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How many sick days is this? Five? HOW AM I STILL GETTING SICK?

Everyone always says your first year in a school is the worst, that you’ll catch everything. My friends, the second year is worse even than that. Your body is already weakened from the previous years diseases, your immune system shocked by the sheer volume of germs assaulting it.

For real though, either I’m a hypochondriac or there is definitely something just plain wrong with the air in my school. By the time February vacation had rolled around I was pretty much ill with a chest cold. Two days later, all signs of illness had mysteriously dried up and I was perfectly fine.

Now it’s Wednesday, two days back at school and I am already feeling sick again- achy head, runny nose, scratchy throat, my skin as white and dry as birch bark. I mean, I know schools are breeding grounds for germs and all, but the situation is becoming dire. There are only two possible solutions: 1. My body subconsciously does not want me to have wake up and go to work, thus making up illnesses of it’s own accord, or 2. The air quality in this school is extremely poor. And since I love my job, I’m going to go with the latter.

I would love to bring a humidifier into work to alleviate the desert-dry air, but humidity is not good for books and I have the feeling it would just amp up the amount of viruses and bacteria germinating in there. It’s also a bit disheartening when you hear the school nurse saying things like, “Wow, the teachers are just dropping like flies today”, or the secretaries lamenting that there aren’t enough subs to go around. (Speaking of, they better not have put the nutcase sub in for me today- I don’t need to go back in tomorrow to find children sleeping in the stacks and the computers coated in an inch thick layer of spitballs.)

What do you do when you’re actually allergic to your work?

Sometimes I think I must know what it’s like to be mentally ill.

I’m not saying that in a “I feel your pain, Prozac Nation” kind of way, or even a Britney Spears shave-all-my-hair-off-and-check-into-12-different-rehabs kind of way. I’m simply thinking that for the past 15 years or so I have been getting that montly visit that signifies that I’m now a woman and that I have God’s biological permission to procreate. And yet? Every single month rolls in and I spend a good 3-4 days as a crazed maniac bent on my own destruction. My moods range from sad to angry to chipper and happy to weeping and ranting, in roughly 10 minute intervals, with pretty much no reprieve until I wake up a few days later thinking, “Uh oh. I really hope no one was too badly hurt during that little Dr. Jekyll episode.”

And usually I think to myself, Self? This is really not a very lady-like way to behave. In fact, you’re probably making everyone around you want to murder you in your sleep. Sometimes I can even pep talk myself into being calm and normal- that is, when I recognize that I’m being a loon, which is not the majority of cases. But when your feelings are so big and they feel so true, it’s almost impossible to tell yourself that you’re being irrational.

So maybe I’m naive, but I’d imagine that’s exactly how mentally ill people feel. Or maybe they just never have that moment of clarity when they realize that everyone probably hates them? If only I owned a big drug company- all my efforts would be poured into a three-day a month Paxil formula. Well, that, and my birth control advent calendars- you know, where you get a little piece of chocolate with your Ortho every day? Oh, and there would be different “advent” themes every month- fun! No one will ever forget to take that ish if there’s little bites of dark chocolate and kama sutra leprechauns involved.

I am so going to be rich one day. Or ex-communicated. Whatevs.

Where was I? Oh, right. Anyway, if I seem like a whiny jerk-face lately, or ever in the past, for that matter, it is probably for the above mentioned reasons. All I can say is, thanks be that a good 55% of the people on this planet probably understand without even having to read this, and for those who don’t, sorry for the swings.

Mission objectives: To fully enjoy the allotted February vacation time
HQ: Living room couch
Known associates: Numerous
Field duty: Complete (02.17.07-02.25.07)
Status: Success

When I left off with the photo montage I had accomplished a fair amount of sitting around. I was pleased with my progress; I felt as though my vision of utter laziness was taking shape around me. Then the weekend came, C took Friday off, and all dreams of laying in a heap on the couch and practicing slowing my heart beat to a near-dead stop went out the window. Thursday night I went to the first meeting of the 007 Book Club, spearheaded by this woman. I thought it would be slightly odd to hang out with a bunch of ladies I had never met, but it turned out great. A few glasses of wine and some fun chat about The Glass Castle and all my fears of being kidnapped in Southie were alleviated. Now my only worry is choosing the book for the next meeting because when we drew for meeting dates, of course I happened to be up next. Representin’ fo’ the librarians out there, I best not pick a dud. Friday was spent running around the Museum of Science, taking in the new Darwin exhibit and observing some beautiful Galapagos turtles wander haplessly around a box painted to look like, well, a rock. Saturday we carted ourselves up to Portsmouth for some brewery action, had a delicious dinner complete with an assortment of “native New Hampshire cheeses”, and walked over to the Music Hall to see The Bad Plus in all their jazzy glory. Now, normally I’m not the jazz type, but The Bad Plus never fails to blow me away with the sheer energy they give in their performances. It was pretty amazing- not to mention, they played Rush’s Tom Sawyer. And then on to Sunday, when I arrived at my parent’s house for what I thought was going to be a quiet dinner with them and my sister but which actually turned out to be some kind of mini-family reunion party, where we watched Jackass 2 and looked at baby pictures. Happy birthday to my sister, indeed.

And now, and now. It’s snowing and I return once again to the land of the working. Don’t feel sorry for me though- I’m ready to help the darling children with their 5 paragraph essays on Egypt and their debate research on whether schools should have dress codes. I’m ready!

In other news, I am wearing boots that have fairly high heels today, making me roughly 6′0″. I’m used to towering over most of the students (esp. the runty little sixth graders), but wearing boots somehow makes me feel even more Amazonian than normal. They also make a satisfyingly adult click as I walk down the hallways: a departure from my normal Danskos. These are “in-charge” boots. Alas, they are also “twist your ankle in the snow” boots, which so far, I have successfully avoided. As the snow continues to fall though, the outlook on me making it to my car unharmed this afternoon looks grim. At least I didn’t wear a skirt.

Every vacation flies by and I inevitably find myself on the Sunday night before school starts back up saying, “What the hell did I just do for ten days?” Well rather than rely on my faulty memory to take a look back on the February Break of 2007 I put together a little montage of some of the finer moments. That is, the ones not involving Matlock and alcohol at 10 a.m.

Some Rochester peeps came to visit, so what did we do? Drank beer, of course! Fancy beer! In Brookline! God, we’re such good hosts it kills me.

Every baby shower should have a flowing fountain of chocolate. It’s good karma for the unborn child.

Uhh… babies also like things wrapped in bacon.

The little man had lunch with the ladies at the local Chili’s. Being the best godmother, I gave him his first mandarin orange. Being a handsome little devil, he flirted with all the old ladies at the next table over.

“So, NPW, what did you do on your break? 700 loads of laundry? Wow, I’m jealous. You didn’t even get a sunburn! Can I hang out with you on April break?”

The hallway of death. Carrying those 700 loads up and down these stairs = the reason I don’t have a gym membership.

After burning up all those calories doing laundry, it was snack time. Quandary: why is it that I am petrified of wiping up raw eggs from the counter so I don’t get salmonella, but I have no problem eating cookie dough immediately thereafter?

I think the dough was better.

Met C on his lunch break for some Burlington Ice Palace action- “Where Olympic dreams begin!”

The true ice princess. This picture doesn’t do her crack justice.

I wanted to document my skating prowess, C wanted to make it look like I throw little children to the ice. And anyway, so what if I did? They have helmets! Geez.

Netflix and FedEx and packages, oh my!

Suck on it, Sprint. Do your phones let me watch the Colbert Report on my lunch break? Yeah. Didn’t think so.

Still lots of things on the horizon: I’m working on getting C to skip out tomorrow so we can go see the new Darwin exhibit at the Museum of Science. This morning he actually said to me: “Tomorrow is the last day to close loans for the month”. When did we become grown ups? With responsibilities?

I also have a book club meeting tonight to talk about The Glass Castle (which I very much enjoyed, as I do with all miserable memoirs about people with lives so horrible I can only thank baby Jesus that my biggest worry is cramps). And Saturday will be a Portsmouth adventure as Part II of the anniversary celebration- dinner and The Bad Plus show at the Music Hall. And then a mini-birthday celebration for my sister on Sunday, who, although younger than I, is still old.

Oh, and lots more daytime TV. Ahh. The good life.

The Police at Fenway Park?!?!!? Oh, hell yes.

I have a few things of which I need to inform you on this wintry Sunday morn:

1. As of Friday afternoon, I am on Winter Break. Way to start it off with a bang, I am a stuffed up mess. Classic NPW. Fortunately for me, I have ten full days to sit on my ass and recuperate. Unfortunately for you, that may mean a mini-blog break as well. Oh, I’ll post here and there, but please don’t cry if I miss a couple of posts. My nose and my brain both need a little rest.

2. I am going out this week to buy this phone:

Yes, gone will be the days of hoping the battery lasts the 20 minute ride home from work because my phone is straight out of 1997. I mean, I’m grateful that my mother gave me her (v.) old phone to borrow after mine was so rudely stolen, but seriously. I need my text messaging back. And who doesn’t want a cool-ass flip out QWERTY keyboard? Whoo-wee, I’m a nerd. I briefly considered the Krazr, but once I held it in my hand I knew that all it would take would be one over-excited conversation for me to snap that flimsy little plastic thing in half.

Bonus: no more Sprint!

3. On Friday afternoon I got the official invite to be on our school’s team for the annual Town Spelling Bee. Please, try to contain your jealousy.

You’re probably wondering how you, too, can lead such a thrilling and satisfying life? A little friendly advice from me to you: treat yourself to a private viewing of Librarian: Quest for a Spear featuring Noah Wyle (heck, if you’re feeling dangerous and think you can handle a double feature, throw in Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines and make a day of it) and then sign yourself up for library school, ASAP. You can thank me later.

4. Thank goodness I don’t eat Peter Pan Peanut Butter, eh? And for those of you that do, maybe a bout of salmonella will teach you the importance of not buying groceries solely on what’s the cheapest/sugariest product available. Shame on you!

5. My agenda for the week is pretty full, what with all the movies and books piled up next to my sick bed. But hey, if you’re around and you’re free, give me a ring and maybe we can do lunch. Because I’m sure lunch with you beats anything my co-workers are doing- Aruba? Boring. South Carolina? Please. Hawaii? Pssh. One pizza trumps traveling any day.

Later, ‘gators.

Some days, my senior citizen volunteers drive me batty. And by some I mean all. Take, for example, Priscilla; while she is legally considered deaf, she almost always refuses to wear her hearing aid because, she says, “when it’s cold outside, it freezes to her ears”. And while she does make an interesting conversationalist (Me: “Priscilla, could you put these books back on the shelves?” Priscilla: “Pardon? The library is infested with elves?”), her constant shuffling about grates on my brain. It’s like she’s unable to pick up her feet to move around, so it’s a steady tssssh tssssh tssssh across the library carpet all day long. All I can imagine is that she must give herself some whopping static electricity shocks.

Then there’s Edna, who must be in her mid-nineties and no longer drives, nor does she have any remaining family that cares about whether their old mother dies walking in the sub-Arctic temps lives near enough to cart her around. When she talks, she can’t focus very well on you and so she creeps closer and closer to your face until you can see her pink rose Wet ‘n Wild lipstick smeared clownishly around her mouth, teeth, and gumline. She also has trouble hearing, but with her I’m not so worried about it because it doesn’t actually matter whether she hears me or not, she probably won’t be able to do whatever I’m asking of her. She can’t bend down, nor can she reach up, nor can she walk more than a few steps without needing a rest. So I basically have her sit and stamp things. What things? Just… things.

There’s also Polly*, who recently decided that she was interested in learning about computers but is one of those very rare people who actually can break a computer just by looking at it. Seriously, she needs her own episode of Heroes. I stepped away from my computer to take a bathroom break and when I came back I had to fill out three work order forms with the Technology department because she had somehow broken my mouse, keyboard, and barcode scanner in one fell swoop.

Why don’t I just trade them in for newer models, you ask? I’d say 10% of it is because it would be more work to have them stop coming in than it is for me to just endure their presence, 10% because they have interesting stories of illness and gossip (they’re better than a town crier), and the other 80% is because I feel bad for them. Besides, if I wait a few years they’ll all be gone anyway, right?

Right?

*All names are real. Seriously, they’re old.

Answer:

Last weekend I met up with a friend from New York that I hadn’t seen in about a year. I was pretty excited to see her, but the deal was sweetened by the fact that I’d also get to meet her boyfriend and she’d finally get to meet Chris. Sounds like a lovely weekend visit, yes?

The plan was to meet up on Sunday afternoon, but when I talked to her she was a bit dodgy and it seemed as though her boy was hesitant to meet me. Finally she said, “I gave him your blog address and now he’s nervous he’s going to end up on there.” I was momentarily speechless, and then, quite admirably held back a snort of laughter. I was (understandably, I think) both taken aback and amused- one, because in the grand scheme of things, the breadth and reach of my blog is very diminutive, and two, because what on Earth did he think I’d write about him? “Dear Readers, last weekend I met a man who is quite possibly the next Lee Harvey Oswald fused with Hannibal Lecter, possessing some of the finer qualities of Attila the Hun, as evidenced by the fact that he demanded that the restaurant servers bring him fresh raw meat and forced us to watch as he chomped it straight off a goat’s leg bone. Oh, and he was also making eyes at me and trying to grab my leg under the table.”*

Anyway, being the demi-evil librarian that I am, once I learned that he was nervous I’d write about him I was very much tempted to post Photoshopped pictures and intimate details about our little lunch date but I’ve been resisting that particular urge. Plus, he didn’t really give me anything that I could twist into something hilarious for the amusement of the masses. In the 90 minutes of our acquaintance he remained innocuous enough to fly under the blog radar- except I just had to write something. You understand.

*All of these statements are patently false. Except for the “making eyes” bit, but I think that might have been because I had a piece of a samosa on my cheek that no one bothered to tell me about.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I didn’t write about this on Monday in hopes that they’d check Monday, see that they were in the clear, and not check again today. But in case you’re reading this- Hi! And it was lovely to see both of you. For serious.

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