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.

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!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.9

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.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.9

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.

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...

Whew! I made it back.

So, I have returned from the party weekend at the resort with my crew and I have to tell you: once I settled into the madness, it really wasn't bad at all. Yes, I missed my love with all of my heart and, yes, I wanted to come home and spent a great deal of time texting and playing with my phone. But part of me is a nerd and a gadget lover, so I have to give into that from time to time.

We enjoyed the resort and I damned near drowned in 2'8" of water during our quest down the lazy river, but it was fun! It is so cool for a group of 11 folks to get together without drama and arguments and just act like kids. I think that is what I will take away from that weekend. I also learned that temptation is more than plentiful, but the great majority of that is the temptation in your mind. We played all of the usual games that we do monthly and the worst thing that happened to me was that I ended up getting dared to kiss my attractive friend who happens to be the city's hottest cop. Just my opinion... It would have been even hotter if I had on librarian gear and he was wearing his uniform, but that -- my people -- is a different matter.

I managed to finish the trip and get home last night to take my daughter to get ice cream and read at Borders. And as if that couldn't get any better, my love and his daughter met us at Borders. Sugar fix? Taken care of. Missing my love? Resolved. Escape from the mini-vacation not thinking any less of myself? Check.

Life is good.

Staying in Your Lane

My granny says that if you follow your mind, you won't go wrong. Over the years, I've found that her words have never led me wrong.

So here it is... I've found the man that I've waited my whole life for and the issue is that I have a whole side of my life that I have to suppress. My friends and I get together every month with a crew of guys and have a game night.

Concept seems innocent enough, but the reality is quite the opposite. So, as I've become increasingly attached to the man I'm with, I have found myself conflicted about spending time at games night.

Now here we are on a mini vacation with the whole crew and my man is trusting that I am on a retreat with my girls. I don't think I can continue to lie by omission. It doesn't make me feel good. I'm trying to be good this weekend. Distancing myself from the craziness and sexually-charged energy.

But I'm going to be doing some mental unpacking about why I have chosen to come here knowing that I would spend the weekend dodging the boys because I know that I have something better at home.

Someone that I want to wear my ring. So why do this to myself? How old am I and what the hell am I trying to prove? And prove it to who?

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

And then there was tea...

Can you believe it? I'm in love. The first time that we went out, we sat across from each other gazing intently as if our lives depended on seeing behind the other's eyes. We had coffee, held hands, hugged as if we'd never see one another again and then we kissed.

We kissed at a little jazz venue named Cliff Bell's in Detroit and nothing has been the same since. When we kissed, the whole world disappeared and it was just us. That is how it still is.

He is amazing. He makes me laugh. He loves his children. He works hard and will be an awesome spouse. I am claiming that for myself because I love him so much that I cannot imagine going back to my regularly scheduled life without him. What a difference not settling makes.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

The arrival of summer

Summer is here! I know because I dropped my little one off at her second day of summer camp this morning. Yesterday, she came back drained and by the time she and her grandmother picked me up, I had just enough energy for 3 pitstops. No more! :D She was so tired that she could barely describe her day to me. But from what I gathered, there was a lot of walking, singing, and water play.

So here we are. Summer is upon us. I've already begun paying next year's tuition for school and it seems like this is how the years just seem to go flying by. But this summer will be a bit slower for me because I have a plan to get some stuff accomplished.

I need to donate like 70% of the clothing in my home. I need to simplify my life. I want to be ready for the fall and I am planning to do all that one day at a time this summer. This summer will be exactly the reason that I love this time of year.

My daughter and I will be hitting the farmers' market. We'll be enjoying air-conditioned movies at both the big theaters and the dollar shows. And most importantly, we'll be re-establishing what family means at our home.

Summer, here I come!!!

You are now rockin' with the best...

I got wild with it. Out of nowhere, I have taken an extra day off work, so I will be off 'til Monday starting tonight!!! I decided to have Saturday off because my daughter's friend's birthday party is Saturday and some things are too important to miss. The reality is we don't get this time back with our little ones and once it's gone, it's gone.

I am just too excited. Man, I am such a grown up these days. I need one of those birthday party roller whistles. That's just how geeked I am.