Okay, partly this struck me because I had just begun Barbara Kingsolver's new book of essays Small Wonder, in which a torturer says, "We can milk roosters here; and bears lay eggs." And partly, as I drowsily thumbed through a Pottery Barn catalog, because it's so stupid. I know this is really Mr. Gradgrindy of me, but an egg- (or other small object-) containing rooster (with a small opening in the back to insert same) is Why No One Knows How Stuff Works.
In college sometime I saw a child with a plush toy (I can't quite call it a stuffed animal, even though "stuffed" here is particularly apt) that was up the spout. The animal you bought--a nice non-threatening domesticated species like a dog, cat, or horse--came with three babies, unless you were really lucky and it had four, or really lucky and it came with five. This reminded me of Veruca Salt's quest for a Golden Ticket, just to keep buying until one turned out right. Besides that, the really offensive part was that the animals had slits in their bellies, and the babies got tucked into the belly for storage or could be removed. My conclusion was that the Caesarian Section Surgery Company must have promoted that toy, to make a generation grow up thinking that's where babies ought to come from. And be reinsertable.
I broke Buddy's heart again by leaving as soon as I'd showered and snacked. I bussed downtown, not biking because I just don't trust Shadowfax unattended in downtown, and plus there isn't a bike rack outside Capitol Books, and I would have to a) train myself to lock up at Capitol and then go through the entire unlocking ritual, ride the mere three blocks to the 'brary, and lock up again. Or b) leave the bike at Capitol and walk across the state capitol complex after dark to return to it (no thank you) or c) leave it at the 'brary to begin with and walk thence to Capitol and back.
It's good I didn't choose c) (taking the most time), because who knew Capitol closes at 6? I ducked inside at 5:53, without my list because I'm a nidiot. I remembered my priorities, at least: no Bean Trees, but The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, check, and The Toughest Indian in the World. Small Wonder, Kingsolver essays not fiction. Checking the sf shelves for Card or Gibson or Stephenson, I found the first two Green Sky books. They are the really cheesy pulp format, a little shorter even than regular pulp, with bad paper, but I am pretty sure they're out of print so I snapped them up.
I began Fistfight walking to the library. I'll like that.
For the first time, I went downstairs at the library, to the conference center. The stairs are at the west, Denver Art Museum end of the building, and when I got to the bottom to looked to my right in surprise. I never knew there was an underground passage between the library and the museum. I would have explored immediately but someone addressed me:
"Are you confused too?" probably taking my pausing and looking down the passage in nostalgia (how I would have loved that as a child!) for lostness.
"No," I said. "I just never knew there was a tunnel between the library and the museum."
"Sweet," said the bearded young man dismissively, after a quick glance. "I was looking for the internet computers."
I directed him to either the main fiction hall or the nonfiction floors above, where there would be fewer people.
"Thank you ma'am," he finished.
Criminy. I never thought I'd be 34, did you?
So then "Stagecoach." I knew when I sat down in the second row, right side (because of Haitch, I always sit on the right side of a theatre now) that I would never opt to watch a movie, thankfully only a 96' movie, in such a chair. I dealt because I am, ma'am, apparently a grown-up now, until a few minutes into the movie when a late arrival needed to stand right in front of me asking the people in the first row whether this seat or that was taken. Since the seats were empty and the movie had started, there's your answer, see? Then he sat down, right in front of me, after being all concerned about everyone else in the front row, clearly not caring about moi, than whom he was much taller and much much stinkier. Plus the two men behind me had not quite ceased their conversation, and they spoke like my father, self-affirming and the only person worth listening to. I rose with my stack of books, walked down around the back and up, and lay on the scratchy filthy carpet in front of the left side. The five books made an excellent pillow.
All I knew about "Stagecoach" was that it was nominated for best picture in 1939 (the library series is "The Golden Year of Film"). I only ever knew John Wayne as an old man and a cariacature of himself in all the westerns I watched with my father, and I have a hard time seeing him as a real actor. But it was quite good. It took me a moment to realize about the One Bullet Left and its best use. Introducing the movie, a librarian had mentioned its archetypes, such as the prostitute with the heart of gold. She kinda implied this was an element in the Western that "Stagecoach" invented, but I must have mistaken her, because also in 1939 there's Belle Watling in "Gone with the Wind."
The other day Uberboss said he had a book for me, couldn't remember the title, lots of literary hijinks (his word) and kind of skiffy (not his word) with time travel...
"Is it The Eyre Affair?" I asked. He was pleased that I knew it and brought it in the next day. I read the first few pages and it will be fun I'm sure; the epigraph of the very first chapter is an excerpt from a book that I promptly submitted to the Invisible Library whose author is Millon de Floss.
Yesterday he came in brandishing Atonement and asked if I were next in line for it. No, I read it in September and we hadn't talked about it. We both liked it better than Amsterdam and I admired how its three sections worked so well together, as distinct in style and content as each is, and he praised its craft.
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Saturday night Lou and her partner had a birthday party, renting out a bowling alley for their few hundred closest friends and coworkers. They know everyone: a mayoral candidate was there and another easily could have been invited. At one point I was chatting with a coworker, who occasionally leaned forward and rubbed the shoulders of another coworker (down one level on the bowling floor) to the point that my observation changed from "whatever" to "huh." Finally I sought out CoolBoss and said, "I have a gossip question for you." I whispered the two names in her ear.
"Where have you been?" she mock-demanded. "For two years now."
Where I've been, by the way, is sitting in my cube across the hall from one of the two and across from her, who is good friends with the other. My only defense was that I am not a gossip at work.
I have been commended at performance evaluations for not involving myself in office gossip and politics, and that's an image I want to maintain and cultivate. For the first time (that I know of) something is going on that could affect me directly, with two factions each reasonably supposing I am privy to the other, and the more people think I know nothing, the better off I am.
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Yesterday Egg left for a week in Paris and the Loire valley. Her flight was at 3; she didn't leave the office until after 1. It's less than a half-hour to DIA, but eesh. Believe me, no one would have died if she had delegated or postponed a thing or two. This is why I'm usually content to be support staff. This job ceases to exist at 4 o'clock (or 4:30, flexing with a half-hour lunch), and that's a-okay with me. Another reason I like her is that, when she hugged me g'bye and I said "Bon voya-gee!" she knew who I was being.