Don't look now...

I feel like most of the things I've written in this space about my job have been relatively negative. The learning curve has been steep, in some respects, and it's been difficult having to figure out everything on my own, knowing that in a lot of cases I'm reinventing the wheel, so to speak. I'm still disappointed in the level of commitment from the administration and the fact that I have no budget. I'm constantly trying to stay on the sane side of the border between engagement and obsessiveness. I lie awake at night mentally scheduling student workers or planning presentations. I'm still annoyed that I got stuck delivering the Constitution Day lecture.

And yet a funny thing has happened over the last couple of weeks. While all of this other stuff was going on, I think I became an official academic librarian. And, right now, at least, I like it.

The first couple of weeks of the semester were completely hectic. I was scrambling to find student workers to cover all of the available shifts (I still have one open). I was grappling with the copy machine that was recently moved into the library and which was jamming approximately every five minutes. I was breaking the bad news to every student who entered the library that not one but both of my printers were broken. I held a workshop that no one showed up for.

But then last week, I taught a session on website evaluation to three sections of freshman comp students that didn't suck. I gave a reasonably coherent presentation on the First Amendment and the arts, and 25 or 30 people showed up and a couple even asked questions or said "nice job" in the halls. The chair of the humanities department, who is an absolute godsend and my favorite person in the whole school, is recommending me for projects and getting me involved in things left and right: the literary magazine that one of the communications teachers is starting, a scavenger hunt activity with her freshmen comp students at the main Chicago Public Library, evaluating thesis statements for her freshman research papers. I'm somehow doing the camera work for the humanities department entry in the big faculty art show (they're telling jokes on video and calling it a performance piece). Today I co-moderated a faculty/student book discussion that one of the instructors organized (we're reading Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere) and did a last-minute presentation on resources on contemporary non-Western artists for an art history class.

I'm tired as hell and I think I may be developing an ulcer. But I'm also having fun. Which is such a relief. So I wanted to put it all in writing, in case next week I'm back to wondering what the hell I'm doing with my life. I don't think the library school tuition was in vain after all.

Van Morrison is stalking me

Monday I was having a relatively crappy day (the new semester has been a crazy combination of fun and hectic and frustrating and infuriating--this was one of the frustrated days). I went to the Potbelly sandwich place on Wabash to drown my sorrows in a pizza on wheat (no pepperoni) and read my book (My Friend Leonard by James Frey, which didn't suck, despite the Oprah debacle). Potbellys tend to have live music performed by nondescript musicians perched on these loftlike structures above the booths. I wasn't paying much attention to the one there until I heard a familiar phrase--he was playing "Into the Mystic." Odd how much a song that I rarely hear has come up lately. It always makes my day.

This week's sign that the apocalypse is upon us

This week I ran out of new things to read, so I grabbed an old standby, Charles Baxter's The Feast of Love, from my shelf. This book is possibly my favorite of all time--it's that good. (Seriously. If you haven't read it, go get it. I'll wait.)

I finished it yesterday and was basking in the glow of having read a damn good book, both well written and with a reasonably happy ending. This book makes me feel good every time I read it. I can't say enough about it. I picked up the Trib and was scanning the movie page when I noticed an upcoming release called Feast of Love. Cause for concern. I made a mental note to check IMDB and make sure that it was something different.

Before I had the opportunity, however, the TV show I was watching cut to a commercial and I heard the generic movie announcer voice say "Bradley Smith couldn't catch a break..." And I seriously almost threw up.

I'll probably have to see the damn thing, because I'm sadistic in that way. It looks like it might be a cute enough romantic comedy, if it wasn't based on a damn good work of literary fiction. It's got fucking Greg Kinnear in it, for god's sake. And Morgan Freeman, which is fascinating, because there are no older black male characters in the entire book. I have a feeling he's supposed to be the older Jewish neighbor, Harry Ginsburg--yeah, according to IMDB, his name is Harry Scott. And don't even get me started on the fact that Selma Blair is playing Kathryn. Or that some fucking blond kid is Oscar. Or that they used the dog story, which is one of the best parts of the book, as the cute part of the trailer.

Read the book. Share in my misery. I thought better of Charles Baxter. I'm feeling very disillusioned right now. If they make a movie of The Paper Anniversary (the other in my top two) I may well jump off a bridge.