Naming Humans

Posted on April 6, 2021 by Belle of the Library

One downside to keeping my pregnancy a secret from my blog for the first 21 weeks, was missing out on sharing some of the milestones, like the positive pregnancy test, learning both babies were boys, buying a family car, learning both babies were actually girls, and choosing names.

Y’all, naming humans is hard. I spent six years substitute teaching and have worked in public libraries for ten. I have heard some objectively terrible names. I have met all of the following:

Merlin
Zeus
Corona
Stetson
Talladega
Suthern
Princess
I’munique
Imunique (no apostrophe)
Sir…

… and my personal favorite Ecstassi, followed closely by my second favorite, Tyranny. Even our own family members have occasionally shown poor judgement choosing names. I have a cousin who gave her daughter a city name, but chose one of the murder capitals of the U.S. That’s far better than Jake’s cousin who named her son after a popular beer and brand of gun, resulting in his family’s refusal to call him by anything other than his initials. To this day, Jake insists we’re naming our first Budweiser Browning, a joke I’ve forbidden him to share with his cousin.

Ridiculous names aside, there are also the ones that just aren’t to our taste, but won’t get a resume thrown in the trash for sounding like a joke. Personally, I hate gender neutral names, traditionally male names for girls, or traditionally female names for boys. While Elliot might give someone pause, when a woman walks into an interview, I find this popular trend harmless enough, but don’t like it, myself. Jake’s name is actually far more common on women and to this day, I think our wedding invitations look like they’re for a lesbian wedding, which is fine, but inaccurate. The same goes for the modern names I liked to call Suburb Names, like Kinley, Zaiden, Amberly, and any other name that wasn’t a name twenty years ago. My own name is the1987 version of these and while I don’t hate it, I’d prefer something more traditional, myself.

That was actually the one thing Jake and I could agree on, traditional baby names. We wanted something classic, preferably not in the top 10, but not too bizarre or hipsterish. For girls, we didn’t want the names shortened to male nicknames, the reason we ultimately vetoed Charlotte. Although we loved Lottie, there’s no telling whether or not she’d be called Charlie or decide for herself that she preferred it one day. Since we both hated that very common nickname and couldn’t decide on anything that sounded good with it for Baby B, we nixed what was once my favorite baby girl name.

Twins threw us for another loop. Not only did we have to name one baby, but two. We wanted classic names that sounded good together, without a theme, meaning no color or flower or jewel names in pairs. That took Violet and Scarlett off the table, though we both loved the latter, we just couldn’t think of anything that sounded good with it.

Jake: “What about Charlotte and Scarlett?”
Me: “I want a divorce.”

Rhyming names were absolutely off the table.

At one point, I had a list of over 30 baby names and Jake suddenly seemed to hate all of the names ever, though many were ones he’d agreed on previously. If he did like one, he didn’t like anything I thought went with it. He liked Maeve, but noped all of the one syllable names I suggested for the other baby, like Blair and Pearl. If he liked a longer name, he hated all of the inevitable nicknames, such as Josephine, Susannah, Gwendolyn, Eleanor, or Evelyn. He’d suggest that we not nickname them at all, and I had to insist that that’s not really how that happens. If we chose a long name and didn’t choose a shortened version, ourselves, other people would. No one is going to say Josephine in its entirety, when they can call her Jo… which we both hated.

Having just finished The Mandalorian, I had been calling the babies Mando and Grogu at work, since I hadn’t shared the genders. I began calling them the same at home, just to have some way to refer to them and had started to wonder if that might end up on their birth certificates, as Jake nixed every option. Even if we both liked a name, we often couldn’t come up with a good mate, such as with Alice. I couldn’t quite define what I thought made a good pair, but I think it came down to syllables and time period. Blair and Genevieve just sounded odd together. Jake’s inability to get excited about any names actually started to upset me and make me think that he was angry they were both girls. It became a real source of contention between the two of us.

Me: “Poor Mando and Grogu.”
Jake: “Stop calling them that!”
Me: “Stop vetoing everything else!”

One name had actually been on the table a year ago, but Jake had decided he didn’t like the nickname I suggested. It was four syllables long and not common enough to have an obvious nickname, but I wanted to choose one for ourselves, knowing that no one was going to consistently say the whole name. Not only was it a classically feminine name not in the top 1000, without being too weird, it was also the name of the town where my family originated. I’d really grown fond of it. When my good friend Sarah, one of the few who knows the names we ultimately chose, suggested an alternative shortening, I looked it up and realized it was actually an official nickname for our uncommon choice. Jake loved it. Now we just needed something that went with it, which likely meant another four syllable name.

Naming twins is exhausting.

For years, I’ve had an old name I loved, that no one has ever liked, as it’s virtually unheard of, today. It’s the name of the heroine in my favorite classic horror novel and I’ve suggested it several times to Jake, always receiving a hard next. It does, however, have four syllables. While the name we’d chosen is more common, they are both classic and Southern, from about the same time period. After tentatively settling on the first name, on the condition that we could come up with a good match, I suggested this one, once again, assuming I’d get the same response. Whether it was to shut me up or because he was actually starting to come around, I’ll never know, but this time Jake was willing to consider it. He asked that I give him a week to think about it, since he didn’t really care for the nickname I suggested and it didn’t have any obvious other one, save for the one from the horror novel and he hated that one. I agreed.

Over the next week, I began to think of our girls by these names and their nicknames. Consistently worried that I’d never grow attached to my babies, out of fear that something would happen before they were born, I was attempting to develop a connection by thinking of them as individual little people… and it was working, despite the fact that we hadn’t officially settled on the names. No more than one week later, I demanded a decision from Jake.

Me: “I’m starting to think of them by these names. I can’t help it. It’s the only way I feel connected to them . So, if you don’t like them, then tell me and we’ll start that fight. Don’t just let me continue thinking of them by names you’re going to veto, though.”
Jake: “If I agree to that one, then when we have a boy…?”
Me: “I’ll give you preference on boy names. I get veto rights, but you can ultimately choose.”
Jake: “Okay. We can do those.”

I don’t even care if I just somehow wore down the most stubborn man alive or if he was afraid I might be serious when I shifted from Mando and Grogu to Elsa and Anna (the more likely scenario). Our babies have names. I ordered customized wooden cutouts of them the next day and since Jake is far too cheap to change his mind after spending that money, they’re official. In the last few months, I’ve been able to connect far more to the little girls growing in my belly, now that I can better think of them as individual humans. Everyone thinks we won’t want more children after twins, because of the stress and expense, but if anything, it’ll be due to the necessity that we name them.

I’ve forgotten how to apply makeup.

Posted on March 31, 2021 by Belle of the Library

The pandemic hit at an all time low for me. Jake and I had just found out that we were going to have to go through IVF over the summer and I… wasn’t handling it well.

… more than once, I called in late, because I couldn’t pull it together.

Even during the month before Covid-19 hit my state, the only reason I bothered to dress nicely and do my hair and makeup, was that it made me feel more capable and put together, at a time when I desperately needed it. So, when the library closed for an indeterminate amount of time, my sole goal, in regards to appearance, was to maintain my weight and basic hygiene. During those six weeks, my daily uniform consisted of athletic shorts, tank tops, and ponytails… not even cute, perky ponytails, but the Founding Father kind that’s worn at the base of the neck.

Indeed, I did look like a young Mr. Feeny for most of 2020.

When the library reopened, I felt little motivation to achieve more than the bare minimum summer dress code of denim capris and t-shirts… and a mask. Whereas I might have considered applying concealer and mascara before, I saw no point while revealing barely an inch between bangs and mask. Makeup is expensive and we were about to spend tens of thousands of dollars on fertility treatments. Furthermore, customers weren’t even allowed in the building and Jake was just happy that I could get out of bed in the morning. Who was I trying to impress?

I began my first IVF cycle in July and was far more concerned with taking my temperature thirteen times a day than I was with not wearing Crocs to the doctor’s office. Makeup was literally the furthest thing from my mind, at this point in time, and it sort of became habit. Even a year later, no one can see my face, unless it’s during a Zoom call from home, and that usually means a remote program or staff meeting. My teens don’t give two figs how I look, as long as I entertain them with elaborate D&D battles, and my coworkers see me in all my barefaced glory every day, when I’m allowed to remove my mask at my workstation. When customers are allowed in the building, all they can see is eyes.

Humans, circa 2020

Sure, I apply some concealer, when I look especially exhausted… because it has been an exhausting year, but I never see anyone outside of basic grocery shopping and Amazon returns. Jake and I literally entered a restaurant less than five times last year. Date nights consisted of s’mores in the backyard and Netflix. We didn’t even see our families more than once or twice. Halloween came with an ice storm and record-breaking power outages. I didn’t even get to wear a costume, because a) I had an ultrasound and didn’t want to receive bad news while dressed like Darkwing Duck and b) everyone had hunkered down in preparation for the storm, so the library was even more empty than usual, on a pandemic Saturday. Thanksgiving consisted of sweet potato pancakes and turkey sausage with my grandparents on Black Friday, all of us in jammies. New Year’s was just the two of us at home. Christmas was close family only. We were even snowed in on Valentine’s Day and spent the time painting the babies’ room, sewing quilts, and making stuffed waffles.

Now, here I am, fully vaccinated in a state where anyone who wants one can get their Covid-19 vaccine, able to enter the world again and y’all… I’ve forgotten how to apply makeup.

Not having taught myself to use eyeliner until 23, I’ve always been something of a minimalist, when it comes to makeup, only truly investing in decent products in preparation for my wedding at 29. Before that, all of my makeup was from the drugstore and I was fine with it. I’ll never forget marveling over how Jake could choose me, when I met his friends’ wives, who took two hours to get ready for Wal-Mart, when every bit of Maybelline and Revlon I owned was in my purse.

Even now, I only wear Bare Minerals foundation and eyeshadow, buy my mascara and eyeliner in black or brown at Sephora, and almost never wear lipstick. I have clear skin, easy hair, and I’m cheap. I’ve just never felt the desire to spend the time or money on perfecting tips from YouTube tutorials; and although I married a cowboy, who’s used to women with big hair and glitzy jewelry and bright eyeshadow, fortunately for me, he prefers the low maintenance look, along with the attitude and budget that comes with it.

All that being said, I do like to dress in feminine clothing, despite my inability to tell you any trendy brand names or styles. Years after the cancellation of The New Girl, I still tend toward Jessica Day style dresses, long hair, and bangs… though I do cut them myself. Now that I spend my mornings nursing pregnancy headaches, instead of screaming on the bathroom floor, I once again have the energy to dress up in cheap Amazon maternity dresses and accessorize with the jewelry I’ve accumulated over the last 15 years. I even straighten my hair, the one style technique I’ve mastered… before donning my mask.

Now, here we are, able to see our vaccinated friends and family once again, sans masks, according to CDC guidelines. In fact, this weekend, Jake and I are visiting the family ranch for the first time, since we begged for money for fertility treatments last March. I look like a tabloid snapshot of myself! This ranch is located in the land of big hair, turquoise, and people who haven’t been wearing masks for the last year, and I don’t even know how to look human anymore.

I must admit that, after all the ways that Covid-19 has kicked our collective butts, this threw me for a loop. I’ve been alternately praying for normalcy and breaking down because we’ll never see it again, so it never occurred to me how awkward readjusting to it would be, when Earth began to reopen. I have to say, though, it’s a good problem to have and maybe it means there’s an end in sight, if we can start to worry about dressing appropriately and forgetting how to wear makeup.

George Bailey: The First Millenial

Posted on December 11, 2020 by Belle of the Library

It’s a Wonderful Life has long been one of my favorite Christmas movies and remains so, as our holiday film selection becomes increasingly over-saturated with emphasis on a depiction of Santa Claus, that no more resembles the historical Saint Nicholas than Disney’s Pocahontas resembles the 17th century twelve-year-old of the Powhatan tribe.*

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This is a 12-year-old.

As a religious person, the overwhelming focus on Santa, by others of the Christian faith, baffles me. I don’t even want to do the Santa thing, anymore, because I feel the emphasis has become so skewed in favor of a cartoon character and materialism over the birth of the Messiah. A couple of years ago, I told my grandmother that I wasn’t playing Dirty Santa, at the family party.

Me: “It’s just not fun for me and it’s expensive.”
Grandma: “Well, that’s what Christmas is about, you know… giving each other gifts.”
Me: “No, it’s not. Christmas is about Jesus and family.”

My 82-year-old grandmother told me Christmas is about things, y’all. That should horrify you, even if you’re not religious. Santa can go jump in a lake.

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So… I’ve really grown to appreciate the old Christmas movies that aren’t afraid to broach faith, family values, and societal responsibility, like Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Carol, and It’s a Wonderful Life. Despite this, every year, as I watch this favorite Christmas classic, I have some… issues… with George Bailey and the fact that he’s… well, kind of a tool… by the standards of his time and mine. I’d even go so far to state that in 2018, George Bailey would fit several of the prevailing stereotypes of Millennials that I’ve been hearing all of my adult life. For example…

He’s selfish.

The opening scene of It’s a Wonderful Life, depicts three stars discussing a man on earth who is dangerously close to taking his own life. Ultimately, Clarence AS2 (Angel Second Class, which doesn’t even make sense as far as acronyms go), is assigned to intervene, as we listen to the prayers of George Bailey’s family and friends, one of which clearly declares that “He never thinks about himself.”

Never thinks about himself?!?!? The only truly selfless thing George Bailey does in this movie is to save his brother when he falls through the ice, ultimately losing his hearing in one ear, an action and a consequence he never again mentions. As wondrous as that behavior is from a teenage boy, it’s also the moment little GB peaked. Just a few weeks later, we see him arrive late to his after school job in a drug store, before providing terrible service to the only customers present.

Violet: “Help me down?”
George: ” Help ya down?!?!”

George: “Make up your mind yet?”
Mary: “I’ll take chocolate.”
George: “With coconuts?”
Mary: “I don’t like coconuts.”
George: “Don’t like coconuts? Say brainless, don’t you know where coconuts come from? [pulls out a National Geographic magazine] Look-it here, from Tahiti, the Fiji Islands, Coral Sea.”
Mary: “A new magazine! I never saw it.”
George: “‘Course you never. This is just for us explorers. It just so happens I’ve been nominated for membership in the National Geographic Society.” ::puts coconut on the ice cream, anyway::

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Spoiler alert: by “explorers”, he means “men.”

Immediately following this scene, we see George approach his boss, Mr. Gower, who’s just lost his son to the flu epidemic of 1919 and is naturally drunk, devastated, and ill-tempered. Realizing that the impaired pharmacist has mistakenly filled some capsules with poison, George risks his ire to correct him, ultimately taking quite the boxing of his sore ear. We’re lead to believe that this is another truly honorable moment; but I think it’s worth considering the fact that this kid just showed up late to work and treated Mr. Gower’s only customers like dirt, prior to pestering him during his grief. While he might not have deserved to be hit, it was a reprimand appropriate to the times. Furthermore, I work with teenagers and I just don’t consider it a stretch to think that any one of them would speak up if they thought someone was about to poison some children, no matter the consequences. I feel like the average American is only impressed by this “heroism”, because they have such devastatingly low expectations of teens.

As the movie continues, we see George grow into a man… an extraordinarily selfish man, who speaks incessantly about what he wants. Even his last words to his father, for which he shows no remorse, are entitled declarations about how he deserves more.

– “Oh, now Pop, I couldn’t. I couldn’t face being cooped up for the rest of my life in a shabby little office…Oh, I’m sorry Pop, I didn’t mean that, but this business of nickels and dimes and spending all your life trying to figure out how to save three cents on a length of pipe…I’d go crazy. I want to do something big and something important.”

After his father dies and the board votes to keep the Bailey Building and Loan open, in response to George’s passionate defense of the community, they only have one condition: George must stay on and take his father’s place.

– “Let’s get this thing straight. I’m leaving! I’m leaving right now! I’m going to school! This is my last chance! Uncle Billy, here, he’s your man!’

That’s right. George’s first consideration when his father’s legacy, his community, is on the line, is what he wants. The next four years apparently offer little growth, as he tells Mary, the night he calls on her:

– “Now, you listen to me. I don’t want any plastics and I don’t want any ground floors and I don’t want to get married ever, to anyone! You understand that? I want to do what I want to do!”

“He never thinks about himself”? That’s the entire premise of the first half of this movie. All George Bailey does is think about himself, about what he wants, what he deserves, because…

He’s entitled.

As a millennial, I literally hear about the entitlement of my generation, weekly… but no matter how many participation trophies I received as a kid (because I certainly didn’t earn any legitimate ones), I have never, in my adult life, compared to the entitlement of George Bailey.

In 1940, only 5.5% of men had completed a college degree, compared to 3.8% of women, not because it was a time of equality, but because a college education was so incredibly rare.* That’s eleven years after George sits at his father’s table, in his very nice middle class home, and tells him he’s better than the Bailey Building and Loan, a year when only 68% of American homes had electricity.* Just weeks later, after his father’s death, George even ridicules the man’s failure to have paid for not just his, but his brother’s education.

– “You are right when you say my father was no business man. I know that. Why he ever started this cheap penny-ante building and loan, I’ll never know. but neither you nor anybody else can say anything against his character, because his whole life was… why in the 25 years since he and Uncle Billy started this thing, he never once thought of himself, isn’t that right Uncle Billy? He didn’t save enough money to send Harry to school, let alone me.”

He does so to a room of men who likely went no further than the 8th grade, themselves, because in 1940 less than 25% of Americans had completed high school.* If you’re wondering why all these stats are about 1940, that’s because prior to that year, the surveys weren’t interested in levels of completed schooling, but literacy. A healthy chunk of the country couldn’t read the day ol’ GB haughtily declared he was turning down the position of executive secretary of his own business to go to college.

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Yeah. I’m entitled.

It’s not just his demand for a college education that made George Bailey insufferably privileged, by the standards of that time and this one, but his general disdain for his hometown. I get it, he wanted to travel the world, in a day when men were lucky to have jobs at all, but the lack of exoticism in Bedford falls certainly didn’t earn the level of contempt George had for it.

– “It’ll keep him out of Bedford Falls, anyway.”

– “Homesick?!? For Bedford Falls?!?

– “… stay around this measly, crummy old town.”

This “crummy old town” has an indoor swimming pool under the high school gym. The only rundown house is eventually transformed to a glorious Victorian mansion by Mary Bailey, herself, with just a little elbow grease. Even George declares the falls are beautiful in the moonlight, when he tries to petition Violet to climb Mount Bedford. The dystopian version still has a successful library.

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The citizens of Bedford Falls aren’t completely without their struggles, of course. George mentions to Sam Wainright that “half the town” was recently put out of business when the tool and machinery works was closed down. Does that stop him from criticizing anyone who works for Mr. Potter, though?

– “In the whole vast configuration of things, I’d say you’re nothing but a scurvy little spider… and that goes for you, too!”

Well, George, not everyone was just handed their father’s business, at 22. Zetus Lapetus, much of this movie took place during The Great Depression! Choosers were literally beggars, which brings me to my final point of our “hero’s” entitlement. George Bailey was 12 in 1919, born in 1907. These years weren’t exactly known for the wealth of choices they provided. Throughout the entirety of It’s a Wonderful Life, however, George is constantly choosing his path. He chose to stay and run the Bailey Building and Loan after his father died. He chose to give his college money to Harry and let him take another job, when he was more than willing to take over. George chose to marry Mary, immediately after stating that it wasn’t what he wanted. He chose not to invest in Sam Wainwright’s business despite the fact that he’d apparently saved two thousand dollars for his travels. That’s thirty thousand dollars, today and ol’ GB chose to forfeit it to keep the Building and Loan open.

In a time of rampant polio and domestic violence and 25% unemployment, George had the luxury to choose his path and each and every time, he was an absolute martyr about it. He didn’t do these things, because he was selfless. He did them because of societal expectation, because of his image, and we know this, by his perpetual bellyaching, because…

He’s ungrateful.

When I went on this rant during my bi-weekly teen book club, because that’s the librarian I am, my kids argued that this was the point of the movie and I’ll give them that. However, in the opening scene it’s heavily implied that George Bailey is only presently forgetting how good he has it, as he faces financial ruin and scandal on Christmas Eve. I mean, who wouldn’t see the brown spots on their lawn, in that light? For our “hero”, though, the grass has perpetually been greener. The entire movie highlights his general unhappiness and lack of appreciation.

George Bailey sits in his father’s home, as he’s served by a maid, and insists he can do better for himself. He somehow begrudgingly both inherits his own business and marries a beautiful women, who’s been in love with him her whole life. He has a respectable excuse to avoid the war and make beautiful babies, yet still finds something to complain about, while other men are dying and losing limbs. All the while, Mary Bailey remodels their home, cares for their children, and runs the USO, without a word of complaint. You the real MVP, Mary Bailey, because if this movie is an accurate indicator of your husband’s daily behavior, I’d have smothered him with a pillow in the first month of marriage. I mean, you could have been a librarian.

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Years go by and George Bailey lives in a beautiful home, in a wealthy little town. He’s a respected member of society, by everyone from the town tramp to the bartender to his arch nemesis’s financial adviser. Still, his days are ruined by such inconsequentials as a loose newal cap on the staircase.*

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Dude, even Zuzu was like, “Paste it, Daddy.”
Is it that much of a surprise, when things really go sideways and he says:

– “…It’s this old house. I don’t know why we all don’t have pneumonia. Drafty old barn! Might as well be living in a refrigerator… Why do we have to live here in the first place, and stay around this measly, crummy old town…”

– “Wrong? Everything’s wrong. You call this a happy family — why do we have to have all these kids?”

– “What kind of a teacher are you, anyway? What do you mean, sending her home like that, half naked? Do you realize she’ll probably end up with pneumonia, on account of you? Is this the sort of thing we pay taxes for, to have teachers… to have teachers like you… stupid, silly, careless people who send our kids home without any clothes on?”

That last little remark earned him a busted lip, and despite the general disagreement of the community of Bedford Falls, I’d say it was quite well-deserved. It’s at this point, however, that we see George Bailey finally begins to realize how good he has it, and yet… the only hope poor Clarence has of convincing him of this, is a glimpse through the most self-centered lense of all time. Looking into the eyes of his loving wife, adoring children, and loyal friends wasn’t enough to convince George that life was worth living. Nope. Ol’ GB could only see value in his life when someone put a gold star next to his every good deed. His existence was only worth the effort, once it was proven that just by being alive, he changed the world. Folks, if that ain’t a participation trophy…

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Pictured: The Original Millennial

Citations

https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/pocahontas

https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attainment-of-college-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/

Click to access 10_Education.pdf

https://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/staircase-parts-and-terminology.htm

How Luck Prepared Us for Disaster

Posted on April 14, 2020 by Belle of the Library

Right now, I have a firm grasp on positivity… which of course means that later, I’ll have a firm grasp on a bottle of whiskey. My highs are really high and my lows are really low. I half-ass nothing.

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So, in my latest up moment, I’ve been considering all the ways that I’m at an advantage during this pandemic, either by good decisions I’ve made that have ultimately prepared me for disaster, or the more likely scenario of pure chance. I’m a firm believer that where liberals tend to underestimate the role of moxy and self-determination, conservatives tend to underestimate the role of luck. So here’s a mix of both.

We’re used to eating at home.
Zetus lapetus, I don’t know how you people eat out all the time. Jake and I split a McDonald’s burger and fries (no drink) to celebrate Easter, since it was already the lamest holiday ever and it cost $7.26. That’s why we never eat out and y’all are crazy. Fortunately for us, this means we’ve got quite the cache of recipes, because we’re used to cooking. We’re not eating pasta night after night, but instead we’re eating soups, stew, salmon, enchiladas, salads, burgers, garlic green beans, battered fish, fries and tots, coconut haystacks, chocolate chip cookies, cake mix cookies… We’ve developed a lengthy menu over the years. Since we come home for lunch, that includes lunches. We are not scrambling for meal planning ideas.

I’ve been cutting our hair for years.
Zetus lapetus, I don’t know how you people get your hair cut all the time. A few years ago, I decided I wanted bangs, but I knew they’d need more upkeep than my twice annual haircut, so I bought some hair sheers on Amazon for $15 and started doing it myself, with tips from YouTube. A year ago, Jake asked me to cut his hair, so we could save the $20 every couple of months. For the cost of one of those haircuts, I bought a trimmer on Amazon and have been doing it ever since. Despite all salons being closed, there are no shaggy folks in the Granger household.

I own walking shoes and workout equipment.
I’ve had an elliptical for years and purchased my rowing machine about a month before the pandemic really hit. I also bought a good pair of walking shoes about six months ago and live in an older neighborhood with large lots and wide streets, so walks are a great way to get out of the house.

We don’t have kids.
We want to do the baby thing soon, but we haven’t gotten around to it just yet and I’ve gotta say, what a time to be childless. I cannot imagine going through the highs and lows I hit in one day with small children in tow. I miss my job and the days feel long and meaningless, while I’m constantly terrified that I’ll get news that there won’t be any paychecks after a certain date. I can’t sleep, because I wake up and remember we’re in the middle of the apocalypse. It’s exhausting and I’m so glad I’m not solely responsible for another human’s health and well-being at this very moment of my life.

We have stable(ish) jobs.
They’re furloughing nurses and doctors in my state, during a pandemic. No job is 100% safe. Jake and I, however, have been lucky enough to keep our jobs and pay thus far. While I’m home, I am doing three remote programs a week with my homeschool kids, to justify that pay and none of my managers seem worried that we’ll lose it, let alone our jobs. Jake is essential, if people want to continue getting water in their homes, and he goes to work every day, as per usual.

I have a contingency plan.
If the bottom falls out, I just passed my school media certification test to add another subject area to my teaching certificate, which I’ve kept going all these years. They will always need teachers and I can always teach… even if that means eventually relocating to Jake’s home state, where teachers are better compensated.

We already bought a house.
Realizing that Cherokee property values were soaring and recognizing that if we waited to buy until we had a 20% down payment, we’d price ourselves out of the market, we purchased our 2,300 square foot, 1980’s flip on over an acre, for $210,000 with 5% down in 2018. Since I have no idea what Covid-19 is going to do to the housing market or mortgages as a whole, I’m really glad we’ve already bought a home that we plan to stay in for at least the next 15 years.

I just refinanced that house.
Literally, two weeks after the lock down, we signed the paperwork on a lower fixed interest rate and a lower monthly payment, which stated that we’d already earned 10% equity. We won’t have to make a mortgage payment until June and can use those payments to secure our financial position.

We’ve paid off a lot of debt and are now nearing an ideal financial situation.
I married a man with a nest egg and that is pure luck. Do any of y’all remember my rants about Fifty Shades of Grey and how I’d let a man hang me upside down and gut me like a deer if he’d only pay off my student loans? That happened!

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Not that part… the part about the student loans. While I still owe on my federal student loans, they’re on an income based repayment program that only counts my income and comes out to about $220 a month, while the remainder is due for public service student loan forgiveness in 2024. My private student loans, however, were killing us. We were paying $300 a month just to keep the phone calls at bay, because we weren’t even touching the principal… that is, until my romantic hero swept in and paid them all off, along with my car and credit card, ultimately lowering our overhead by quite a bit. We’ve also paid off multiple credit cards since then and managed to secure a car payment of about $200 per month, while maintaining a sizable emergency fund.

I like my husband… and for some reason, he likes me.
I’ve seen a lot of memes and articles citing the stress that this pandemic is putting on marriages. Maybe it’s because Jake is still going to work each day or because we have a lot of space to offer each other, but I just don’t feel that way. I have thought a hundred times how much worse this pandemic would be if I were single. I could barely handle getting iced in all alone during Southern snowstorms in my twenties, and those only lasted a few days. I would go crazy with no one but my pets, sitting around 24/7 reading articles about the end times.

During Armageddon, Jake gives me a reason to be in a good mood, to be sober, to keep a clean house, to make healthy meals, as opposed to my famous single girl dining experience of Lotso Snack Foods. Marshmallows and maraschino cherries for dinner anyone? Jake provides comfort and company and someone to share sad McDonald’s burgers as we celebrate Isolation Holidays with video games and drinking. For some reason, he’s grateful to have me around too and I’m beginning to think that’s it’s just his provider instincts. When crisis hits, he needs something to take care of… enter me.

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Minimalist Pandemic Goals

Posted on April 7, 2020 by Belle of the Library

Three weeks ago, I got the news that my library would be closing for two weeks, in the face of Covid-19. One week ago, I got the news that my library would be closing for two more weeks. Last Thursday… I think, the days are beginning to run together… I got the news that my library would be closed for the month of April.

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Text to My Boss: Can we just stage a coup and go back anyway? Open the library, welcome people inside. I’m tired of being a part of the solution. Let’s be part of the problem.

In that first week, I posted an adorably ambitious list of pandemic goals. In hindsight, I now realize, of course, that this is the equivalent to a Google search for the most popular New Year’s resolutions. So I’m here to revise…

Goal 1: Do Everything I Can to Keep My Job

I am being paid, in full, while still accruing leave. I have a paycheck and health insurance through the end of the month, guaranteed. None of my managers are concerned about our jobs. We have a very secure funding model, similar to that of teachers. That being said, my state is on the list of potentials for the next Covid-19 hot spot and the president is about to advise that everyone wear masks in public. I bought gas for .99 cents a gallon yesterday. Sam’s Club doesn’t have meat. It’s the apocalypse, yo. Anyone who thinks their job is totally secure isn’t paying attention.

There aren’t a lot of ways to librarian from home, folks. I’m doing remote programming with my teens two days a week, listening to classics and reading YA novels, researching programming ideas for fall. I’m jumping at every chance for a video conference, internally and externally and planning to do some some software training on YouTube. I’m writing bi-weekly reports of all of my contributions and sending them in unsolicited. I’m obsessively checking my email, even though it’s been mostly crickets from management, all in the hopes that if this goes on long enough to require tough decisions, they’ll layoff anyone else.

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Goal 2: Don’t Get Fat

Call me vain, I don’t care, but directly below keeping my job comes the goal of not getting fat in isolation. Y’all, I am literally holed up all day, with all of the food ever. There’s almost nothing I could want to eat, that I couldn’t eat. I have ice cream and cookies and Easter candy and fried chicken strips and frozen pizza and very little to do, beyond cry because the world is ending.

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Forget yoga. Forget zumba. Forget healthy eating. Methodology no longer matters to me. If maintaining my weight means I walk around the neighborhood listening to audiobooks for two hours a day, so I can’t raid the fridge, so be it. What else am I going to do with my time? If it means drinking nothing but coffee until 1:00 in the afternoon, while doing an impression of Grandpa Joe from Willy Wonka, fine. As long as they don’t have to roll me out of isolation, like Violet Beauregarde I’m happy.

Goal 3: Be Nice to My Husband

As essential personnel, my husband is still going to work every day. If anyone is going to get me sick, it’s him. If anyone is going to take care of me, it’s him. If anyone is going to keep me from feeling totally isolated, it’s him. It’s not his fault that I’m home, all day, theorizing that the evangelicals might be right and this could be the Rapture… at least beyond the point that he married me. He has to live in this incredibly stressful world, too… and he has to actually venture out into it. I don’t have to be the perfect housewife, but the least I can do is keep home pleasant.

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Goal 4: Don’t Destroy the House

I am a homebody, y’all. I love my house. There’s no place I’d rather be… except maybe work these days. This house is 2,300 square feet, though, including the converted garage and it sits on over an acre. If not properly cared for, that becomes a huge chore. So, while Jake takes care of the lawn, it is my goal to keep our home comfortable… since we’re possibly going to die in it.

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Goal 5: Don’t Destroy the Pets

Jake deserves 100% of the credit for the fact that our pets are not insufferable. He has trained them quite well, not to beg or get on the furniture without permission. They’re not allowed in the kitchen when we’re in there and they’re just generally much nicer to be around than many other people’s pets. Thackery Binx will meow at me first thing in the morning, because he wants me to hurry up and sit down with my coffee, so I can snuggle him. He seems to understand, however, that these snuggles have a time limit, because I have to go to work… until now. Now, I am home 100% of the time, to respond to everyone’s every whim, so I’m making it a goal to be slightly more emotionless, so as not to utterly destroy my pets in the time I’m home, however long that may be.

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Goal 6: Don’t Spend Money

Times are simply too uncertain for retail therapy. Jake and I were quite fortunate to have started a refinance on our home six weeks ago, and to have finalized it just Wednesday, which means we’ve saved $300 on our mortgage and now have a 3.375% interest rate. We actually had to send in our most recent pay stubs, again, just to prove we still had jobs, the day before we signed, though. The economy has tanked and while I do still have my teaching certificate, because I love contingency plans, we don’t know what the future holds. So, spending less money is important right now. The mortgage payments we don’t have to make, the stimulus checks that are on their way, the extra paychecks we’re expecting in a few months… these are all going to securing our financial future, so that if things get bad, they’re not as bad.

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Goal 7: Read Books

I have no more goals about what I should read, simply that I should read something that isn’t the news. It can be a romance novel I’ve read three times, as long as it’s not staring at a screen, crying over the end times. It probably shouldn’t be the next Left Behind novel or anything else that’s actually about the end times, but I’m not going to be that specific in my parameters.

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So there we have it, my minimalist, realistic goals. If I can make it through this apocalypse employed, human sized, married, with a home and pets that don’t suck, without wasting all of the money we’ve saved, and without driving myself crazy by reading about Armageddon all day, I will be in a better place than most. They aren’t stimulating goals, but they’re goals all the same.

Holiday Social Contracts: Landmines for the Socially Awkward

Posted on December 17, 2019 by Belle of the Library

Every New Year’s Eve

Jake: “What do you wanna watch?”
Me: “We could watch Rudolph’s Shiny New Year.”
Jake: “I thought we were done with Christmas movies.”
Me: “That’s not a Christmas movie. It’s a New Years movie… and in seven months, we can watch Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July.”

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Spoiler alert: He hated it.

Y’all, I love the holidays. I don’t mean that the way normal people do, either. I mean aggressively so. I love the decorations, the music, the holiday movies and episodes of my favorite TV shows. I watch and sing along to The Worst Witch and Hocus Pocus on repeat, starting in late September. I love the garishly themed jewelry and t-shirts and hats that are suddenly acceptable on October first, but I pull them out a week early, regardless.

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One of the major concessions of my marriage involved selling my six foot tall hot pink Christmas tree and decor that looked like it was stolen from the set of Babes in Toyland. No one will ever convince me that red and green M&M’s, Reese’s Bells, and Christmas Crunch cereal don’t taste better. I don’t care even a little bit that I look like a kindergarten teacher in my brightly colored Christmas dresses. I love the holidays so much, that I have to fight getting depressed halfway through, because they’re almost over.

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I will, however, admit that there is one aspect of the holiday season I loathe entirely…

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… and that is the minefield of social contracts.

In my field, anyone who doesn’t consider themselves to be entirely crippled by their own introversion, is labeled an extrovert. This somewhat skewed view means that many of my coworkers consider me to be quite the social butterfly, due to my comfort level socializing with all eleven of them. They’re not entirely wrong, either. I quite enjoy my job. I spend each day with the same handful of people, whose personal stories and worldviews and interests I’ve come to know and respect. I have numerous casual interactions with customers that rarely go deeper than a reader’s advisory discussion on the abusive relationship dynamics present in Nicholas Sparks’ novels. I see the same teenagers at each program, where we discuss who would win in a battle, Doctor Who or The Hulk. Overall, as someone who always scores on the cusp of extroversion and/or introversion, I get exactly the right amount of stimulation in my position… usually.

When I first started at the Cherokee Library, I was completely overwhelmed, socially. I didn’t know my coworkers’ backgrounds, religious views, entertainment interests, political affiliations, or tastes in music. Every night, I went home and turned over literally every interaction in my mind, wondering if I’d said the right thing, left the correct impression, presented myself accurately. I did the same thing after my four day YALSA conference with unfamiliar coworkers and again after my recent game night with some new friends. While I love the comfortable surroundings and regular patrons of my every day social experience, it’s only because I’m in my element. New people and surroundings leave me emotionally spent. In short… extrovert my ass.

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So, while I love, love, love the holidays, I think I’ve realized these last few years, is that what I truly enjoy is the build up. I love sitting at home, reciting every word to Hocus Pocus, with the cat. I love watching Thanksgiving episodes of How I Met Your Mother, on my tablet, while Jake plays video games. I love listening to Christmas carols on Pandora, while making peanut brittle in my kitchen. I love showing pictures of my Christmas decorations to my coworkers, and oohing and ahhing over photos of their pets in reindeer antlers. I love driving through Christmas lights with my husband and choosing a real tree together. What I really love is sprinkling the everyday, homebody familiar, with bright colors and lights and glitter and festivity. The grand finale, though? That stresses me out, primarily due to the aforementioned endless mandatory social contracts, such as…
Bringing a Dish

On December 22nd of my first Christmas season with Jake, I burst into tears when my three-ingredient peanut butter cookies tasted exactly like three-ingredient peanut butter cookies, and angrily tossed them in the trash.

Jake: “They’re fine. Why don’t you just make another batch and cook them less?”
Me: “Because they aren’t good and all the women in your family will be judging me on what I bring. If I take those after taking Oreo balls to Thanksgiving, they’ll all think I can’t cook.”
Jake: “What was wrong with the Oreo balls?”
Me: “They were a no-bake dessert. They’ll think I’m a just a Pinterest cook and they’ll all hate me, because I can’t make cookies!”

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Of course, in the end, there were plenty of desserts, too many in fact, which I knew would be the case, but social norms required I bring something.
Being in Someone Else’s Home

Why do I have to offer to help my mother-in-law in the kitchen, when we both know there’s nothing for me to do and little space in which for me to do it? Why does she have to stop what she’s doing to pretend I’m useful and let me spoon butter she’s already melted onto biscuits she’s already made or let me cut the onion, when she’s just going to dice it smaller?

Why is there only bar soap in the bathroom? How many people have used this hand towel? How obvious is it that I dried my hands on the bottoms of my jeans? Will I look rude/weird if I get out my antibacterializer?

If I don’t eat these “appetizers”, am I going to hurt someone’s feelings? Can you call a bar full of cheese an appetizer? Literally, there’s queso, next to a plate full of cream cheese with cranberry sauce, two cheese balls, and a plate of sliced cheese. If I eat this, I won’t poop until Christmas.

Where do I sit? I like the chair that doesn’t require me to sit next to anyone else, but is there some unspoken familial claim to this chair? Am I in Uncle Buck’s Chair? Okay, I’ll sit on the couch by the arm and Jake can sit next to me. Why doesn’t he ever sit down? He’s been pacing for the last 30 minutes. I’m like 80% sure he’s forgotten I’m here. Wait. Is anyone else sitting down? Should I be standing? But… I don’t want to lose my couch corner.

When should I get up to get food? I don’t want to rush the table, but I don’t want to eat after everyone’s had their hands in each dish, during cold and flu season. I want to try everything, but I don’t want to seem gluttonous. I should have gotten a larger plate. There is no way these people don’t think I have an eating disorder.

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Gift Giving

Zetus lapetus, y’all, I do not get gift giving. I’m 32 years old. I make over $50,000 a year, in one of the cheapest states in the country. If I want something, I can buy it. If I can’t, no one else can, either. So what is the damn point of gift giving? Why do I have to spend $20 to buy a gift for someone that they might like, just so they can spend $20 to buy a gift for me that I, quite frankly, probably won’t like, and pretend that we’ve done some sort of charitable service, when both of us had $20 to spare in the first place? A couple of greedy, materialistic, bitches trading twenties is in no way, symbolic of the gifts the wise men brought to baby Jesus. If anything, we should just all donate that $20 to give Christmas to a family down on their luck or buy toys for children with incarcerated parents or purchase a goat for a family in a third world country or literally any better cause.

If I want to do those things, though, it has to be in addition to trading twenties, which just makes the holidays more costly and stressful. I can understand close family trading gifts, knowing the recipients will enjoy them, but why, oh why do the women in my family draw names for each other’s children and trade advice on what to buy them, when they could just all spend money on their own children, whose interests and wants they already know?!?!

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Don’t even get me started on Dirty Santa, where I’m supposed to spend $40 on a gift for no one, so I can stress myself out by over-analyzing the social etiquette of stealing home decor from my mother-in-law or leave in frustration when I contribute a gift I kind of like and open a bowl of decorative wicker balls and a diabetic cookbook. If I refuse to play, I’m anti-social and if I bring a gift I’d truly enjoy, I’m the weird one who brought the Spock Bluetooth speaker to Christmas. If we must all leave with gifts, why can’t we each spend $40 on something for ourselves and open them in a big circle with genuine delight? I don’t understand.
Talking to Children

I’m a woman and a librarian, so it’s just assumed that I like children. I don’t. I don’t like babies. They’re fragile and always leaking and it’s inevitable that they’ll start screaming and I won’t be able to find the mother. I don’t like little kids. I don’t have the patience or the sense of humor for them. Why are you still telling me this story that I think is about Spongebob? Why did you choose me to tell? Am I sending off pro-child vibes, because I work very hard to maintain subtle anti-child vibes. Why are you making that face? Was I not supposed to ask that? Ugh, don’t cry and get me in trouble.

Give me tweens and teens any day, but the holidays inevitably mean someone will leave me alone with a small child and I will make them cry or tell them something I shouldn’t or call them “it.” Someone will ask when I’m having children and I’ll either sputter through an awkward, but appropriate, answer or make a wildly inappropriate joke about how Jake keeps putting it in the wrong hole. The build up to the holidays does not necessarily mean associating with children, but the holidays themselves are crawling with them. Yes, yes, Jake and I are planning on having our own children soon, but that’s different, because it has to be or no one would procreate. I’ll figure out children when I must. If I taught myself to crochet from a YouTube video, I can teach myself to parent.
Talking to Adults

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I love my family. I do… but we do not get each other. I don’t mean that in some sort of coming of age drama way, either. We’re just very different people; or rather, they’re all the same people and I’m very different. My aunts, uncles, and cousins love body humor, the occasional racist joke, maybe something about killing a cat and I just don’t get it.

Me: ::whispering in church:: “What do you want to do for dinner?”
Jake: “I have a big thing of sausage we need to use.”
Me: ::giggling uncontrollably::
Jake: “In church? Really?”

Jake jokes that I’m randomly an 8th grade boy sometimes, likely because I spend so much time with 8th grade boys, but the humor is all relatively innocent and is very rarely gross or cruel. I don’t understand why poop is funny and I understand even less why comparing our former president to a monkey is funny. I was genuinely disgusted by the Christmas ornament my cousin included in our Dirty Santa game last year, featuring Santa doing Mrs. Claus from behind. My humor is very dry and my family rarely even gets that I’m joking. When it’s not, it’s usually comprised of dorky and innocent puns, which they also don’t appreciate.

These people frequently tell me that they can’t have a conversation with me, because I’m too smart… which they think is a compliment. Conversationally, I’m just extremely intellectually curious. I like to theorize about the average age of parents who shake their babies, the effect of commonplace Photoshop on the children we’re “fixing” when they become adults, how technology is contributing to pornography addiction in teens and apparently, none of this is Christmas talk. I have one or two cousins who seemingly enjoy these discussions, but we’re not the norm. Even my fashion sense is completely off base. They’re Miranda Lambert to my Zooey Deschanel. They wear National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation t-shirts, while I rant yearly about how much I hate that movie, in my giant hand-crocheted Christmas tree hat and my Meowy Christmas cat shirt. None of us is wrong. We just don’t really fit… and also, they’re wrong and that movie is stupid.

Jake’s family has been nothing but kind to me, but I am only beginning to understand how to talk to them. Last December 23rd, at his big family Christmas, Jake suggested, on his own, that we eat in the garage, as I was so visibly overwhelmed, because it was just so much people and we have nothing in common. I don’t have kids. I don’t understand the rodeo world. I’ve never castrated a bull and don’t run cattle. I don’t want to look at the dead mountain lion in my brother-in-law’s truck. I am so not playing in the family Thanksgiving basketball game, because that sounds like literal Hell. I will get yelled at and have an asthma attack and/or break a bone. Just last Thanksgiving, Jake’s cousin told a story about the girl on his daughter’s softball team, who he refers to as Shock Collar, because she won’t pay attention. All I could think, is that I was the Shock Collar of my softball team and maybe her parents should put her in piano lessons. Jake, of course, fits in everywhere.

Me: “I wish I fit in with your family as well as you fit in with my family… actually I wish I fit in with my family and much as you fit in with my family.”

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Elf on the Shelf and Santa Claus

I have always hated Elf on the Shelf. At best, it was a brilliant marketing ploy, by its creator, who has sold over 11 million book and doll sets, which doesn’t even account for the new line of accessories.* For most people, however, it’s a slightly creepy self-imposed chore of a tradition, which many parents regret ever starting. I knew, when it became popular, that I wouldn’t be purchasing an Elf for my own children. I’m even more certain of that fact 15 years later, as I watch my family and friends scramble around to perform for their children nightly, for the duration of a season that’s supposed to already be plenty magical by nature. Speaking of which…

I used to be one of the masses, the people who thought parents who didn’t play Santa were ridiculous and depriving their children of the magic of Christmas, but as time has gone by, I don’t really understand why we do this. If you’re a religious person, as I am, then why do you need to add magic to the season with a cartoon character? Yes, yes, Saint Nicholas was a real saint, but that means very little unless you’re Catholic. Also, the modern depiction of Santa Claus no more resembles Saint Nicholas than Disney’s Pocahontas does the historical twelve-year-old. We’re not honoring a Saint, anymore… and quite frankly, Protestants never were, because they don’t acknowledge sainthood. We’re revering a caricature, who often overshadows the true Christian value of the season, ironically through the very un-Christ-like means of greed and materialism. If you’re specifically nonreligious, shouldn’t you be opposed to such fairy tales? Isn’t that one of the primary principles of Atheism, that one shouldn’t have faith in what cannot be seen or proven? Doesn’t the modern Santa Claus directly defy both of these belief systems? Isn’t this entirely appropriate conversation for Thanksgiving dinner?!?! Can I please just go home and only talk to my husband and my pets now?!?!

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Sources
https://www.today.com/series/holidays-made-easy/elf-shelf-turns-10-secret-history-santa-s-little-scout-t62531

George Bailey: The First Millennial

Posted on December 4, 2019 by Belle of the Library

LYVn

This is a 12-year-old.

As a religious person, the overwhelming focus on Santa, by others of the Christian faith, baffles me. I don’t even want to do the Santa thing, anymore, because I feel the emphasis has become so skewed in favor of a cartoon character and materialism over the birth of the Messiah. Just last week, I told my grandmother that I wasn’t playing Dirty Santa, at the family party.

My 82-year-old grandmother just told me Christmas is about things, y’all. That should horrify you, even if you’re not religious. Fuck Santa.

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The opening scene of It’s a Wonderful Life, depicts three stars discussing a man on earth who is dangerously close to taking his own life. Ultimately, Clarence AS2 (Angel Second Class), is assigned to intervene, as we listen to the prayers of George Bailey’s family and friends, one of which clearly declares that “He never thinks about himself.”

Violet: “Help me down?”
George: ” Help ya down?!?!”

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Spoiler alert: by “explorers”, he means “men.”

– “Let’s get this thing straight. I’m leaving! I’m leaving right now! I’m going to school! This is my last chance! Uncle Billy, here, he’s your man!’

In 1940, only 5.5% of men had completed a college degree, compared to 3.8% of women, not because it was a time of equality, but because a college education was so incredibly rare.* That’s eleven years after George sits at his father’s table, in his very nice middle class home, and tells him he’s better than the Bailey Building and Loan, a year when only 68% of American homes had electricity.* Just weeks later, after his father’s death, George even ridicules the man’s failure to have paid for not just his, but his brother’s education.

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Yeah. I’m entitled.

It’s not just his demand for a college education that made George Bailey insufferably privileged, by the standards of that time and this one, but his general disdain for his hometown. I get it, he wanted to travel the wold, in a day when men were lucky to have jobs at all, but the lack of exoticism in Bedford falls certainly didn’t earn the level of contempt George had for it.

– “It’ll keep him out of Bedford Falls, anyway.”

– “Homesick?!? For Bedford Falls?!?

– “… stay around this measly, crummy old town.”

This “crummy old town” has an indoor swimming pool under the high school gym. The only rundown house is eventually transformed to a glorious Victorian mansion by Mary Bailey, herself, with just a little elbow grease. Even George declares the falls are beautiful in the moonlight, when he tries to petition Violet to climb Mount Bedford. The dsytopian version still has a successful library.

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– “In the whole vast configuration of things, I’d say you’re nothing but a scurvy little spider… and that goes for you, too!”

In a time of rampant polio and domestic violence and 25% unemployment, George had the luxury to choose his path and each and every time, he was a total fucking martyr about it. He didn’t do these things, because he was selfless. He did them because of societal expectation, because of his image, and we know this, by his perpetual bellyaching, because…
He’s ungrateful.

When I went on this rant during my bi-weekly teen book club, because that’s the librarian I am, my kids argued that this was the point of the movie and I’ll give them that. However, in the opening scene it’s heavily implied that George Bailey is only presently forgetting how good he has it, as he faces financial ruin and scandal on Christmas Eve. I mean, who wouldn’t see the brown spots on their lawn, in that light? For GB, though, the grass has perpetually been greener. The entire movie highlights his general unhappiness and lack of appreciation.

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24StairKnob

Dude, even Zuzu was like, “Paste it, Daddy.”
Is it that much of a surprise, when things really go sideways and he says:

– “Wrong? Everything’s wrong. You call this a happy family — why do we have to have all these kids?”

That last little remark earned him a busted lip, and despite the general disagreement of the community of Bedford Falls, I’d say it was quite well-deserved. It’s at this point, however, that we see George Bailey finally begin to realize how good he has it, and yet… the only hope poor Clarence has of convincing him of this, is a glimpse through the most self-centered lense of all time. Looking into the eyes of his loving wife, adoring children, and loyal friends wasn’t enough to convince George that life was worth living. Nope. Ol’ GB could only see value in his life when someone put a gold star next to his every good deed. His existence was only worth the effort, once it was proven that just by being alive, he changed the world. Folks, if that ain’t a participation trophy…

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Pictured: The First Millennial

Citations

https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/pocahontas

https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attainment-of-college-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/

Click to access 10_Education.pdf

https://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/staircase-parts-and-terminology.htm

The Only Millennial Who Hates Travel

Posted on November 15, 2019 by Belle of the Library

Jake was born in 1984, so strictly speaking, he’s a member of the Millennial generation, a title he greatly resents. You see, my in-laws, Jake’s parents and aunts and uncles, were some of the first Baby Boomers, raising his cousins and sister (and he and his brother, by default) firmly in Generation X. While I watched Rugrats and played with my Bop-It and Furbies, Jake was like… playing outside or something. He never saw a single episode of Full House or listened to NSYNC or owned a digital pet. With only a three year age difference, it’s amazing how different our childhoods were and even our personalities and interests are today. He was Varsity Blues to my Mean Girls and I could probably fashion a Jake Granger drinking game, where I do a shot every time he grumbles about what a Millennial I am… and more often than not, he’s right.

Jake: “… and how are you going to figure out how to do this?”
Me: “YouTube? I learned how to crochet from YouTube, I can learn how to paint a house from YouTube.”
Jake: “You are such a Millennial.”

Me: “My Kindle died! My book is out of batteries!”
Jake: “If only they made a paper version.”
Me: “Ugh. Gross. Those aren’t even backlit. It’s 2019.”
Jake: “You are such a Millennial.”

Me: “I hate that show. Nothing happened.”
Jake: “It’s a slow build. You like Stephen King.”
Me: “I like his books. The show is boring.”
Jake: “We’ve watched one episode. You are such a Millennial.”

In so many ways, I am my generation. I love new tech and all things Harry Potter. I took out six figure student loan debt, for a master’s degree, to work in a field I chose based on how much I thought I could Do Good and Change the World. I haven’t had cable in seven years and refuse to watch anything I can’t binge. I’ve hinted recently at the one stereotype I just cannot claim, though: the love of travel. Y’all, I hate travel. I hate it so much that “hate” isn’t even a strong enough term…

… and I’ll tell you why.
Packing
A couple of months ago, I wrote about Jake and my travels for a family rodeo event, in a neighboring state, where we enjoyed the shenanigans of acting like college kids together. What I didn’t mention, however, was how much I hated leaving home for four days, in part because of the comforts I couldn’t take with me and the ones I could, but would inevitably forget.

Yes, yes, I know, I can’t take the cat, or so say Jake and Thackery Binx alike. It seems, however, that it’s equally impossible to pack the most basic necessities of home, without taking so much that I risk forgetting something important in a hotel room in the Rocky Mountains. On this particular trip, I remembered three pairs of boots, four different dresses in varying levels of fancy, two different belts, and four different sets of jewelry. I had a suitcase, a garment bag, the original box for my wedding boots, and a bag full of items to keep me entertained in the car. I, however, forgot most of my makeup, my hairspray, and socks. But you know, it’s a good thing I brought a physical audiobook, outside of the three I’d downloaded to my phone, and the crochet project I never touched, to potentially take my mind off the fact that I forgot my makeup.

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Just this month, I had the privilege of attending YALSA, the Young Adult Library Services Association symposium in Memphis, Tennessee. It was a riot, naturally.

As a cost saving measure, and as good stewards of tax payer funds, our system-wide group of six drove the approximately seven hour trip, including stops, in the library van. While Jake and I had just driven an undeniably uncomfortable 10 hours in August, I correctly surmised that this was going to be an even less cozy trip. For starters, I was not in my own car and could not fully recline the seat to sleep, but instead had to sit in an appropriate position, no matter how much it made my back ache. I wasn’t driving with my husband, but several virtual strangers and colleagues and could not repeatedly complain that I was bored or ask how much longer the trip would be or request an unreasonable number of stops. No. I had to spend seven hours in a car, acting like a professional, and it sucked. The only benefit was that driving meant there was no weight limit to our luggage, and every one of us brought an empty suitcase to haul home all of our free YA novels… for the seven hour return trip.

I’m not convinced that a plane trip would have been any better, regardless. In fact, the last time I flew, was on my honeymoon and I spent the entirety of those flights with my head in Jake’s lap, too airsick to function. Seeing a new place and experiencing new things would be a lot more fun, if I didn’t have to actually get there.
Resting
Y’all, I’m a next level homebody and I know it. I don’t know if I’m just traumatized from the years in my late teens and early twenties, when I was forced to move every few months or if I’m just that basic, but I just cannot relax in a strange place. Still, I can appreciate the desire to see something new, or something ancient, to dip into another culture and hear another language. As with woodsy activities, however, I want to end my day in a comfy bed, preferably my comfy bed, because anything comparable is in a suite I can’t afford. While I might prefer a stay in a mid-range hotel room to camping, it still pales in comparison to a good night’s rest in my home.

I remember reading Ready Player One and thinking this is my kind of travel. I could fully experience entire worlds, without checking the bed bug registry or hauling around a comforter, because I know hotels only wash them twice a year. I could order sushi that I know I like, from the chain restaurant in town, and eat in an authentic Japanese restaurant. I could meet new people and learn about new cultures and shower in my own bathroom. Forget about the fantasy of flying cars and pet unicorns, that’s my Oasis: adventuring all day long and unwinding at home.

People
Can I experience another culture, without talking to people? Seriously, I spend all day, every day, talking to people. Librarianship is surprisingly extroverted, so my idea of a vacation involves a lot fewer people than most of the traveling I’ve done, because at the end of the day, I want to see Thackery Binx and Jake… maybe. Yes, I can turn it on, quite convincingly, for $25 an hour. Vacation isn’t supposed to be work, though, and weaving through throngs of people in an airport or a theme park or a cruise ship or a hotel, mingling with strangers, is work. I don’t even like the first few chapters of a book, because I don’t know the characters yet, so socializing for several days in the real world, when I’m not getting paid for it, is incredibly taxing.

Sure, YALSA was a working weekend, but despite the thrill of being surrounded by teen librarians, each evening still found me alone in the hotel gym, taking a break from all the trying… trying to share honest, but politically correct opinions, trying to be friendly without coming on too strong, trying to strike up meaningful conversations and get the most out of a trip I knew cost taxpayers good money, trying to make a good impression with both my system and national colleagues. By the second day, I was so overstimulated, that I found an architectural anomaly in the form of a little nook, tucked away behind a pillar, where I hid from all the cardigans, read on my phone while drinking coffee, and even called Jake crying because I was so bad at this traveling thing and wanted to come home.

Millennials love to travel. Zetus lapetus, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that stereotype referenced, I’d never have to pay for my avocado toast again, but I hate travel. I’m no longer convinced that I’m doing it wrong, either, because what seems to be a rejuvenating experience for most people is just exhausting to me. I don’t remember a time when I traveled anywhere, in fact, that I didn’t require an additional day to take a vacation from my vacation, whether it was my Alaskan honeymoon or the last time Jake and I drove three hours to see his parents. I don’t even have children yet and after a weekend away, I feel the way I think an average parent of three must feel after a week at Disney World. There’s so much preparation and upheaval and stress and so… many… people. I’d rather do porn… locally, of course.

“I like getting older. I feel like I’m finally aging into my personality.”

Posted on October 15, 2019 by Belle of the Library

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The child of a blended family, I have a hodge podge of siblings, including biological, step, and in-law. While my oldest (biological) brother and I only talk about once a year, I get along quite well with the latter… so well, in fact, that I was included in a Girls Night Out bachelorette party for my future sister-in-law, 24-year-old Brianna, along with my step-sister Bea (25) and sisters-in-law Sadie (29) and Kallie (27). That’s right. I was invited to a night Downtown, complete with barhopping, dancing, and inebriated fun!

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Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my sisters… enough to refer to them as sisters. They’re fun and funny and genuinely good people. I like them so much, in fact, that I’d actually agree to a Girls Night Out with them, in the first place… let alone agree, forget, make plans to watch all five Twilight movies, remember, and still go. They’re the only four people in reality or fiction who could convince me to do such a thing. No joke, if Buffy Summers and Spock himself invited me to go barhopping on the moon, Sabrina the Teenage Witch style, I’d cheerfully decline… but family is family. So, it was, that I found myself leaving work to change out of my grout covered clothes (librarians wear many hats) for a night on the town!

Y’all, I’m not a total recluse. I enjoy good company. I want to be included in sisterly group activities and I realize that declining invitations such as these is a great way to ensure that I’m not, in the future. However, I just celebrated my 32nd birthday and for once in my life, I feel like I can relate to my age group, because I have been over 30 since I was 12.

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I turned 13 in the year 2000, starting my teen years when Abercrombie & Fitch, Eminem, and American Idol reigned supreme. Preppy was in and the football players and cheerleaders ruled the school. A DDD, prior to my breast reduction at 15, I could never shop at the trendy stores. At 13, My favorite hobby was sewing. My single-minded obsession was Roswell. I didn’t know one Eminem song, but I could sing every word of “Love Will Keep Us Together,” from The Parent Trap soundtrack. I never attended a single sporting event and spent my weekends in RPG chat rooms based on my favorite TV shows. In short, I was not cool.

Today, I primarily buy my clothes at Ross, because I’m cheap. A good number of them are adorned with some kind of nerdy print, from the Halloween dress covered in witches to the Spock “Trek Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself” tee. Sewing is still a favorite pastime, along with crochet and I’m psyched about season two of Roswell, NM. I can sing every word of “Earth Angel,” and I’ve planned a pretty awesome vampire RPG game for my teens next week, called Bite Club. It’s chock full of hidden learning opportunities and I’m super excited. In short, ain’t much changed.

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At 32, in 2019, though, I’m no longer alone! Millennials have embraced nerd culture from Harry Potter and other YA novels to coding to D&D. We’re all drowning in student loan debt and working on a side hustle, so Dave Ramsey and crafting hobbies that can bring in a little money are cool now. All of my old crazes, like Roswell, Buffy, and Charmed are considered cult classics and some of them are even getting remakes, reboots, and spinoffs. I might not be up to date on modern music, but in a time when we’re all nostalgic, my knowledge of Beatles lyrics is cool.

When I was six, I “forgot” to give my mother the permission slip for my daycare field trip to the public pool, because I wanted to stay inside and play with all the toys alone. That same year, the memory page in the back of my kindergarten yearbook asked “Where is your favorite place to go?” I wrote “home.” Folks, kindergarten Belle was more self-aware than any version of Belle up to age 30. I have always preferred to be in my own home, with no more than a handful of people. At 8, 14, 22, and 26, this made me antisocial, a recluse. At 32, 28% of my ilk (a word I did, indeed, learn from Double, Double, Toil and Trouble) prefer drinking at home. Not only do Millenials go out less, they read more, care more about self-improvement, love tech, and are even flocking to suburbia. Y’all, I am all of those things! I’ve been all of those things my whole life! Zetus lapetus, you guys, I’m finally cool!

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All that being said, a downtown Girls Night Out is very much not my jam. As I drove to my sister’s house, I tried to psych myself up for a night of adventure, via a conversation with Belle.

Me: Come on! This was fun at 25!
Also Me: No, it really wasn’t.
Me: Alright, it wasn’t… but what would you even being doing tonight, that would be so much fun?
Also Me: Crocheting, watching teen movies, and eating snack foods for dinner, while Jake is away… exactly as I’d planned, until Bea reminded me of Girls Night Out.
Me: Okay. So, it won’t be fun. The company will be good, though.
Also: … until they get drunk. Everyone’s annoying drunk.
Me: Alright. So you’ll go, smile, pretend you’re having fun, and worst case scenario, you’ll be home by midnight. Maybe next time, the itinerary will include a craft show or some board games!

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When I arrived at Bea’s house, everyone was waiting inside for Kallie, so I sprawled on Bea’s bed, next to my impending sister-in-law, Brianna and we shared our life updates. The wedding planning is complete, leaving room for some excitement. Bea gets along well with her new roommate. Sadies’ daughter, Annie, is developing her own little personality. Librarians sometimes grout tile. It was nice, casual, quiet, and intimate. Then Kallie showed up and they started to hammer out the plans.

Me: “What exactly are we doing?”
Bea: “Oh, I just figured we’d stay here and play board games.”

I perked up, until everyone started laughing, voting on different trendy neighborhoods in the city, and discussing calling an Uber. It was in that moment, that I should have realized that I was not getting home by midnight.

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The Uber arrived and our first stop was the newly opened city park.

Me: Alright… a stroll through a lightly populated downtown park. This isn’t so bad.
Bea: “There’s nobody here. Let’s go get something to eat. They’ll have live music later!”
Also Me: giphy-24

We walked to a hip new eatery, where I ordered $14 nachos at the bar, got water from a self-serve fountain, and sat outside at one of the picnic tables lined up in a row… so like really expensive summer camp. We shared our food family style and although pricey, it was quite tasty. We sat and talked about our lives, our marriages, future plans. It was really quite nice and I dutifully ignored the fact that we could have easily done this on my sister’s queen-sized bed. Not my night, not my plans. Soon, they grew tired of the tame atmosphere, however, and suggested we take the streetcar to a more populated area.

A product of suburbia, the streetcar was probably the best part of my night. We told jokes and took selfies, with my dear sisters posting everything to social media. We disembarked further into downtown and walked to a… beer yard? I don’t know what else to call this, you guys. It was an area outdoors, sectioned off by white lights and a bar, with picnic tables and yard games, like corn hole… and it was completely deserted, save for a few guys talking and a couple on an obvious first date. Kallie ordered shots and we drank to Brianna, before going upstairs to sit at another picnic table… where I dutifully ignored the fact that this was only a slight variation on scenery to what we’d just done. Not my night, not my plans. We drank, talked, snuggled the bartender’s pomsky dog, like the basic white girls we are, and played a game where one person listened to loud music through headphones, while the others took turns saying a wedding phrase, which the listener was supposed to guess by reading lips. Eventually we each gave our best wedding advice.

Me: “Being divorced sucks. No matter what you guys are fighting about, I promise dating as a divorced 27-year-old sucks a lot more.”

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I’m basically Yoda.

At this point, the night had gone at a pretty acceptable speed. I’m not sure if it was the football game that day or what, but even though the weather was nice, the crowds were unusually thin. It wasn’t watching Twilight movies and eating a bowl of candy salad for dinner, but it was fun. Then someone called another Uber and the night took a turn for me, as we made our way to a venue with uncomfortable modern seating, a bar, and random overpriced eateries in different kiosks… so a mall food court with booze… and music that was way too loud, despite a sparse crowd and no dance floor, ultimately requiring shouty talk.

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After an $8 ice cream “sundae” (so not a sundae), I was kind of over the evening and just wanted to go home… but not my night, not my plans, especially since I didn’t have my car. So, I sat at a table and chatted with my increasingly drunk sisters. The normally very private Bea opened up a little about her dating life and Brianna and I talked about our most common spats with our guys, while Sadie and Kallie quietly bonded. It wasn’t a wretched time, but it was 11:00, on a Saturday when I’d worked all day, and I was really tired.

Finally, an inebriated Kallie excitedly suggested we go to the bar where my step-brother Brent bar tends. I was firmly in the “no” camp, but since it wasn’t actually a camp and was just me being a curmudgeon, I said very little and left it up to Brianna. She clearly did not want to go, but Kallie, in her drunken state, insisted Brent would love to see us and called another Uber. The saving grace of this night was that, at no point, did anyone ask me to chip in for these many Ubers, nor did I offer. The van pulled up and Breanna, seemingly almost as sober and tired as I was, despite being the bachelorette and the youngest one there, turned to me and said, in her best Cher Horowitz impression:

“Ugh. It’s a van. This car is so going to smell like snacks.”

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We got in, sat down, and neon lights lit up under the ceiling and on the floor. This guy knew how to get his tips from drunken twenty-somethings.

Brianna and Kallie: “Oh my gosh! Is this Cash Cab!?! You guys, I think we’re in Cash Cab!”

Y’all, I am too fucking old to ever be in a van that can be mistaken for Cash Cab… as evidenced by my attempt to take a short nap on the way to Brent’s bar, while Breanna and Kallie took selfies.

… and that is how I found myself sitting at a table in a bar, on a Saturday night at 1:00 in the morning, sipping water and eating bland fries. Breanna sat across from me, alternately texting Cade and ranting about how much she hated this bar and couldn’t believe people were still allowed to smoke. Bea drunkenly tried to find her dollar pinned to the wall, an establishment trademark I have never understood, because I’m not going to even waste one dollar on bar wallpaper. Kallie danced around like she was in her living room, because she essentially was, having spent countless nights there with Brent and his coworkers. Sadie, quite the social butterfly, despite motherhood, took advantage of a night out and soberly danced along with her. Me?

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Brianna: “Are you actually reading a book right now?”
Me: “Yup. It’s The Shining… really good… much better than the movie.”
Brianna: “Why do you have your Kindle in a bar?”
Me: “What do you mean why? This is why.”

Finally, after twenty minutes of an intoxicated Bea repeatedly assuring me “You are my family” and at least two phone calls from Brianna to Cade, because she missed him, Sadie called an Uber, fifteen minutes before last call. Bea climbed into the SUV…

Bea: “Are you Dominique?”
Dominique: “Yes.”
Me: “Dude. You’re supposed to ask him for your name. We’re totally going to be sold into sex slavery.”

Bea tried to pass herself off as sober, out of politeness.

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Bea: “Hello. I’m Bea. Do you do this full time?”
Dominique: “I do.”
::chatter continues for a moment::
Bea: “So, Dominque, do you do this full time?”
Me: “You already asked him that.”
Bea: “Oh, well do you do this full time?”
Dominique: ::laughing:: “Yes. I do.”
::chatter continues as Dominique gives us what is likely his usual Uber driver spiel::
Me: “… but the important question is… do you do this full time?”
::everyone laughs, including Bea::
Bea: “You guys are all assholes! When we get back to my place, none of you are invited inside! Except for you Domnique.”
– INFO: Bea is a proud Christian virgin. –
Me: “Wow. Dominique’s getting a big tip tonight.”
Bea: “That’s not what I meant!”
Domnique: ::laughing:: “You guys are definitely my funniest group tonight.”
::SUV pulls up to Bea’s house and we all get out::
Me: “Wait! Bea, is Dominique not coming?”

After trolling my drunken sister, I briefly went inside to say my goodbyes, before heading home, completely exhausted. I walked into a dark house, stripped to throw all of my clothes into the wash, because they’d smell like smoke, tried not to fall asleep in the shower, and crawled into bed, beside my husband. He’d driven three hours from his hometown, having left at 9:30 and still beat me home. Though I’d only had a single shot all evening, I woke early with a pounding headache and asked Jake to bring me some ibuprofen and slept until after 11:00.

Jake: “Do you feel bad?”
Me: “No. I’m not hungover or anything. I didn’t even drink. I just had a really bad headache.”
Jake: “Oh, well did you at least have a good time?”
Me: “Ugh. No. It was horrible. The company was good, but no.”
Jake: “Why didn’t you just leave?”
Me: “Because we Ubered there and I didn’t have my car. I didn’t want to be that person.”

… but you know… the girl reading a Kindle, while sipping water in a bar? I’m totally okay with being that person. She spent the rest of the day being comfortably 32: reading, crocheting, watching Vampire Diaries, and absolutely not nursing a hangover.

The State Fair: A Family Affair?

Posted on September 27, 2019 by Belle of the Library

Y’all, it is my favorite time of year: the beginning of the last third. Nearly everything good about the year is still ahead of us, with only my birthday in the rear view mirror. I still have the premiers of all of my favorite shows, several pre-ordered books, Jake’s birthday, the YALSA conference, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and…

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Christmas! Even following that, is a season of socially acceptable hermit behavior, with the possibility of waking up to a winter wonderland and a text message from the automated system at work, informing me that I have a paid day off for reading and snuggling the dogs. Come fall, the decor is prettier, the food is better, the clothes are cuter, and the temperatures are bearable. Zetus lapetus, after playing the house cat all summer, I love this time of year.

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There’s one favorite fall festivity I left out: the state fair. Every September, the fair immediately follows my birthday, a convenient extension of the already drawn out celebration. Now that I’m married to rodeo folk, our trick riding nieces serve as the perfect annual draw to people watch, day drink, and eat ourselves sick before settling in to watch a nine-year-old hang upside down from a horse, before triumphantly hoisting herself to a standing position, when I can barely be trusted with a step stool on the best of days. It’s always been great fun and I looked forward to it for some time, having bought tickets in August, to save a few dollars.

This year, as we made our way through the horde of people, however, I saw it through new eyes. With Jake and I having spoken more and more about starting a family, I couldn’t help but notice the families surrounding us… and how miserable they all seemed. I eventually turned to Jake and declared:

Me: “I’m willing to concede that this is possibly one of those claims I’ll make before we have children, and later I’ll eat my words, but I don’t think I’d ever bring our kids to the fair.”

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I stand by this claim and if Future Belle wants to prove me wrong, I welcome her to do so, because…

The fair is swarming with people.
We went to the fair on a Saturday night, because that’s when the girls were trick riding. Folks, I don’t even like to go to the mall on a Saturday night and that’s open for the entire year, as opposed to just two weeks in September. When I was single, I frequently did my grocery shopping at 1:00 in the morning, because that’s the best time to go to Wal-Mart. Black Friday is strictly for eating sweet potato pancakes and watching Christmas movies, while shopping online. I hate crowds.

Rationally, I’m afraid of some drunk guy getting in my face when I stumble and cause him to spill his beer. I’m afraid of setting my phone down as I get out my wallet, only to turn around and see it gone. I’m afraid of losing Jake in a crowd and realizing that he doesn’t have his phone, but he does have the keys. Less rationally, I’m afraid of gunshots going off or a fire breaking out and confirming my suspicion that while everyone else has a fight or flight reflex, I have a deer in headlights reflex. I’m a first world survivor, y’all. When the rules of society break down, I am nothing but a liability.

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All that being said, I can’t imagine trying to keep up with a four-year-old in a crowd like the one at the Saturday night state fair. Jake has enough trouble keeping up with me when I see a really cute dog or a sign boasting chocolate covered cheesecake, but a smaller Belle with fewer inhibitions? She’ll have the power to teleport. Every six months, it seems there’s a national news story of Some Horrible Thing that happened to Some Poor Family, because kids are slippery, y’all. You let go of their hand for ten seconds and a gorilla dies or they get eaten by an alligator. That sounds like the worst night out ever.

The fair is generally inaccessible.
As a rule, with crowds comes congestion and with congestion comes inaccessibility. This is especially true at a festival which takes place among a hodge-podge of buildings of varying ages, over a few square miles. I’m no expert on children. In fact, just last week, I accidentally referred to a customer’s child as “that.” However, it’s my understanding that they’re not known for their ability to wait, that their needs are generally pretty immediate. Weaving through a jam-packed labyrinth of identical stands to find one of the newer buildings, with the cleaner, larger bathrooms, only to wait in line for 10 minutes is tedious when I’m the one who has to pee.

Every time I’m around my four-year-old niece, it seems she needs something, be it a drink of water, a snack, help in the bathroom, or someone to scold her older sisters for making her fake cry. By the time one problem has been resolved, another arises and that’s just at Naunnie’s and Pa’s house, where all life’s necessities are immediately available. Navigating the fair to find a water fountain, a clean bathroom, a changing table, a spare diaper or wipes, a cheap snack, air conditioning… with the urgency of a child’s needs sounds wretched. I’m not even sure where one fits fun into this real life adaptation of a bad cell phone game.

The fair is way too expensive.
I admit, these problems aren’t exactly unique to the state fair. They could easily be replicated at a street festival or the local medieval fair… but entry to those and many of their attractions are free. The state fair costs $12 per person for admission alone. As for food, a single ear of corn is $4, a piece of chocolate covered cheesecake is $7, a slice of pizza is $10. The activities a child might actually enjoy, such as carnival games and face painting might only cost a few dollars, but they also only last a few minutes. Thirty minutes of games could easily add up to fifty or sixty dollars. Add in rides that fold into boxes for easy travel, an entirely separate issue, and you’re looking at another thirty or forty dollars for wrist bands, per family member. I don’t even have an estimate for the random junk sold at every stand.

Even if you can budget a couple of hundred dollars on this family outing, while an older child might enjoy such things, I’d wager they’d also enjoy a family day at the park and a new video game, a trip to an amusement park and pizza, or a family trip to the drive in and burgers, all cheaper combinations. Regardless, a smaller child tires easily, overheats easily, melts down easily. It’s fair to assume that being dragged around a crowded fairground in 100 plus heat is not fun for them, in addition to all the reasons it doesn’t sound fun for the parents.

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It’s of course possible to forgo fairground luxuries or pick and choose. Jake got his ticket for free from work, while I bought mine in advance to save $4. We ate everything that caught our eyes and bought some soup mixes as planned, but rode no rides and played no games. We people watched, ate, and walked around looking at stalls. It was a lot of fun… for grownups. At one point, I heard a frustrated dad tell his nine or ten-year-old daughter, “Well, I’m sorry you think you’re bored, but…” Of course she’s bored! You’re dragging her through buildings full of grownup stuff, when there’s a carnival on the other side of the fairgrounds! The best behaved child would grumble about that. I totally support not blowing all of your money on such frivolity, but I also support finding something more fun for your child to do than follow at your heels, as you repeatedly tell her no.

Perhaps I’d understand this choice of family fun better, were Jake and I in a different income bracket, but it ain’t exactly the Kardashians who frequent the state fair. It’s pretty consistently a middle income form of entertainment. Most attendants don’t have the money to do everything and even if they did, that doesn’t negate all of the other reasons taking children to the fair sounds like a terrible time. A customer once told me that she hated to travel when her children were young, because she always felt like she was playing house, just without the comforts of home. That’s how I feel when I travel, now and that’s how I imagine I’d feel taking kids to the fair.

Belle of the Library

… the musings of a thirty-something, married, Southern teen librarian turned Stay-At-Home-Mom with a 14-year-old's sense of humor, an awkward spirit, and a stubborn, mouthy, redheaded country boy to accompany her through life.

Tag Archives: humor

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“I like getting older. I feel like I’m finally aging into my personality.”

The State Fair: A Family Affair?

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