A visit and a memory

Stopped by the library to pick up my reserve of the new Murakami book, one chapter in and all is well. While there, one of the clerks, who worked with my on Sundays at the Hilltop, asked my if I missed public service.

After I laughed for about five minutes I said no. I do miss seeing the new, more popular work instead of the more academic materials I do process these days but there is no way I would trade anything now. The last few years there were rough. I was profoundly unhappy and should not have been dealing with the public in any way. My leaving was good for everyone.

Ten years ago, this happened. Here's a Live Journal entry about a typical day in the life of the Hilltop. Yes, it's more than a bit cynical and a bit hateful. Such was my life in 2004.

"Had a train wreck of a customer. She had us print up a list of the books she had checked out. Then proceeded to say that she returned about half of them last night. I looked on the shelves for one of them, it wasn't there.

She then went out into her car, a few minutes later came back with a huge tub full of books - including the one she claimed to have returned in the book drop overnight.

I overheard her talking to my supervisor. She said she clearly remembered returning one book in particular. That the book was so big that she hurt her hand on the book drop door. My supervisor looked the book up and said, "This book is a small paperback that cost $2.99."

If there was any liquid in my mouth, there would have been a spit take.

God, that was funny.

After she did her business, she asked if she could leave the tub on the check-in counter. For some reason, we did. A few minutes later an elderly customer dropped her copy of the latest Evanovich right in the tub.

I've never seen my supervisor laugh so hard.

We moved the tub off the counter after that. About an hour later, the train wreck came back, and was looking for her tub. Luckily I told her we'd moved it before her panic would set in."

No really, do not do this

Made an appointment on Tuesday to have my car repaired today. Took the car in at 8AM, gave them an idea of what the problem was. At 11AM I got a phone call with the diagnosis and quote, and was told the repair would be done today.

At 2PM I got a phone call saying the car could not be fixed today. The part came late, the guy who called me was mistaken blah blah blah.

Picked up the car and got an apology, which is not going to fix my car. I'm pressed for time over the next few weeks, they knew this, so I made an appointment with another shop. Told them I had no choice but to take my business elsewhere.

Ran some errands before going home and had a message from the owner on the answering machine (yes, I still have one of those), who wants to talk to me about my dissatisfaction and he ended the call with, "Hope you're having a nice day."

Uh, no way. Not even close.

Not going to call back today. Maybe Monday morning. Maybe.

Cranky in Columbus

The last few weeks, months even, have been a struggle. You can tell my the decreased number of posts here. Schedules have changed, then changed again and it's been frustrating to redevelop any sense of flow. So I'm tired and may be a bit burnt out.

I'm still trying to process one of the neighbor's adult children who noticed the door to my shed open and told me he was going to have to shoot that person before he realized it was me in there. A late afternoon stand someone else's ground west side shooting would have been a blast to cover.

At least I have finally made the calls to get some bids on pruning the tree in the yard that has branches going over their roof, and mine.

After falling asleep about 10:30 last night my son decided to get up at 3AM and stay awake until about six. I was not pleased by his random babblings, humming and various uses of Dora the Explorer dialogue. Ended up having to call into work, again, because of his sleep habits. It's very frustrating, has been for years. I've learned to not go into work sleep deprived because I'm a real pain in the ass to deal with. Might be easier in my current job, but not when I worked the circulation desk in the morning.

Did manage to get him on the bus then fell asleep for a couple of hours. Headed downtown to get some lunch, still in a mean mood but this beer at The Jury Room helped me out a bit.



Downtown looked good on an early autumn day. Columbus made me sit in the Commons and forced some Jeni's down my throat too, I hate when that happens.

That's perfect on this cold, dim, December morning

My son had the day off school today so it was my turn to look after him. I had a bunch of errands to run and I wanted to get them done early.

A couple of years ago I filled out an immigration form wrong and had to overnight an envelope to the UK ($42), the clerk at the Main Post Office was amazing as she helped a panicking me get the paperwork done to get it there in time. I had a thank you package to mail out this morning and expected a line at the Post Office. To my surprise, there was none and the same clerk got my package out to its destination.



Errand two was to get myself a coffee and bagel I went to Colin's Coffee. I do not get up here much, it's out of the way, but I really like the atmosphere. The owner and I follow each other on Twitter so I finally got to introduce myself. He said hello to my son, I explained why he does not converse. Colin asked if he could get him a book, and went to the bookshelf and got a couple of books for my son to look through.

This is the type of service and treatment I do not usually get at Stauf's. There you get your beverage in an assembly line that is as bitter as the coffee can be there. Have to get to Colin's Coffee more, it's worth the time.

Errand three was to the Schottenstein Center for OSU Hockey tickets. Got a pair for Friday night against Miami. Should be a great game. While at the arena we stopped to look at one of Archie Griffin's Heisman's. Someone's kid was not impressed.



A quick trip to the library and we got home before 11AM. Cold and miserable out there.

Tonight at Writers' Block Poetry is the Grand Slam for the Women of the World Poetry Slam. No fake feminists here, all eight of the contenders have got the motts, but only one of them is going to represent WB at the WoW finals in Denver. Starts at eight at Kafe Kerouac.

Mourihno is a bad man

When a place you frequent is having a bad night, you can tell. When you look behind the bar toward the kitchen there's a tension you can see. I'm not sure if the place was short staffed, or simply not prepared. It was busy, I've been there when it was busy and I'm still not sure what was different.

It took a long time for our order to be placed. We ordered guacomole dip to go with our chips and salsa. It never showed up, and we asked about it. There was nothing wrong with the food but it took its time in arriving. In the meantime, the Barcelona/Real Madrid match was on, and it was entertaining to see there was one Madrid fan watching. He cheered when they tied it up, then got sad when Messi scored the game winner. Then the game got all thuggish, a bunch of men waving their purses at each other and it was all over.

We waited at least fifteen minutes for the bill to arrive, and the guacomole dip, which we never did receive, was on it.

I rarely do not tip, and last night was one of those times. The establishment had an off night, as can happen, so we're not going to dismiss it.



A fine return to Writers' Block last night. Chet Peters strafed the stage with F-Bombs during his feature. Rose Smith wowed us with a poem celebrating her daughters. Marshall cam back from exile and gave us some Meta-Five! The Race War continued. Some time soon I may even post some pictures. Hell, I still have not talked about Theresa Davis' first draft feature!

Next week is the last qualifying slam for IWPS. Since I will not be in the country for finals (assuming I get in, and it looks like I would be) I'm treating this like the last official slam of the year. Take that as you will.

No One Sleeps On the Yellow Lines, No One's That Alone

After the flood hit the basement, out of the vinyl that was damaged and had to be thrown away there were two records that I really missed.

One was George Harrison's 33 1/3, the other was Warren Zevon's The Envoy.

A few weeks back I went to the new downtown record store, Spoonful Records. I found 33 1/3 within minutes. After speaking with Brett, the owner, I felt confident that he'd find The Envoy for me.

Yesterday I got a Facebook message that he found it, and asked if I still wanted it.

This morning, I'm sitting in the back room, drinking juice with the sun rising to my right and The Envoy is playing on my turntable. All is right in the world for the moment.



That's what I call great customer service. He's won my loyalty. These are not valuable records, nor are they the greatest music ever made, but they both have some meaning to me and having them on vinyl again is such a thrill - and that's what being a music fan and record collector is all about.

Next time I go there, I'm playing a couple of games of pinball!

I did some other shopping in the recent past. After winning IWPS we always talked about having a green jacket to pass on to the champion. That could cause logistical problems regarding the size of the jacket. There's no one size fits all here and I do not think a green snuggie is going to fly.

So I went looking for an object, a Stanley Cup of poetry if I may say so. After looking in no less than five thrift shops one Saturday afternoon, the object came to me, in the last place I looked, in the last store I was to look in before giving up the quest.

I sent a picture of the object to my friend Beverly and asked her if she would be able to bedazzle it for Writers' Block. Happily, she agreed and did an amazing job adorning it. Really. I did not see it clearly until I opened it up in the bathroom at Kafe Kerouac. It's an amazing piece of craftsmanship.

Last night I got to present Vernell with the hardware, that is now called The Uni. I think she likes it.

There are rules and responsibilities to owning The Uni, the main one being that it must be handed down from Writers' Block IWPS Champion to the next. There is only one Uni.

No pictures yet, if you have not seen it I want you to imagine what it looks like, but they are coming soon.

Philosophy, is the Talk on a Cereal Box

I haven't been punchy here for awhile. Or been self revealing in the form of navel gazing. While I'm in a good place, overall - there's always room for improvement.

There are things I'd like to write about, for instance, the Columbus Metropolitan Library levy, but anything I say, as a disgruntled former employee, would come across as me being bitter. So I do not criticize it, even though I'm more for the levy than I am against it. But, as I learned while working there, expressing any opposing view of that place was strictly forbidden.

It's not even that I'm censoring myself. I do not want to be negative. The trauma of being at my old workplace still exists. After three years I've finally found myself not flinching while being around my current coworkers when they talk to me, about anything. Only now am I coming to terms with it to find myself facing their levy campaign head on in the lives of the people around me. And I understand why it should pass, but there are still people there I want to slap with a dead fish. The bad stuff is not something that is easily let go, but this extension of my pain is not good either.

It's hard for me, like Edie Brickell, I don't get too deep. Yet, I do have my own passionate, yet often misinformed, opinions. Problem is, it comes out as anger, rage, a rant rather than anything with any real depth or intellect. Which is more about me than I care to admit but it's on the screen now.

The online interactions have all become a bunch of snarky one liners in lengthy Facebook threads, and they're starting to bore me. What's getting solved there? Opinions are not changing. I'm not going to retreat to this blog, shake my fist and give out links of things that I hate - there's nothing productive or remotely positive about that way of communicating.

The last thing I need, is a cell phone, another electronic addiction. I'm not a gamer. What I do here is the extent of my gaming. I watch very little actual television, outside of sports, and have no clue who these Jersey Shore people and their ilk are. Nor do I care. Why should I care about Heidi and Spencer, whoever they are? I read Entertainment Weekly and see the names and headlines and read that none of these reality people have done anything of any substance, other than making show. I'm not impressed. Television seems very boring now days and I'm better at entertaining myself than shouting old Nirvana lyrics at the world.

Sometimes I think even the poetry has suffered. Feel like it's rehash. Even when I challenge myself the results are mean. I can't even write a love poem. Should be grateful I'm not blocked. Stuff is coming out. Most of it I'd like to pitch. Some of it, I have not read in public and probably never will. Have I painted myself into a corner?

Never watched Lost. Don't watch Mad Men or anything on pay cable. Wish I saw The Wire, maybe I'll borrow the DVD from the library, but the rest seems a waste of my time. My dead boss used to say 'life's too short' before he dropped dead of a crack overdose at the age of 33 - and he was right.

I try not to pay attention to Glenn Beck, the group of inbred Palins or how the crazy folks in the Federal Reserve and Treasury have pushed this country into insolvency. At the same time it's so bad out there we've forgotten how to coexist. No one wants to share the $1,000 pizza though - and why should they? They paid for it. Then tweeted about it.

So do I lay on my deathbed wishing I had not wasted so much time on my laptop, or that I wasted too much time watching Gene Simmons' reality show? Heck, at least I did not do both. Now, if I could put myself in a situation to ditch both of those options for the real alternative - there's your hot action.

A Lot of Face

Went to an art opening last night at the Kiaca Gallery. The show is called: Through the Lens - a Portrait of 12 Artists. Great large format photographs of local artists from a diverse community. Writers' Block's own Scott Woods is one of them. Check it out at 937 North High. You can see Scott staring at you, like Chairman Mao, from the street!

Here's where there should be a picture, but life is busy.

Very happy to reveal that my Scottish Wife starts work on Monday at a local institute of higher education that is not where I work.

Had dinner at Z Pizza last night before the opening, it's about three doors from the gallery. We were the only ones in the place and there was a new employee taking our order very slowly as he was unfamiliar with the register. When our order arrived my wife's was fine but they sent me a large pizza instead of a small. It seemed we also paid for a large pizza, no one (including us) seemed to be paying attention. Management offered to refund us the difference or give us a coupon for a free pizza. We took the refund. That's how you take care of a customer. Well done Z Pizza.

Things are looking up.