Wednesday, August 31, 2011

When someone shows you who they are, please believe them...

Funny how life throws some stuff at you and says, "Here, catch this one if you can..." 

 I was muddling through with the person that I had been seeing. Just muddling as it seemed that he slowed down his pace when it came to asking me to get married. He was hiding behind the response of his youngest daughter, well, maybe not actually her response as she didn't even know that we had been seeing one another... He said that she wouldn't be ready. That she wouldn't understand. That she needed more time to adjust to being around me and my daughter.

Problem is, my daughter is looking for a nuclear structure to attach herself to and that setup would make her feel like she'd found it while giving him the comfort of playing house sans the commitment. What's a girl to do?

Step.

But that's not exactly how it went down.  I went to a women's conference for my union and there he was. He was tall, attractive and funny and he was sitting right at my table. He mused on life, work, union issues, and plans of finding a wife. Excuse me? Did you say wife? Not playmate for your daughter or someone to call up to hang out, but wife? I almost wanted to take his picture as you just hear that anymore.

So this has eased me out of my dead end relationship and even if this guy isn't the one, he's a nice placeholder that reminds me that there is someone out there for me who doesn't want me to compromise my wants for his.

Friday, July 8, 2011

To Waldorf or not to Waldorf... That is the question.

Okay so, here I am. After the ass has dropped out of my life.
Single parent? Check.
Still working? Check.
Rebuilding after losing my mom? Well....
Well... Is there an un-check? The financial business of my mom's passing has been heavy on me. I remain calm for the most part, I suppose... It all depends on what calm looks like for you.
So, paying tuition has been on my mind - not at the forefront - just kind of kicking around in there. I don't know how to wrap my mind around the amount of money coming out of my pockets each month as I try to hold it all together.
Then you marry that with the reality that I walked out of the financial aid meeting well aware that I was a series of routing and account numbers to my daughter's school.  The school is volunteered for weekly for two years.  The school I wanted her in since she was walking.  This is my repayment.
Well, I've got to do what's best for my sanity, which will trickle down throughout the cracks of my family.  So it's looking like it is time to turn in my Waldorf fantasy.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Where's the scouting badge for this one?


I know that it has got to be happy hour somewhere! Sheesh! Today is the last day of my daughter's Girl Scout troop for the school year. And every meeting day is the same for me as the leader of the troop. It looks a little something like this:

Step 1: Wake up.
Step 2: Volunteer at the school
Step 3: Run around prepping for the afternoon scouts meeting
Step 4: Meet
Step 5: Breathe
Step 6: Carry on with other runs for my daughter

And today was no different. The only thing was adding work at the library into the mix. Can a sistah catch a break?!

I spent the morning hovering over the reference desk while sorting out Girl Scout cookie sale incentives. Talk about multi-tasking! Tomorrow is the free movie day for the girls who sold more than 300 boxes of cookies and I cannot wait. Maybe that's because it will signal the end of the scouting year. Just in time, too, because I am exhausted!!!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Now let's work!

So here we stand. I've made it through the fog of the union nominations. I was voted in as a steward to represent my Manager and Coordinator peeps and I am thrilled. No position that I have held within the UAW gave me as much pleasure is the time in which I served as the steward previously for the Librarian I-IIIs.

I have missed the grievances and the negotiation process. So now I will be back in the fray. There is no time like the present because the library is in a state of peril.

Peril? Did someone say peril?

Otherwise, my life seems to be righting itself. The drama seems to be slowing and my tolerance for it is building back up I suppose. I feel like I have something that looks like a plan in place after my mom's passing and the pillaging of my home space.

I feel like I am done. I have stuck it out in this place through the good, the bad, and the ugly. I don't owe anyone else anything else. I gave it the college try. I can no longer afford to suffer and make my daughter suffer as I see the community crumbling around me.

The schools here suck to say the least. I cannot even tell you what I pay for my daughter's tuition. They want to pare down library services to the bone. Not to mention that there aren't even adequate street lights on my block. So I have some decisions ahead of me.

In the words of Diddy... Now let's work.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Solidarity Forever

Tonight's union meeting will be historic. A changing of the guard will be taking place and I have never been more in love with the UAW.

I've been a UAW librarian for almost seven years now and wouldn't have it any other way. When I came to my library, I needed to get involved. I had a passion for knowing the innerworkings of the organization.

After all, I had just left a place where people were angry and threatened to organize, but never did. They continued on as sheep. Unhappy, but afraid nevertheless. So when I came aboard The Titanic (as I have so lovingly nicknamed my job), I landed at the desk of our local's president. He was my direct supervisor. Imagine my luck.

He found a place for me within the executive board and I was off and running. I've served in several capacities since and my favorite was serving as a steward for the union. Tonight, I will be running again to serve as a steward again for a different unit of our local. Every position is up for grabs and it is going to be historic.

I am excited. The adrenaline is amazing. I cannot wait until the meeting. This is going to be a game-changer. Indeed.

Solidarity Forever!
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Thursday, May 12, 2011

Keep calm and carry on

It's been a hell of a few months. Adjusting to my new life has been rather daunting.

One day, my mom was here then next she was gone. Then my job turned into a free all expenses paid trip aboard the Titanic. The media is onto their every move, which happens to include bad financial judgments and pending layoffs.

What's a librarian to do?

Then you bundle that with the fact that this passed weekend, my goal was to forget Mother's Day. Well, mission accomplished.

They broke into my home. There's nothing like trying to secure your place with plywood to help take your mind off of the rest of your life. Or not...

I'm not sure who ordered up the black cloud that hovers over my life, but I would really like a reprieve. Please and thank you.

It has to get better. There's simply no way to go but up from here.
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Thursday, May 5, 2011

the fall of the public library

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

if we listen closely, we can hear the sound of yet another public institution crumbling. sadly, i work at a place that i have pretty accurately nicknamed The Titanic. i love working here. i love my customers. i love the library.

i've been in love with the library for a lifetime. i was a little girl checking out books with my mother in the 80s. we went to every program that the branch by our modest two-family flat offered. i celebrated halloween there making paiper-mache pumpkins and seeing the headless horseman for myself. the library was a wondrous place.

that wondrous place hired me to shelve the books. those books that i shelved led me to find buddhism, which offers me a place of solace. those same shelves called out to me one fall afternoon to try my hand at a Master's in librarianship. so i listened.

i found that librarianship merged my need for community service with my desire for a regular paycheck. nothing lavish, but a paycheck nonetheless. years have passed since that time. i've moved up the food chain to manage my own little corner of the library world and now the ass has fallen out of even that.

allegations of administrative corruption and misspent funding abound and staff members are faced with layoffs. what happened to that community hub that was so beloved to me? i feel like i am on the outside looking in as i see newspaper articles surface about my employer by the day. all i can do is wait and hope that enough people create enough fuss to say that we refuse to be asleep at the wheel when the library comes to a grinding halt.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

and knowing is half the battle...


It all seemed so simple. Boy meets girl. Girl thinks boy is hot. Boy thinks girl is hot. All is well for our hero. Or is it? This situation wasn't quite so simple. We are adults and with that adult status come the complexities of life.

We met at our children's school. We would see each other there and I tried to turn off any attraction to him that I felt. But then I laid that BS down and we began meeting for coffee and movies and dinners and jazz. The rest is history.

Somewhere in the back of my mind though I worried (and sometimes still do) that once the folks at the school pick up on the relationship, all hell will break loose. Why? I am not sure considering that I am a parent. I am not a pillar of the establishment or anything. LOL Anyhow, I wonder what will happen and time and time again, he has said that he doesn't care what they think and that it will be just a day in the life once things are settled. *Tuck this statement away for future reference. It will become an integral part of this story...

So fast forward to New Year's Eve. He planned a night full of board games, movies, and fun for us and our three beautiful daughters. There was pizza, music, sparkling blueberry lemonade and us. What more could a girl ask? So the ball dropped and everyone ran around hugging and then it was movie time. Around 3 a.m., it was bedtime for the little ones and I must admit he and I had the same picture in our heads as to how that part would go.

The girls would be exhausted. Put on their PJs and crawl into bed and fall asleep. His teen daughter would keep watching her movie and laughing. We would continue playing Monopoly sprawled out on his living room floor while talking trash to one another. Seamless plan, right? The execution of that plan was something altogether different.

The girls got into bed and I read them a story. My daughter had already begun asking if I was going to stay the night and I had tried -- unskillfully, I must admit -- to deflect the question. Too late though because it hung in the air.

As he and I took a moment to regroup from our restless, five-year-olds. We sat on the couch and had the talk. He said that things had taken a turn and he worried about how this would be broadcast at the school by our children because of my daughter's concerns. He then went on to state that he didn't want to have to explain himself or our relationship to his ex-wife or anyone at the school right now.

Could I be hearing this correctly? I thought to myself. I felt like a little kid. I wanted to take my ball and go home. This could not possibly be the man that said that I would have to face the very real possibility of his ex-wife running into us somewhere and that I should not worry about what other parents may say. I was furious and saddened. I cannot lie.

My daughter wanted to stay so I tucked her into his oldest daughter's bed as my little one looks up to her and wanted to sleep there. By candlelight, I kissed my sleeping daughter's head and tried to fight back the tears surfacing in my eyes. When I came out, he said that since it was late, he would sleep around the corner at his father's. But for me, the damage was done. I was out.

I had checked out mentally when he let himself say what he had and I could not allow myself to stay. He hugged me and I felt void. I still had those same tears threatening to make an appearance, but I felt too hollow to allow them to fall. He asked me to stay. I told him I could not and he walked me to my car. I drove home and called when I settled in. I let him know exactly how I felt when he said what he had and the conversation was punctuated by my sobs. He was quiet and apologetic. I told him that now I knew that somewhere in his mind, those thoughts still had a place and how that made me feel.

Later that morning, I came back to get my daughter and we did not reference the conversation. He made breakfast for all of us. We talked and laughed. Kissed and smiled. Even napped while the girls ran amuck. So now I know what I am up against and he knows that I know...