My Love-Hate Relationship with My Library

I hate:

That every time I go, Catch-22 is invariably checked out. I have been trying to acclimate myself to Heller since I've been in high school, but I only have Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man at my disposal! The horror! I end up going to the Vonnegut section across the aisle and my dad is tired of Vonnegut. Vonnegut is the stuff he read when he was slightly intrigued by being icked out. I'm still slightly intrigued by things that ick me out.

That the security guard who looks like A.W. Tozer apparently no longer works there. I hope this doesn't mean he is dead. I liked him, even though I had my serious doubts that he would protect me if the library came under any kind of siege.

That it is under construction. Isn't it a rule that libraries should never change?

The Dewey Decimal System and the way my favorite books inexplicably slip through the cracks. Where are the plays? Sort of all over the place! That's where!

Oh! Apparently, the library has lost its print of a Maxfield Parrish illustration. How does this even happen? Maxfield Parrish is my very favorite illustrator! I have to console myself with mediocre abstracts and pseudo- Japanese screen-printed tree-things! Does the library LOOK like a cheap t-shirt, I ask you?! DARN IT!

The limits to their Dilbert collection. Where are the Friends of the Library when I need them?

I love:

Most of the librarians and all of the male ones. There's this guy who looks like he's never seen the light of day, and even though he's shades of Boo Radley, he's helped me find terribly obscure research material with a zeal for discovery that beats my own (which is currently, admittedly, rather jaded). I think this is precious. And I secretly (well, not now) want to impress the one that works on the second floor. I don't know why. He just seems rather hard to impress. So every time I go, I wear my Mutual Funds Magazine tote bag to carry my books. As if I know something about mutual funds.

The DVD collection. They had the entire run of Arrested Development there this time. O... M... G! Did I check it out? Psh, no! I'm waiting for this fall so I can get my hands on a copy of season 2 and watch it with my roommate! My self-control sometimes astounds even me. (As does my hubris.) I consoled myself with season 3 of The Office.

That they have a good fifty-zillion copies of Les Miserables, in different translations. I can read it all the time without feeling like a literary hog. (Though, they do also have Laura Kapalkian's Cosette, which is mindless, heretical drivel-- also known as a SEQUEL to Les Mis. Strike one. Even in my darkest days, I never wrote fanfic.)

I love pretty much everything about the library, actually, now that I think about it (except for the things that I hate.) It's the building equivalent of NPR!