Nothing But Raindrops Fallin' On My Head

First of all, if anyone from Verizon is reading this...could you not call people four times the day before someone's supposed to do repairs? Once is enough. And don't call people in the morning when they're trying to sleep, either. I was up late and awoke to the sound of a ringing phone and a canned message saying Verizon knew about my internet problem and would send someone around...twice in less than a half-hour. I got two more calls in the course of the day.

The weather was gloomy, too. It rained when I got up, rather hard, too. I didn't have counseling until noon, but I decided to leave a little early to avoid the showers. I spent the extra half-hour browsing in the Collingswood Library.

(I didn't take anything out. I let my Collingswood Library card expire over a year ago. They have an ok non-fiction section, but their fiction section's almost as small as Oaklyn's. Rose is right - we don't have very good libraries here. They really need to encourage more of these small libraries to join the county system and expand. The Collingswood, Audubon, Oaklyn, Haddon Heights, and Haddonfield libraries are all independent. Maybe Oaklyn wouldn't be having money troubles if it had the county system to back up its finances.)

Counseling was productive. We discussed my desire to be a library, and what's keeping me from my goals. First of all, I hate my job, but it's there. It's stable. It provides money. If you ask anyone else in the US right now, that's all that should matter. That's what everyone here keeps telling me - don't leave your job. Don't change anything. The economy's too bad. There's nothing out there. You're making money. That's what counts.

Not if you're losing your sanity, too. I know I'm better than this. I'm tired of not being used to my full potential. No one at the Acme wants to take the time to teach me anything. They won't let me do more in the bakery because I don't have the experience. They mentioned teaching me how to put up the sale tags, but it never panned out. How will I have the experience if I never learn? How can I know if no one is willing to teach me? How can anyone escape if they never learn anything?

I still want to be a librarian and a writer, preferably of fantasy or mysteries or children's books...or heck, all three. I agree with Scott. I need to do more research. I want to find out just how much it would cost to attend Temple and Drexel's prestigious library science schools. I want to find out where the market for librarians is, and what's changing. I want to find out more about the market for writers, too...and maybe finally sit myself down and do some real writing, not just a story a month with my best friend.

I had a quick (and expensive) Turkey Club Wrap at Saladworks after counseling. It had started to rain lightly again as I left Collingswood. It picked up on my way across Newton River Park...so heavily that I briefly stopped under a tree in the park and in CVS to avoid getting soaked. It let up long enough after I poked my head out of CVS for me to get home and continued raining on and off for the rest of the day.

Needless to say, I didn't go anywhere else. I spent the rest of the day cleaning the bathroom and the kitchen, baking bread, and watching Stardust. I wanted to do something with buttermilk, so I made a fairly simple Buttermilk Rye-Whole Wheat Bread. It took a long time rising, but smelled wonderfully nutty and earthy in the oven, and tasted divine.

Stardust is a hilarious but rather odd fantasy story, apparently based after a popular novel. A young Englishman journeys over a wall to a magical world to find a fallen star for his fickle sweetheart. What he discovers is that the "star" is a very pretty and very feisty young woman wearing a huge gem necklace. The star is pursued by a group of witches who want her heart to restore their youth and powers. The necklace is being pursued by the princes of the land, who want it to be able to take over their deceased father's throne...and will stop at nothing to get it, including eliminating the other princes.

Make no mistake, this is a light tale, filled with odd characters (from Robert Di Niro's fey sky pirate Captain Shakespeare to the very funny ghosts of the dead princes) and lots of magical doings and sword fights. It reminds me a lot of two similar comic fairy tales of my youth, Willow and The Princess Bride. If you loved either of those films and can run with the crazy plot and the wonderfully dry humor, you'll have as much fun with this as I did.