oh good, they're right here

I had a long, rambling dream last night/this morning in which I'd lost my glasses. It started with other things--on vacation somewhere (maybe at an sf con), having gone back to our hotel room so I could take some kind of medicine I'd left there. And then I realized I didn't have my glasses, and we started retracing our steps to look for them. And, of course, the more places we ruled out, the more worried I got. (I could see perfectly well in the dream, which at least made the searching quick.) We got back to where we'd started, and still no glasses.

I woke up from that, looked at the bedside table, verified that my glasses were in fact exactly where they belong, turned the alarm clock off, put my glasses on, and came out here to make tea.

oh good, they're right here

I had a long, rambling dream last night/this morning in which I'd lost my glasses. It started with other things--on vacation somewhere (maybe at an sf con), having gone back to our hotel room so I could take some kind of medicine I'd left there. And then I realized I didn't have my glasses, and we started retracing our steps to look for them. And, of course, the more places we ruled out, the more worried I got. (I could see perfectly well in the dream, which at least made the searching quick.) We got back to where we'd started, and still no glasses.

I woke up from that, looked at the bedside table, verified that my glasses were in fact exactly where they belong, turned the alarm clock off, put my glasses on, and came out here to make tea.

Odd aspects of the current job

As I've mentioned, I'm doing some freelance research.

At the moment, it involves looking things up in magazines published over the last year. For the most part, that means going to a friendly librarian, and saying "May I have thus-and-such magazine back to last September?" The friendly librarian then hands me a large stack, with the most recent issue on top.

The simplest thing to do is go through them in the order I get them.

This has some weird effects. Not for the stuff I'm looking for, especially. But being dropped back into things that were national press obsessions at some point in the last year, then vanished--and getting the endpoint first. Like the whole Andrea Yates thing, but starting with the post-trial discussions. There's also going back in time (or Newsweek) and finding a few post-September 11 articles in this issue, and then lots of stuff about Giuliani, and then suddenly having all those photos staring at me again. And then picking up the magazine below that in the stack, and it's from Before, a stark difference.

But the work is getting done--the current piece is done--and in the meantime I have become quite fond of both Jefferson Market library (a branch in Greenwich Village) and Room 108 of the library with the lions. Both are comfortable, and the staff are more helpful than in the room with the periodical collection at Mid-Manhattan. Jefferson Market, oddly, has stuff that Mid-Manhattan doesn't (although MM is a larger library), and will give me things in hardcopy that Room 108 only offers on microfilm.

Odd aspects of the current job

As I've mentioned, I'm doing some freelance research.

At the moment, it involves looking things up in magazines published over the last year. For the most part, that means going to a friendly librarian, and saying "May I have thus-and-such magazine back to last September?" The friendly librarian then hands me a large stack, with the most recent issue on top.

The simplest thing to do is go through them in the order I get them.

This has some weird effects. Not for the stuff I'm looking for, especially. But being dropped back into things that were national press obsessions at some point in the last year, then vanished--and getting the endpoint first. Like the whole Andrea Yates thing, but starting with the post-trial discussions. There's also going back in time (or Newsweek) and finding a few post-September 11 articles in this issue, and then lots of stuff about Giuliani, and then suddenly having all those photos staring at me again. And then picking up the magazine below that in the stack, and it's from Before, a stark difference.

But the work is getting done--the current piece is done--and in the meantime I have become quite fond of both Jefferson Market library (a branch in Greenwich Village) and Room 108 of the library with the lions. Both are comfortable, and the staff are more helpful than in the room with the periodical collection at Mid-Manhattan. Jefferson Market, oddly, has stuff that Mid-Manhattan doesn't (although MM is a larger library), and will give me things in hardcopy that Room 108 only offers on microfilm.