Will You Shelve Your Own Book One Day?

Tomorrow is my first day of the MFA program.  I know it is also the first day at Brunner School. I have spent time this week already wondering what the library is going to look like this year for the students.  Who is going to greet them on the blacktop as they line up behind the freshly painted teacher short hand codes.  Because I will tell you that there is nothing that makes summer ending feel a little more tolerable than the way a slightly anxious child's face lights up when they see you.  They know you.  Everything is going to be okay. I will be looking for the faces of the people I met at orientation tomorrow with I think some of that same trepidation.  It's hard to start something new and not know what it's going to be.  Even when you're 33. But yes, I got to meet a lot of people who I will be in classes with at two orientation events.  We all worked together on that lovely Spongebob themed sign you see.  (I drew the kelp near the bottom.  Yes, Mr

Back in December of 2016, my mom and I went to go see Dear Evan Hansen .  It was at that point just some show I had heard had done well off-Broadway but that I thought might be good.  I knew nothing about what I was in for. I cried.  I cried so much.  I cried way more than I did when I went to go see Me and Earl and the Dying Girl  and I cried during that movie to such a degree that my friend's boyfriend leaned over to her and asked if I was okay.  And I was okay in that movie theater, just caught up in a sad story (come on, the words dying girl are in its title!).  But I was not okay during Dear Evan Hansen. Or after.  My poor mother and I walked, shell shocked, through a slowly falling snow to talk to a lot of Italian food about our feelings.  Of which there were many.  Because the story is tragic, but uplifting and inspirational and unifying and filled with longing.  And yet at the same time I felt so hollow, even with all of these emotions bombarding my nervous system.  I w

I am now officially a Chicago resident!  Or maybe not all that official, I still have to go to the DMV and get my student ID sorted, but I have a lease!  Which is signed!  And I've already unpacked every box, which must be some kind of record.  (Just to clarify, there were still boxes I had not unpacked in 6 years in my apartment in Westfield.)  I was able to do that because the movers showed up during the very first day of their arrival window, which was a big perk. My mom did the drive with me out here, across 2 days and nearly 800 miles. This trip took me through 2 states I had never visited before (Ohio and Indiana) and the entire length of Pennsylvania.  We stopped overnight outside of Cleveland and during our drive on the 2nd day at Indiana Shores, on the banks of Lake Michigan. Historic house that reminded me of the Golden Girls . When you have filters, who needs actual sunshine? It was really pretty beautiful and the sand was beyond soft. Beyond

It's been a little while since I updated, and I am sorry for that.  I left on an apartment hunting mission a few days after school ended (without my computer!), and wound up renting the first apartment I saw (after having seen others too, don't worry). I'll be living in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago, where I can in fact walk to Lake Michigan.  It's in between Lincoln Park, where there's a very cute zoo, and Wrigleyville, the neighborhood where you can go to watch the Cubs.  I can also walk to lots of restaurants and stores (including a Target!) and a local library branch.  And I'm currently packing up everything to move there! But before my life became securing things in bubble wrap and taping cardboard together, I did have a lot of fun in Chicago and also visiting friends in Atlanta. This is my city now! We did an interval workout class under this honeycomb at the Lincoln Park Zoo.  It started to rain in the middle and that was honestly ki

Today was my last official day at Brunner School.  And that doesn't seem real.  And I don't know when it will. With colors low doesn't have the same ring to it. I cannot express how thankful I have been for the last 9 years at this school, and the out pouring of support that has come way as I prepare to leave. Back in June of 2010, I had another last day in that parking lot.  I was ending my first year as a school librarian, and it had been hard.  I remember barely feeling like I was holding my head above water most of the time.  My colleagues have always been wonderful, but I was new and inexperienced and there was no other person like me in the building I could talk too.  I had also been RIF'ed a month earlier, reduction in force, right before the teacher's appreciation luncheon at all times.  I didn't know that afternoon, as I stood with my assistant, Grace, if I would even have a job in the fall.  And that was scary.  Even though when I took this job

So, I remember being very upset when I was in high school and the time came to pick out pictures to put in the yearbook that there were none of me wearing any University of Delaware pride wear.  Which makes sense, I had no childhood connection with the school or even the state, but it made things feel less destined. Well, when I was looking for a picture for tonight's Evening of Recognition, this felt right. I eat a little  more neatly today. Because I'm wearing a Cubs bib in this picture. Hey, Chicago, what do you say?

I am a person who uses Timehop. I don't know why I'm saying that like I should be embarrassed about it. Timehop is great at making me confused about how time works.  But honestly, I check it every morning (370 days and counting!) because it's nice to look back on things I've loved and to realize places I've grown. I don't remember what the context for this was, or the motivation.  There's not one exact moment I can pinpoint as when I officially decided to go back to school, and Timehop has not made it any more clear to me, so I don't even know if it was about that, or just like how you may sometimes wonder who would come to your funeral.   But in reading it, I do recall going shelf by shelf in the fiction section, doing inventory, and this thought and all its associated emotions passing through. I was there again today, making sure all of our chapter books were accounted for and orderly.  But this time I know I only have nine more days left. An