Today I am sans clever title.It was a gray, rainy day today, which I suppose is still better than snow. Not a fabulous work day; I re-catalogued a section, only to discover that the section after it was equally messed up and requires the same effort tomorrow. Not that this isn't what I've been doing lately, cleaning up the collection before it gets packed up, but when I think some if it is done, I like it to stay done. These days, I've been cursing the school's librarians of years past for all the stupid cataloging decisions they made, as I'm sure librarians of the future will curse me.
I came across a book today with the purchase date written inside, April 1, 1946. This was not one that I weeded out; it'll go with us to the new library. Some of the old stuff should always stay. Some of it, however ... if it's never been used, was purchased before 1970, and isn't a classic of some sort, what's the point? Do we really need critical essays on Tobias Smollet? Or Ford Madox Ford? I think not. (I've been spending the day in criticism of British literature.)
The next few days promise to be on the annoying side, as the Colleague is going away to visit her new grandson and I will be there with the SCM, unbuffered. At one point today, she said something about being antsy to go and that she was being like him, pacing nervously. He said, Oh yeah, he's always antsy and anxious before he takes a trip. I said, You're antsy and anxious before you go home every day. To his credit, he did laugh; he said he's like tht before he leaves the house in the morning and his wife can't wait to for him to go. I'll bet. He certainly is nuts.
Let's take a poll: who can stand to watch the State of the Union speech tonight? As for me, I can't bear to look upon the face of El Presidente, let alone listen to him. Someone said at school today that she was going to watch it tonight -- okay, she teaches political science -- and I asked how she could stand to. She said she couldn't, but she'd assigned it to her students as homework, so she really had no choice but to watch it herself. I always feel that he's laughing at every person in America; he's put one over on us and we're stuck following the course he's set, like it or not. I detested Nixon, but at least he was an intelligent man. Paranoid, but intelligent. He was in it for personal power, but not personal gain, I think.
(Nixon, by the way, retired to a very upscale community called Saddle River, N.J., which is about 15 - 20 minutes from here, and was often seen in his later years taking his grandchildren to the movies in local theatres. With Secret Service guards, to be sure, but I think he just sat in the movies with everyone else. I couldn't stand to watch him on TV, either.)
I'm not coming up with anything else here tonight, even though I think I've got something there; I just can't seem to exorcise it out here. Ah well, tomorrow is another day.
