and me too tired to care

[timeripple]

I am so tired. I had a day off yesterday, but had been called in for overtime on Monday and apparently I'm not totally recovered yet. Today was really, really busy. It was the kind of day where I didn’t really have to wrack my brains to find the right books for the right people, but enough people came in asking about children’s books that I kind of felt like hey, I actually do know my stuff. So that was kind of nice.

The building fire alarm did go off around 11, adding a little spice to the morning of extreme business. We stood around outside in the pleasantly nippy street. Some people had dressed up just because they felt like it, and the guys were being super cute about lending suit jackets to ladies in dressy short sleeves. It was adorable. (I, of course, was sensibly clothed.) The fire dudes took their sweet time getting there, kind of wandered around a while, then trooped into the historic burger place next door. They trooped out a few minutes later, turned off the alarm, and went home.

I hope they got some fries, 'cause we sure didn't.

All in all it was a good thing I'd gotten chai beforehand.

Currently reading: Datlow & Windling vampire anthology, due out next April (I am so tired of hip young anthologies. It's not that the stories are bad, but that short story anthologies wear me out because they never seem to end and I almost never have time to get attached to any of the characters). Also Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan (uh, just because. No, actually because all Japanese police dramas are actually about how the police are corrupt, and those that aren’t corrupt are underfunded, and I'm in Joker withdrawal *sob*, so it looked interesting).

I had subscribed to the Unshelved Comics feed, because usually I like their comics (obviously), but I defriended them this morning because I didn't feel like dealing with my reaction to today's comic. Seriously, guys? Seriously? I understand that you're being funny, but that's hitting a little too close to home for me.

Leave it to me to pick the literary field that gets the least respect (well, one of them). This is something I'm going to have to deal with, though, and articulate. Soon. The idea that a professional interest in children's books does not make me infantile, or stuck in my own childhood, or otherwise nonfunctional as an intelligent adult. Because I get that a lot, and I'm going to have to have a response. (Other than Um, I read your precious Plato in Greek, and you know what? I gave him up for those "kiddie books." Suck on that!)

Speaking of things I need to articulate, I'm starting once again to think about that evolutionary-biology-in-children’s-sff rant I promised back in August. Don’t feel like looking up all the things I need to look up right now, though. Sleepy. Utterly burned out, and will save the rant research for another day, because I really don’t want to get my homologous structures mixed up with my analogous ones, you know?

Signing off. Good night!

Comments

[satakieli.livejournal.com]

Maybe they were checking to see if its kitchen had been a source of smoke to set off the alarm?

As a (mostly?) reformed snob, I think that one of the meanest ways of dealing with them is to out-snob them. To play off yours, maybe yoink a section of The Republic that deals with the appropriate education of children (in an applicable way to your field--I can't come up with one; has been over a decade since I read it, and in English) and toss it obliquely into the conversation, kind of like a Byatt character. Most of the obnoxious people will probably not recognize it but realize that they should, and back off to lick their wounded pride...

Of course, if you want them to back off but not hurt them, I have no ideas to add to your stock; I am apparently a cruel person.

Definitely still interested in that rant.

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that's what it was. My bet was on some random apartment's toaster, but the actual food establishment would make more sense.

Hahaha, I would love to be a Byatt character. I think. No, actually I'd just love to be as smart as one. Though I'm not actually interested in the education of children, or children in general; I just like their books. XD Which probably makes me even less subject to a reasonable defense. XD Mostly I cope with it by laughing in their faces and saying something Fiona-ish. Today, for example:

MALE CO-WORKER (sotto voce): Kids are dumb.
FIONA (sotto voce, amiably): You're dumb.
CUSTOMER: Where's the bathroom?
MALE CO-WORKER & FIONA: We don't have one.
CUSTOMER (belligerently): Yes you do.
MALE CO-WORKER & FIONA: Sorry, the closest public one is around the corner.
MALE CO-WORKER (sotto voce): Next time, tell them to **** ***.
FIONA: Reminds me of the time somebody asked if we even had men's restrooms at Wellesley. I was really tempted to tell them that male professors had to walk around to the other side of the lake.
MALE CO-WORKER: Totally should have.
FIONA'S SMART ADULT PERSON CRED: *goes up*

Rant coming up, eventually. I hear the siren call of Campbell & Reece (7th edition) from the depths of the library...

[satakieli.livejournal.com]

snerk!

Yesterday's Unshelved bothered me too, and I don't even have any right to be bothered like you do. They're running reruns from the very beginning of the strip, and I think that at the beginning they were much more about the cheap shot. I had totally forgotten about her introduction, given how kickass she is now.

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think anybody concerned with the perpetuation of inaccurate and derogatory stereotypes has the right to be bothered, even if it doesn't apply to you personally.

I'm glad she gets kickass later on, though.