The Game is afoot!

The characters and events in this post and all connected posts are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. 

Death of a Blogger

            Sagging into the chair, fingers tingle and palms itch as his heavy limbs reluctantly bend making him suddenly aware of the cement blocks at the end of his legs. Nerve deadened shoulders alarm even as the anesthesia creeps up the neck and refuse the brain's command to turn. His cornea sloshes sluggishly sideways and attempts to focus on the figure that reclines a few feet away.

            “Din think I dran tha mush. Strong stuff!” the words slur and stumble past an enlarged tongue just as the edges of his companion blur and enlarge. “Gla you came. ‘Appy we go to ace-to-ace after all ‘is—” a sob breaks off the incoherence. His ghostlike guest slips into the air next to him then suddenly explodes into jigsaw puzzle pieces as a murmured reply breaks through, “Your okay. Relax— Sleep— off. See—  tomorrow— John.” Then louder, insistent and closer “John? I’ll be back to see you tomorrow.”

            The shards of broken body filter out of view as the room silly putties into shapeless lumps of darkness. The heaviness on his eyelids drags them down and pulls him finally into darkness.

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Local High School English Teacher found dead

Teacher found with both wrists slashed

By Stephen Johnson in Salina, Kansas

Wednesday, 22 June 2011

Local high school English teacher facing an ugly divorce has been found dead in his Salina home, his wrists slit and a bottle of sleeping pills by his side.

The apparent suicide of John Thebeauld was discovered early yesterday morning after the neighbors noticed his dog scratching wildly at his screen door. When they knocked to let him know the dog was loose, they realized the door was unlocked and investigated to make sure the neighbor was okay. What they found was chilling.

Sitting at his darkened computer, the teacher and failed writer had placed a waste paper basket partially filled with water, his hands dangling down into the buckets. A carving knife was on the floor beside him but no apparent suicide note was found. The police and emergency personnel were immediately called but it was too late. Investigators were not yet ready to give comment but they seemed to indicate this might be connected to the rancor of the divorce.

Thebeauld lived with his wife in Salina for the last fifteen years, was beloved by his students, known for his  involvement with the regularly held Shakespeare Festival in the area and his annual booth at the local craft fair where he sold wood carvings. The couple had no children.

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The report crosses your desk. Just another writer committing suicide. A cliché really. If you weren’t so bored today you might have filed it away and never looked at it again. But you decide to google his name and came up with a single hit which led to a blog that left you with more questions than answers…

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where do you go from here?

Interview!!!!

So apparently there was a little glitch in the application process and I almost didn't get the interviews that I had assumed were a given. It was a weird glitch which I almost wish I could bore you with the emails with just to prove it was weird but I won't. (lucky you! or maybe lucky me for having the sense not to bore my readers!) At any rate, tomorrow I have my first interview! Okay now before we all get too excited this it not for the job I really want this is for a straight across move although a more interesting position because I might get to go on the book mobile which is kinda cool (looks kinda fun doesn't it?).

This job is really meant to get me out of the cluster of libraries I am in IF I don't get the other position that I really want. I am not giving up and STILL HOPING I will get the lead clerk position!!!! But there was some gossip today that the librarian that is interviewing me seemed a little hesitant to hire from within the branch (you know managing the people you have been a coworker of) so I guess I am going to have to convince her I can handle the change. Well, perhaps what I really need to do is convince her I have already been managing it and it won't change much. No word yet on that interview but I expect they will call by the end of the week. 

No word yet from the literary magazine so that is good news at this point... 4-6 few more weeks and no word will mean they aren't even going to send me the bad news but right now they are probably at least putting it in the "this just in" pile. Hopefully it will make the "to be considered" pile.    

One final thing: Tomorrow I will be posting a surprise written especially for my blogging friends and I hope you will enjoy it immensely as it unfolds! 

Whatever happened to Kansas?

So I am back from my little vacation! I could have used a few more days...okay, who am I kidding???? I could have used a few more weeks! But at this point I took what I could get. I didn't hear from the person downtown so I THINK all went well with the application process. I will get an interview as all inner office applicants will so I am not going to be too excited about that. The real tension comes After the interview is over. Thanks to all you who sent well wishes!
Soooo... I won't bore you with an interminable Slideshow of MY FAMILY VACATION but it was a beautiful little spot to go, as Talei Loto of Musings of an Aspiring Scribe would call it, "Glamping in a Tent". And though I am not much of a camper and might hesitate to give it such a name, I felt that once you take champagne with you, you are no longer just camping, you are indeed GLAMPING!!! 
We hit the road early and  made our way to Kansas. WHY KANSAS you ask???? 
I was asking the same question!
After all I grew up in Kansas and I know very well that Kansas looks like this:

  miles and miles of it! Not exactly the scenic vistas and lovely peaks we live within hours from. And when your driving on the plains the joke becomes "Didn't we just pass this farm?" because it feels as though you keep passing the same place over and over, never getting anywhere. At any rate, once we got there, it quickly became obviously that we had fallen in
A HOLE IN KANSAS!!!

 Down we went to find blue skies, a lingering sunset over a scenic lake and canyon walls to view the horizons from. All quite picturesque and most definitely unKansasie.

We pitched our tents..

Did some hiking, swimming (the water was a trifle cold for me, which surprised me as the water in Kansas is usually warm in the summer!!!) and the kids went out on a little canoeing adventure...

Mo's son Aubrey is in front, girlfriend Nisa in back steering and my son in the middle 

We sat out at night and drank champagne (as all cultured campers do) and watched the dragonflies put on a show and (thank god!) keep the biting gnats off their delighted audience (me!- who also played the part of gnat meal- yikes!).

Then later we watched as a Great Horned Owl swooped down so quick and low under a tree, I was convinced it was a fox. Then he flew up into a tree and down onto a table in an attempt to catch something we couldn't spot but the night hunter most definitely had his great eye on dinner! And when the sky was finally filled with a canopy of stars and the last droplets of liquid gold were gone, we went to our tents to listen to the whistling wind and the night calls of the coyote until at last we fell asleep. It was like living in an episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

Oh and by the way... I have a surprise coming up on my blog which I am hoping everyone will enjoy. Keep your eye out as I don't post on regular day (although I don't really think that matters. Would you remember if I said I was going to post certain days? It seems like it would be hard to keep track anyway so I've never bothered to try. Let me know if you think it would be helpful!)

So how was your weekend?

Cross your fingers

and maybe your toes! I've applied for a new job at:

The library 

In our previous episode (which you might have missed):  I work for Denver Public Library-- A job I got two years ago (April 2009) after my boss at Denver Public Schools told me that my position at the Middle school would be cut (slashed, chopped, reduced- you get the picture) to a para position which would mean both a pay cut and loss of benefits and fewer hours per week to top all of that off as well. It was simply not a tenable situation. So, I had already begun checking into positions at DPL but began to apply with more urgency. In March I had an interview and by April I began my training in this building: 

It was quite intimidating at the time and the massive amount of marble and cool stone never felt warm or inviting and there is a great deal too much echo but the flashiness appeals to the hip and happening set in Denver. 

Nevertheless, I trained here for what wound up being 6 months before I moved on to Hampden as the sole full time circulation clerk. Hampden had begun an extensive remodel job in February and we were supposed to reopen in June. But as often happens with city jobs that are contracted out to private contracts, June turned to July turned to August wound up in September. 

Hampden is one of 22 branches (at least for the moment) and is the furthest south and east branch which means that when Aurora voted down funding for their libraries and closed all but three branches, we drastically increased our DVD circulation (and everybody thinks I exaggerate about that but I really don't- one day I am going to count the number of books to DVD just to prove it.) At any rate:This is the work room where we begin our day, sorting through crates of delivery. They are delivered by the library elves who work through the night sorting the books that belong to us but have been returned to other branches (a service we offer) and the holds that have been processed during the day. They put them in crates and then stack them up by our back door.

These are what the crates look like full from the top usually stacked four high. We generally get about 32 crates a day give or take 4 or 5... and it takes me an hour by myself to unpack them (which I do on Tuesday, Wednesday and every other Friday)

Not nearly as picturesqueness (nor as much fun) as a Christmas tree on Christmas morning but there it is.  We pile two trucks (carts such as you see pictured here are properly called trucks at DPL)- one full of holds to be processed immediately, the other with our returned items that are marked "in transit" and need to be returned so the computer shows them "On Shelf".  As you can see there are quite a lot of DVDs on the second shelf. The books are only on the top shelf and it can take 3-4 DVDs to make one book.

Just saying....

THEN they get sorted onto the trucks to get shelved by this lady (below) who is a shelver. This is also the mysterious back room where all the returns are dropped onto a bin. One of us, the same people who work the outside desks, picks them up out of the bins and checks them in. The same thing we do out on the desk, it's just that no one can see us back here!

After we get all the books that have been ordered by our customers processed, we shelve them. Hopefully we are done with this before opening. Otherwise we're multitasking, running holds, returning stuff (for people who just refuse to put it in the drop box because they think we have a personal vendetta against them and don't want to check their stuff in for them, checking out stuff, taking money for fines, etc) Meanwhile shelvers are looking for the stuff people have ordered during the night and if we have time we try to help by running them through to see which branch they are to be sent to, unless one of our customers wants them. Generally, however, we are multi-tasking all day anyway, because we have DVDs to shelve and holds to shelve. We are  often making new cards for the people who move into the neighborhood and the surrounding Aurora population who now find themselves without a neighborhood library. 

SHEW! 

It can make for a very busy day! 

So NOW! The position of Lead which is a supervisory position at my branch is opening up. It's essentially doing everything I am doing now for more money- (YAY!!! Yipee!! WooHOO!!! ) And I applied today. It was a little stressful as I had some difficulty, for some reason, with the online application process (too long of a story to explain at the moment) so I leave for a long weekend vacation (a real vacation- not a blog vacation!!! pictures when I get back!) with my fingers crossed that the application process went well. 

In addition to that! I submitted the first chapter of 'Death and Politics at the End of the World' to Quiddity International Literary Journal. I have submitted it before and been rejected but for some reason I have high hopes for this one... 

SO!!! Keep your fingers crossed and hopefully good things will be happening! I'll keep you posted on the good (or not so good... boo! hiss!) news.

And in case your curious, my hopefully non-stressful weekend will be full of swimming, writing and reading and sunning while we are camping in the Sunflower state (that would be Kansas). 

What are your plans for the weekend???