Wheeewwwww, I’m a tired puppy.  I was sitting at the café working on my novel this afternoon after my volunteer shift at the library when I got this huge cramp in my thigh.  I almost shouted it was so sharp.  I had to stand up and stretch then limp and walk it off it was so bad.  I think I’m just low on potassium again so I stopped and got a couple of bananas and a half gallon of orange juice at the grocery store tonight.  

I went to the club and sat in the hot tub for about a half hour after HEROS was over.  It’s definitely the best new show of the season and keeps getting so much better each week.  Who knows what this show will make us end up believing by the end of the season.

Let’s see, what else is going on?  Oh yes!  Tomorrow is Tuesday and I am going to see Mr. Bob Dylan  I’m very excited about that.  perform songs live on stage.

There is not much else going on.  I’m liking the Cymbalta.  The depression I was in seems to have passed and I have some pretty steady energy, sleeping good, being able to pay attention and am doing everything I am supposed to be doing.  I still don’t have (much) of a social life.  Last week, going to the Roger Waters concert with my boyos was probably the highlight of the year for me.

Bad thing about the Cymbalta though, and I’m pretty sure this is going to become a deal breaker is it has got to be going straight to my liver.  When I was in the hospital to have my heart checked 3 months ago when I was on a minimum of meds my liver functions were high and they said it was probably just from my diet.  But Cymbalta is notorious for causing liver problems.  And my wonderful, attentive, caring pdoc, no matter how many times I remind him politely that I have a bad liver – does he write me an order to go to the lab for a blood test? 

Oh!  Listen to this.  Last Wednesday at the library when I finished my volunteer shift I spoke to the library manager.  Now don’t get me wrong, what I’m about to describe is something that I really enjoy about the work I do in the library.  I find it to be part of the challenge of the work, although, some days, like this one, it was rather unusual.  I come in to shelve books on Monday and Wednesday afternoons.  After busy weekends I usually find that the adult non-fiction section has lots of books that have been pulled off the shelves and left rather haphazardly laying loosely, not put back where they belong.

Well, last Wednesday it looked like someone had held class in a couple of different sections, like people had taken all the books of one topic off the shelves, laid them out in the aisle and sat down and opened them up.  When they were done they stacked them back up, kind of and put them near where they came from.  Well, virtually it was a mess and whereas it usually takes me an hour to reshelve two racks of books, plus clean up; this day it took me an hour to put away one rack of books and clean up. 

Now here is the catch, what made me comment to the library manager about this mess.  While I was shelving, before I got to the section where the really bad mess was one of the reference librarians led a patron to the back of this section to help them find some books.  She sped back out of that area after she was done and didn’t look at me or say anything to me.  What I thought that was wrong with this was did she even notice how bad that section was when she was back there and just didn’t want to say anything about it, thinking, “Oh, the shelver will take care of it?”  Which basically I don’t care about.  I like cleaning up those messes.  It makes the job more interesting.  No, what I thought was rather reprobate was what if I hadn’t come in today (because I am only a volunteer).  Or what if the rack of books I was shelving didn’t have books that went that far back into the section where the mess was and I didn’t even see the mess.

What I thought should have been done was if someone else saw that mess, even if it wasn’t their job to clean it, it should have been pointed out.  Not in a, “Hey you! Be sure and clean up that mess!” way, but in a polite, “Gosh, someone sure got into their studies last night.  Could you be sure to fix up that section please?” way.  I got the feeling that this woman was insensitive about the presentation of her library.  When I told the story to the library manager she defended the other librarian, saying that if it had been herself she would have reacted the same way.  That “the reference desk” is the most important thing in the library and that it must not go unmanned. 

Well, I think that the books in the library are a little more important and if it weren’t for the books we wouldn’t have a library would we.  Ok, now here is the clincher!  Today when I went in the library looked impeccably orderly for a Monday.  Usually there are 5 or 6 racks of books waiting to be shelved.  There was only one.  And it was juvenile fiction, a section that I rarely ever shelve.  I saw the other two librarians today but they hardly said a word to me.  I never mentioned the person’s name to the manager who I had been talking about before, as there are several reference librarians that work there at one time.  But while I was shelving today another woman that I don’t see there too often came up to me and said, “Don’t worry, Nancy (the manager) had me and Irene shelving and cleaning up like crazy today.  The place looks great!”  She is a little old lady and I don’t think she was supposed to let on to me about that.  It was weird.

God, office politics… and I’m the only man that works in this place.  There used to be another man who did reference who had been here for a long time, but suddenly this summer he disappeared.  There are two substitute men that come in once in awhile.  Men in libraries.  Hmmm.  I don’t think we are liked.