed. EEK! Needless to say, I would have to get started on this, whatever I'm going to do, almost immediately. I would like to do some Art History or Art classes for people that would relate to the homeschooling program. I would also like to get money for classes for one of the staff members to learn html, so that our website can be better developed. I just need to start writing everything on paper and sorting it out in my head so it makes sense.
Okay. Time to go to sleep. I can worry about this tomorrow.

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

In all honesty, I can't remember much about the book. I read it when I was in college at Geneseo, when I was an English Lit major and reading a lot of books at the same time. I do remember that I loved it, especially at the end when I distinctly remember crying quite a bit. I felt that the book was excellent, and fully intend on rereading it as soon as I can.

According to the American Library Association's website:

85 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Reason for challenges: racism, sexually explicit, offensive language

It seems weird that a black author could charged offensive by writing "racist" language. I mean, sure I know its possible for a black person to be racist, just like its possible for a white person to be racist. However, considering that almost all the characters in the book are black, it seems strange that Morrison would be considered racist against black people, which is where I assume they are trying to go with it. I'm also getting really bored with the "sexually explicit" claim. People have sex. Sex is life. That's all there is to it. Granted, the main character, Milkman is in a relationship with his cousin, but that doesn't stop it from being real life. Also the "offensive" bit. I'm going to assume that the "n" word is probably used quite a bit, since the book is not supposed to take place in the present. But even if it did, young black people still say the word, you can hear it in the music etc.

I am of the opinion that people need a reason to complain. They can't handle it when a book that takes them out of their own comfort levels is really, really good. So they complain and try to wipe the existence of the book off the face of the planet. All I have to say is, shame on you. Shame shame shame.

I will remember to read this book again, because at the time of reading it in college, it was really good. Take that book burners!

BTW...

I just looked up uber in wikipedia and found out quite a few things:

1) uber should have an umlaut, which, imho is pretty freaking cool

and

2) it means super in Latin

and

3) it means over or superior in German

and

4) it means super cool in English

and

5) it means awesome librarian in Rochester...



Okay so I made that last bit up. Who cares.

Good night again.

Walter the Farting Dog

Yup. Walter the Farting Dog. He was banned (or challenged) this year. Poor Walter. He can't help his flatulence. But somebody out there didn't like the idea of a farting dog. Or probably a farting anything. But kids love farts and they love dogs! Who could imagine a more perfect combination. Granted the family in the book doesn't really care for his flatulence, but they learn to appreciate it when the gas saves their lives from some evil robbers. There's really not much more to say, except everyone in the world should read Walter and I'm really bad at book talking... which is why I will quite soon need the help of Ms. Uber-librarian herself, Adrienne from Webster Public Library.

Good night!

Banned Books Week

Today started banned books week, and I thought that each day, I would talk about a different banned book that I have read... I just came up with that a second ago and I love it! I had some of the pages and one of the clerks go through the list of banned books from 2004 and find the ones that we had in the library for a display I wanted to put up. My director and I decided that we would put all the books in some sort of cage or chain them up somehow. We wouldn't let anyone check them out, to give them a small taste of what it would be like to be told you couldn't read certain books. Unfortunately, while we were looking for the books we couldn't find quite a few. They were supposed to to be there but no one could find them. People looked about five times, but no one found them. Personally, I think it was because people didn't want us to find the books, which included: Doing It, It's Perfectly Normal, and Holly's Secret. SEX, SEX, SEX. People want to "protect" their children from everything. Teenage sex, their own sexual organs and homosexual sex. Anything to do with sex is out of bounds for these teens, and their parents are going to make sure that no one else gets to see them either. Or else its just some crazy teens who were too embarrassed or wanted to keep the books for their own collections. Needless to say, I'm pretty ticked off. I thought I would go back through the list of banned books and make a list of all the books that are "supposed" to be their, but aren't. I thought it would be a good way to show everyone that a few people had to ruin everything for everyone else and now no one can read it. BTW, if you haven't guessed by now, I'm pretty ticked off. I am all about parents monitoring what their kids read, and if they don't think its appropriate, not letting their kids read certain books. However I am NOT for a small group of people deciding what everyone reads. That's why when I purchase books for the library, I buy christian fiction, science fiction, mysteries, war fiction, romances and lots of other kinds of books. I try to take into account that there are lots of different people with lots of different tastes and I need to respect everyone's opinions. Whew! Now that I've got that off my back, I can go on with my life!

We spent most of the day today at the Riverside Convention Center watching Battlebots! My tushy hurt after a while, because the seats were REALLY uncomfortable, but the robots were pretty awesome. There were a few good fights, but quite a few fights ended really quickly. At about 1 pm we took a lunch break and went to Bennigan's Restaurant. Our food arrived, and after the waitress put my salad on the table, Jeff's hamburger somehow flipped over off the tray and fell on my jeans and my nice new soft sweater. The rest of the day I walked around with hamburger greasy clothes. Yuck. They didn't even give us a discount or free desert or anything. It took us almost an hour and a half to get out of the restaurant. Beh. Oh well. Jeff and I had a lot of fun watching robots kill each other. Oh and one of the teens from my library was there too, so we got to chat for a little while too. Fun, fun!

I love being a parent!

I know I could never be as awesome as these guys are with their kid (you need to click on the title to see what I mean) but I've decided I really need to try. I've seen so many "teen coming of age" movies where the parents are complete losers who seem to have no idea what these things called teenagers are doing living in their house. The parents are completely out of it, don't know how to talk to their kids, and if they do talk to them, they never know what to say. After watching all those 80's teen movies, I don't know how there are any people alive who are in their thirties.
This whole rant all stems from watching the movie Whatever, which actually came out in 1998, but takes place in 1981. Everyone is completely f**ked up, smoking up, snorting blow and drinking gallon jugs of Jack Daniels. The whole time I watched the movie, I was fascinated by it, yet completely disgusted at the same time. Does anyone talk to their kids? Do parents tell their kids about these great new things called CONDOMS? I mean Gawd! if you're going to have sex with every friggin person in your school, you could at least make sure that they used a condom!
Jack if you ever read this, I hope that you like me enough when you're 17 to talk to me about all those taboo teen things that parents and teens don't talk about. I mean, if I'm going to be honest, I'm not the purest angel in the flock! I'm quite sure that I gave my dad most of the white hairs he's got right now. I wasn't horrible of course, but I did some stuff that makes me shake my head even now. ANYWHO! I really don't think I'm going to turn a complete 180 in the span of time that it takes Jack to become a teen. If I do, well... I apologize now for having to jump off that bridge.
Wow. Talk about rambling.
If you read yesterday's post about Buster, we did talk it over some, and we decided to return Buster to the greyhound group that we got him from. It really sucks, but I think that we'll all be happier in the long run. I still feel like shit though.

Okay, Adrienne. You asked for it...

(Damnit! My computer died and I lost my post. Now I have to remember what the heck I was writing. Feh)
Once a month all the j librarians in my library system meet for "discussion". I try to keep up, but mostly I like to listen to them spout their beautiful and maniacal mouth music. Today, I was lucky enough to sit near the uber-librarian, Adrienne, who has a blog of her own. I think that at once point, I decided that I would much rather live vicariously through her blog than write in my own, disappointing blog (and in turn, life.) Anywho, it turns out that sometimes she looks at my blog. Needless to say, she was a little disappointed in me because I hadn't posted anything since coming back from California. I did try though! Last night I stared at my computer, asking it what there was that I could write about my trivial and boring life... Obviously, by the lack of a post last night, my computer was little help. I've recently been physically sick and thinking that compared to all those poor souls in New Orleans, I've got nothing to complain about. I'd actually been meaning to muse about my personal feelings towards New Orleans, but I haven't decided how to put my thoughts together. (Don't worry Adrienne, there will be a post!) I'd also thought that maybe I'd write about how I wanted to buy a Play Station, two dance pads and Dance Dance Revolution for the library.

All those thoughts went out the window, when I came home and smelled poop (so strong that I could smell it immediately, even though I've got a cold and can't smell a damned thing).

We put our dog Buster in his crate when we aren't at home, because if we don't, he has a tendency to eat books, Jack's clothes and toys, video tapes and DVDs, or anything else he can get his lips around. At first we tried to let him stay out on his own, because we thought it might be a little cruel, but our greyhound group explained to us that they spend quite a bit of time in their crates, and feel safest in their crate. Please try telling that to Buster. He hides upstairs when we try and get him to go in his crate. He howls when we are coming home. He is not a happy dog, one way or another.
This is where the poop comes in, he has no qualms about pooping and peeing in his crate. This is a weird thing because it would be like you pooping (on purpose!) in your bed. So tonight, we came home and he had pooped and peed in his crate, then sat in it and got the poop nice and deep into his back paws. I really don't know anymore.
After all this, plus having Jack who is only about 6 months old, plus a cat that likes to vomit everywhere, plus having a job that causes me to run about like a chicken with its head cut off quite a bit, I don't know if I can handle the whole dog thing. I really don't know if Jeff and I have a life that supports a dog, especially such a high-maintenance drama queen kind of dog such as we have. I'm really at the point where I think we need to give him up back to the group, where he can go to a family that deserves him more. Unfortunately, part of me is really concerned with what other people think of us. I know it seems pretty shallow, but I don't want people to think that I'm shit. But then, I really want him to be somewhere he would be happy. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO FREAKING DO! We've already agreed that we are never ever getting another dog, but other than that... I'm sad. Now he cringes and whines when we try and pet him, plus he puts his tail between his legs ALL THE TIME (like now).
OKAY explain this to me. He poops in his crate when we aren't home. This says to me that he DOESN'T like his crate. Then, when we're home, he keeps going into his crate. This says to me that he DOES like his crate. ARGH! What the hell!
Cats, I understand. They come to you when they want to be petted or want food. They piss in front of the litter box when they want the litterbox cleaned. Thats about it. Dogs, I don't understand. I think that they might be too complex for me.
Okay, Adrienne. You wanted me to post in my blog. PLEASE HELP ME! I promise that my next post will be happier... or at least more entertaining.