bedridden

caught the spring ick. went to work yesterday anyway, because i’d been to class alright and thought that meant i had the energy to run the videogame freeplay since mr. e was helping. as soon as i got there the meds i had taken right before leaving the house wore off and i began sneezing and coughing phlegm in all directions. i carried kleenex and hand sanitizer with me all afternoon but it was absolutely disgusting. lesson: going to work sick is not brave and sacrificial, but unattractive and embarrassing. and phlegmy.

which is why i am now in bed with my laptop and a pile of manga and an empty carton of chocolate soy milk.

still, the videogame freeplay went well, we had a larger crowd than last time and at least 6 girls to balance out all the dudes. they taught me how to play naruto on gamecube, which i thought would be stupid…but…now i think i have to buy it.

also out of the ordinary– we had coke with caffeine and m&ms along with all the pretzels and juice and several of the attendees got outrageously hyper which was a problem when the program was over and they were set free in the library.  they were shrieking in the teen room and i went in to ask them to lower the volume. as soon as i walked in they threw all the non-fiction books about sex under the table and started giggling.

i couldn’t resist. i said, “it’s okay guys. the books are there for you to look at. and- if you have any questions- you know you can always ask a librarian.” this nearly killed them.

no more caffeine. keeping the m&ms though. those are for me.

kara0ke revolution & making felt stuff

i’m a little behind. this blogging business is hard work sometimes.

so, last saturday i headed out to new library job to do some more orientation and also play videogames with the teens. the young adults. the adolescents. lately i have been having issues saying the word “teen.” it just sounds so…blech. pretty bad news considering it’s the first word in my job title. if i think of anything better i’ll let you know.

on thursday

we had videogame freeplay at work. i was supposed to help my esteemed mentor with the program, but she was scheduled to do something else, so i got to take over. i decided to go really crazy and set up the snack table against a different wall. we had a good handful of dudes (only one girl!?), but that was still pretty amazing considering that the date had been changed twice and hadn’t been announced in the newsletter. (newsletter announcements for programs are surprisingly effective, because parents are constantly scanning them for something- anything- to justify scraping their teenage offspring off the mysp@ce and into a library.)

i recruited mr. e to help supervise, which sure came in handy when two dudes tried to start a rumble. “hey…” mr. e cautioned them gently. “don’t do that…” dude #1 still got a wimpy looking punch to dude #2’s arm. we had to separate them: one to super smash melee and the other to guit@r hero.

one of the other dudes, a tiny sixth-grade, offered to teach me to play melee. he was a shockingly good teacher: kept freezing frames to show me the different weapons. later he helped us clean up and told me all about his fears that the world would end as well as his theories about global warming. also his opinion that we would not be getting any snow the next day, even though half the staff was already quaking with fear and discussing possible early closure for friday.

boy was he wrong. there was snow, and lots of it. but we stayed open, drinking hot chocolate at the youth desk and over-helping the two patrons that came in all afternoon.