Lose yourself in the moment

Mah new blog, yo.

Sympathy for the Devil

I know, I know. What's puzzling you is the nature of my game. Where's the story you promised us about meeting Jack's father, is what you're asking, isn't it, Gentle Reader?

I don't like to blog about blogging, nor do I typically write about why I'm not writing, for the same reasons that I don't write about what I had for breakfast, which is, I can't imagine that you'd be interested.

I'm making this exception because I don't want you to think that I've forgotten about you. I haven't.

What's going on is that it's the end of the semester, and my head feels like it's about to explode. Most of the time I love my students, but right now I loathe all 127 of them for handing in their end-of-term projects because it means I have to grade them!

When it's all over, and I've survived, I promise to deliver not only the story about Jack's father (And what a swell, swell man he is, by the way. Too bad he's already married.), but also to catch you up on Sparky's move to San Jose. I might even tell you who I sent flowers to today, Mother's Day.

Postmodern Sass's mother is gone, but not forgotten. Here, Sass tells her mother about her decision to move to California, then, a few weeks after the move, her mother shows up to haunt her.

Tales of a Librarian [part iv - fin]

Continued from part iii

On Monday morning a giant bouquet of flowers in a big, glass vase walked into my office and behind it was Margaret's frizzy-haired head. The flowers were mostly pink and white and the bouquet was replete with both colours of my favourite flower, lilies.

Kapp had been sure she wouldn't remember anything about Friday night. I'd called him as I was walking home from Margaret's at about 1:00 in the morning, after I'd half walked, half carried her a dozen blocks to the other side of downtown, never sure whether she was lucid enough to actually find her way home. She was expectorating every three minutes or so, and I didn't think it would be prudent to pour her into a cab. I didn't know where she lived but I couldn't just leave her on the sidewalk.

"You owe me, buster," I said when Kapp picked up the phone after the second ring.

Don't question the drunk logic of that statement, Gentle Reader. Margaret was his friend, I'd just met her, so that made me, I reasoned, the last person at the table who should have had to take her home. What Kapp didn't say, but could rightfully have said was, "You didn't have to stay until closing." Instead, he listened to me detail the night's drama and comedy, laughing at some places and offering encouraging and sympathetic comments at others.

"There was a moment on her front porch when I was sure she wouldn't be able to find her key, and I was prepared to just leave her there and deem it close enough," I told Kapp.

"This is California. It's not like she'd die of exposure," he replied.

"But then, just when I was about to prop her up in the corner and leave, she found her key and opened the door. And then I saw the stairs. Have you seen her place?"

"Yes. Long, narrow, winding staircase, right?"

"Right. Not enough room for me to negotiate it beside her. So I pushed her up and stayed behind in case she fell backwards. She made it all the way to the top, I could see her door. She reached for the keyhole and then she fell down on the landing and threw up again."

Kapp laughed.

"At this point I didn't care about the vomit anymore; I'd seen so much of it. She's such a tiny person, I figured there couldn't be much left, and in any event it wasn't my carpet and I had no intention of sticking around to clean up the mess."

"So, what, did you just leave her on the landing?"

"I was going to, but I worried that she might fall down the stairs, and then I started envisioning the whole Jimi Hendrix Bon Scott Keith Moon scenerio and felt too guilty. She had her key in her hand, so I opened the door and literally dragged her inside."

"And she was passed out this whole time?"

"No, she drifted in and out. Every time she'd come to she'd gush about how wonderful I was, and then she'd say something about you."

"About me?" Kapp sounded surprised.

"Yes. Mostly about some librarian you're boinking."

"Moira? I told you about her. And she's not a librarian, she's a library assistant."

"I know, and I told Margaret so. Look, the whole conversation all night long had me baffled. She kept bringing you up every few minutes. No pun intended."

Kapp laughed again.

"I think maybe she has a thing for me," Kapp suggested.

"My, aren't we full of ourselves? No offence, Lothario, but I didn't get that impression from her at all."

"So how did you leave her?"

"I peeled off her clothes and threw them in the shower, then dragged her over to her bed and sort of tossed her into it. She'll probably have some serious rug burn in the morning, but with any luck she won't be dead."

A year later, The Librarian turns out to be an asshole.

It's hockey night tonight

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

It doesn't snow here, and they call it ice hockey, but my teams (Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens, in that order) both sucked raw eggs this season, so if the San Jose Sharks beat Detroit tonight, I'm going to buy myself a Sharks jersey.

Sorry, Mats.

Last year Postmodern Sass went to the last Leafs game of the season, even though they'd already been eliminated, because her friend was getting divorced for the second time.

Tales of a Librarian [part iii]

Continued from part ii

I really liked Margaret. We gabbed away, and as the evening wore on, one by one the other librarians made their excuses and bid their goodnights, until there were only she and I left on the patio. The waiter passed by every so often, and when he did we'd order another round, because we'd long since left discretion behind.

Whenever the conversation had strayed for too long to other topics, she'd bring it back to her favourite subject, Kapp. She seemed in equal parts to be trying to set us up, trying to find out whether we'd slept together, and trying to keep us from doing so.

"I think he's probably terrified of you," Margaret opined after our second beer.

I laughed and said, "I have that effect on a lot of men, unfortunately."

"I know all the librarians he's had flings with, and they're all beneath him. You're the first woman I've seen him with who's actually his equal."

Now it was my turn to be surprised. Not that he'd slept with bimbos, but that there had, according to Margaret, been many. Kapp's not exactly the sort of guy anyone'd describe as a lady killer. Tall, dark, and handsome he isn't, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be able to swing me around. But he's smart and funny and sarcastic, and he knows about music, and it's for all those reasons that I like him very much.

"We're just friends," I said.

"That's good, you should keep it that way." Margaret is a petite woman, and she'd been matching me Märzen for Märzen. She was visibly drunk, now. "He's a great guy, don't get me wrong, but he's not husband material. He's not reliable, and he never has any money."

"OK, then, I promise not to marry him," I joked. She wasn't telling me anything I hadn't already noted, and, besides, if I'm going to not marry someone the whole Internet already knows who that is.

"You could probably sleep with him, if you wanted to, though," offered Margaret, and then she hiccupped.

"Yeah, I know." I remember the Tod lesson.

Margaret had been hiccupping for two or three minutes. We both laughed about it at first, but then we both became accustomed to it. That's probably why I didn't realize right away when the hiccups turned to barfing.

To be concluded in part iv.

Tales of a Librarian [part ii]

Continued from part i

The librarians were gathered around two pushed-together tables on the patio at Gordon Biersch looking very much like, well, like librarians.

I've been out drinking with the science profs, and they all have a sort of earthy, outdoorsy look to them. Business school profs wear suits; computer science geeks look like geeks (and are some of my best friends), but I'd never been in close proximity to a pack of librarians before, and so hadn't learned the stereotype.

Now that I know what it is, I struggle to put it kindly.

Hmn. Let's see. The group of Kapp's co-workers I met at Gordon Biersch were... not exactly stylish. Not so much chic. They had, shall we say, some sartorial challenges. And a singular unkemptness in the hair department.

They were frumpy.

But they have good qualities, not the least of which is, they can drink. And not fruity girly drinks, either. The waiter was carrying an astonishing number of pint glasses on a tray, and when Kapp and I joined the party he took our beer orders and immediately returned with two more. Introductions were made and I learned that not all the librarians were librarians. Some were assistant librarians and some were reference librarians and some were library assistants and some were from the I.T. department and so weren't librarians at all. I realized that I understand the academic hierarchy only as it applies to professors, but I was given the impression, from the pack at the table, that Kapp was fairly high up on their library ladder.

Kapp introduced me as "My friend Sass, from Marketing," which wasn't entirely accurate but was close enough, and for a time they eyed me the way tourists eye an exotic giraffe at a zoo, but then judged me acceptable company because of my acquaintance with Kapp. Plus, I made them laugh by gently poking fun at him, which may have been the reason Margaret got the wrong idea about us.

We had two, or maybe it was three, rounds, and then Kapp asked me what time it was, because he never wears a watch, and when I told him 9:15 he said he was going to try to catch the 9:20 bus, even though the last one is at 11:00. I offered to buy him a beer if he stayed and when that didn't work I called him a girl but since he'd already been called that once tonight, that didn't work either, and so he left.

I said, oh well, and pulled my chair closer to the others, beside Margaret. I learned that she's been working at the library for almost ten years and that she's studying library science and is almost, but not quite, a real librarian. We were both drinking Märzen, which may have been another factor in the prodigious hangover that was to come. Margaret asked me where I was from, and made a joke about me saying eh, and then she said, "It really surprised me when Kapp left so suddenly."

What I was thinking was, he'll very likely miss that bus and then he'll be back, it's happened before, but what I said was, "Oh, he has that bus schedule memorized, and he knows exactly when he has to leave so he can catch it. Why did that surprise you?"

"That he left you here, I mean," she said.

"Oh! Oh no, no, we're just friends, we just hang out and drink beer."

"Mnm Hmn," Margaret hmned, unconvincingly.

We ordered another round.

"I really like you," gushed Margaret, "I'm going to invite you to my next girl party. We cook and eat and read Tarot cards. You should watch out for Kapp, though."

"Watch out?"

"He's a good guy. Really smart. I love him like a brother. But he sleeps around."

To be continued in part iii.