A Day In The Life 3.0: July 11, 2019

[rockinlibrarian]

I was in 11th grade when my therapist gave me an assignment, ostensibly to see if we could pinpoint triggers to my depression: keep track of everything that happens in one day. Write it all down. Look for patterns. I’m not sure I found any patterns, because, like they say, observing something changes the observed. My day revolved around writing my day down. And I was too busy to feel depressed. Years later, while I was pregnant with Sam and working at the Museum, I got it into my head to do it again, and the results were so different and yet there were so many similarities, too. Both times, it was fun, it was memorable, and it’s fun to have a record of what a day in my life was like at those times.

I’ve often thought I should do it again, being in a completely different era of my life from the first two. But it was a tweet thread I saw on this past Thursday morning that set me off:

“Where Did Today Go?”
A Workday in the Life of ADHD (thread):

DISCLAIMER: No unsolicited advice, please. I am not looking to be told what I “should” be doing. I *know* what I should be doing, but I can’t get myself to do it consistently. That’s what makes #ADHD so frustrating.

— Dani Donovan (@danidonovan) July 9, 2019

A day at work with ADHD? I should write a Day in the Life again. I wonder how much the ADHD will show. And I kept thinking, the day had already started, but it was a good representative day in my life because I had both Outreach and desk duty at the library, and a big chunk at home with my kids in the middle, I’m DOING this! I decided at 11:00 that morning, as you will see below, because, in fact, I did this, and here, if you have the patience, are the results:

5:30 AM

Jason’s alarm is set for 5:50, but the clock radio is 19 minutes fast. No, that wasn’t intentional, but it works for our time-blind butts. Unfortunately that means Jason, knowing this, hits snooze, which means the alarm goes off again ten minutes later, just as I might be falling back asleep. He cuddles up to me and insists on talking. I grunt noncommittally. The snooze alarm comes on, and the deejay is saying something about thundershowers. “What are your plans for the day?” Jason asks, and at this point I am actually able to form words, although murmured: “I PLANNED to take the kids to the pool, but they just said thundershowers.” Then I fall back asleep.

7:00 AM

I wake up—I’m comfortable, the sun is up. I try to remember if I dreamed anything interesting, but I can’t. I just upped my Zoloft the other day and it now seems to be doing what some earlier experiments with antidepressants did, changing my sleep cycles so I don’t fall into the deep dreamy sleep I usually do. This is ironic because I just submitted a GeekMom article the day before about how I have “epic dreams.” Ah, I’ll see what happens once my body adjusts.

I grab my journal and look at the clock. It says 7:23, which actually means 7:04. On the other hand, not falling into that deep dream state does make it easier to wake up in the morning. I write about this in my journal, then about my plans for the day. I eye the clock and turn the radio on right about when the weather forecast is due. Ah, thunderstorms all day? Darnit, I’d been waiting all this super-hot week to finally have time to take the kids swimming. Sam was also supposed to show up at the pool for a pre-Scout-Camp swim test.

I stare at my pile of clothes on the floor and my dresser across the room. Well, if it happens to NOT be raining in the middle of the day, we’ll go to the pool, so I’ll just put what I wore yesterday on again with the understanding that I’ll be showering later, so I do.

8:00 AM

Downstairs I look for our medication box. We’ve got one of those days of the week boxes, with one side for me and one for Sam, since we’re the ones that take daily pills, and this way we don’t lose track of whether we’ve taken them or not. I can’t find it in the kitchen. I remember taking it to Sam yesterday when he was playing Wii in the living room, but I can’t find it there, either. Did I take it to Sam’s room? I’ll see before I leave for Outreach this morning: no use waking him now.

I make myself a bowl of cereal— Aldi’s brand Special K with Strawberries— and have a seat at my desk and turn on the computer for the morning news. I wonder if my article has posted yet. A quick scroll through Facebook says no. A scan of the GeekMom Twitter feed seconds this. I open the Wordpress dashboard to see if it’s scheduled but it’s still in pending. This gets me down a bit: I had kind of looked forward to seeing a post about my epic dreams to make up for not having had any epic dreams for several days.

Reading Twitter just gets me down farther. Not a lot of laughs and inspiration, lots of tragedy and misunderstanding. I catch a convo Neil Gaiman is having that speaks to me: apparently some people had been complaining that they thought it should have been CLEARLY STATED that Aziraphale and Crowley were A Gay Couple because otherwise it was just queerbaiting, and someone said No, I’m GLAD you never said that because it’s not true, they’re nonbinary male-presenting asexuals in a deep loving relationship, you’d be erasing THAT identity if you said otherwise, and I’m like YES, DANGIT DON’T ERASE THE ASEXUALS (this is the same reason I hate Johnlock shipping), and I Like a few tweets from people who say similar and reply to a few too, and this reminds me of the article I posted on the Asexual Spectrum just the other week, so I open up that article and reread it, and then I end up rereading a bunch of my other articles, and before I know it a lot of time has gone by just of me rereading my own writing.

9:00 AM

Oh, at some point on Twitter I also see the tweet thread that inspired this whole project, but I’m not sure when. I decide to look at Tumblr, because that’s more likely to be full of pretty and/or funny pictures and references to my favorite fictional things, which might cheer me up. I get sort of lost looking at gif-sets from this week’s episode of Legion, which I loved so hard even though (or maybe because?) it ALSO made me sad, but in an artistic way, so it feels more beautiful than the general angry frustrating sad that I get from current events and unhappy tweeters. I open AV Club’s review of said episode to see if there has been any more discussion in the comments and if anyone has replied to MY comments, and then I see the time and it’s 9:37, and I’m like, EH I need to leave in ten minutes, but I want to get into this point here, I think they’re not getting that needing a stay in a mental hospital doesn’t mean that one is permanently unhinged, I should write to OH DANGIT I DON’T HAVE TIME.

I close the computer and get up from my desk at 20 ‘til, and I feel rather proud of myself, because I think I’m going to DO it, I’m not going to be LATE for once! And then I remember I still haven’t found the pill box. I head to the upstairs bathroom to pee, and then to brush my teeth. Then I knock on and open Sam’s door. The pill box is NOT on his desk where I would have put it. “Hey, have you seen the pill box?”
“Last I saw it was in the living room,” he replies sleepily.
“That’s what I thought,” I say. “Anyway, I’ll go look for it again, but then I have to go do an Outreach and I’ll be back in about an hour, all right? I’ll leave the pills out for you. Take them.”

Then I go to Maddie’s room to tell her I’m leaving. I note that it’s currently pouring rain. “I was going to take you to the pool today, BUT…” I glance out the window and she bursts out laughing.

Down in the living room I try to figure out where else the pill box would be that I haven’t looked yet. I finally find it way under the TV stand. I take mine, then leave it right on top of the Wii U controller so if Sam comes downstairs he can’t help but notice it. I notice my cell phone on the coffee table and realize I should take that. I push the button to see how charged the battery is and see a couple of Twitter notifications— oh, someone Liked my reply about asexual relationships, and someone else in the conversation followed me, oh that’s interesting— I sit on the stairs and am about to start reading it when I remember I have to leave. I find my shoes and keys and start for the front door before I remember my car is parked in the garage in the basement.

The clock in my car is 4 minutes fast, but even doing the math, I see I’m probably still going to be late. AS I ALWAYS AM.

10:00 AM

The car clock says 10:09 when I arrive, so I’m only five minutes late, which isn’t too bad— they probably won’t even notice. This outreach visit is to a large daycare that only gets visited once a month, but then for an hour and with several classes. The school-aged class is dancing to a song that sounds a bit like the "Cha-cha Slide" (but isn’t) in the large central room when I come in, and I start dancing with them automatically as I cross to the Pre-K room. The kids in THIS room are dancing to a Move-like-the-animals song, and I decide to tie this in to the books I have brought, because I’ve brought the Bug (themed) Bag. They are enthusiastic and start telling me all sorts of bug facts. The school-age class comes in to join us. I read I Love Bugs, The Very Busy Spider, One Hundred Hungry Ants, and then, with five minutes left, I search for a book that will grab the older kids’ attentions as much as the younger ones, and most of the shorter books skew young. I pull out an older book called Fireflies! which turns out to be longer than I expected, but eh, I got there late. It’s actually got some serious emotional arcs, and when I finish, most of the kids are looking a little dreamy-eyed. “That was a nice book,” a girl in the front row says. Success.

So it’s about 10:35 when I head down the hall to the younger preschool classes, who have just come in from outside (there was a break in the rain) and are washing up. I look around the room and see a lot of caterpillar-to-butterfly stuff on the walls: good, tie into the bug books! I spot a girl who comes to the library regularly, whom I had waved to at Aldi’s the day before and who had waved but looked confused at me. “Did I see you at the store yesterday?” I ask her. She looks surprised and says, “Yes! I couldn’t see where your hair was.” Ah, that was why she’d been confused. I have a new haircut.
A bunch of other kids are trying to talk to me at the same time. “Do you like my shirt?” one boy asks, to which I reply, “Spider-man! He’s my favorite!” This is true but it pleases him to no end anyway. As the teachers and I are trying to herd this bunch to the carpet, the boy and a few of his friends start arguing good-naturedly about Spider-man, and one asks me, “Did you bring Spider-man books today?” Well THAT’S just a perfect intro.
“No,” I say clearly, so as to get more kids’ attentions, “but I brought the next best thing: SPIDER books! Without the ‘man’.”
A teacher hears and says, “Oh good, our theme this summer is bugs!”
“This is my Bug Bag! Not just spiders! Lots of bugs!”
“Will you read us Spider-without-the-man books?” one of the kids says.
“Yes, as soon as everyone’s sitting and ready to listen!” This takes awhile because they’re all in a very chatty mood, but eventually I do I Love Bugs again and naturally The Very Busy Spider— I see there’s a spiderweb made of tape inside a hula hoop hung on the bathroom door and we refer to it often. Because they are so chatty, we move slowly, and only have time for one more book, and because this group is younger I go with a Dora the Explorer book about butterflies. The teacher is amused by my having brought books on their theme, and decides to give me her theme schedule for the whole year when I switch the bug bag for last month’s bag, but I’m not sure how helpful this will really be when I look and find “Insects” under “May” instead of “July.”

11:00 AM

It is absolutely pouring when I exit the daycare. I run to the car while popping the trunk and get the bag of books put away, then dodge into my seat. Kind of cozy inside my car. I pull out a notebook to jot down the number of kids I just read to, then grab my journal. I’ve been thinking about that day-in-the-life tweet and how much fun my previous gos at writing down my day were, so before I turn the car on, I jot notes of everything that happened this morning in my journal.

When I turn on the car I see I’ve only spent ten minutes on these notes, so I feel productive. Radio is starting the weather forecast. “It is wet today,” I supply for it out loud. I keep listening as I drive down the hill then realize it’s on a commercial so I flip through all my presets several times looking for something good and end up settling on the Eagles which just shows how bad the options were. It’s “Take it to the Limit” and I do start belting right away though. When it ends “Oh Sherrie” by Steve Perry comes on, which I can’t hear without thinking about the VH1 Behind the Music on Journey I watched at Liz’s house 20 years ago. I wonder if Sherrie took Steve’s name when they got married because “Sherrie Perry” just sounds weird. Maybe it’s okay if she added a middle initial, makes it more symmetrical. Flip stations, the Stones’ “Miss You” is on, which just makes me think about Joel Hodgson yelling at the Freaks in Freaks and Geeks about how Rock is dead and Disco is the future and even the Stones know it. Then I wonder how many songs I have that always remind me about some specific thing, and if I should make a list of them. “Tubthumping” comes on, which makes me think about many things, but mostly my little cousin dancing up and down to it at the time it came out. He’s an adult now. Anyway, turn onto a side road, almost run into some utility vehicles, the one guy waves me through just as his buddy crosses the street with a tool that makes me think of Kaylee on Firefly saying “It’s a POST hoarer” because it is, and I see they’re headed to a low-sitting house where a lady’s on her porch and I wonder if she’s having flooding issues. I get home in the middle of “Living on a Prayer” and have to leave the key in auxiliary so I can finish singing the refrain at least.

Head in, the house is dark and quiet. So the kids haven’t come downstairs yet. I drop my bag and take off my sandals and find myself bursting into “You live for the fight when that’s all that you’ve got WHOA WE’RE HALFWAY THERE—”

“Hello,” a kid’s voice shouts from upstairs. “Hello!” I shout back. “Hello!” the kid says again. I’m not sure if it’s the same kid. “Hello!” I shout. Now everyone is saying hello at once and I say “What?” and Maddie says “What?” (because it’s always Maddie who answers “What?” with another “What?”) and Sam says “Hello, Human!” and I ignore them because I’m looking for the pill box again. Sam has obviously not come down and taken his so I grab it and look for a glass of water. Meanwhile Maddie DOES come down and says “Hello!” again. I assure her that I’m not ignoring her, I just have to go make Sam take his meds, and rush past her to go upstairs.

“TAKE YOUR PILLS, AND YOU’LL MAKE IT I SWEAR,” I sing as I burst into his room.
“Really?” he gives me a look. He looks like such a little kid with his haircut.
Anyhoo, I find a full glass of water on his desk and take it to where he is lounging on the bed, though fully dressed, which is a switch. “Here, take it,” I repeat.
“I’m hungry,” he says without moving.
“Take your pills,” I reply.
“How will that help with my hunger?” he says.
“Because after you take it you can go downstairs and eat breakfast. Or lunch. Brunch.”
I regret using that word for fear that he’ll demand a full hot breakfast then, but instead he just says “Smoothie?” in the voice he uses constantly to ask for a Smoothie, which by constantly I mean ALL THE TIME.
I give him an “I see what you did there but it’s not a bad idea” look which I realize is the same look Thompson gives Peggy when she tells him to get the dinner orders in the last episode of Agent Carter, which makes me reply, “You know what, Marge? I’ll do that for you. But first, TAKE YOUR PILL.”
Sam doesn’t react to being called “Marge,” but doesn’t react to anything else either. “This is an Ikea glass,” he says about the glass in front of him.
“Yeah, use it to take your pill,” I respond.
He doesn’t move, but continues, “I didn’t know Ikea made glasses.”
“Oh sure, they make all sorts of plates and stuff. Don’t you remember, in the downstairs part?” This makes me remember, and I go off, “You were a baby when I bought these glasses, I remember pushing you in the shopping cart there. I also got plastic cups for you. I guess you were a toddler more than a baby.”
“Toddle toddle!”
I realize I’M distracted now, too. “Dude, TAKE YOUR PILL, and then we’ll have smoothies.”
He finally takes it into his fingers, and says, “You know I think I crushed my pill yesterday.”
“Well TAKE THIS ONE NOW.” And he does. Bam. Like that. I head for the stairs going, “Now let’s get smoothies.”

Maddie is eating cereal at the dining room table. “Your brother suggested smoothies,” I tell her, and she says, “YES.” I walk into the messy kitchen and sigh at it. I move a watermelon onto the only other open space on the countertop, out of the way of the blender. The blender is still full of rinse water from after our last smoothies, so I dump and rinse it again, then remember the lid is in the now-clean dishwasher.
“Hey you guys, guess what?” I yell in my “Isn’t it exciting to empty the dishwasher” voice, which I only ever use for that, so Maddie goes “Dishwasher” immediately and without enthusiasm.
I pull out the blender lid and put it by the blender, then I pull out some measuring cups and put them away before I remember this is the KIDS’ job and I’m not doing it for them. I try to remember what I was doing BEFORE I did that.
Oh yeah, smoothies. I get the frozen berries out and dump some in while still humming “Living on a Prayer” because now it’s going to be in there all day, and look around to see what I can do while I let the berries soften a bit (our blender doesn’t like them STRAIGHT out of the freezer). Almost unload the dishwasher again. Sigh and turn to the handwashable dirty dishes, but I can’t really get to those until the dishwasher’s empty and I can reload it. I spot the eggshells I’ve saved to make slug repellent. I like to peel the inner membrane out to make them crispier and cleaner, but I’ve let these ones dry too long to peel easily. I do the best I can. Then I’m like, “Smoothies!” and go to it without further incident.

I wonder if I should make something more for lunch or just let everyone serve themselves (I have forgotten by now that Maddie was just eating cereal). Since I work tonight, the kids will be serving themselves again, because they never just sit down and eat whatever Jason might serve them and he doesn’t bother to make sure they actually pick healthy and filling alternatives. I open the refrigerator and glance around for a bit, then give up and go back to the blender.
I look for good smoothie glasses, then realize that these, too, are in the dishwasher. Dang, Maddie (who does the top) is going to have so much less to do than Sam, and she’s better about doing it.
The phone rings. It’s Jason. “So, you still going to the pool today?” he jokes, then we have the exact conversation I just had in my head about what they’ll eat while I’m at work.
I say I have just made smoothies as I am pouring them.
He says "oh they’ll definitely not eat now," and I’m like "why not, smoothies aren’t THAT filling," and he said, "well, they definitely won’t eat anyway." Then before he says goodbye he says "Don’t Forget to water your garden!" Which is also an obvious joke. It must be raining harder in Bridgeville than it is here for him to notice so much. I say "have a nice lunch— is it lunch time?" I look at the clock and it’s ten to noon, so yes, he’s about to go to lunch.
I hang up and carry two smoothie glasses into the dining room, where I see a bucket of pretzel rods and decide they’d go well with smoothies. Maddie has gone back upstairs, leaving half her cereal. I go to call them downstairs and they rush down. I grab a couple pretzel rods for myself, and play them like drumsticks on Sam’s back as he heads into the kitchen for a straw. I decide to type up everything that’s happened in between taking notes and now, and I head to my computer, open it up, and am just about to sit down when I realize I left my smoothie in the kitchen, so I retrieve it, THEN sit down with my smoothie, pretzels, and computer.

11:54 is what the computer says when I sign in. It opens on Tweetdeck, and I notice that Betsy Bird has liked my response to her, which makes me smile because I’m a fangirl. My eyes go to other tweets but since none are particularly interesting I’m able to say Nope, later, and minimize the browser. Decide to compose this in Scrivener. Forget where the button to open Scrivener is. Find it. Scrivener pops up the message that Updates are available do I want to update now (you will not be able to use Scrivener during the updates). I hit cancel and wonder why software doesn’t suggest you update when you’re DONE using it. Now as I’m typing this I remember that some updates DO and tell you “Don’t turn off your computer until the updates finish” and you’re like “I started turning off my computer because I need to GO NOW, I don’t have time to wait for you!” so I guess there’s no winning this, is there. But I didn’t think that last part until now, which is 12:05. Anyhoo. Scrivener opens up to a page on which I have mentioned Betsy Bird’s podcast and I’m like, well hey there, Betsy Bird just liked my tweet.

Start typing this at 11:57.

12 NOON

12:19— I’m not done typing about the time between taking notes and now, even though it’s only been an hour, but I notice how dark it is. I click the under-shelf light in front of me and watch it to see if it actually helps illuminate anything I need to see. Cheers the place up a bit. 12:21 I go back to where I left off. After I finish my smoothie.12:45 I reach for the smoothie glass to get the last drops. There’s a lot clinging to the side. I wipe some off with my finger and lick it. Then I decide to get a spatula. I scoop out the REAL last drops, then look at the dishwasher to put the glass and spatula in it, but it’s still full. I think briefly about calling the kids back down to do it, but I don’t feel like cleaning the rest of the kitchen yet so I figure it can wait. I find a cardigan and put it on before sitting back down at 12:49.

1:00 PM

At 1:06 I am distracted by a bottle of superglue. I play with the lid. I type this while holding the bottle, and make a lot of typos. I turn off the undershelf light because it’s looking dim and I’m just wasting batteries. I go back to typing. 1:15: I have finished typing everything between the morning notes and now. I realize my feet are cold. I dig a couple of matching socks out of the laundry basket of socks waiting to be sorted in the living room.

Then I debate. And hour and a half until I leave for work. How should I spend it? I look at the “Amy’s getting things done list” that Jason printed for me and I added to because sometimes our priorities don’t match up. Eh, nothing I feel a desperate need to do. I could type up my morning notes. I wonder what I’d be doing if I wasn’t doing this? Possibly typing up my dream journals. No, I MIGHT actually put on Betsy Bird’s aforementioned podcast and clean a bit in here.
1:21 Sam comes down and asks if I work again today. I say yes. He asks what today IS, I say Thursday. He wanders into the other room.

I decide I’m going to see what’s up with the internet. No new notifications on Twitter (well, since I sat down and saw Betsy Bird’s). 6 new ones on Facebook, but half are just alerts about activities in groups and one note about an application to our job posting on our library’s page, which isn’t my business. There is a message to the library’s page about looking for a missing cat that someone thought they saw in the parking lot. Someone else already responded to the message, but I look at the cat’s picture. I have no idea if I’ve seen the cat, only because there are ALWAYS stray cats in that parking lot and I’m not sure I could tell the difference. The other actually actionable FB notification is one from one of the Scout parents on the swim tests being rescheduled for Monday, but at a later time, which will be awkward with my work schedule. I reply that we’ll try to work something out. A notification pops up that Nathan Likes one of my photos while I’m there. I flick between tabs wondering if there’s anything else I should look up or if I should settle down and actually read a feed on one of the social media sites or if I should get up and do something else.

The act of observing changes what is observed! I can’t figure out what I’d be doing if I wasn’t typing everything.

I like a stupid Tweet from Adam Rex about Neural Networks and Neutral Milk Hotel, then flip back away from Twitter before I actually scroll down and get sucked into the whole feed. But I can’t think of anything better to do so I turn back and let myself get sucked in. I see some tweets that seem to be based on a misunderstanding of a thing and debate saying so but it’s too complicated and “well actually”s the joke the tweet was trying to make so I let it be.

2:00 PM

Phone rings, it’s Maddie’s friend Jaidyn, so I take it upstairs for her, then realize she might forget to bring it back down after she’s done and I won’t have a phone at my desk. I shrug and come back here. Why am I so cold? I think about checking the thermostat but keep reading twitter. I think about mentioning the pictures of flooding in the North Hills in these notes, but keep reading. Then I type this. THEN I check the thermostat. Jason has it set at 68. That’s winter temperature, when you’re bundled up. I change it back to 72. It’s cooler than it has been, after all this rain. I sit back down then glance down at my shirt, which I see now has a smoothie stain, then I remember that I’d meant to take a shower and change these clothes anyway.

Before I can do anything, Maddie comes back down and announces that Jaidyn has decided to come over at 2:30 today (it is now 2:05). Apparently Maddie had no say in this matter. I ask her to bring the phone back down, which she does. I figure I’d better stop and take my shower now before guests arrive. I wonder what the temperature actually IS outside so I know what kind of clothes to get because it’s so cold in here, so before I stand up I open the weather page. Currently only 71. I open the hourly forecast and see it’s only 73 when the library closes tonight, so I might as well not worry too much about temperature.

I head upstairs for fresh clothes and run into Sam coming down. We say hello back and forth a few times then go past each other. I see he’s left his bedroom light on and call back to him and he says, “But I’m already down STAIRS!”
“Well you need to get in the HABIT!”
I don’t expect him to come back, but he does, peevishly switching off the light with an “Un-lumos!”
“I think there’s actually— NOX, nox is the word.”
“YEAH!” Maddie agrees from her room.
“Whatever!” says Sam.
Saying “Nox is the word” puts “Grease” in my head. I pull out some light black pants (in material not color) and a frothy sheer shirt that needs an undershirt with it, dig out an appropriate undershirt, try to find a pair of black socks in the dim room, then come back down. I forgot these pants are too long.
Sam is now playing Super Smash Brothers and tells me something about it but I have no idea what he’s talking about. I report these past five minutes here, THEN I head to the shower. It’s now 2:19.

The shower is SOOOO WARM, why does Jason like the house so cold. This is the first I’ve washed my hair since it’s been cut, and I have to get used to the sensation even though it’s easier not dragging that rope of wet hair back and forth as I wash. I forget and use too much conditioner for this new amount. I hear the phone ring and assume it’s Jaidyn but hope the kids remember I’m in the shower and don’t expect ME to get it.
Just as I step out of the shower my stomach violently reminds me that a smoothie and two pretzel rods definitely is NOT a filling lunch. I dry and dress and leave the bathroom to clean my glasses while they’re still fogged up, then I look at the clock. 2:37. Jaidyn apparently called to say she WOULDN’T be here AT 2:30. I only have like ten minutes left before I need to start getting ready to leave… or thereabouts.
I make myself a pb&j. Sam comes in says “Hi human” and opens the freezer to get an ice cube to suck on. He luckily doesn’t ask for his own sandwich because I don’t have time. I wash an apple to stick in my bag, then write up this bit.

Maddie comes down and says she’s going to wait for Jaidyn at the park. “Is it still raining?” I ask. “No. It’s just a LEETLE bit wet,” she says. I close the computer at 2:49 and go get my shoes on.

My squishy insoles are in the wrong shoes so I change them out first, then I have to pull my wet hair back so I find some barrettes on the coffee table, then I head up to tell Sam I’m leaving. He calls bye without leaving his room. I then spot Maddie’s completed submission for the library’s upcoming fan art contest beside my bag and remember I meant to take it in, then our library book I need to return underneath it.

I leave through the basement and when I open the garage door I hear Maddie yelp. So I go out to check on her. She says the daylilies I’d replanted by the mailbox have died. I say that’s just seasonal, I hope. I go to kiss her cheek but she’s trying to hug me at the same time.
Then she says, “Don’t run me over, I’m too young to die, well I’m not too young to die but…”
“But in my personal opinion, you are,” I tell her. I get in the car, look for my keys in my bag, see that my mints have spilled in one pocket, find the keys.

Car clock says 2:57, so I should be able to make the short drive to the library and walk in and all the way up to the children’s desk by 3 if I don’t get delayed. Halfway to the library I realize I forgot my umbrella. It’s not currently raining, but it might be later. I’m so distracted by this that I even forget to flip radio stations to find something decent. I settle on Tom Petty’s “Learning to Fly.”

Someone took my regular parking space in the library lot, so I park further down. I get to the library door when I realize I forgot to stick a protein bar in my bag (we’re short-staffed Thursday so I don’t get a dinner break). Go in anyway— I have an apple at least.

 

3:00 PM

I’m about to zip through behind the main circ desk to sign in and run upstairs, but Elizabeth, the assistant cataloger (who actually works faster than the official cataloger, an old guy), stops me to say she finished processing the moon picture book I want for next week’s programs and it’s almost ready to go upstairs. At the same time Henry, our slightly autistic teen volunteer, tells me someone had brought in a Launchpad cord for me, it’s in a bag upstairs at my desk.
I can’t figure out why a Launchpad cord should go to me but then I realize, “For outreach?”
He’s just as confused by this response and says, “No, for a Launchpad,” but Elizabeth hears and figures out what we both mean and says, “It was a teacher who brought it, so probably.”

I sign in and head up to childrens’ finally. I see the bell out on the desk but not the “Please take all books downstairs to be checked out” sign, so whomever I’m replacing on desk up here must be around somewhere. I look around as I put down my bag and see Connie in the stacks. I pick up an entry form to the fan art contest and put it with Maddie’s picture, as Connie comes over and says hello. She tells me the books on the return cart have been sorted, and hands me the bag with the Launchpad cord, which obviously has more than just a cord in it. When I realize that “more” is SNACKS I know it must have come from Headstart Class 2, which loves to shower me with treats. So now I have more for dinner than an apple!

For once I remember I’m also supposed to do a time clock on the upstairs computer, while Connie gathers her stuff and says goodbye. I then turn to my desk duty computer and go to log into my account, which I’d left open but switched users on the other day, so I could switch right back when I next worked, but here my account has been completely logged out instead. But right away the two unsaved files I’d been working with pop up on the screen, claiming to have been autosaved. And I know the browsers (I use two different browsers at once, what) will have saved all the tabs I’d been working with, too. Firefox gives me a scare at first by auto-opening two separate windows: I find my tabs safe on the window in back.
I then go to open our circulation software, Polaris, but can’t remember where to find it at first. Finally I do and log in, check in the book we’re returning, and try to see if we have anything else out but keep opening the Item Records instead. I’m a little frustrated with myself, but eventually get it right and see we have nothing else out.

I decide to take my everything-that-happens notes in an email that I can send to myself at the end of the night, so I open email. After a pause a large number of new messages pop up in the inbox, and I say “Whoa” aloud. I decide to type this before I dive into those.

Beth, the assistant director, has sent me a draft of some cosplay rules we might use for the FanFest in September (the same event Maddie made fan art for). I open the file to look more closely at once I get through the other emails.
There are several back and forth emails about the lost cat posting on Facebook, because Peggy, our director, hadn’t felt the need to include the cat’s picture in the emails and people keep writing back to get more information out of her. Eventually Anne apparently found the picture and emailed it.
Elizabeth has sent an email to tell me about the moon book she’d already told me about downstairs (obviously the email had been sent earlier).
Geneva can’t find her personal ergonomic pen, which sounds cool and I wish I HAD seen it.
I respond to an emailed question about summer reading challenges, but just before I finish typing, the phone rings.

I burst out coughing as soon as I pick it up. It’s a grandmother asking if her granddaughter can still sign up for Summer Quest next week. I tell her there’s currently still space, but she’ll need to come in to fill out the registration form and pay before she’s officially registered. When I hang up I realize I should mark that down as a reference question on the reference question tally sheet I always forget to mark.

There are some noisy kids in the teen room, but none of them are actual teens. I see one kid playing chess with his dad. I go back to my email, realize all I had left to do on the reading challenge response was hit Send, so I do that. The last email to check is next week’s schedule. All looks good on my end.

Now I settle in to look at these cosplay rules. The two chess players come in to check out Bad Kitty and Frank Einstein. The kid is giddy and says he beat his dad with a pawn. I say that reminds me of Alice in Wonderland (or Through the Looking Glass more accurately), who played a pawn then won the whole game. The kid keeps nagging his dad to buy him a candy bar: “I deserve it after that win!”

I turn back to the cosplay rules, and realize I need to print them out so I can write on them, then Beth and I can discuss the notes tomorrow. Gave someone the bathroom key.

4:00 PM

Our volunteer Charles brings up books to reshelve and a bag of toilet paper tubes. He seems confused by tubes, says they were on the cart to come up, but I know what they’re for (crafts, obviously) and put them away.

At 4:17 I realize I DO want to edit the cosplay rules document itself, back on the computer instead of just the thing I printed, to reorganize and consolidate parts. I wonder how best to make changes and wish I had Scrivener. I settle in to cut and paste anyway.

I find a penny for a kid who needs to scratch off a gift card. A regular whose— grandson? I’m not sure of their relationship— has been zooming through the summer reading challenges, brings in some of his books to return and asks me to help pinpoint which challenges he has left to do—he only has four more things. I hang up his most recent review and move his rocket to the Exosphere (next stop, the moon!) on the space wall.

5:00 PM

At 5:05 Adam, cool geek coworker and also incidentally the close uncle of one of Sam’s best friends, comes up to get ready for his Tweens in Space program. I realize I’d meant to ask my kids if they wanted to come to that. I debate calling home for a bit, then do. Someone answers, but there’s no sound. Our phones have been doing that every so often, so I just talk, assuming the other person can hear me but I just can’t hear them. Pull out my cell phone in case they call back.

Allen, the actual cataloger, calls upstairs to have me pull Order of the Phoenix for someone who’s on the phone. I do.

A few minutes later Allen calls back up again. He says someone is doing a presentation downstairs and is looking for the projector. I ask Adam if he knows where the projector is, and he describes where it should be. I relay the info. Allen calls back a few minutes later because he still can’t find it. Adam goes down to find it for him.

By 5:30ish I have finished organizing the cosplay rules and now debate editing further or just waiting until I talk to Beth. I’m hungry. I eat my apple. Charles reports all books have been shelved, I go okay, he says "it’s not polite to talk with your mouth full."

I ponder writing an introduction for the cosplay rules, which reminds me of advertising, which inspires me to post a reminder on Facebook about the fan art contest.
Before I can, the lady who asked for Order of the Phoenix comes in to get it.
Back to Facebook, where suddenly the Scout leader I responded to earlier replies to my comment and the message pops up in a box at the bottom of the screen. I click out of that and scroll down the library’s page trying to find the last post about the fan art contest, which is somewhere down below all the 4th of July parade pictures, so it takes awhile. I copy, scroll back up, and paste it into a new post, but the link doesn’t paste correctly, so I scroll all the way back down to click on the original link and put it in fresh. I finally edit the post and schedule it for tomorrow morning, since our last post posted 2 hours ago.

5:50, back to Cosplay Rules. A mom asks if they can use the storytime bathroom. I look up and notice the storytime room is open, so I say, if it’s open, fine, go ahead! I assume it’s open for Adam’s program, but it’s very quiet down there. Did no one come?

6:00 PM

6:07: I print out my reorganized version of the Rules, although I haven’t fully edited it. I’ll talk it over with Beth tomorrow. I debate copying my handwritten notes to the new version, but set it aside. Might be better to write what we actually discuss tomorrow on the new version and just use the old for reference.

Now what. Ah, those lists I was working on the other day that autosaved! I look at the lists and remember where they’d come from. I’d run reports of the top 500 most circulated books in Juvenile and Intermediate Fiction in the past year, noticed they were primarily series books, and decided to sort them to see which series (besides the obvious, although the obvious are certainly included) are actually the most popular so I can be sure to keep them up to date.
Now to figure out where I left off. Oh, I skipped one the other day.
After I finish the J list, I realize I’ve gone through the I list in Ingram, looking for new books to add to our wish list, but I’d forgotten to write down the names of the series for future records. I pout at the list for a few minutes, annoyed to have to re-look stuff up, but suck it up and do it from the bottom instead, which feels different enough for my brain not to get so annoyed. I save the new lists.

At 6:40, the grandmother I talked to on the phone earlier comes in with her husband to sign the granddaughter up for Summer Quest. I realize the register isn’t on, so I tell them to pay downstairs and have the desk call up to confirm when they’re done. I try to put the sign-up binder away, drop it, then remember I need to wait for the call to mark “paid” in it anyway. Allen calls up, sounding confused about these people, but I mark the binder and put it away without dropping it this time.

Five minutes later, a teen who had been doing a presentation on string theory down the hall comes in with her family and Henry. Henry proudly proclaims he was the only attendee at the presentation but he asked lots of hard questions, then takes the bathroom key. The girl and her family don’t seem too disappointed to have only had one attendee for her presentation. The dad keeps trying to get a picture of the girl by the slide advertising her program on the ever-changing TV-marquee.

I wonder why I didn’t run the top checkouts list for YA. But I remember running that report, I must have just looked at it, said huh, then closed it again. When I run the list now I remember that I’d run it the first time to see if anything in the graphic novel section was showing up there by accident. I ran the graphic novel list too, but what did I do with it?

Adam comes back from the storytime room, now finished with his program. There HAD been two kids there, and they’d had fun making LED light circuits in the shapes of constellations. He says it’s super hard to make a circuit of Hercules though and they should probably take that off the list of suggestions.

I look at the YA report and it’s all out of order, what the hey. There’s no sort-by option. Why’d it do that? I try running a smaller list. Uh, it gave me j fic. Did I pick the wrong thing? Yeah, I did. Okay. A list of the top ten titles looks more accurate. Let me try 100. I finally get a workable list and transfer it to a word doc.

7:00 PM

Two teens leave at 7:03—pretty sure they were the only people up here.

7:16—I’m hungry. I choose a granola bar from the snacks Headstart 2 brought me and realize I should take the cord out so I don’t forget to put it away.

Still looking at the Top Circ-ing YA list. I am surprised Eragon is still so popular. Checked out 12 times this year. I note there have been a lot of checkouts of LGBTetc-centered books—most of the stand-alone titles on the list are. And somehow the paperback of Stine’s Wrong Number 2 has gone out 6 times—YA paperbacks never go out! 23—nearly a quarter—of the top 100 YA titles are by Rick Riordan—although a lot of those are checked out by younger readers, too, because Percy Jackson had been put in YA when maybe they should have been in I? So all the Riordan's in YA now. Twilight still has 5 checkouts, not nearly as many as it used to. A lot of books that are recent movies, and other books by their authors got a bump, too, which is very cool.

7:36, no one’s up here, I walk around to make sure everything’s cleaned up. When I pass the office I remember the glue planet I left to dry after my Family Night Tuesday. Still drying. I continue my walk, everything’s spotless. I’m getting cold, put my cardigan back on.

How to spend the last 20 minutes? Get curious what the top circ-ing YA nonfiction titles are since I never see those go out, run report. Oh interesting, top title, with 12 checkouts, is Python for Kids, which I bought for the library after I bought it for Sam. Second is a DnD sourcebook with 9 checkouts (Dungeon Master’s Guide is only 4 checkouts so assuming most people already had their own). Tied for third at 7 checkouts, The 57 Bus is in nonfic—people must have got that off a suggestion list, how’s anyone find it? Maybe the same suggestion list that inspired so many LGBTetc fiction checkouts. That’s tied with of all things Quantum Physics: an Anthology of Current Thought. Pretty sure the girl who did the string theory presentation must have been at least one of those checkouts. Cleopatra and Zombies take the next two slots with 6 checkouts each, then there’s a bunch of 5 and 4s—lot of fishing books, didn’t expect that. And the Monster Manual. Symphony for the City of the Dead, I’m glad has gotten discovered— I saw one of Sam’s friends take that out once. Sam has nerd friends and I appreciate that. World According to Spider-man. Then a bunch of 3s and 2s, a wide variety of subjects, I’m kind of impressed. YA nonfiction DOES go out! Somehow the Minecraft handbooks have been out only 3 times in the past year, which does not line up with how often I seem to look for them for people. Unless they were kept overdue for awhile. Which is why I was always looking.

Ten minutes left. I don’t know what to do in that time. It sounds like there is a meeting down the hall, perhaps I should check on them. Could’ve sworn I just heard people but by the time I get to the hall the entire upstairs is empty except for me. Meeting Room 3 is hanging open, I shut it. Come back in, turn off the fan, realize I probably could have done that when I got cold earlier. I figure I’ll go downstairs at 5 til.

I slowly shut down Polaris. I flick around to see what’s open in the browsers—a couple notifications in Facebook but they’re boring. It’s 7:55 now, so I send this email with these notes to my home email account.

8:00 PM

As soon as I log off the computer I realize I’d wanted to count the patron interactions in these notes to tally on the reference count sheet. Ah well. I pick up my bag and spin around and see Maddie’s fan art. I put the picture on the shelf under the desk for tomorrow and the form in my bag, and head down the hall, shutting doors along the way, admiring all the rockets on my space wall and the new books Beth put on display. I reach the bottom of the stairs and see the door to the tech room (where I keep the Outreach Launchpads) is open so good I can go right in and put the cord— oh where did I put the cord— I look in my bag and realize I left both the Launchpad cord AND my phone on the desk upstairs. Good thing I came down 5 minutes early.

I go back up and grab the items and head back down and into the tech room, and find the Launchpad in question right away. The area in front of the break room smells faintly of vomit and I grimace and get out of there. Dave the custodian is vacuuming, Allen is fussing around, Adam is closing the register. I spot my latest order open beside Allen’s desk and snoop in it happily. Adam looks up and says “Oh, you’re here!” as if he’d been waiting for me although he has only just finished the register. He asks if anyone came to the string theory program and I say just Henry but everyone was enthusiastic. Adam says good for Henry, always so dedicated to Teen Advisory Board stuff. I sit to roll up my pants (they are still too long) then it’s time to go.

Allen heads out first and just as Adam and I are coming out he says “wait, leave the door open, there’s a lady waiting in the lot because her battery is dead, but someone is coming for her.” She seems resignedly cheerful. She says “somebody left a present under your car” to Allen, but she’s talking about my car, so when I get there she’s like, “Not mine, I swear,” because it’s an apparently used (I mean, the lot IS really wet) condom behind my back tire. I nod an “okay then” nod, and she says, “Classy town, huh?”

I just get in my car and head out. “Louie Louie” is on the radio which always makes me happy. At the intersection of Pike I’m at a red light when I see a cat cross the street far ahead and I’m like Is that THE cat? But it’s too far to see. Farther up the street I see two girls carrying guitar cases, they look like they’ve just parted at the corner and are going their respective ways. I wonder if they’ve just come from lessons at the middle school, or did they have a band and were going home from a friend’s house? Or what? The radio keeps going to commercials until I get to the street below ours, and I settle on “Houses of the Holy” which I feel the need to play steering wheel drums to as I pause turning around in the driveway. I leave it on auxiliary for a moment thinking I should write down everything that happened since I left my work computer since that was a surprising lot, but I find I didn’t put my journal back in my bag. I turn the car off in the middle of the song then, but keep sort of beatboxing the guitar line to myself as I go up the driveway, stopping for the mail— a couple boring ads— and turn the key in the front door.

Maddie is drawing in her chair. I say, “I have a present for you,” but she knows me well enough not to get too excited, and I hand her the fan art form. She says, “oh good!” Jason comes in and asks for a hug and “how was work?” I shrug— it was kind of boring, but not bad. I take off my shoes and head toward the bathroom, when Maddie says “can you get me a pen?” And I’m like “don’t you have a whole bucket right beside you?” And she says no so I head to the coffee table and find her one. (I, just now typing this, notice the pen holder that is usually beside her chair is there on the coffee table). So I head back to the bathroom and now Jason is already in there and I’m like OH SURE, and he goes, “there’s room for two! And I’m done anyway.” Then he comes out and gives me a kiss and I slip by and have a nice poop.

I grab my computer and take it to the living room and type everything up. Maddie’s like, “I need your help, what does this mean?” It’s a
“sign here if you promise this is all your own original work” note on the fan art form. I explain it and she says “where do I write that?” and I say she just has to sign her name, and she’s like, “how do I do that, I just scribble my initials on my artwork to sign it,” and I’m like “no write your whole name” and she’s like “MADELEINE?” and I’m like “sure.”

It’s 8:45 when I finish typing everything that happened in the past 45 minutes. Normally we start story at 8:30. I call upstairs to Sam and go looking for my water bottle.

I get my water from my bag at the bottom of the stairs and sing up to Sam “Mister Sam-man” (to the tune of "Mister Sandman," which is pretty much my theme song for him). He calls “I’m COMING,” sounding only a pinch annoyed. “Turn off the bathroom light on your way down,” I say. “My hands are kind of full,” he says. “Well the bathroom light is kind of wasting electricity.” He is balancing his computer and mouse and headphones, and turns off the light with some part of his face. “Great! I say and we settle down.

We’re reading The Ear The Eye and the Arm. We’re starting chapter 4. In the first paragraph the phrase “energy from the sun” makes Sam burst out “They’re stealing MY ENERGY? I’m the son.” “You’re MY son, I didn’t say that.” A couple pages later Sam jumps and says “Look at the sunset! I’ve never seen a sunset like that.” “Sam, do you want me to read?” “Yes,” he quiets down. I’m reading about the blue monkey and point to the picture of the blue monkey on the cover. Sam glances at it then looks out the window again and says “The sunset is PURPLE! Maddie, come see the purple sunset!” Maddie gets up and comes around the couch, but first she stops to see the blue monkey on the book, THEN to see the purple sunset. “It’s very purple!” “Purple!” Sam repeats. “Purple!” Maddie shouts back. I keep thinking of the groupie in Almost Famous who keeps going “Your aura is PURPLE!” of course they’ve never seen that so I don’t know how they’re doing such a good impression. I sigh and ask if they want me to read or not. They settle.

9:00 PM

At about 9:15, two paragraphs before a section break, Sam bursts out “Watermelon?” “Can you wait TWO PARAGRAPHS, I’m actually hungry too, but let’s get to a stopping point.” I start the paragraphs again, where Mother says “That’s a good idea” and Maddie says, “Wait, is it a good idea to get watermelon? Or did someone in the book say that?” “That was in the book. Can I finish this section?”

I do, and then I go into the kitchen and pull out a chopping board and glance at the knife blocks. All the appropriate knives are dirty. I use the bread knife to chop off a hunk of melon and slice it.

Jason comes in and says he’s headed to bed to read to himself, and would I make him a sandwich for his lunch tomorrow. I hear him go in to say good night to the kids and Maddie suddenly shrieks. I cover the rest of the melon with plastic wrap and open the refrigerator. It desperately needs cleaned out. I move some stuff around to make room for the watermelon, then close the door tightly so it doesn’t bounce on the melon and pop back open. Maddie shouts that “Daddy says I can beat Sammy with a baseball bat if he doesn’t brush his teeth, as long as I do it quietly!”

Then I carry the slices to the table and we all say the word “watermelon” at each other multiple times in weird accents. I have three or four slices then decide I’ve had enough. I decide to go for a pretzel rod instead, and head back to the couch. I start reading again while the kids devour the rest of the melon. I finish chapter 5 right at 9:30 and say “Okay, everybody upstairs.”

Maddie heads up immediately, Sam messes with his computer some more. I go up and fetch their nighttime water bottles and bring them down to refill. Sam still hasn’t gotten up so I sing “Mister Sam-man” at him again. He scoops all his stuff up behind me as I get into the kitchen to refill the bottles, but what I really do is just add ice because they still have lots of water left over. I come back toward the stairs as Sam is rocketing back down them. He grabs something from the TV stand, what turns out to be his Switch charger. Okay then.

Back up. I deliver Maddie’s water bottle, then Sam’s. He’s struggling to plug the charger in behind his bed. “You get sleep tonight,” I say pointedly. If it was a school night I’d simply take the Switch, but I’m not too concerned tonight.
“Of course I will,” he’s still struggling with the plug, “don’t turn the light out yet.”
I go back to Maddie’s room and wish her good night and turn out her light.
Sam is still struggling. “Can you plug this for me?” he asks finally. I sigh and go over and get it in immediately. “Thanks,” he says.
“Good night,” I say, and turn out his light and shut the door, then I turn out the bathroom light which has been left on yet again.

I come downstairs, grab myself another pretzel, and take the watermelon rinds back to the kitchen. I see they’ve left one slice uneaten, so I eat that. I make a ham and pepper jack sandwich which I put in the fridge for J to take to work tomorrow.

I come back to the living room and see my phone sitting on my computer. Sam had gotten into my gmail (I use the gmail account to sign up for things, so most of the ads go there) on the phone so he could extend the parental control settings on his computer from its automatic shut off point. I’m about to close the gmail when I see there’s an email from Archive Of Our Own saying “a guest left Kudos on” my story-that-explains-the-end-of-Endgame and I say “Oooo!” and click the link just to scroll through my story again because I like it, but I’ve read it so many times I don’t tarry long.

I open the Weight Watchers app instead. I haven’t tracked anything all day... aside from, you know, tracking EVERYTHING I did HERE. I look back on what I’ve eaten and it comes out to 31 points which is decent. I go to put my steps in and I’m like I bet I have a lot, I did a lot of running back and forth forgetting stuff at the library, but there’s only 2300. Ah well. I’m about to settle down with social media when I decide I’d better type this up instead.

10:00 PM

Sam runs downstairs, says hello, and tosses a box of cereal on the couch as he runs for the kitchen. “That’s not where that goes!” I call, and he comes back for it and hops off to the kitchen again. I don’t even know what he gets there, since he is putting the cereal BACK. Since Sam is borderline underweight, I do let him get away with coming down for late night snacks.

I check Tweetdeck. All the feeds refresh in a hurry, but there are no new notifications. I check Facebook. There are 4 new notifications but the only interesting one is that Megan has tagged me in a post. It’s about librarians. The librarian in the post is much more lenient than I am, and I’m not even strict. I open Tumblr and find more than I thought would have been added since this morning. Some funny Agents of SHIELD posts, a couple cute Martin Freeman pics. More from Monday’s Legion which makes me feel emotional again. And ads that keep showing the Simplicity patterns I searched for the other day. I keep thinking somebody posted it and I’m like I just LOOKED at that pattern oh it’s an ad, dang privacy-uncaring AI. I scroll quickly through my Must-Read list on FB just to make sure nobody announced anything important, then do the same for the Must-Read list on Twitter which is usually more interesting. But not really so tonight. GeekFamily Slack, on the other hand, is doing a bit better. I respond to someone’s post that Paper Girls is being developed for an Amazon series with approval that, judging by circulation stats in my library, that should go over well (that would be according to when I ran the Graphic Novels list the other day, not tonight).

11:00 PM

and I’m yawning, so I shut this down and head for bed. I plug my computer back in, turn out the lights, track down my journal and water bottle, and head to the bathroom. When I get to the bedroom the clock says 11:34 which means I actually got to bed at only quarter after 11, which isn’t too bad. Go me.