The Stupor of Love

Really. I should be working being that I am at work. But I have a problem concentrating and staying awake.  I can make some busywork for myself but I’d rather just sit here and pontificate.   I swear this will be the last sophmoric act of blathering for at least the next few days.  I was chatting online with the ex “boyfriend” (loosely termed)  and noting how for all those years I never felt that he returned any of the love I was giving him . He simply did not. It was quite frustrating to say the least. It lead me to do many self destructive acts, and now I marvel at the power he held over me.  As in “what the fuck????”  Anyway, his response? “Sorry. We were just looking for different things. “

Yes. Yes we were. I could say I regret having wasted all that time but then if I had done things differently I might not have ended up where I am now; things work out according to their own plans.  We make choices and we have power to make choices but still there is a randomness that oversees everything we do. Which was the thought that was ringing in my head as my body melted into S. yesterday afternoon…. all of those moments before, everything before, comes crashing into this moment – it all disappears and here we are right here, right now.  Having someone return my affection is pretty amazing - the heady first glimmer of connection, intense.  Thus, I walk around in a stupor associated with the emotions, the lack of sleep, the excitement, the raw physicality of it all. Raw. Open. Juicy. Head floating off like a balloon. Everything seems so much more.

Incoming Reference desk phone call as I sit here writing:

The lady we refer to as “the reference lady” just called.  She always opens with “Reference please” and then asks the weirdest or most mundane questions (never know what she’s going to ask). She then uses the question as a jumping off point to start digging into the personal lives of the poor saps who get her calls – she calls all the branches systemwide – she is a legendary figure. The last time she called here I passed her off to our poor student assistant, David.  I couldn’t deal. He took her question which was a mundane phone number request but then she segued into asking him if he thought it was proper for family members to fart in front of each other. Her exact question to him was “Did your father pass gas in front of you when you were a child?” “Do you think that is acceptable?”  Poor kid. He tried his best to be polite but he was visibly shaken by this interaction. Fortunately, it was closing time so I told him to cut her off and tell her he had to go.  Just now she simply wanted the definition of “ora pro nobis”.  It’s Latin for “pray for us”.

Oh, and if Pablo Escobar wasn’t dead (zombie maybe???) I’d swear he just walked into the library.  Pablo wants help creating a restaurant menu – he does not know how to type or how to use a word processing program and speaks little English.  I set him up on a computer as he eyes my cleavage which is out in full force today… ughh. In the end,  I help him above and beyond what is expected of me because he seems like a nice person who needs that little bit of extra help to open his pizza restaurant and pursue the Great AMERICAN DREAM!!!   Just doin’ my part here.  Holding out my hand to the masses, offering to lift them up and into the light of “how things work”…..  These are nuggets – maddening nuggets – of work in the public library.