Overheard on Green St.

"Yeah, she invited me to a weenie roast, you know, but her parents don't know about my age yet..."
-weasely-looking guy smoking a cigarette outside Kam's (gross undergrad bar here)

Is that what they are calling it these days, Chambana?

On an unrelated note, I am sharing with you yet another delightful peek into my life as a baby archivist. I have been confirming the death dates of the members of the board of trustees. Boring, you say? Not when the obits in question are from olden times, I counter! To wit:

• One subheadline reads "Cheerful to the last", with the heartbreaking paragraph that follows describing just how cheerful the deceased was:

"It's pleasantly cool this morning", he commented to his nurse...then he lapsed into silence. A few minutes later he was dead."

Dun dun DUNNNN feel the drama!

• Another of my faves, about a Democrat (in the minority) who died was entitled "Joined the Majority". BURN
• Some podunk poet's was called "Poet and brother of greater poet dies"
• Some other dude's mentioned that "Regret was generally felt."

Obituaries in the past were kind of harsh. I am trying to imagine the widow reading one and being like, "Um, brother of greater poet? That's the nicest thing you could say, Chicago Tribune?" [sobs]

I love my job

So, as we all know, olden times are often hilarious. (Why else would I do history but the laff factor?) Since my job involves getting up close and personal with these olden times, I am beginning herein an occasional series where I share with you excerpts from the kinds of documents I read/process/lug around in 40-lb boxes all day long. Ok, usually only half a day long.

Today's excerpt comes from an anonymous fellow's recollection of an early member of the board of trustees of Illinois Industrial University, the precursor to this fine institution of higher learning:

"The second wife of Griggs was 'Grandma Kittie', as she was called, a very fleshy woman. She took anti-fat, they say, and it killed her."

Anti-fat again! That shit was the crack of the late nineteenth century.

Every blogger's nightmare

From this article on everyone's fave aerial wolf shooter:

And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said.

“You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”

We will never stop blogging, Sarah. NEVER

Sympathy cards are a subject rife for satire

Ok, I am finally feeling blogspired:

A lot of people ride motorcycles here....it's weird. There was an article in the Daily Illini about it today--hard-hitting, as per usual ("I love my motorcycle!") I think there is a whole biker bar here called the Ice House. Should I go? This poll is pointless. Of course I will go.

For a moment, I thought that the bookstore sold Illini-themed sympathy cards, but the reality is even more hilarious. They sell these cards that say "Sorry for your loss..." in muted orange and blue with sad looking flowers on the front. Then you open it up and it's a big cartoon of a scoreboard with Illinois winning and your team losing and it's like "BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME! GO ILLINOIS!" Haha, sucker! You thought a loved one died! Really your football team lost. I am going to send this to everyone. They have non-ironic Illini-themed anniversary cards though. Seriously. It's like Happy Anniversary... Go Illini.

So I recognized this prominent dude on Champaign's Yelp at the grad mixer yesterday. (By the way...the grad mixer...the dorks are NOT in the library science program. I said it.) I kind of wanted to call him out and be like, how do you have 423 friends on Yelp? I didn't even know that 423 people were ON Yelp. Instead I just creepily stared at him and then ran away. Mixin'! Also some people hated on GSLIS and library science in general and I almost pulled the "Oh, is YOUR program the number one in the country? It's not? That must be so different from my experience, then!" But then I didn't. Suckers, I totally thought it and then blogged it though.

Pip loves me now. He hasn't bitten me in over a week. He is nuzzling at my feet RIGHT AS I TYPE.

I love to videochat, so if you have those capabilities, get on that!

I missed a wedding back in Maine this weekend that apparently had a catapult that shot pinatas. I have sacrificed a lot to come here.

Back in the 1950s, people studied aerial photos as a hobby! I learned this from my job, which this week involves a lot of looking at aerial photos. Here's a fun self-test to see if you would be a good aerial photograph spy (which I imagine is what these were for--straight-up espionage). What is this? Be specific in your answer.


Stumped? Why, it's your neighborhood, silly! See how different things look from the air?

I am an elegant prose stylist. I need to figure out how to put up MP3s so I can blog about the Chambana music scene...get ready!

so Chi that they thought I was bashful

How was YOUR Labor Day weekend? Mine was great. Any weekend that brings the news of another precious, blessed, necessary baby is good by me! Hooray, abstinence-only education!

I will blog about my classes at another time. Possibly never, because my classes are kind of boring, especially if you personally do not want to be a librarian. Suffice it to say that I have had them all, and they will definitely teach me important library-oriented skills. Peer-to-peer education, however, is even more valuable--why, just the other night, my pal Sherri came over and told me how to properly take a book off the shelf. (Poke those on either sides back, then slide it out from the middle of the spine. DON'T pull it from the top. Martha knows.)

I went to another great dinner party on Saturday night. Can I just say that I have found my people? Not that you readers aren't my people, and I love you all dearly, but how many of you have read not only Eight Cousins, but also Rose in Bloom, and are not afraid to talk about it? Mom, you don't count, because you share half my DNA.

Woo, just took a long time-out to talk to Jefe on the phone. We were discussing, among other things, my DAY TRIP to Chicago yesterday. I had a really good time, but I have major reservations about Chicago, I think. For one thing, I went to go see a movie here:

It was super cool, but it was like two blocks from a strip mall. And this was in the heart of Chicago. I also went here:


And it was a wonderful Mexican neighborhood, but hardly the hipster haven that I was led to believe it to be. Basically, while the Midwest has its undeniable charms, I think I miss the East Coast. Love you, LP out!