Sam

6:30 AM - woke up from a dream that my cat chewed off his back paw after it was burnt in a toaster fire. In the dream I was concerned about the vet bill for getting it reattached, and asked the doc ‘why should I get it reattached? He chewed it off himself.’ 

Work starts at 8 and it’s 45 minutes away so my mornings are always a little frantic..grabbing shit and throwing it on my body or in tote bags. I found sooo much mouse poop under my desk yesterday so I’m bringing my vacuum to work. I started taking a sewing class at Made Institute on Saturdays and it has weekly homework, but I don’t own a sewing machine, so I also ambitiously packed sewing supplies, thinking I might try to work something out with the textiles teacher so I can use the machines at school. I’m a librarian at a private high school. 

In the car I try to harmonize with pop radio and drink half of a flat and warm Oreo flavored coke zero I left in there the day before. 

At work I do a bunch of stuff involving teenagers and books and research. I do a lesson with 9th graders about pleasure reading and gave them a library tour. We talked about Daniel Pennac’s “The Rights of the Reader.” 

I approve some senior research topics and reject others. I try, with uneven results, to keep the kids from writing about unsolved mysteries and religious cults and conspiracy theories.

I got a huge shipment of new books–mostly replacements and specific requests from students, but also a couple cookbooks. The only cookbooks we have are ancient and do not circulate at all, so my new plan is to build that collection from scratch. I process all of the new books–meaning that I cover them in plastic and barcodes and stamps and stickers–and catalog them and put them on our New Books display. I also order yet more books, because one student asked that I replace a missing Colleen Hoover book, and a teacher asked if we could buy Vol. II of Marx’s Capital

I’m buying a new car this weekend, and selling my current one, which means I need to get the interior professionally cleaned of crumbs and stains. I thought I was going to have to trade cars with my sister tonight and get her to drop off mine at a detailing place tomorrow morning, but I call the detailing place and it turns out they are open late enough for me to get there after work, so now I guess I have to drive to a car wash inside of the Liberty Place parking garage.

The traffic isn’t as crazy as I feared but I still panic a little in the roundabouts by the art museum. I enter a parking garage at 16th and Chesnut and it’s bonkers. I’ve never been in here. It’s four stories deep, spirals in a kind of delirious way, and is covered in pastoral murals. The car wash / detailing place is on the bottom floor and there’s really just a couple people with hoses and headlamps who write my name down on a notepad with a phone number and tell me to come back tomorrow. They have a 5 star review on Google Maps.

I deliberate about what to do now that I’m in Center City on a workday, which is rare for me. I poll some friends and they tell me to go to Sally for happy hour, and that sounds nice but what will I do while I eat pizza alone? Stare at my phone? I usually have a book in my bag to read but today I didn't. I start walking there through Rittenhouse Square and remember the City Institute Free Library branch might still be open. It is, and I just quickly look through the new fiction books, and grab a book I’ve seen before–Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind, which is surrealist fiction about shitty jobs and it has great cover art. 

I eat a hot honey white pizza (yummy sourdough crust) and a glass of white wine. I read my book, which is good and funny–basically a perfect impromptu choice for my impromptu dinner. I’ll keep it around instead of returning it immediately. 

And then I walk the hour home to West Philly in loafers (stupid). I talked to my girlfriend on the phone most of the way–she’s an English professor in Tennessee–and she was riled up because her students don’t understand Lacan. I told her I don’t understand Lacan either and I described all of the dogs at the Schuylkill River Dog Park.

At home, I showered, watched 1 episode of 30 Rock, did 2 sudokus on my phone, finished a graphic biography of Nancy cartoonist Ernie Bushmiller called Three Rocks, and went to bed.

Sam is a school librarian who lives in west philly. Their instagram is @sam_is_outside.