I'm trying really hard not to use post titles like "I Think I Can, I Think I Can" or "Crawling to the Finish Line", because I know I'll go back to past Novembers and find the exact same post titles. Does anyone feel like they're finishing strong? I've felt pretty good from a blogging perspective this month this year, but I am running on fumes at this point.
I am also still reeling from Engie revealing that her library makes people go to a desk and show their card to an actual person to retrieve their holds. What? Why? At my library it's a few rows of shelves in the middle of the main room, and you just find your label - the first four letters of your last name and the last four letters of your library card - and take your books. The machine won't let you check out books that are on hold for someone else so that's not a concern - wait, Engie, do you have to go to a real person to check OUT your books too? Doesn't that just unnecessarily make more work for the library staff? Okay, obviously it's fine, I just really like to dart in and out of the library without anyone seeing or commenting on my pile of holds that can barely fit in my arm-span. What's it like for the rest of you? Am I making too big a thing out of this? It's quite possible I am.
When Angus was in a growth spurt, more than once he gallumphed up the stairs and bounced off both walls to the point that he knocked pictures off. I found this simultaneously infuriating and amusing. Today I chucked a giant package of Costco toilet paper onto the stairs and knocked off the Eve of those pictures where the letters are made out of objects found in the world - like this except mine was from a craft show and I'm a little crestfallen that you can get them on Amazon now - and the frame cracked. Matt has already repaired it once and thinks he can repair it again. Embarrassing, though - I don't even have a growth spurt to blame it on. Well, not one I want to admit to.
What is Dubai chocolate and why is it suddenly everywhere?
I know habits are very hard to break. I have several habits I have tried to break and have either not successfully broken or have found really really really difficult to break. There are two that were much easier than I expected them to be. The first one was leaving only one space after a period instead of two. I was finally convinced that since I was no longer typing with a manual typewriter there was no reason for the second space. I though it was going to take forever to learn the change. It wasn't hard at all. The other one was not scrolling on my phone in bed when I wake up anymore. I have a weird relationship with sleep and I really never wake up feeling rested, and a few months or a couple of years back I started looking at my phone thinking it might be a nice way to wake up gradually ("oof", Eve winced when I told her this, "rookie mistake.") It was not. It was just an earlier start to doom-scrolling, and my hands would go numb, and I would be even more frustrated with myself by the time I got up. So I decided to stop and just... did. I still scroll more than I would like, but at least I've pushed it later in the day?
Two down, four hundred and ninety thousand to go.
Someone named Julie2343 who sounds like she should be a bot but is not suggested I read The Correspondent on my post about sending postcards - just finished it! I love a good epistolary novel. I love the word epistolary. I don't love the word epistle, though. Not sure if it's the way it sounds or my religious trauma. I'm tired.
11 comments:
You need a person to check you out at my library, whether it's a hold or something you picked off the shelf.
I TOO had to break the two-space habit!! I remember it was VERY DIFFICULT at first, but then surprisingly quickly done, and now we are mad youthful with our typing habits.
I TOO have wondered about Dubai chocolate. My sister-in-law, who says it is because there was some viral video about it, bought us a TWENTY-DOLLAR bar to try at a recent family get-together. It was...quite good. Very nice. Not worth $20. It's just chocolate stuffed with pistachio paste. Pistachio paste seems kind of mild to make such a fuss over.
My library also makes people check out their holds. The justification is that if we check it out for you before we put it on the hold shelf, it theoretically shortens the time you have the book (like if you pick it up a week later---then you only have one week left). But this is because we don't have self-check-out! If we had self-check-out, we would let you do it like that! It's just, our town is cheap, and keeps voting down the library funding.
Ohhhhh, that makes sense. In a sucky kind of way.
Apparently I need to check my Canadian library privilege.
Yes, I get my books from a librarian and they check it out for me. I vaguely remember machines being used in the downtown Minneapolis library right before we moved, but i have to check out all my books with an actual person. No machines here in Nowhere, USA.
That's why the library director knows I like books about dragons. It's also why one lady knows I pick up my books before my fitness class on Tuesdays. Small Town life is real, yo.
My library holds are for three days only. If you haven't picked them up by then they go back on the shelf. All books and materials are self-checkout. There are no fees for late books and they just changed renewals to be for three years instead of a single year, as it was before. My library is great. - D in Texas
I have library privileges at two different library systems, and BOTH of them have your set up: shelves where all the holds are alphabetized by checker-outer's last name, complete with the little white labels on the bindings. I do not have to talk to ANYONE, which is my preference. Same with checking out books from the library: everything is computerized. I mean, you have the option of talking to a librarian, but you can just scan your books yourself.
Like the poster above, I have borrowing privileges at two different systems. At one, most of the holds that we get (if they're from the library's other branches) are on shelves and we can get them ourselves and check them out on the machines. If the holds are, say, from a different library system in the state, sometimes they're behind the desk and I have to get it there. At the other system, so far all the holds I've picked up have been on self-serve shelves and I use the machines to check them out.
In Calgary there was a self checkout but here there is not. It turns out it's nice, because I have gotten to know the librarians here. In both places, there is a shelving area that has holds, and all the holds have a piece of paper with names on them. I pick them up and then check them out.
I had to break the double space habit when I started working for YMC. It wasn't as hard to break as I thought it would be.
I legit had no idea there were self-checkouts at libraries. I mean, I guess it makes sense but also I LOVE my librarians. We have such great conversations, they all know my name and it gives me warm fuzzies when I walk in the door and they IMMEDIATELY turn to the holds shelf and grab my stack. I feel so known and seen and appreciated. Also, I know I help my branches stats. I don't even get a sideways position on a shelf. My stack is always so big it gets turned the other way and is put on a separate bottom shelf! I feel like a rebel (which I am not) but, again, it thrills me in its own way.
I once took a class in some sort of psychology wherein the professor assigned us a project to break a habit of ours. I tried like hell to stop swearing and employed several different methods from the course, tracking my (lack of) progress. It was a complete failure.
I aced the class, though.
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