After the library book sale, I boxed up the Native American table. It’s a mindless task. Grab an unfolded box from the stack on the floor. Give it structure, the shape of a box. Maryann slashes two strips of packing tape in the shape of a cross on the bottom with her tape gun. Fill … Continue reading Bad Medicine
Library
Reading Options for the End of the World
DR: Frequently, I write articles for various Gettysburg area publications promoting the library where I work. As an organization, we supply a minimum of three articles to these publications each week. That's 156 articles each year written by ten or fifteen employees. As you can imagine, it gets hard to keep the content fresh. As … Continue reading Reading Options for the End of the World
Telling my Story, or Not
I ran into Sandy in the hallway. “Oh, hey Jeff, this is a heads up. You're going to be formally invited to be a book in the Living Library.” Sandy’s statement probably makes no sense to you, so let me elaborate. A big trend in libraries right now is to offer patrons a chance to … Continue reading Telling my Story, or Not
Of Perfume and Pan
Consider the beet. Does a better opening line exist in fiction? Confidently giving the reader an earnest command: The beet, consider it! For my return to reading after a year-long hiatus, I selected Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume from my bookshelf. I often said “this is my favorite book” even though I haven’t opened it since … Continue reading Of Perfume and Pan
Hey Man, What’s Cooking?
In 1996, my soon-to-be wife and I moved into an apartment together. It was an obvious step up from the run-down forties-era garden apartments we both previously rented. This place was in a modern high-rise with a newly renovated kitchen—a room full of sparkling appliances. On our first night in the apartment, we decided to … Continue reading Hey Man, What’s Cooking?
Jellybeans
On Thursday morning, a swollen inter-department mailer sat in my mailbox at work. Are you familiar with these? It’s an envelope, ten by thirteen inches, brownish-gold, the color of dehydrated urine. You seal it by twisting a string around a fastener. It’s not for stamped postal mail, my name is simply scrawled on the envelope … Continue reading Jellybeans
A Christmas Carol (part ii)
I read it every December. The library owns a ratty old copy, a broken binding, a lousy font. The lines sit too close together. People like me with a propensity towards double vision struggle not to jump around—reread the last line, skip to the next. Even though I know I’ll read it, since I always … Continue reading A Christmas Carol (part ii)
The Lasting Impact of The Walking Dead
Zombies? Seriously? I enter work through the garage, LED-lit, bright, white light, always illuminated because of confusing signage. A white placard above the light switch, black lettering highlighted yellow: "This Light Must Stay On." I interpret this to mean during working hours, but the cleaning crew takes it literally. They leave the light on all … Continue reading The Lasting Impact of The Walking Dead
Man-Crush
"Man-crush." Is that term offensive? It implies that as a man, my crush has to be on a woman unless I specifically indicate otherwise. How heteronormative. I wrote about my man-crush last October in my post I Love You, What's Your Name? That post isn't about New York Times best-selling author Jamie Ford, and he isn't the … Continue reading Man-Crush
The Other Stuff 