Break me off a piece of that protein bar

Some weeks are busier and more interesting than others. Working at 7pm at least means that today is a busy day and this is going to be a busy week, both with work and in terms of finishing up a paper for class. But enough about the week that has only just begun. Two weeks ago was the week of well 2 weeks ago.

On Tuesday a friend I haven't talked to in over a year (which makes one wonder if friend status still applies) contacted me. On Wednesday I became a vegetarian. On Thursday I started the Library of Nobleness Blog. On Friday I broke up with my girlfriend. On Satuday I drove to Albany, NY for a friend's 30th b-day party and then on Sunday I visited 3 PA college libraries, made my theatrical debut in the highly acclaimed and broadly viewed social work monologues @ Kutztown University. You can read more about the latter part of this week in earlier posts.

Becoming a vegetarian wasn't a huge stretch b/c I had already given up red meat and chicken and pork, and veal, a few years ago. I have trouble digesting certain foods, and by trouble I mean that I have ended up in the emergency room a few times. So I've given up the foods that burn me and meats are among that category. But I have continued to eat fish and actually deli turkey meat (for some reason that doesn't give me trouble). But on that Wednesday, I was pushed to think about animal rights and cruelty in a new way. I won't get into all the details of my solo conversation, but here I am 2 weeks later and still a vegetarian.

I'm kind of tired quite a bit and am worried that I'm not eating right and particularly not getting enough protein. So I'm off for dinner and am going to order a plate of tofu and beans and wash that down with a an uber soy protein rich yummy shake. Or if anyone has suggestions for more appetizing protein rich fare, I'm all ears. All mouth. All tummy. All ready.

I should be sleeping

My sleeping pattern has been off since the weekend. Driving home from seeing The Tragically Hip in Lancaster Sunday night at the end of a LONG weekend was a bit of a nightmare. I drove hundreds of miles last weekend. Here to Northern NJ to Selkirk, NY (just south of Albany) to Easton PA to Bethelehem to Kutztown to Lancaster and it was only getting back into Philly - where I live - that I got lost. A 90 minute drive turned into a 150 minute drive which meant I got home Sunday night after 1 am. So here it is, only 12:13 am and I'm up and typing away. I think I have trouble falling asleep also b/c of the warm temperature in my apt. I cannot control the temperature, which means that HEAT is still blowing through the vents. Tomorrow apparently is the day that my landlord realizes that it's almost May and that heat is no longer necessary. Thank the smart landlord!

I'm excited for DC this weekend. NCADP Board Meeting Saturday morning and then some play time the rest of Saturday and Sunday and then work from the NCADP office Monady and Tuesday. I ran for about 30 minutes today. The combination of expanding belly and diminishing muscles has become a serious concern and reality and I need to giddy up and take care of my body. I became a full-fledged veggie last week, and with only a couple of minor slip-ups - ate some shrimp cocktail b/c I was starving and it was offered and b/c I totally blanked that shrimp are animals - I'm coming into my very vegetarian own. I need to read more about maintaining a health diet w/o meat, which might be an oxymoron, but I'd hate to give up meat and replace with potato chips b/c I'm not filling up enough at meals.

This is my first post on the LIBRARY OF NOBLENESS blog (big shout out to Jonathan Kammer and Shannon Perlotto for calling me on my earlier blog name - Lots of Libraries - and offering this blog name as a replacement) that hasn't been largely or littlely about libraries...I'm reminded of a scene from Private Parts. Howard is supposed to say the time and weather every 15 minutes. Howard obliges but says it as such a non-sequitor during bits. He'll be doing something on let's say lesbian sex - his favorite topic - and then just throw in really quickly 7:45am 69 degrees. This only further incenses Pig Vomit. btw, nice early role for Paul Giamatti.

So my time/weather correlary to libraries...

books, knowledge, card catalogue

out!

Happy Birthday Library of Congress

April 24, 1800. Thanks to monsieur Harry Mbang for bringing this birthday on his birthday to my attention.

Short Summary from Wikipedia:

The Library of Congress was established on April 24, 1800, when President John Adams signed an act of Congress providing for the transfer of the seat of government from Philadelphia to the new capital city of Washington.

The legislation appropriated $5,000 "for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress ..., and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them...." The original library was housed in the new Capitol until August 1814, when invading British troops set fire to the Capitol building, destroying the contents of the small library (3,000 volumes).

I've spent a little time at the Library of Congress. When I lived in DC I had an LOC library card and loved reading in the Reading Room.

Kutztown University Library

I posted about the libraries at Lafayette and Lehigh but ran out of time for Kutztown's library. I was at Kutztown for a Social Work monologue production and after the performance (my piece was about a client at a Philly prison from last year) I hunkered down at the Rohrbach Library to do some school work. Did you know that April 15 - 21 was National Library Week?

I asked a librarian who had worked there since 1975 what she most liked about the library. She commented on the openess, outside light, how easy it is to find materials and comfortably work and the job well done on the 1998 renovation which doubled the library's size. I worked upstairs and indeed enjoyed the natural light and spacious workign areas. I could see lots of other people, but they were in no way a distraction, and was able to crank out a good start on my first power point presentation on the topic of mental health responses to September 11th and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

My favorite spots were the large windows on the stairs platform between the first and 2nd floor in the back which beautifully framed the intramural fields and the Kutztown water tower in the distance. Another fav spot is the men's bathroom on the first floor which, along with the women's bathroom across the way, has the old brick building exterior pre-renovation.

The day before making it to Kutztown I was with friends and as soon as I mentioned Kutztown, the response was that's where former wide receiver extraordinare Andre Reed of the Buffalo Bills played his college ball there. Granted it was a crowd of loyal Rochesterarians and sports fans, but that was an impressive display of sports trivia. But did my friend know that he grew up in nearby Allentown?

What I like about Libraries

Childhood memories of Saturday trips to the library make me feel warm and happy whenever I enter a library.

What is it that I like about libraries? The carpeted thick silence; the smell of dusty pages and binding glue; and the efficient whispers of librarians who know their way around a card catelogue as well as the library database.

I love the possibilities that a library presents : some new book to change my life or change the way I see the world; some new novel with an unforgetable story; some new prose so to break my heart and mend it again.

In the library its ok to gather as many books as you think you can read. It's ok to read part's of lot's of books until one draws you in to finish it.

The library is a community of people who love books and information. It can create a sense of belonging. I know I've settled into a new home town when I get my libary card. Every time I'm handed a new library card, I feel as if I've just been handed the keys to the world.

My busy life , ready electronic access to on-line information and all-night bookstores make my visits to the library a rarer and rarer treat.

I am looking forward to savoring those visits and seeing familiar places with new eyes.

It will be fun to share memories, observations and news about one of my favorite places.

Lehigh University Library

Went from Lafayette to Lehigh, which I'm more familiar with having dated someone who lived in Bethelehem. As luck would have it, I was actually on my way to see "her" at another area college: Kutztown University.

The Fairchild Martindale Library at Lehigh is not the prettiest from the outside. That seemed to be the result of a renovation which didn't bring together the old and new so well. The inside was more archtiecturally impressive. Two gems were a view of campus and the doors on floors 2 and 3. Pictures of these sights are included.

Whoa PA

I was a bit ambitious this weekend. Planned on attending 30th b-day parties for Jeff Kuhn in Albany Saturday afternoon and Eric Schwinder in Boston Saturday night. Though only 3 hours apart, the kicker was being in Kutztown, PA on Sunday by 1:30. I left the Albany party with every intention of making it to Boston, but I was zonked. So I turned around and headed towards PA. A second wind got me all the way to Easton, PA and a $129 room where I lived from 12:30 am to 8:30 am.

But Easton was a good spot b/c it's home to a really cute town on the PA/NJ border and Lafayette College. My mom and I visited Lafayette when I was a senior and remember the small town and red brick buildings of campus. Those red brick buildings, miracuously, were still there and so was the library. While closed, it was a quite stunning from the outside and located right where it should be, in the heart of the campus. After all, colleges and universities are primarily academic institutions, and single building on a campus more embodies the pursuit of knowledge than the library. Skillman Library reminded me some of Carpenter Library at Bryn Mawr, where I have spent considerable time studying (I'm a social work grad student at Bryn Mawr College). My intrigue and appreciation of Lafayette's Library was in some ways justified and corroborated when I learned that it was a 2007 AIA/ALA Library Building Award.

Erev Emerson Library Tour

Tomorrow morning I'm going to my first library, or at least the first library that I can remember. The Emerson Public Library. Since I'm typing this, while sitting next to my father, I have to ask him if Emerson Library was indeed my first library. Well, Dad???

I may be wrong, but my guess is that when Mom walked your sister Danielle to the library on Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx, you tagged along in your stroller. Let's ask Mom.

As a newborn you were taken to the library in a big carriage with your sister riding along on a seat on top of you. Of course, you don't remember that library in the Bronx since you were 18 months when we moved to New Jersey.

Free Library of Philadelphia, Central Location, Vine Street

I went to the library today for the first time in many months. Lots of driving this weekend - b-day parties in Albany and Boston on Saturday and in Kutztown and Lancaster on Sunday. So I explored the rather limited books on CD collection, but came away with 2 hopefully strong titles. One called Voices of the Shoah is an audio project on the Holocaust and the other is about Wilt Chamberlain and in particular his 100 point performance against the Knicks in Hershey, PA.

While at the library, I was reminded of how much I like libraries. Like so many of us, I have very fond memories of my childhood library in Emerson, NJ. I like libraries for lots of reasons:

• I love to read
• Everything is free
• Every library has so much in common, while at the same time each is quite unique
• Libaries are central components of the community, including being a great gathering place for all in the community. There are few other places where such a cross-sampling of people come together in the same place.

While at the library today, I came up with an idea. I want to see as many libraries as possible and document these experiences. On the onehand, while traveling I hope to include the main public library branch as one of the sites I visit, in a similar way that I try to go for a job in new places and sometimes check out heralded museums. In addition to the central library branches, I hope to explore the community ones too, in my home here in Philadelphia and elsewhere.

In terms of large city central branches of libraries, I have been to:

Philadelphia, DC, NYC, Chicago, Milwaukee