Last night was the first meeting of my Reader Advisory class. I've been looking forward to teaching this class for almost a year now, so I was almost giddy with excitement by the time 5:00 p.m. rolled around and I could make my way over to the college. I have a great group this quarter, so I know we are going to have some interesting and lively discussions.

One topic came up after class, and I've thinking been thinking about it ever since: In fiction today, where are all the gay best friends (GBFs)? We see lots of examples of female main characters being supported by their female friends, particularly a large group of female friends. But what about the GBF? We've all got one hidden in a closet somewhere. Why aren't we seeing them represented in fiction?

Thinking back, only one book stands out in my mind as having a female lead with a GBF, and that was Jinxed by Beth Ciotta. That book stands out not only because it features Afia and her GBF Rudy, but because it also has a secondary plot/romance between Rudy and Jean Pierre (Afia's back-up GBF). The author continued the story arc about Rudy and JP in her follow up novel, Charmed, and will complete it in her next book, Seduced. In Charmed Rudy and JP are close (not quite best friends) with the lead character, and I expect that their friendship with the heroine of Seduced will be just as front and center.

Hmm. Still racking my brain for other examples of the GBF. In MaryJanice Davidson's Undead series Betsy does have a gay friend, but he's not really her GBF. Other than that, I'm coming up empty. Anyone out there have another example? Straight women of America are waiting for fictional representations of their GBFs.

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In response to yesterday's post, Wendy said:
You are not the only librarian with this problem. Frankly, I think the IRS should also send us a case of Jack Daniels along with the tax forms every year.

So true. Today I walked by our Tower of Taxes (kind of like Tower of Terror, only with smaller lines) and I heard two gentleman seriously discussing whether or not they should even file their taxes. Because the federal government wouldn't notice if one or two submissions never came through. It would be one thing if they were keeping track, but the federal government isn't big on the paper work. They just like the people to think they are.

I have a feeling there won't be a whiskey sour big enough for me come April 15.

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We are rapidly approaching the April 15 deadline for filing taxes, and the patrons who are coming in to get last minute tax forms are getting more bizarre as the days wear on. I'm use to people who wait until the last minute to file. My library stays open every April 15 until midnight so that people can pick up forms, photocopy, and mail there taxes right up until the very last minute (the post office sends a couple of staff people over to man a mailing table). I expect that even though April 15 is a Friday this year, we will be just as busy as ever. The thing that has really struck me this tax season is the number of people who have no idea that they need to file state and federal taxes. And not people who go, "Oh I didn't realize" and then take both forms. I've now had people argue with me about it. No matter what I say to these people they think I'm just screwing with them. I can't help but wonder if I am the only librarian with this problem.

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Unless you're in my LTA 190 class starting on Wednesday, ignore this.

I just received a heads up from the school that our classroom as moved. Instead of meeting in SRC 3060 we will be meeting in SRC 2636 (the LTA classroom). I'll post a note about this to the door of course, but I thought if I could save anyone a trip up the stairs I would. :-)

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Last night as I was sitting on my couch in my jammies reading Looking For Alaska and watching Walker, Texas Ranger (I lead a sad life, I know) when the fire alarm in my building went off. Now I like to think of myself as a good person who generally does the right thing, but I really didn't want to go outside. I was all comfy and warm, plus I knew that there was a 98% chance that the building wasn't on fire. More than likely someone accidentally pulled the alarm (It I does happen. I accidentally pulled my school's fire alarm in the third grade and still consider myself scarred for life from the experience.) or someone set it off by burning something in their microwave. After a few minutes had passed the 2% chance I was wrong started to bother me, so I pulled some jeans on over my jammies and went outside.

The parking lot was full, it was after midnight, many lights were on in the three story building, and yet I found myself standing in the parking lot alone. There were many pairs of eyes peeking out at me from behind curtains, but I was the only person standing in the parking lot until the firefighters showed up. If this was a one time occurrence I could maybe brush it off, but in the four years I've lived in the LG we've had several fire alarms and I'm always standing in the parking lot by myself. Why is that? Is it a cultural thing found only in the LG? Or maybe it is a societal thing? I've noticed that when our alarms go off in the library no one makes a move to leave. Heck, most don't even look up from their computer. And that has me worried. You just know that someday I'll be the senior ranking person in the building entrusted with the responsibility of getting our patrons to safety, but because I couldn't get anyone to believe that the alarm was for real my patrons will all get burned to a crisp. Of course I won't get burned because my happy butt will be standing in the parking lot, alone like always.

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I have a confession to make. Last night I realized that I'm the worst type of reader around: the incomplete reader. Don't believe me? Right now sitting on my nightstand are not one, not two, but three partially read books. That's just wrong. Granted, one of the books I'm not that fond of and may not finish at all, but the other two are rocking the house. It is unbelievably lame of me to not have finished them yet. And the books know it. I realize that they are inanimate objects, but it is like the covers are looking up at me (all accusatory) and saying, "What's wrong with you? Why haven't you finished me yet? This behavior inexcusable!"

I will finish one tonight. I don't know which one, but no matter what CB Scott's Scandalous Spirits or John Green's Looking for Alaska. Both rock, so either way I win.

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An FYI for Illinois librarians, this year's Caudill winner is Hoot by Carl Hiaasen. Ruby Holler finished second, Runt finished third, and The House of the Scorpion was fourth. All the voting details can be found at: http://www.rcyrba.org/pdf/2005WinningVotes.pdf

And while I'm on the subject of awards, David Gets in Trouble by David Shannon won the Monarch Award (for K-3 ). Second place went to Hooway for Wodney Wat while third place went to I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato.

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Man. What have I been up to lately? Not blogging apparently. But don't feel bad. I'm not just ignoring my blog readers. I'm ignoring everybody. Not by choice. This just happens to be a crazy time where I have a lot of balls up in the air. But I haven't forgotten you. In fact, I thought of you all this morning when something kind of heinous happened and I thought to myself, "I soooo need to blog about this." So I will (feel free to laugh at my pain):

This morning I was on the reference when JC came in. On average I would say that we see JC about 3-4 times a week. Today I noticed that he was wearing this skin tight t-shirt that was a tad too short on him. Actually, the shirt was a tad too small everywhere. And when you factored in the promising beer belly JC is currently sporting, the t-shirt left about 2-3 inches of beer gut exposed. And there I was, sitting at the reference desk, eye level with the exposed flesh and nowhere to look. I was horrified. But then it got worse. Whenever JC made a gesture to emphasize what he was saying, the gut would jiggle. The more emphatic JC was, the more the gut would jiggle. And I couldn't look away.

Here's a little known fact about gut jiggle: after awhile of jiggling, the gut starts to work up a sweat and gets a little itchy. So you know what the gut needs, right? Some quality scratching time. And that's exactly what he did. For fifteen minutes JC was a flurry of jiggle-scratch, jiggle-scratch activity. The amazing thing is that in the entire time he was at the library, he never tried to pull the t-shirt over the gut. Is it just me, or is that totally weird?

The glamorous life of a library diva. You're jealous, right?

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Yesterday our connection went down, so I had access to nothing. Not having access to the internet and email is painful enough, but whatever hit us also managed to take out our network access. So I literally couldn't do my job yesterday. It was the strangest feeling. I was able to take up a few hours of my day on the reference desk, but then I had to relinquish my post to a co-worker. After that I joined everyone else milling about the library, looking lost and forlorn.

It was a sad day I hope not to repeat again.

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