Friday, January 4, 2008

Time is moving, and I am dragged along...

I don't want to wake up, waking up I don't want to get out of bed but the alarm calls my attention. It is gray, wet and windy outside and darkness hasn't been broken for days, Hibernation calls, go back to bed, except I can't, my wife's alarm goes off and she is up, I really don't want to go to work. But I have to, I am the Library Keeper, the man with the keys to open up a world beyond the prison, I will go. The inmates bet on really bad weather days about who will show up, I have been there -- always, for snow doesn't phase me, 6.7 earthquakes only make me laugh (although, they turned me around at the gate), anyway, the inmates believe I will be there until I win the Lotto (and they know those odds, too.) At work all the busy stuff and I continue to weed the collection, did you know my Spanish readers check out their Mathematics books more than anything else except business books? Surprised me, but I have been working on increasing the Spanish collection's circulation - I am not buying more American novels intranslation, they don't circulate. I want more paperback books, cheaper to purchase and don't take up as much space on the shelves, but the publishers like hardcovers first and paperback the following year. I find some information and email the other lonely outposts of information and sanity in the other institutions (corrections and mental health) we are all busy closing up the last year in reports and statistics and starting the new one right... or close to that. Back home I find it tax time and download forms and find statements and empty spots to fill in, I could be that slug and go off and sleep, but the day wears on and Responsibility is dragging me, onward ever onward. Should I do something special this year (YES!) when (NOW!) and then I get dragged by Responsibility away from that fine foolishness... the little world of McNeil Island Library and its patrons has my attention, demands better and is never ending in its grip on my reality. How does one get out of this place, I do want a day off.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"Never underestimate the importance of a librarian" (or Library Keeper, in your case)

-- from my librarian daughter's totebag with a publisher's logo on the other side ... which I forgot.