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I've got bibli-hos in different area codes
Sep. 1st, 2007 11:28 pm
I love libraries. If I'm going to be living in a place for more than a month or two, a library card is near the top of my "collect these powerful talismans" list.
I think I got my first library card when I was seven. I don't have it anymore; a few years after that, the Timberland system split its database off from the Evergreen and state government reference libraries and issued those purple cards as replacements. But I still remember what it felt like in my hand. It was green with white lettering, and instead of the tapered thin-profile form you can see on the current ones, it was as thick as a credit card, with a sharply-cut edge that showed a cross-section of its plastics (green on either side, white in the core). It was stiff, and would hurt your palm a little bit if you gripped it too hard. Which I sometimes did, simply to remind myself that I had a library card.
Anyway, the purple Timberland card that replaced it is the most venerable one I have right now, and I've had the number memorized since I was about 11. (Oh, hush up. Think about how many phone numbers and locker combinations you've had to remember, then get back to me with that raised eyebrow.) The MPL one (also memorized) has the classiest design, though the Cork City one gets big points for bilingualism. And my alumnus card takes home the "most ghetto" award.
Post one
So the weirdest thing about the Mississippi is that it's just kind of there. You know, it's this huge mythical thing, but it was also just like half an hour's run there and back from Macalester. It's all very mundane, except, you know, not.
Anyway, after I got back from a grueling shift at work (there are these, like, burst raids of people who have done their time in church and deserve some damn pastry, which gets kind of nuts), had my lunch, and took a 45 minute nap, I found myself at Liberty, with a clear blue sky and temperatures of around 12-13° celsius. So I went exploring. And it was very nice. When you get down to it, I really haven't seen that much of this city at all, and even less of the river. and it's always soothing to fill in some gaps. You go here, building. River, you go here. Street, you curve this way. Hi. How are you?
Seeing a place for the first time feels sort of like bringing it into existence, and it's one of my favorite things to do.
Post two
If you use Quicksilver and Growl, you can make them do these slick little popups whenever iTunes starts playing a new song. Kind of useless, but I like it. But for some complicated reason I don't get, the song info it displays comes out of Quicksilver's internal cache, and if you've added music since the last time it scanned, it gets these weird off-by-one errors that make the wrong info show up. But the errors seem weirdly intelligent. For example, it apparently knows that members of B'ehl went on to form Paper Moon after the band broke up.
