Last night, after I posted, the Colleague called and we talked for about an hour. It seems necessary now that all we get in school is the occasional wave of a hand. I'm normal busy for this time of year, which I like very much, but she is insanely busy in her new, out-of-the-library job. There are fewer secretaries handling more work, plus her direct boss is new on the staff, so the Colleague has to show her the ropes while doing her actual work, plus there's a new phone system in school which she seems to have become in charge of managing. I was in and out of the office several times today, and I only saw her once without a phone to her ear.But she told me last night about a comment that Bully Man -- the obnoxious administrator who pulled some fast ones last year and made some ill-advised and heavy-handed decisions for the library -- made about something I said at the faculty meeting. So even though I was absolutely exhausted, I just could not fall asleep; my mind kept working on possible comebacks to him today when he inevitably tried to make my life miserable. But he must have been busy, because I passed him here and there in the office and the halls and he didn't say a word to me. I guess he reserves that for when things are slow and he needs entertainment.
I also found out the the source of my non-involvement with planning the new library was most likely my former boss, The Psycho. She knew how much I needed to be involved, and even asked me for input, but it was always ignored. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and assumed it was the higher-ups ignoring her, but I found out that several either people were given free reign by her to design their new spaces. So the power was with her after all. She was always sweet as pie to my face, but I never trusted her and believed whole-heartedly that she was the spawn of Satan, so maybe she figured it out. I'm wondering if part of my problem with my new boss is that she praised me to the skies to him -- I was sitting right there, silently begging her to stop, and sometimes not silently -- and he thinks I was one of her favorites. None of her favorites are doing very well in the new world order. Sucks to be me, I guess.
Just saw a commercial for the movie All the King's Men. I should probably read the book again before I see it, but here's my ATKM story. I had to read it for senior English in high school, but I just could not make myself finish it in time for the test. I got the Cliff's Notes -- that's the cheater's resource, if you're unfamiliar with it -- and spent the night before the exam reading all the chapter summaries. I got to the end and said "This must be a great book!" The next morning I took the exam -- passed -- and the next two nights I stayed up late finishing the book. Awesome book. I re-read it every summer for the next four years, and oddly enough, so did the Hubs, although we were not in contact during that time, and we hadn't been in the same senior English class, but in two different classes taught by the same teacher. The only difference is, he read it the first time before he took the test and not after. I don't know that I could get through it again, now, though. R, coincidentally, had to read it for freshman English in college and has read it several times since then. (That's the only time I ever used Cliff's Notes for anything in my life. It was an interesting lesson for me.)
Back to work is, as usual, playing havoc with the delightful routine I establish every summer. Either I fall asleep at 9, or I'm exhausted at 9 but can't sleep, and I wake up before my alarm every single day. I can control my eating/snacking during the day, since I'm limited to whatever I bring with me, but once I've had dinner, all bets are off. And here's the one thing I will absolutely not miss when I retire: having to tell someone when I'm going to the bathroom. Which is particularly annoying to me because I go so often, but just having to say to the SCM "I'll be right back" before I leave the room is ... I don't know, is it degrading? It's certainly common courtesy not to just walk out without a word; he tells me when he's leaving the room, too, because one of us always has to be there so we kind of need to know. But I swear I go more often when I'm there, or maybe I just didn't really notice it when I was home and relaxed.
Have I mentioned that SCM is now wearing his hair in a ponytail? So, whereas he used to look something like this:
it's now a little closer to this:
