It's Been the End of the World As We Know It...

...for as long as I can remember. That's probably the case for most people.

I'm not sure how this started, but this past week I've had trouble sleeping, and when I am sleeping I have early R.E.M. songs playing on a loop inside my head. Later in the week I had this dream where I was in Peter Buck's home studio cutting a record with him. Yeah, I was helping him write a song, and record it. Because I don't have more than enough things to do in my life. So, anyway, the dream got even stranger and at one disturbing point Mr. Buck started hitting on me. I think he said something like, "did you ever have a crush on me?" And I lied and said, "yeah," but then I added, "when I was twelve." That kind of threw him off guard. Well, serves him right. He's almost old enough to be my father. And the last time I was a serious R.E.M. fan was when I was in the 10th grade. I went off them for a long time. I still liked everything up to Out of Time, but I couldn't listen to it like I used to because I pretty much wore it out. So I guess the moratorium on listening to R.E.M. is over because I can finally listen to them again after about 16 years. For the record, I never had a crush on anyone in R.E.M. so I really don't know where this Peter Buck dream came from. I do know that R.E.M. is now classic rock because I saw a kid at the school I've been working at wearing an R.E.M. t-shirt. It was the red one with the bicycle on it.

I'm almost done with my temporary job at the school library. I went to the graduation and they had a very famous young writer giving the graduation speech. I partially enjoyed it, felt partially annoyed by the whole thing. This isn't a good development. I hope that once I get back into my writing I'll feel less jealous of writers when I hear them speak. I guess I could have felt inspired, but when the person is really close to my age, it's harder for me to feel inspired rather than jealous and annoyed.

I'm still chugging along in library school. I don't finish my summer classes until early August. Luckily I'll only have one class in the fall and that's the student teaching class. I've always been a library user but it's really ramped up since I started library school. I have 28 books out right now and two more on hold. Unless I return some books next week (which I will), I'll reach my limit. The NYPL lets you have 15 books on hold, and 30 books out. That's plenty of books, and the only reason I have so many books out it because I have some out for my next class, young adult lit , and I'm creating two bibliographies for children's literature. I got a back pack to haul all these books back and forth and I have a backpack strap burn on my right shoulder. Who said that library school wasn't hard core?

Murakami would have certainly frowned at me most of the week, but I really didn't have time with all the trips to the library. I like to think that picking up a bag heavy with books counts as exercise. It's not the same as running, but it's definitely physical.

Not that it's been all work for me. I picked up a silver acorn necklace today at the craft fair from these people.

Oh, one more thing. So, even all these years later my mother can't let the tragic death of her beloved cockatiel, Mr. Kiki, go. She decided to write about it, and was going to rehash her suspicions that Mr. Kiki died because of my alleged neglect. Well, I wasn't going to stand around and be accused of murdering Mr. Kiki, again. I told her she couldn't accuse me like that, not in writing, so she changed the tone of the piece.

Here is a snippet of what she wrote, with my help. Writing in English is still a challenge for her, but she's made great strides.:

Now I want to talk about my older daughter, 5redpandas*. She is my good daughter. The last time I went to Taiwan I had a cockatiel named Kiki. She was very cute. I had Kiki for many years before I went to Taiwan. I told my daughter 5redpandas to take care of Kiki for me. She did take care of Kiki very good for me, but when I came back six months later, my cute little Kiki died. I was crying for two weeks.

*I've substituted my Internet name for my real one.

I do hope there comes a day when I am no longer suspected of killing Kiki. It's an accusation that is hard to live down.