new favorite song.

this lyrical masterpiece is in a score called The Malvina Reynolds Songbook. enjoy.

we don't need the men

[words and music by malvina reynolds]

it says in coronet magazine, june nineteen fifty-six, page ten,

that married women are not as happy as women who have no men.

married women are cranky, frustrated and disgusted,

while single women are bright and gay (high E, fermata here), creative and well-adjusted.

oh we don't need the men, we don't need the men

we don't need to have them round except for now and then.

they can come to see us when we need to move the piano,

otherwise they can stay at home and read about the White Sox.

we don't care about them, we can do without them,

they'll look cute in a bathing suit on a billboard in Manhattan.

oh we don't need the men, we don't need the men
we don't need to have them round except for now and then.

they can come to see us when they're feeling pleasant and agreeable,

otherwise they can stay at home and holler at the TV programs.

we don't care about them, we can do without them,

they'll look cute in a bathing suit on a billboard in Madagascar.

oh we don't need the men, we don't need the men
we don't need to have them round except for now and then.

they can come to see us when they're all dressed up with a suit on,

otherwise they can stay at home (spoken) and drop towels in their own bathroom.

we don't care about them, we can do without them,
they'll look cute in a bathing suit on a billboard in Tierra del Fuego.

i love loons.

many rather colorful people waltz into the library every day. but the man who came in at 8:30 this morning may be my favorite. picture an anemic-looking Rudy Giuliani in a grey tee shirt and glasses, carrying a mysterious roll of paper--probably blueprints to the library because he's planning on infiltrating the sacred westminster archives once he's gained our trust.

here was his opening monologue:

"I have no credentials. I cannot prove to you who I am because I have no identification, but I would like to make use of your library. I'm a 1970 graduate of Princeton High School, a 1976 graduate of Rutgers University, and a 1985 graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary. I don't know what else to say because I have no credentials. I would like to make photocopies of all of the Bach cantatas I do not already own. I will need to make use of your card catalog. Let's see, what else....I'm a liberal Protestant, a minister...and I don't have a card or credentials because of the blunders of your predecessors."

Wow. Who let him out of the loony bin? I'd like to shake his hand. That was the funniest thing I have ever seen. I think I'll take him home.

the funny thing about libraries is....

you never know when there's going to be a raptor attack. never.

mike--the cool guy who works with me--just did his best raptor imitation and has decided to implement random raptor attacks on the patrons. love that guy.

ah, the joy of fellow employees.

is there anything so sweet as comraderie in the workplace?

nay, i say.

honestly, i don't know how i would survive if most of my friends didn't work at this here library. my boss says, "wow, never have we had so many good student workers." gee, i wonder why that is. they've followed me here, my little minions. like the pied piper of princeton, i lured them into my web of silent boredom. they didn't expect the toll this would take on our friendships. they're forced to give a smile, especially now that i'm their supervisor, when i say things like, "have you met my friend dewey? dewey decimal? MWAHAHA." those poor schmucks. i love them.

today my friend becki, who also works far too much at this mind-crippling establishment, said something that i rather loved:

"I'm not a bitch. I'm just brazen and cantankerous at times." this coming from a disillusioned 27-year-old with a hysterical way with words. i'm gonna miss the old gal when she goes back to massachusettes in august.

i don't even know what i was saying anymore. oh yes. my friends. i count my lucky stars for them. they make me pictures and leave me notes and send me emails reminding me that the sun is still shining outside and that my existence is not futile after all. praise be.

(This picture came up on google images under "comraderie.")

there were bells on a hill.....

or the lights in the library are just ringing.

a lot.

on 4th-line D, if you must know.

i'm sure you were wondering.

it's making me insane.

it also keeps making me want to sing "peace i leave with you," which started on the same pitch.

wow, i'm quite the nerd.

only three more hours of work to go.

yipee kayo kayay.

(that's hard to spell).

silence is not so much golden as it is a rather insipid shade of mauve.

i have been staring at the puce-colored curtain for well over six hours today. it is a shabby one, a makeshift wall of a cubicle in the way it covers the high, chain link fence that surrounds my desk. it makes me think of my grandparents' house in mckeesport whose perimeter sported just such a fence and whose interior walls were painted with almost this exact, putrid shade of pinkish brown. i have tried to spice things up a bit with some black and white photos of the city and italy and even a great oil pastel of watermelons on a table in the summertime. it has helped, but nothing will ever erase this color from my mind as having one of the most boring associations ever, in all of my insignificant history.

also, it is just so damn quiet in here.



that is, except for the banshees.*

downstairs there are some rather warbly and hooty sopranos singing into the rafters in a manner that irish folklore would deem worthy of summoning the chariots of death. i'm sure that all the dogs within a six-mile radius have buried their heads as far as they can into the earth by now. those lucky pups. meanwhile, i have to sit up here and endure the squeaky strains that somehow filter up through the cement floors into my sensitive ears.

i find that my hearing has become rather acute after working here. someone is clicking a mouse. there is a person, no a girl, sitting on the other side of the mauve curtain tapping a pencil on the desk. ken is flipping through papers in the back. someone is writing on an index card. a chair squeaks on the other side of the room. the door slammed shut. my keyboard is deafening. the sound of my own breathing is like a tornado.

either i've been working in the library too long, or i'm becoming a superhero. i desperately hope it's the latter. and maybe i'll even get a cape.

*once Michelle and Annie both thought, simultaneously, that banshees were in fact weird monkeys.

i hate root beer.

who the heck wants to drink beer from a root anyway? not me.

many of you who know me well know that i have never vomited. i have no gag reflex. i often get nauseous, but i never ultimately throw up. never in my known memory. however, the closest i have ever come to doing so, i believe, is when i was in second grade. i remember it clearly..... i was still sharing a bedroom with my brother at this point. we had twin beds that could not be far enough apart, as far as i was concerned. he was a royal pain in my tail...but that's another story. anyway, one day, in second grade, i became violently ill with some kind of 24-hour flu type thing of death. i would not eat anything. it was then that my mother, in her infinte wisdom, thought that she would give me some soda to help my ailing stomach. apparently we were fresh out of ginger ale (which i also detest, by the by), so root beer was the next logical choice. all i remember is taking a few long sips, and before all of it reached my little tortured tummy, it all shot right back up and out, burning my esophagus and forever tainting my traumatized taste buds.

call me pavlov's dog, but to this day, root beer conjures up a sympathetic taste response that is the closest thing to vomit i have ever known. so y'all can just stop trying to sway me with your sentiments in favor of the "all-American beverage." you can have as much of your patriotic carbonated barf water as you like. just keep it away from me.

i've been thinking about feminism a lot today.

i have never liked talking about societal paradigms.

why is that?

i think people get all up in arms about a lot of things. don't get me wrong. i think many of these issues are very important and worthwhile. however, i think that a lot of people, particularly those in my age/peer group, just like to talk about them without allowing "their" opinions to actually infiltrate their lives.

wow, i've already bored myself to tears.

all i wanted to eat for dinner was pizza. when you work at a library, eating pizza is not appropriate, i suppose. apparently, according to the paradigm, i crave pizza because i am italian. this is a bald-faced lie. so, just to fight this malarkey, i instead ordered a gyro. of course, half the world thinks i'm greek anyway because of my misleading last name. i give up.

(and in case you're wondering, no, i don't pronounce it "wheero" because that's just "queero".)

as the Italians would say,

"era un buon week-end."

• driving rules. i did a LOT of it. jack (my car) and i are like two peas in a pod on the road of life. (i think that's a willie nelson song).
• i had coffee with the one and only debbie richard
• katie & travis' rehearsal/luau was a ball....i even got to see monica and finally meet THE joel boerckel.
• stayed at jen's. had pancakes in the morning. realized i had packed NOTHING appropriate for the wedding. i've sung at like 603 weddings, you'd think i'd realize that you can't dress like a hobo. panic ensued. unlikely resolution occurred, and i ended up looking not half bad.
• wedding was be-a-u-tiful. of course it was. k&t were just so happy and excited, and it was so easy to see how ridiculously in love they are. that makes me have hope, you know? everything went so well.
• hung out with jen, katie & tim, and nick and rachel at cheesecake factory....so nice.....fun news........i'm getting old.
• woke up at 4:30AM to drive back to ol' jersey because i had to sing at church. LAME. but, drive home = awesome because of the great mix cd that katie and travis made.... "i believe in a thing called love" is my new favorite song.
• way way way WAY impromptu dinner party tonight ended up being a huge success and time hanging out with new people i don't really know, plus some other people i know and love dearly.
• bored yet? i could go on for YEARS.
• but i won't.
• hope your weekend was good, too.

"and time goes by so slowy..."

...and time can do so much....to my sanity.

i've been sitting in the library for the past fifteen minutes desperately longing for 9pm to arrive. these night shifts will be the death of me--particularly when they don't end until 10 during the school year.

tonight we have a birthday festival for miss carly. yippee!

tomorrow i leave for katie and trav's wedding....i'm very excited for that.

in between i need to sleep. hmmmm...

is there anything else dreadfully boring i can share with you?

-i need to paint my nails
-the oil and vinegar on my sandwich tasted remarkably like pickle juice
-the dust on my fan seems to be hindering its fannedness
-the rain washed all of the bird shat off my car
-i strangely like unsweetened herbal iced tea...

WHOA IT'S NINE!

the little joys.

[cue cheesy hallmark music]

it's easy to become bogged down by the everyday things that, well, are rather boggy. take me, for instance. i work at a library. i'm not allowed to use my outside voice all day long. fluorescent lighting does next to nothing for my color. it's a near travesty. or watch the news or observe the way people interact with one another on a daily basis. we have to pay our lame bills and fix our cars when they mysteriously stop working. we have to do a lot to please people who will never please us. and sometimes it seems to take an awful lot of work to be happy.

but sometimes it takes no work at all.

these three kids are the most amazing children in the history of small persons everywhere. and my heart is so happy when i am with them that i can hardly stand it.

back from the dead.

"Adventure, with all its requisite danger and wildness, is a deeply spiritual longing written into the soul of a man."
[john eldredge]

after more than three months of a hiatus from blogging, i have returned. (my throngs of followers in the blogging community may now rejoice wildly.)

is it a cop out to say that i've been really busy?? yes, that's lame. unfortunately, it's also true. and what's even more sad is that now that i have a full-time job, i will have much more time to write on this little thingymerdoo. ironic.

adventures in a nutshell (a pistachio perhaps?):
-passed my masters oral exams with much grinding and gnashing of teeth (3.28)
-performed my graduate recital that was well-attended by many people i loved (4.14)
-reached the frighteningly dull age of 24 (4.17)
-successfully completed my surprisingly insightful pedagogy project on the affects of performance anxiety pre-professional vocalists (4.27)
-had many delightful gatherings and parties (first week of may)
-new cousin, lukas john, was born (5.07)
-graduated with my masters degree in vocal pedagogy and performance (5.12)
-moved into a new townhouse at 34 gervin (5.13)
-went to charleston to visit the boys at the spoleto usa festival (5.22)
-ran off to italy to sing and travel for a month and spend all of my money (5.27)
-returned with much joy and frivolity and now have a full-time job at the college (7.01)

there you have it.


on the agenda for the summer so far (besides gads and gads of work):

-4th of july party at aunt lisa & uncle matt's (7.04)
-carly's fantabulous birthday extravaganza (7.05)
-travis & katie's glorious wedding--and also seeing jen! (7.07)
-bastille day festivities (7.14)
-michelle visits princeton!!! (7.27)

now that you know my life, i leave you.