Category: musings

darkness and light

In which I ramble on about the weather.

(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

It’s winter in North America. Living in Central Virginia, it’s not particularly harsh, and we get a lot of sunlight during the day on most days. But it’s still dark by 5pm, and while temperatures tend to stay above freezing during the day, there are plenty of days when it’s just above freezing.

I grew up in a place where winters were grey and dark and cold and miserable (for me). I hated it, even more after I moved to a warmer, sunnier place. I wonder how much my life would have improved if I had winter sun and a good therapist in my teenage years?

I have notice, though, that part of me treasures these dark and cold evenings for what they are. I make my home cozy with string lights and candles, and I go out in the evening even less than I do normally in these COVID times. I bundle up in warm, soft things and slow down with a cup of tea.

I’d like to continue to embrace the cold and dark times of the year as an opportunity to create my own light in the world. Long conversations with dear friends and a mug of (spiked) decaf coffee. Evenings spent listening to podcasts or audiobooks while assembling a puzzle or making a cross-stitch.

Spring will be here soon enough, and then my evenings will be filled with softball games and long walks in the park. Until then, I’ll be shining light in the darkness.

what if I’m (part of) the problem?

In which I ramble a bit about trying not to add to the toxicity of a toxic workplace.

(CC BY 2.0)

The past six or seven years of my job have been challenging in ways my younger self could not have anticipated. During that time, I was in roles with personnel management that involved personnel that didn’t fit the textbook cases, and responsibilities that didn’t come with enough resources to effectively fulfill them. I often found myself in untenable situations with little more support than to “just deal with it.” Deal with it, I did. Sometimes more successfully than others.

A significant organizational reorganization a few years ago came with a change in my responsibilities, and later a significant turnover in staff resulted in a very different combination of personalities and approaches in my division. These days I find myself in a role that I am more than capable of executing, with the resources to do it well. And yet, I realize that I am still processing the trauma from all that occurred before, and that often clouds or colors my perception of current events/situations.

When I first arrived at my current library, the amount of old wounds and grudges held by my colleagues towards each other and university administrators was evident fairly early on. Most of those colleagues have either moved on or retired, and very few from that time remain, but I find I carry some those wounds/grudges now myself. I didn’t want to become a jaded, middle-aged librarian, and yet there are events that have led me down that path.

I don’t have to remain on that path, and I don’t have to take any of my new colleagues there with me. My feelings are not unjustified, but they also aren’t particularly productive at times. Knowing the lay of the land here, I can decide to be bitter and stagnant, or I can figure out how to work around the roadblocks.

fail whale and phoney stark

(CC BY-NC 2.0)

I joined Twittr in 2007 — some time before they put the ‘e’ in the name. Some colleagues at Blogcritics thought it would be a useful tool for sharing what we’re working on. That use fell away pretty quickly. As more library folks joined the service, it became a really useful tool for keeping up with the profession, following conference content, and shitposting.

Now it looks like the new owner either is intentionally destroying it or is just too incompetent to lead. Some folks are hanging on to the bitter end, some are jumping ship to Mastodon or Tumblr or only using Facebook/Instagram. As much as that place had become a bit of a hellscape, it was a tool that connected me to a lot of my colleagues and friends from all over. I’ll miss that aspect.

I joined Mastodon in 2018 at the general suggestion of Ruth Kitchin Tillman. She’s written a great introduction for new users. The glammr.us instance was pretty quiet until rumors of the Twitter sale surfaced, and then over the past few weeks it’s gotten quite busy. Up to that point, it was a small community I’d look in on occasionally, but did not engage with that much.

The Mastodon culture I’ve encountered so far has been much more community oriented and 1:1 engagement. Folks there make use of content warnings and use alt tags on images. It’s not without its issues (black folks say it’s inherently a white space; there is a bit of learning curve), but so far I’m fine with building a different community and engagement in that space.

hello world

It’s been a while since I had something to say here. I still don’t have much to say, but when has that ever stopped a blogger?

I’ve been having a mild existential crisis realizing that I’m middle aged and mid-career. I’ve done most of the things (professionally) that I want to do, and my non-work life community is fulfilling.

I’m trying to hold space for how cringe my younger self was, in part because I know I’m probably still cringe, if not as aware of it yet. I’m at a point where I know enough to know I don’t know everything, and yet I know a heck of a lot more than she did then.

Maybe I need to be sharing what I know. Maybe I have things that other people want/need to hear. Maybe there’s something more than what can fit in a pithy social media post. Maybe.

corona virus diaries: week 5

Five weeks ago yesterday, I shifted to primarily working from home. Spotting a coworker loading up monitors and other computer equipment from his office, I realized I could do the same. The prospect of working off of a laptop for weeks on end felt less onerous if it included the dock, dual monitors, full-size keyboard, and mouse. This was quickly set up on my dining table, and for the first time in 13 years, I have an office with a window.

I lasted one day sitting in one of the IKEA folding chairs that normally lives at my dining table. I lasted another two weeks using the office chair that normally lives at my home desk. Then on my brief weekly trip to campus, I snagged the chair from my office. Ahh… so much better. The ship date for the Steelcase office chair I splurged on (a much needed purchase long before now) is indefinite, so this will be my setup for the time being.

My work has settled down some since we got past the flurry of assisting faculty to transition their courses to remote instruction, and supplying access to ebooks and other resources for students who left their materials in their dorm rooms when they departed campus for Spring Break. For the first few weeks, it was all I could do to keep up with things, as email action items flew in as fast (or sometimes faster) than I could clear them out.

I was surprised-not-surprised to learn that my job really doesn’t require me to be in the building at all, for the most part. I think there will be things coming up throughout the year that would be easier to do if I were there, and some physical materials that will eventually need attention from me, but for now, I can quite easily work remotely. I kind of knew this before, but not having a good setup at home made the prospect less appealing in the past.

One of the things I worried about with working from home is not having a clear line between work and home. However, I have found that sticking to a schedule has kept that line fairly clear. I start work at 8, I finish at 4:30, and sometime around noon I take a lunch break. There are some exceptions, of course, if I’m trying to wrap something up and it’s nearing the end of the day. There’s always more that can be done, but there’s also always tomorrow and the next day.

Part of me wonders if I could continue this working from home thing even if we are able to open the building and return to our offices again? Part of me could get quite used to having a kitchen with snacks so close and a toilet all to myself. Part of me revels in not having to wear work clothes, and a commute that’s just a walk down the stairs.

Part of me worries that I will get too withdrawn and forget how to interact with coworkers in person. Part of me misses the casual interactions with colleagues that feels awkward over a digital connection. Part of me would really rather just go get lunch with friends at the dining hall today instead of thinking up yet another meal at home.

I’m not afraid of change (except when I am)

photo by Mike McKay

As a serials librarian, change is in the nature of my work. Titles change, publishers change, URLs change — change is the norm. I stay flexible and try to move light on my metaphorical feet. Some days I float like a butterfly. Some days I fall flat on my face.

I’ve been thinking about — and simultaneously feeling excited and dreading — the big change that is coming to my work in the next year. We’re on the path to migrate from Voyager/Summon to Alma/Primo. It’s going to mean a huge shift in how I do my work, though what I do, essentially, will remain the same.

I’m looking forward to the new (and sometimes improved) tools I’ll be using to do my work, but I’m not looking forward to the process of learning how to use them. And that’s just one of the unknowns that is making me afraid of this change, even as I’m ready to run towards it.

I don’t know what I don’t know. And it’s such a huge undertaking that I’m feeling overwhelmed by that unknown. What I really want right now is for someone to hand me a list of every thing I need to do to prepare Acquisitions and Electronic Resources data for the migration, but no one can do that for me. I have to take the resources the vendor has provided, as well as any information I can gather from other libraries who have migrated from similar products, and make that list for myself.

It’s daunting. It’s scary. What if I mess up?

photo by Mike McKay

I took Facebook off my phone…

…and I’m kind of surprised and pleased by what happened.

Admittedly, it’s only been two days, and I’ve done this before (for different reasons), so I know I might eventually add it back. But for now, it’s doing what I had hoped and more.

I don’t have an endless scroll of posts and links and memes and videos to occupy my brain in the down times. I still have other social media apps, so there are plenty of things to occupy that space, but they aren’t nearly as prolific. Also, although I’m still on Twitter, I barely read it and usually only a subset of content when I do. (Come find me on Mastodon, if that’s your thing, though I’m not much more active there.)

The thing that surprised me, though, was a resurgence of the use of Pocket. I’ve started throwing links to essays and articles there for later reading as I peruse the scroll of social media elsewhere. Then, when I’m waiting in line, or have a few minutes before the next thing, or eating a meal alone, I have some handy reading material that I actually want to see.

I get “all caught up” on Instagram more quickly than I used to, and I’m trying to browse the Flickr app regularly, too, but it’s not a well designed.

When I do look at FB, it’s on a desktop browser with a plugin that filters out certain content. I mean, I know that one cousin loves right wing media and posting racist/homophobic memes, but thanks to the filter, I can remain ignorant on the details.

I find that in my time away from FB, not much had actually happened that needs my attention. I hope eventually I can settle back into the apathetic disinterest I had for it years ago.

I still have Messenger, though. Too many people I like use it instead of texting or email.

progress updates: January 2019

I didn’t make any resolutions or goals for 2019, per se, but I did have some lifestyle changes I want to make. Here’s how things went for the month of January.

Ragged Mountain Reservoir
Ragged Mountain Reservoir

In 2018, I didn’t use enough vacation leave and found myself in danger of losing days as my work anniversary month concluded. So, I crammed in some days off as my workload allowed. This is not ideal, and it is also an indication that something is off-kilter with my work/life balance. So, I decided that for 2019, I needed to plan some days off in advance so I’d actually use my vacation leave, since I rarely take actual vacations. So far, I haven’t used any of my leave time yet, but I have scheduled a long weekend in February and am taking Spring Break off in March, and have plans for May and July on the horizon. I’ll be looking ahead to other times of the year when I can take off a week or more without negatively impacting my workload.

snapshot of a Fitocracy month indicating workouts recorded

I tend to get really busy once the semester begins, because that’s when all my “extra-curricular” activities kick in. One thing that often gets de-prioritized is physical activity. So, for the month of January, I mapped out a workout schedule to fit around my regular obligations with a varied plan that would keep me from getting bored or using “recovery” as an excuse to not do anything. It’s worked, mostly, though it does require me to make some adjustments towards the end of the week if I haven’t also done a good job of getting to bed on time and sleeping enough. This process has been helpful for me to reach my goal of 219 workouts in 2019.

infographic for the YNAB principles

Midway through January, I decided to have a hard conversation with myself about my budget and long-term goals. This was in part due to a decision in early January to start seeing a therapist again, and the impact that would have on my budget. Despite making more money than I ever have or ever thought I could, I still manage to spend nearly all of it every month, living paycheck to paycheck. I had been trying to use Mint to make and stick to a budget in 2018, but that just wasn’t working. I’m giving the YNAB philosophy (and software) a try this time around, and it’s already helping me re-think how I budget and how I make spending decisions. If you decide to give it a try, too, I highly suggest reading the book and/or making use of the free webinars. On its own, the platform is okay, but it’s so much better if you understand the underlying system.

twenty years

a red brick building with white stone foundation and staircase, with arches and windows
Northlawn dorm, where I lived for three years

I’m spending some time at my undergraduate institution this weekend. Since I moved back to Virginia in 2007, I’ve lived close enough to visit the town and friends there several times a year, though in recent years my calendar and aging pets has made this a more complicated process than it used to be. I have managed to make it back for each of my five-year reunions, as it happens, and the fourth one of those is tomorrow.

Twenty years. How has it been twenty years? Twenty-one years since I lived in the dorm pictured above and ate in the basement cafeteria. The women’s dorm is now co-ed, I learned with some dismay at my fifteenth reunion. I guess that’s progress of some sort.

I don’t regret my life path to this point, but it wasn’t what I expected when I graduated from college. Some vague pencil marks of the outlines match up, such as getting my graduate degree in library science and continuing to work in higher education. The specifics of where and what, and the things that now fill my everyday — I don’t know if I could have even imagined them back then.

I haven’t done the best job of keeping in touch with my college friends. Casual connections at best, passively keeping up with their lives to the extent that they share them on Facebook. I’ll reconnect with a few tomorrow, probably, and as with years past it will be pleasant but also vaguely awkward, as we try to rekindle connections over twenty years old, and none of us are entirely who we were then.

I’m feeling a mix of things as I think about the next day or so (I’m driving over this evening) ahead of me. There’s a bit of FOMO with not having made firm plans to meet up. There’s a bit of jealousy that so many of my college friends seem to have ended up in the same places and can maintain the connections on a more regular basis. There’s a bit of nostalgia for a more innocent time in my life before adult responsibilities fully kicked in. There’s the ever present desire to be included while feeling like I’m on the outside looking in — not straight enough, not Mennonite enough.

Taking a deep breath and re-centering myself, I hope that regardless of what happens this weekend, I am able to be fully me in all the ways I can be now, and that will be enough. I hope that I am able to rekindle a bit of the connections that were essential to my collegiate successes, and that this will truly feel like a homecoming.

greyscale photo of a group of students with two faculty members, all dressed in winter clothing
my traveling companions, taken before we left for a semester in Ghana in 1996

resisting my inevitable death

black and white photo of a kettle bell weight and two medicine balls, along with part of a human leg and sneaker-shod footI’m getting older. It’s hard to avoid. My body isn’t as resilient as it was fifteen years ago when I started this blog. As my income increased, so did my pant size, and being in a sedentary job didn’t help.

January began as January often begins, with a renewed commitment to stay as physically active as I can and work on getting stronger. For the first two weeks, I managed to get out and hike/walk/gym every day but three. Then my choir rehearsals began and things picked up again with new music being sent to the radio station, and I was reminded why I don’t spend two hours at the gym every day.

One of my favorite blogs is Fit is a Feminist Issue, and several of the bloggers over there are talking about a 218 workouts in 2018 challenge. I missed jumping on from the start, but I’ve been keeping track for other reasons and I’m up to 23 so far. Not bad. Could be much better — there was one week in there with zero. If I’m going to hit that goal, I’ll need to be doing 4-5 workouts a week, not the average 3-4 I’ve been doing so far.

I’ve also been keeping track of the food I eat. I’ve done this in the past with mixed success, but I’m finding the tool less frustrating this time. (Or maybe I just care less about being absolutely precise?) I haven’t approached this with the intent to prescribe some sort of diet regimen, but the data has been useful for making tweaks. Since I’m also weight training, I’ve been paying closer attention to macros and increasing protein without blowing up the fat percentage, too.

I’ve also discovered how easy it is for me to consume a massive amount of calories and not even realize it — it simply doesn’t seem like that much food, and by weight, it isn’t, but the nutritional composition is very densely packed with caloric energy. So, I need to out-think my survival brain that compels me towards high energy foods my body can store for later use in the lean times that will never come.

My goals are simple: get stronger, avoid physical injuries, lose some weight to relieve stress on my joints, and get ready for prime softball/baseball/hiking season. Oh, and delaying my inevitable death.

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