Emotions run high at Provo Library

Just a short, pictureless blog here. So on Thursday, I went to the Provo Library to get a library card. i stood in line for 5 or 6 minutes to see the woman at the desk so i could get one. When i got up there, she merely asked if i had filled out the application. i said no, i didn't know there was an application. she pointed to a table then asked for the next person in line. She was old, heartless and obviously at a dead end in her life seeing as she works at the library, so i let her meanness slide. I went to the table to fill out the application. it asked for my name, address, phone number, e-mail, and then told me i'd need a picture I.D and proof of Address. So I got in line with my application, i was going to use my driver's license as picture i.d. and my dad's blockbuster card as proof of address. I got up to the Desk again and a different, younger lady was there to help me. she asked her superior, a young man, if a Blockbuster card would work. he said "yeah, if it has the address on it" so i went to get it, but it was under my dad's name, and the one under my name was from my time in Price, PLUS it wasn't my address at all on the card but the address of the store it was issued at. So i told her it was from price and left the line to find something else. i looked at my triple AAA card, there was nothing, i found a reciept, but there was no address on that either. at last, i found an appointment slip for me... but my address wasn't on there. I looked at my social security card and my debit card also, as well as a bank statement. No luck. I finally found a paper with my dad's name and address on it (which is also my address.) So I stood in line again to ask if that would work. the young man said it wouldn't.
Then said " yeah, nope, that won't work sorry."
i said " but it's my address, too, see same last name, and same address as i wrote down"
He said as he was trying to usher me away " yeah, no it has to be your name, good old they... yeah good old the library system"

Fag. using quasi-hip, youthful terms with me won't make my address verified. The next time i went in line, needless to say, it was with the youthful girl, but she was the only one there. I am getting ahead of myself.
i left the line again and read the requirements again. i ahd to have a photo- I.D. and a proof of address that wasn't the photo I.D. so... i thought i could use my school I.D. as photo I.D. and my driver's license and proof af address. "Ha! I've got them beat at their own game now" i thought to myself. So now i got in line with the youthful girl and showed her my photo I.D. then my driver's license with my address on it. she took it and looked at it for a long time, then we had this exchange:
GIRL: have you renewed this in the past three months?
ME: what?
GIRL: have you renewed this in the past three months?
ME: my driver's license?
GIRL: yes,
ME: what?
GIRL: have you renewed your driver's license in the past three months
She was getting slightly agitated now
ME: no, why would i do that... what do you mean?
GIRL: there is an expiration date on your license, and it needs to be renewed every five years, have you renewed it in the past three months?

ME: No... i did it when i got it. i haven't had it for five years yet.
GIRL: no, i mean, in the past three months have you gotten your license renewed?
ME: no. why? is it not valid or something?
GIRL: it's not current enough
ME:why? what! it needs to be renewed every five years, the state thinks it's current enough.
GIRL: your address isn't current enough
ME: no, it is. that's the same address on my application, see
GIRL: it's policy, it's not recent enough
ME: you mean i have to renew my license every three months? that doesn't make any sense
GIRL: no, but your address needs to be three months recent
ME: why would i renew that... that doesn't make any sense. it's the same address, i promise. i still live there.
by this point she was very flustered and angry
GIRL: no, it has to be three months recent
ME: what does that even mean?
GIRL: listen, it's policy, your Address has to be three months recent.
ME: why?
GIRL: thats policy
ME: why is that policy, it doesn't make sense. i need to renew my license to get a library card.
GIRL:Listen, your address needs to be current to make sure you haven't moved. i know you haven't but this is policy. so do you get mail
ME: like paper mail?
GIRL:yes.
she was furious, but couldn't yell at me because i twas a library and she has to be courteous
ME: no i get e-mails
GIRL: you don't get like paper mail?
ME: no.
GIRL: listen, do you have a postcard, just mail yourself a postcard. that will work.
ME: okay, thanks. i don't want to be rude, like i understand it's policy, but whay do i have to renew my license, i think that's dumb
GIRL: you don't have to renew your license.
ME: you just said i did, and it sayd on the paper i need a driver's license
GIRL: you do. for your Photo I.D. and if your using your driver's license as a photo i.d. then it doesn't have to be current. but for the address confirmation, it has to be recent enough.
ME: OH!!! okay! i get it. i was using my driver's license as an address, not an i.d. okay, thanks.
GIRL: no problem


i knew it was a problem, and i knew i had infuriated her. partially on purpose too. but now i understood what she meant. i guess she's a librarian because she's not a very good communicator, so she lets books do the communicating for her. anyhow. i had run out of things to use as photo i.d. in my wallet and was thinking of just giving up, but i decided to call my mom and have her bring me my box from a ring i ordered on e-bay. that had my name and address on it. so i called her and explained my situation to her. she said immediately " Oh! like your motorcycle registration?!"
" mom i love you"
so i went out and got it, and came back down intot he library victoriously. walked up the the woman, thrust it onto the desk and demanded a library card. i then re-itterated all the hoops i had jumped through to her to prove that there was nothing i didn't cover.

i wondered if they actually wanted people to have library cards. i think secretly they only want the librarians to be able to check books out, because anyone else doesn't appreciate them the same way they do.

I also looked around and noticed about seven or eight transients checking out books. Libraries are always havens for the homeless. How do they get library cards, not having addresses and all. i guess the Food and Care coalition could vouch for them? i don't know. but i successfully got my library card. HA! i did it Provo City Library. And just for that., I will check out books and never read them!

Farmers Market and my Effing Scooter.

Hello readership. Yesterday morning, I went to the Provo Farmer's Market. I think it has derailed slightly from being just for farmers and is now for anyone with crafts or goods or services that they want to sell, but don't want to/can't turn it into a full time business. But, thats is perfectly okay with me. Or maybe that was the original intent of a Farmer's Market, but when it started, farming type goods and services were the only kind of good/service people could give. Anyhow, i went there today. My sister used to sell Tie-cuffs there, they were the little part of the tie, the one in back, cut off the main tie then turned into a bracelet. Well, she's not a farmer, I said to myself. Yes I did.
It was along first South in Provo, along the south end of Pioneer Park. It is held every Saturday there. The past few Saturday's, however, i have seen big events taking place in the parks itself. I'm not sure if those are a part of it as well, or juts happen to coincide. i think the latter. Today was Sports Hero Day at the park so there were lots of little kids playing all sorts of sports games with miniature, to regular to really huge sized balls. Sorry, back to the farmer's market. it is just the one block, between fifth and sixth west on either side of the sidewalk. People set up little fold-out tables, or have those miniature gazebo type things that they sit under and they try to sell their goods. Some of them were good, like this bread place. It's called Flour Girls and Dough Boys. They had two kinds of Focaccia, one was a large, rectangular loaf of Parmesan and herb, and the other was spinach and feta. i loved them both miraculously. Erika tried their Asiago cheese bread, Alpine sourdough (because a sourdough starter begins to take on the taste of the part of the country or world it is started in, hence San Francisco Sourdough, and in turn, hence Alpine sourdough) and their honey oat. I wanted to buy either a Focaccia loaf of Asiago, and she was for Asiago or Sourdough, so we settled and bought, you guessed it, honey oat... kidding we bought Asiago. anyhow, i also bought a cinnamon roll from them. it was fabulous. It was seriously the best cinnamon roll i have ever tasted. it kicked the bums off of Kneaders. (SEE FIG A & FIG B)



FIG A
FIG B

(FIG A is flour boys and Dough Girls being the biggest, strongest and best. FIG B is Kneaders being visibly not awesome in any respect.)
Now, i do like kneaders sandwiches. But their bread, which I used to think was good, was simply good by ignorance, i.e. i had never had anything better. Weehehehell, now I certainly have. Plus i hate Kneader's management. (we have a history)

PART 2: My Stoopid Scooter.


This is my scooter, a white MC-17 Roketa. it retails for about $1,400.00. see this website. It is on sale there for $1,250 ish. Well, for a 150 cc scooter, $1,250 isn't bad. But at Planet Power Toys in Pleasant Grove, Utah, they can get you a much lovelier deal. Notice how they say the price is "too low to post online" it may be true. They are selling these 150 cc scooters for $850. That is a wonderful deal, I told myself. But they thing i didn't consider was this: there is probably a reason they are so cheap. They assemble them themselves at the store, and they buy them wholesale.

(this is just like mine, but blue, and a few hundred less miles)

Well, i bought my scooter on May 15, i know this because just the other day, i had to use the temporary registration to complete a library card application, which I truly will tell you about later. And since then, only four days has it started smoothly. And tonight, at three forty five in the morning, i couldn't get it to start at all. The same thing happened at Zupas when i left at ten ten or so.
except there, i could get it to start after about ten minutes of trying the thumb start and the kick start. The thumb start stopped working at all, it wasn't even making the engine turn over. So, the kick start was my only way to go. And after about fifteen kicks or so, it started with a loud "puhhhff puht phut." But tonight, even after the thumb start quit working (which happened much later, about ten minutes in) the kick start still wouldn't work. it was infuriating. so i took Hannah's car home. It had gas in it, i hope she didn't mind. So all in all, if a deal sounds too good to be true, then the scooter your buying is a piece of trash.

Thank you for reading this friends.

in kind response to hannah's blog.

Greetings Readership
so a blogger, Hannahs-art.blogspot.com recently (on June 12) published a relatively well written and researched Blog
i read it and bluntly left her a comment, not because i didn't like her blog, or ideas, but simply because i wanted to show off my nerdy-ness and juxtapose the other comment on her page. I shall post her blog here so as to save you the toil of playing link-tag in your browser. I meant her no offense at all. And I'm also quite tired. and i added it to my page because when i sat something i think is funny, i want other people to see it because i am that attention starved. thanks.



so Hannah. if a D&D based rpg module were actually running for president, albeit third edition, i would so completely vote for it. fo-real. like, i don't think you understand how much i would want to be ruled over by a Dungeons and Dragons based Module with a name slightly resembling that of an opposing nominee. Now, that being said, dwarves hate elves, in any and every context, module, story movie or otherwise. and so i don't think a world, run by dwarves, as Burok seems to be, would want Elvish to be the national language. and even if it were, there are so many incarnations of Elvish. even the classis and widely accepted Tolkien Elvish has several dialects. Quenya, or high elf language, Sindarin, Grey elf language and ssamath, the Tolkien-based elven language used by dark elves or Drows in dungeons and dragons setting. plus there is still the tar-eltharin and fan-eltharin, used by wood elves and sea / high elves, respectively, and the Druhir, language of the Dark-elves, all in the Warhammer fantasy setting. As well as the vague elvish language of Andrezedj Sapkowski's Hexar saga, based on Welsh and English, much like Tolkien's. And a very many other vague and half formed incarnations and incantations. So hannah, i think that the meat of the blog itself was good, but the title was very shotty and not very well thought out. please, do me, the nerds, the literate Tolkien scholars, and ultimately America a favor and change the title of your blog. you just make yourself look silly. don't get me wrong, i appreciate what you are trying to do, but there are more effective ways of doing it.

Sincerely.

BLOG number 3: Price, Past and Apology.

PRICE: I went to college there for a semester, at the College of Eastern Utah, I studied Theatre. During which time my family was in Wisconsin, so I had no contact with them. I learned a lot about theatre: the business side, how to get a job, where to get a job, how to do your job well, makeup, lighting, sound design, set design and painting, and a lot about Stage Management. That was all just from Grady. Grady McEvoy is a short man with a thin grey goatee, a high pitched, very unique voice, a black equestrian/newsboy style hat, and a very intimidating personality. He taught all of those things and he was very good. He was... is... a very serious person. Corey, on the other hand is much less rule-abiding. He is, and tries hard to stay, one of the students. He hangs out with them on campus, in the theater, at rehearsal and jokes with them in class and anywhere he may see them. He taught acting and script analysis. He was also the man I talked to about my not learning what I wanted to. He told me that they weren’t allowed to teach a lot of it, because the Universities do. Anyhow. Price. I learned to think at a higher level and also think a different way. Plus I miss just being able to leave my room at three in the morning to buy Mc.donalds, or being able to walk around campus at three cause I want to. I miss being in such close proximity to such a close knit group of people, the theatre department. Because even if I didn’t want to, I had to be surrounded by them every day. And by the end of the semester, everyone could stand me, and most even liked me. I miss the ‘freedom’ or as much freedom as price can give. I miss my own space, I miss feeling like I was doing things on my own, for me, rather than because I have to, or I need to do it to get to some other thing that I am obligated to do. Now, that’s not to say that everything I do, I do because I feel obligated to do so, but just that when I was there, I felt... I dunno, like an adult. I was treated like one, and was around other people who were treated as such. And I could think on the same level as them, and not only that but discuss how we thought. As opposed to in high school, trying to force my way into conversations with Mr. Bauer that didn’t involve farts, poop or a childish song parody. And those conversations were few and far between. While in price however, I could look in the student center or Corey’s office or the theater itself, any of those places I could find intelligent discussion, even if I couldn’t involve myself in it.
So I suppose that is the main part that I miss about price. The being an adult. And I think it is especially hard because I had that adult-ness, and then it was just taken away from me, you know? I had to go back and live with my family, be home at a certain time, live exactly like I did in high school, and was treated as such. Not that, that is bad, it was just kind of a step backward to me. I am just filled with a renewed vigor to be grown up again. Because now I know I can, and I know I have, and I know I like it and I know I have been ready to do so for a long time. But now I can’t, and it is annoying. It’s like you see everybody else eating this delicious, endless sausage. And you think to yourself, man, I’m glad I’m not forced to eat that sausage, it would get tiring after a while. I mean, sure it tastes good, but now I can eat whatever I want and stop whenever I want. But then, you take a bite of the sausage, and you realize that despite you not being able to ever stop, or eat anything else, it is so yum that you don’t care. And then it gets taken away form you and you go back to eating crap. That is kind of how I feel. Now, I also know that everyone has a desire to get out of the house and stand on their own two feet at this stage in their life, I’m not trying to say my experience is unique, I’m just giving you my perspective on it in a less vague, general and stereotypical way.
PAST: The past, I realize, was mostly captures in that last part, about Price, but there are a few things I didn’t mention. One, I wish I hadn’t dumped my past girlfriends the way I did. I felt really bad and they never knew. And I’m sure they wouldn’t believe me if I told them. Now, that’s not to say I should have stayed with them, because both of us were better people in the long run, but I shouldn’t have just shut off my feelings and let it all just float by me while I’m encircled in my bubble of numbness that will just pop a few months down the road and I will feel all the cold, hard, hurtful feelings that I should have felt, and they had been feeling, all at once. Now, my pain isn’t the reason I’m saying I should have done it another way though, it’s because I really think that how I did it was incredibly immature and inconsiderate and impersonal and heartless. And I literally had to make myself heartless so I couldn’t feel how bad I was hurting them. Because if I acknowledge how badly I hurt them, I would just feel awful and go back to them and make them feel all better.
The second thin I failed to mention was that the past goes by much too quickly, and I feel like I need to capture as much of it as I can. Not necessarily a literal diary of daily events, but kind of a general mood that relates to an age or period in my life. So I bound up everything I have ever written into five volumes( plays, CEU chronicles, my blue notebook of thoughts during high-school, PROSE v1 gradaes 5- 10, and PROSE v2 grades 11 -Freshman year at CEU) and I intend to add to that. Everyone I’ve talked to has wanted to leave a mark somewhere on this earth. And I’m no exception. I realized yesterday. I want my children to know who I was as a teen, and a young adult, and as their father. I want them to know me even after I’m dead. Or, if thats not in the cards, I just want one student of mine to remember me fondly and tell someone else just a single thing they learned from me, and thus, my memory will be spread, albeit not very widely. But I don’t need wide-spread remembrance. Just a fond memory by someone. And if I can do that every day, I will just be rooting myself deeper into the history of the earth. I’ve heard stories and talks about people I don’t know, but afterward, I feel slightly closer to them, like I could talk to them on the street. That feeling I have is a part of that person, reaching through time and space and embedding themselves in me. That good memory could be me.
There was this couple that Erika waited on at Gloria’s Little Italy and the man didn’t know what he wanted, so he said he wanted to eat a creature. So I recommended to Erika to recommend the Dante sandwich. Meatballs, etc. So after they were through, I went and talked to them. Then months later, I saw them at Zupas where I work now, and vaguely recognized them, then it hit me who they were, the ‘I want to eat a creature’ couple. So I asked them if they were indeed they, and they replied they were. We had a good laugh. But it got me thinking about all this.

APOLOGY:
Basil, I apologize for the negative light I cast upon you in my first blog. You are a lovely, friendly cat who was just born differently than other cats. I’m sorry.

Thank you for reading this readership.

Blog Number Two and Knives (plus a brief overview of Iceland days)

Hello again Readership. this is my second Blog. Yesterday, i was at Erika's house, not her apartment, helping her watch her two little siblings, what with James being completely off the wall and very difficult to get to behave, and Kirstin being not quite as bad... not nearly as bad. so i was over there helping her cook dinner because her older Brother scott who took over watching them at 2 is an invalid and either sleeps or zones out on the computer whenever he "watches" them, so Erika thought it best for all parties involved, barring her maybe, if she went back and cooked dinner for them. they had chicken (thighs, i found out) rice and corn we had bought last week. so Erika cooked the corn and rice and i was left to make the chicken. Usually, Erika and I have a lovely time cookig together, but this time, it wasn't so lovely. It was loud and chaotic and very fast paced and distracting and Erika's home doesn't have a single decent knife. now, any two of these elements would not be a big deal. i could probably even handle three, but when they all collided, it was just too much. The thighs were rubbery, as thighs often are, and there were big-ol fat bones in them, and there wasn't even a steak knife to be found. I either had a bread knife, or a short knife with a huge handle whose tip was cut off and wasn't serrated.
So after futilely trying to use every knife in the house, I left on my scooter to go borrow one of my dad's glorious knifes. it wasn't his " perfectly balanced high-carbon steel Forschner 8-inch chef’s knife with the Fibrox handle" because, he is still breathing and would not allow me to even attempt to pry it out of his fingers. But i used one almost equally good. personally, actually, i like it more simply because it's heavier and therefore, i feel more many and tough. So, i got back to Erika's and cut the thighs into strips with ease and made honey mustard chicken, which i was afraid would be hated by all but myself and Erika, but it was relatively well received (it was hated by everyone but me, Erika and Scott.)
Iceland Days.
for a more detailed and delicious overview of this event, visit Steverino's blog at itonlyhurtsinmybrain.blogspot.com. (which link i provide conveniently at the left side of this page) but what i can tell you is that i had to sing an Icelandic folk song, which i thought was even more brain-numbing than most American folk tunes. But i blame that on the high-key it was set in and the faerie-esque instrumentation that accompanied the c.d. as well as the singer on the practice disc who sounded like a tormented but arrogant castratti. I also had three Icelandic hot dogs,( which are made with Dog* as well and beef.) and two Icelandic doughnuts as well as an Icelandic pancake and a lamb lunch, needless to say, i didn't go to work that evening.

*by dog, i actually mean Sheep.**

**By sheep, i meant lamb.



anyhow, thanks for reading, i'll be posting more later, i'm still trying to work my way into the large-sized blogger-shoes that are worn by the best webloggers out there, so please, be patient, and thanks.

Blog Number One and Basil's little Problem

Hello Readership, this is my first blog. I started this so that i could write what i wanted. I suppose thats what a Blog is for. and if the description of the blog doesn't explain the name, i will now. it is because one time, Hannah Hillam and myself were on the computer and i saw something postmodern, and forgetably incredible, seeing as i cannot remember what it was, and i was delighted. Then my glasses flew off my head while i was dancing with sheer bliss. So i apologized to Hannah, saying "sorry, my glasses flew off in a fit of Postmodern joy" and that should explain that.
Aside from that, my entire downstairs area smells like a giant litterbox. At first, it was because Basil, our lazyest, grey-est and least self-controlled cat, pooped in my shower. But now, that got cleaned up and it still smells. whats scarier is that there is no litterbox down here, and Basil is almost always asleep on my bed. So... i think i'm going to sleep our couch tonight. The couch we had upstairs was very long, very ugly and Very comfy. but then my dad and i took it outside and labeled it with F-R-E-E written in paper plates in hopes that it would get taken. (come to think of it though, out neighbors are having a yard sale, we could just drop it off there and then that would get rid of it for us, and they could make money off of it.) and it got replaced with my recently married sisters third couch. well, it was her third, but then she gave it to us, and it's more a love seat. BUT, all that being said, i can't sleep on our new 'couch' because it is, in fact, a love seat. and being a love seat, as it is, it is too short. So, i will have to face the psychological torment that is sleeping in my bed with Basil around.
a Post-Script: Our cat is called Basil after Basil Fawlty of Fawlty Towers. My dad said, after we had three cats, that if we got another, we would have to name it Basil. I'm sure he was hoping to dissuade my mother. But, 5 years and Three cats later, Basil poops everywhere and my mother is wishing she had just listened to my father. It would have been easier for her to listen though if he had wanted to name him something not cute and herb-y, like Craphouse, or Latrine. But, alas. I'm going to go curl up on our new 'couch' now and try to sleep.