[doodlebug]

cob: shoe shopping with size 9.5 EE feet, in a small community, where it doesn't matter HOW much money you're prepared to spend b/c there's nothing to buy anyway.

cob: having to spend $120 CAD (plus taxes) ON SALE for a simple pair of black leather slides.

cob: they were the ONLY respectable pair of shoes in the entire store that fit me (excluding the retirement-home-style lace-ups).

cob: wasn't NAFTA supposed to increase consumer choices for Canadians? Lying sacks of capitalist pig shit.

anti-cob: at least I have one respectable pair of shoes now. I'll have to find something with a closed back before winter, though. Mebbe I'll just get them cowboy boots I've been coveting for 12 years. I could totally get away with it, being from a ranching region.

cob: inheriting the exact size, shape, and structure of foot from my flat-footed, high-instepped father.

anti-cob: my father's flat feet kept him out of the Royal Canadian Army during WWII.

cob: the Royal Canadian Navy took him instead.

[bklynhermit]

people at the library who are not there to do traditional library type things.

my job requires me to do research deep in the New York Public Library. You know, the big landmark building with the steps and the lions right in the middle of midtown. specifically, i'm deep in the bowels of the periodicals sections, reading old newspapers from the 70's.

this library branch is devoted only to research materials. it's not a circulating library. there is one public reading room and one general use computer lab, but all in all it's a place you go to do RESEARCH. in depth nerdy serious academic research.

so you would think that most of the people in this library would be researchers, librarians, students, etc.

no. 90% of the people at the RESEARCH library or either tourists or creepy old men who are half insane with nowhere else to go. this means four teenage girls dragged by their mother to look at etchings congregating RIGHT in the doorway to the microfilm room to kvetch about how dumb this library is and how they have to hurry and get to the TKTS line soon so they can get rush seats for The Lion King. this means sitting next to this guy WHO IS ACTUALLY INSANE and totally unable to use the microfiche machine and keeps throwing loud nursing home style temper tantrums like a foot from my head. this means waiting in line for the bathroom even though i'm like one of 5 people actually there using the library's facilities for what they're meant to be used for (you know, like, research).

i love coming to this beautiful building every day, and i love the research i'm doing. i just wish other people would be more respectful of those who are legitimately using the facilities. and also that there were more day programs or subsidized institutions or something where the insane people could go and be properly supervised.

that is all.