Mother of all double runs.

The other week I was shelf-reading at my library job up in a folios section, and I discovered the mother of all double runs:

An entire section (like a book shelf) with one run of numbers, and then another like third of a book shelf afterwards that began where the entire section did and went through the same run of numbers, before merging into the numbers that came afterwards and everything was normal again.

I had no idea how to even deal with something that large, so I tilted some books down on their spines to mark it, and then when I finished shelf-reading I brought the issue to the attention of one of my supervisors.

He didn't seem all that concerned that there might be some books declared lost in there - someone could have easily sought a book in one part of the double run and not the other and then went and declared it lost! - and so he said to report it the next time that I worked, and more than likely I'd be the one sent to fix it, where I'd go up with a cart and merge the books.

Blithe confession of a fellow beachgoer.

The other week I was at the beach and ran into this one (quite old) (ex-counterculture) (black) guy who I've known for a number of years now.

He's retired and a self-confessed "beach bum," and we chat a lot, and I hand off to him some of the free newspapers from the city when I'm done reading them, since he likes poking around through them.

(I also lend them to him and ask him to give them back to me, if I bump into him and he asks about them and I haven't read them yet.)

Anyhow, he lives in one of the city's worst neighborhoods, and has a fruit tree by his house that used to be his mother's, and it's near the house of his brother, who's been housebound from some sickness.

He tells me stories sometimes, like about the illegal parties down the block that are advertised on Facebook and are BYOB with strippers and often go until five in the morning, and cause shit to happen like this one time a drunkdriver got in his SUV and drove through someone's fence and almost into their house.

Anyhow, the other week he told me kind of out of nowhere that he has his electricity and gas hotwired and doesn't pay for them.

"I figure," he was like, "that [name of the gas company] can afford it!".

News at the local supermarket.

Over the past month, when I've gone in to the local supermarket, a couple of times there's a been a (younger) (male) (Mexican) cashier; one on two occasions, and one different one a different time just last week.

Otherwise, the store has the (Mexican) men do shelving and deli, and women do the bakery and all the cashier spots.

The (Mexican) cashier guys seemed a bit soft, so I almost wondered if they were gay, and that's why they got assigned to women's work.

Even if not, it's still a development of some kind.

Jobs are so weird nowadays...

So, my two part-time jobs that had seemed like good deals may not be at all.

Both had seemed good, but both are now getting a bit cage-y with how many hours I'm getting, and with the one I've been waiting to get assigned to clients forever, so I'm not making any money there, and it's not clear when I'll even start making any money.

On top of that, my school out-of-nowhere revoked the ability of students to continue their library jobs for one term past graduation, and that was what I was depending on for like three-and-a-half months, to get me through this uncertainty with 2 part-time jobs!

So, I'm going to start budgeting the only way I can:

I'll go to a food pantry, the very week that my diploma is mailed.

You'll be damn sure that I'm going to take a selfie, with my diploma, and with my bag of food pantry food.

I did write my writing job people, to see if I could continue on past graduation, but even that won't be resolved till my library job is up because they too wait till the last minute to schedule you, so it still makes sense to go to a food pantry, so I can save and hold on to a bit more money, just in case.

In any case, effectively, I'm going to dial back my provisional availability for my tutoring job, to make space for my possible writing job, and then let my still-in-a-holding-pattern elder care job know that that day is taken up with my writing job, if they don't schedule anything by the middle of next month.

What nonsense.

I have three jobs, but no job at the same time.

Confusion of me as a professor.

So, when I was popping into the library to do some stuff this summer, I ran into a (Chinese) student who I taught writing to, who had just completed her first year.

We chit-chatted about the summer, and when I said that I had just completed my dissertation that Friday, she was confused.

She had thought all along that I was a professor!

She also said that the class was amazing, and that she was considering being an anthro major, and had gotten a position in the campus museum, since the museum visits from class really sparked an interest that she didn't know that she had.

I told her that the prof who I worked with had just finished her first year teaching that class, and she should write her about the museum visits, so that she knew that they were effective and so she could keep them in the future, since she had been wondering about that.

Really, that's the part of teaching that I'll miss.  Oh well, the sector doesn't support it so much any more!

I tell people that you know a sector's in trouble, when it starts driving the good people out.

Library of Congress classification system jokes.

Everyone who works in libraries or knows sections well always makes jokes about the two-letter macro-codes in the Library of Congress classification system.

The one I've always heard is "BS," which is biblical studies, and which leads to obvious jokes.

What about all the other codes, though?

For example, "BM."

Also - and I only realized this recently - "DP."

"DP" seems to be something with the Spanish Civil War, and so I guess I need to make up some joke about Franco or slutty Spaniards or something.

Observations of a British 10 year-old.

So, my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend's two (British) god-children are in town, along with their (British) mom, and I met them all the other day at an outdoor concert picnic that his (half British) (half Sudanese) sister also came to.

It's their first time in the U.S., for all of them.

The older god-child is now a teenager (thirteen) and thus uninterested in everything except tormenting his sister, though he did say it's funny to be around all the accents.

His sister is ten, and was telling me all the funny spellings that she's been noticing.

"'Litre' is spelled L - I - T - E - R!", she was like.

"Where'd you notice that?", her mom asked.

"On the toilet!", she was like.  "It said, 'Three liter capacity'."

Since the older brother was sulky, I kept daring the ten year old to tell him that it's an American custom to go play in traffic.

The mom overheard this and asked me if I had kids.

I said "No," and then right away me and my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend were like, "Yes!", and then he finished the joke and was like, "- but they all died in traffic."