day one hundred seventy-seven.

afternoon animals

ceiling gloves
(the dust of moving tiles has settled)

i alerted intern scott to the presence of plastic spoons before it came to office supplied utensils

i get to sleep in until 7:15 tomorrow
boom

day one hundred seventy-six.

(residual weekend photograph, ALA gift shop)

this morning i had to be re-fingerprinted, in hopes of getting a badge sometime before the end of the summer (my finger tips were too mysterious the first time).

i read outside while waiting for the shuttle to work, finishing the book by the ride home. i am in the midst of one of those post-immersion-in-masterful-literature mourning periods, in which i want to start in on all 600 odd pages right over again.
(but most of all, i need to sleep)

day one hundred seventy-five.

ALA: day three

(sunday)

hello, seth meyers.

i had a, let's say, low impact sunday at the conference.
i showed up after lunch and took a break to go to the grocery store.

but i did make it my business to go see this man:

enigmatologist and nyt crossword editor, the legendary will shortz.

he split the room into two teams to play puzzle games with plays on presidential names, american cities, and tom swifties: fiction v. non-fiction (fiction won)

he revealed that the youngest submitter to have a puzzle published is only 14, and the oldest 95 (and creating puzzles since 1955!).

he also said that sometimes when editing, he changes things just because they "aren't important enough for you to know" rather than inaccurate, like that UCLA was jim morrison's alma mater.


a few examples from the cities game:

1. The Playboy Club is putting out a movie with an ___________ cast.


2. Of all the fruits grown in Asia, residents of Bombay think the ___________ the best.


and from the Tom Swifty game:

3. "Get rid of all the conservative party in England," Tom said _________.


(leave a correct and non-cheating answer in the comments and i will send you a postcard!)

after my grocery field trip, i loitered for a while with GSLISers whitney and katherine

this happened:

then we were off to the GSLIS alumni reception at the renaissance hotel down the street

swanky.

post-reception, dairy-free chocolate noir sorbet from pitango, which tasted like the best chocolate ice cream you could imagine eating on a humid summer sidewalk in chinatown surrounded by transplanted illinoisans (as in, delicious)

day one hundred seventy-four.

ALA: day two
(saturday)

"my job is holding the bowl."

vegan cooking demonstration, with black bean salad eating and free cookbooks at the end.

i heard a librarian whisper, "i could never eat at outback again!"

cookie marketing!

chilling with sir salman rushdie.
he is such a natural speaker; even his tangents have smooth transitions.
we enjoyed hearing about the many ways j.m. barrie looked nothing like johnny depp.

librarians are obsessed with twitter.
people were tweeting about seeing their tweets on the giant tweet screen
(tweet)

madam toni morrison, our speaker for the evening.
i was sitting with GSLISers whitney and aaisha and we have a (quiet) cheer when she name checked the u of i and its massive collection.

we had thai food in chinatown afterwards, and whitney and i walked around for a bit

we had dessert on the brain.

conference shoulder looking less debilitating

off to day three!

day one hundred seventy-three.

ALA: night one
(friday)

jamie surveys the tote bag damage

this is the line to exit the exhibits (aka, swag carnival)
i was scolded by a security guard for taking a picture, and a man coming off the escalator near-shouted, "WHY? this is crazy, she should take a picture!"

jamie and i ran into GSLIS friend yasmeen on the way out, so the three of us, along with interns scott and jeremy, dropped heavy bags off at yasmeen's hotel and walked to dupont circle for dinner.

we ran into more GSLIS folks on the street (we are magnetic, i am telling you)

le pain quotidien, quinoa party
(home to this equally delicious former meal)
at that point, exhaustion was settling in on all sides.

the following number of books (22) were spread out in 2 bags that i somehow got home on the metro.

i am most excited for nicole krauss' new title, having read and loved her previous novels.

i also got a copy of mary roach's forthcoming book about space/astronauts and so far it is filled with her usual hefty combination of hilarity and fascination.

there was a price for all of this complimentary literature (nothing comes free):

i have developed a case of what jamie calls "conference shoulder"
(i reverted back to most of my usual pale overnight)

today was packed with friends, $3 diet coke, authors, and good food aplenty, but more on that later. my body is rebelling against remaining upright at this time.

day one hundred seventy-two.

dance friday: since other robots are jerks, and i slept through the futurama premiere (woops).

day one hundred seventy-one.

(union station)

there was much installing of sprinklers (CIA cameras) above my desk today.
i swallowed some ceiling dust maybe, and listened to contractors bicker slightly about wrenches through the hum of a playlist labeled "feelings are boring."

this weekend is the ALA conference (or, librarians of the world unite!)

day one hundred seventy.

ray lahood's onesie, DOT gift shop

today all the library interns took a tour of the archives and library at the national museum of american history. i bumped my elbow on a box of duke ellington's master recordings, then past an aisle of boxed ephemera labeled:

warshaw collection: whiskey-zoology

i need to develop some weird research interests so i have a reason to devote mass quantities of time to scour and scour. they have things like every script from m*a*s*h, ella fitzgerald's american express card and personal correspondence, and tons of advertising, film, and photography collections. pop culture paradise.

my co-worker scott and i, along with fellow library schoolers jeremy and jessica, wandered around one area of the actual museum once we were finished with the behind-the-scenes events.

julia child's kitchen

brb, getting my personalized branding iron


being educated


an exhibit of pop-up and moveable books

this last one reminded me of how fascinated i was by the overlays in my mom's anatomy dictionaries as a kid. circulatory, muscular, nervous, skeletal- vital systems disappearing and reappearing, layered back and forth.

day one hundred sixty-nine.

i finished a book on the shuttle this afternoon
then i saw 3 fanny packs on the metro
the end.

library intern field trip tomorrow to the national museum of american history
education!

day one hundred sixty-eight.

tour of the capitol, intern style

or, monday field trips are the best

before our tour, we had a brief meeting with a transportation committee member at the rayburn house building. i strolled past barney frank's office on the way to the bathroom.

"step right up, ladies and gents...."

andrew jackson's kicks

of the refrigerator dynasty, i presume

french fried intermission

then it was off to tour the library of congress with fellow intern kip
i want to live there, please

elevator for fancy, literate americans

old timey pipes, i presume
(the lead of knowledge)

day one hundred sixty-seven.

welcome to the mannequin museum
(there is a possibility that this is not its official name)

talkies

visual perspective sometimes = being poked in the neck

i went to a mall today (as opposed to the mall) to honor all of the fathers of the world by spending my own money.