Zen and the Art of Sci-Fi, Part II

Zen.

Peace.

Tranquility.

Sounds gorgeous, doesn’t it? Fantastic, even.

I find all sorts of beautiful pictures online of peaceful homes meant to exhibit the embodiment of Zen: homes in calm neutral colors, where the minimal furniture is comfortable, serviceable, and matches the décor, with sparse art on the walls and a single orchid or maybe a bonsai tree on the end table.

Sometimes I look around my home and I wonder if I might be further along, spiritually speaking, if I gave my environment a bit of a makeover.

Wouldn’t it be great to live in a house that looked like that? I wonder.

Except where would I hang my Iron Man poster?

Let’s see what sci-fi can teach us about our homes.

Meditate with me.

-

“The enemy’s gate is down.” - Ender Wiggin, Ender’s Game

Ender’s genius is that he looked at the same battle room as everyone else and saw it in a different way. What do you see when you look at your home?

When I see the beautifully decorated homes in the ladies' magazines, I agree that they look nice but I don't want to live there. I want to live in my own house with my own things.

I used to wish my house and my things looked like the magazine houses. I followed the advice in the magazine articles, but nothing worked. The sci-fi books everywhere, the entertainment center littered with games and peripherals, the anime wall scrolls – these things just don’t belong in decorating magazines.

The problem with my house, I thought, is that it looks like I live there.

But here’s the thing, guys: that’s not actually a problem. I do, in fact, live in my house. It is good and right and appropriate that my home look like I live there.

Pretend your home is the battle room and you are the prodigious child soldier. Is there actually something wrong with your home or are you letting an enemy magazine tell you what to do? Are you going to take that from them or are you going to fight back?

-

“There is no spoon.” - Creepy kid, The Matrix

I often catch myself thinking that, just maybe, if I get my home in order, the rest of my life will naturally fall into place. If I can just get the knack of a better home (and garden), I'll somehow magically sort out my childhood issues. If I had a fully stocked pantry with all the food organized into elegant glass jars, I would wake up tomorrow at my goal weight and never have to diet again. If I ever actually find the perfect living room set, I’ll find enough change in the cushions to balance my budget forever.

It’s not me, I want to think. It’s the house.

Oh, please.

I know it’s painful to admit, but it’s not the house. These limitations are all in my head. Maybe they’re in your head too? The truth is that even if I magically woke up tomorrow in one of those perfect homes with a sand garden and a tranquil pool of koi, I would still be disorganized. I wouldn’t remember to take care of the pool until the smell of rotting fish carcass became overpowering and I’d be sitting there in the stink wondering why I didn’t take the blue pill.

Instead of stressing over the state of your home, focus on the inner issues that are truly bugging you. Remember, it isn’t the house – er, that is, the spoon – that bends, it is only yourself.

Free your mind.

-

“Don’t blink.” - Ten, Doctor Who

We all know the feeling. You clean your house, it looks good, then you turn your back on it and when next you look around, your living room has become the gravitational center for all random chaos in the known universe. How the heck? When… just… what?

Two words: Weeping Angels. 

The unfinished projects, the unending laundry and vacuuming, the way there’s always more picking up to do no matter how much time you spend on it: they won’t kill you outright, but they’ll take your time, eat the years you would otherwise be living.

If there’s anything we’ve learned from Doctor Who, aside from an unnatural fear of statues, it’s that the inanimate objects can only get you when you take your eyes off them. The trick is to keep your eyes open. Yeah, life gets in the way, but if you only pay attention for like ten minutes a day, you can stay on top of this thing. A few minutes a day is the difference between well managed laundry and spending your whole weekend sorting clothes.

Just don’t blink.

-

Obviously, if they ever invent a colony ship to Mars, we’re not going to be able to take all of our stuff with us. We’ll have only the finest pared-down possessions in our Martian abodes. Advanced air filtration systems will clear the red dust from our homes as our robot servants spare us from mundane chores like dishes and laundry.

Our minds will be free to focus on deeper spiritual issues, and I promise at that time to write a more relevant article on Zen and the art of science fact.

Until then, continue to find Zen in the art of science fiction.

And maybe get a head start on paring down those possessions. It couldn’t hurt. 

Zen and the Art of Sci-Fi

“I should focus on some inner, spiritual work,” I said.

Except, no, I’ve never said that.

I often say things like

“I wonder if I can read this entire book in one sitting?”

Or “I will play video games until I pass out from hunger, then I will eat and play some more.”

And just recently I said to myself, “If I only watch one episode per month, I can make Merlin last until Netflix puts up the next season.”

But I’ve never actually said, “Let’s meditate today.”

When I think about it, Zen philosophy’s focus on living in the present moment and striving to be at one with everything sounds nice, but the problem is that I really have no desire to give up movies and video games to become an austere hermit on a frozen Himalayan mountaintop.

Fortunately for me, austerity is not, in fact, a requirement for a life of enlightenment and spiritual peace. I once heard that the key to becoming a Zen master is to find Zen in the everyday, to distill fundamental truths from the stuff of life.

And, friends, we can do that sort of thing from home! Tibet doesn’t have a monopoly on meditation!

As a meditative exercise, I’ve done some inner, spiritual work (see what I did there?) to distill fundamental truths from sci-fi stuff. Perhaps you will gain some enlightenment from it?

So, come on, say it with me:

“Let’s meditate today.”

-

“Do or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda, Star Wars

This first one’s easy to meditate on, because a Jedi master is practically a Buddhist monk already, right? Anyway, this quote used to bother me. While Luke is whining that he “tried” to do something he’s failed to do, Yoda lays the little green smack-down on him: there is no try. Ouch, Yoda. Just rub it in his face, why don’t you?

But I recently had an epiphany while I was “trying” to maintain a faster-than-my-normal running speed and “failing” to do so. “Do or do not,” he says. “There is no try.” Failure doesn’t come into it.

Instead of focusing on the things you “do not,” give yourself more credit for the things you “do.” Sure, I did not maintain the killer running speed, but I did run faster than usual. I did not perfect the impossible yoga pose, but I did practice. I did not achieve spiritual enlightenment in a single day, but I did make today count.

-

“No grenades.” - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, Serenity

Most would say that of all the sci-fi characters I resemble, the Hero of Canton is not one of them. Aside from a shared proclivity to name our weapons (“I call her Vera.”), Jayne Cobb and I have next to nothing in common. However, Jayne and I do share a tendency to overpack.

Like Jayne, I “get excitable as to choice, like to keep my options open,” and I worry over even the simplest overnight trips. What should I pack? Have I got everything?

But the fact is I never need everything I pack, and if I forget something it’s not as if I can’t pick up another one when I dock planet-side. This isn’t the infinite blackness of space, people; there will be a Wal-mart when you get there. Save yourself the stress and listen to your inner Zen master (or space pirate) when he tells you to pack less: No grenades.

-

“Frak!” - Practically everyone, Battlestar Galactica

One of my elderly relatives likes to say that “cussing is what people do when they've run out of intelligent things to say.” He gets bent up about bad words in what he views as otherwise perfectly acceptable media: a single F-bomb can blow up all his inner peace.

However, a mentor of mine once countered with, “The time and place for foul language is when I stub my toe at two in the morning.”

Of course! I’m never intelligent at two in the morning, no matter what my toes are doing! If ever there is a time when I’ve run out of intelligent things to say, it is then.

Not every problem is small or simple enough to be put out the airlock. Sometimes, bad things happen and there’s nothing you can do about it. At times like these, there’s no need to be articulate. Revel in the cathartic release of a good swear and save the stirring speeches for when the Cylons aren’t attacking.

-

There are many more sci-fi examples out there that can be used to further your spiritual practices. Should you happen to achieve enlightenment, you can reconsider becoming a hermit in the Himalayas, if that’s your thing.

For myself, I’ll mark “spiritual, inner work” off my to do list and reward myself with a movie and some video games.

Chicken Soup for the Twisted Soul

Dear world,

While I know you rely on me for a great many things – on account of how I am a special snowflake and there’s only ever one of me, etc. – I am currently sick. I know this interferes with some of your more interesting plans for the day; just imagine how I feel about it. I could be out having fun. Instead, I am one with this couch. I know. It’s neither right nor fair.

Anyway, world, there are a few things you can do for me in my convalescence.

First, comfort food. I would like to eat some and I would like for it to not count. I’m going to need you to wave your magic wand and make all the calories in the following foods go away just for today:

1. Pizza
2. Cheeseburgers
3. French fries (the crinkle-cut kind. You can ignore the wimpy ones from fast food places.)
4. Ice cream
5. Peanut butter
6. Anything containing peanut butter
7. Pie

And when you’re done taking all those calories out, I need all those things to magically appear in my fridge. Because I don’t normally keep them around, and I’m too miserable to go out for them now.

Second: naps. I need rest to recover from whatever this is, but I got sick on a weekend. I can't waste my limited weekend time napping, so when I nod off, I need you to stop time. I’ll let you know when you can start it up again. Like, maybe there’s an app for that? If it’s too hard to stop time for everybody, you can do it just for me. Maybe I’ll find a Time Turner in my jewelry box? Maybe the Tardis will land in my basement? Or maybe this can be like Groundhogs Day and I'll just wake up tomorrow to find it's Saturday again. We can sort out the details later.

Third: laundry. It needs to be done and I don’t want to do it. I’ve prepared a few acceptable solutions to this problem. Use your best judgement.

Option A: benevolent robot servants. I always liked Rosey from the Jetsons. But remember the Three Laws of Robotics! We don't want a repeat of last time.

Option B: house elves, just for today. I’ve got some socks they can have afterward – I’m not a slave driver.

Option C: trained Tyrannosauruses. I’m… not entirely clear on the particulars for Option C. I’m sick and my head hurts. I leave it in your capable hands.

Fourth: science. Find me a freaking biological genius and beat him about the head and shoulders with inspiration until he thinks up a cure for the common cold. Make it something ridiculously easy and widely accessible, preferably something I have in my pantry so I won’t have to go to the drug store, something attractive so I can find it on Pinterest later and be pleasantly surprised. I can act surprised, I promise.

That about covers it for now. As you can see, my requests are reasonable and mostly unselfish – I imagine everyone would enjoy dinosaur butlers and zero calorie crinkle-cut fries. I’ll leave you alone to work on those. I’ll just be waiting, right here on this couch. You know where to find me.

Sincerely,

Tori

It Came From Another Dimension

Scientist talk about parallel universes, places where everything that can happen has happened. There are other versions of us in these places, people who live the same lives we do but who have made different choices.

It comes up in science fiction a lot. I saw it on Doctor Who once. The Doctor and company visited an Other London, where people rode around on airships and everyone had cool cell phones. It was great until the robotic Cybermen showed up and tried to upgrade humanity by removing all our fleshy bits.

But we’re not talking about Doctor Who today. We’re talking about a real problem:

There is a universe just a short span from ours that threatens our well being.

And, ladies, the walls between dimensions are getting thin.

I know because I hear a voice in my head sometimes, riding behind my eyes, telling me what to do,

“You should be cleaning your home with all natural cleaners,” she says. “You should be eating more greens. You should have a little garden patch in the back where you grow your own tomatoes and a few herbs. You should take up couponing. You should organize the pantry. You should redecorate the living room. You should buy cheap t-shirts and alter them yourself to look like the expensive, fashionable ones at the store.”

and I can hear as plain as if she’s in the room with me: this is my voice, ladies, but it isn’t me.

She’s an Other Me.

I'm hearing the dimension-spanning echoes of a wiser, better me from one of those parallel universes. Somewhere in these vast and infinite cosmos, there's a version of me that got off her ass and planted that butterfly garden I’d like to have but don’t want to work for. She's got the housework under clockwork-precise control, she’s budgeted for early retirement, and all her leftovers reheat well.

The Other Me crosses over sometimes.

She’s the one who drives to the craft store and does all the shopping there.

She uses my Pinterest account when I’m not looking. Later, I look at her pins and think "What the hell? I don't have the time or inclination to do ANY of this stuff,” but I keep looking because, well, she likes the same stuff I do!

More than once I’ve realized halfway through a delicious dinner that I have no conscious memory of what took place in my kitchen during that meal’s construction.

Sometimes I can almost see her house. I look at my home and I see things, like out of the corner of my eye, and they’re not really there. I tell Matt about how someday I hope to have the house in order, how I hope to take care of the mess. “What mess?” he says. “I don’t see anything wrong here.” I don’t know how to explain that our house just doesn’t look like the Other House.

I’m not alone. I’ve asked my friends. They too hear the voices whispering sweet temptations and maddening impossibilities.

“I bake cookies and make healthy after-school snacks for my kids and the neighbor children. We give homemade food gifts to neighbors for Christmas,” said one friend.

“I am thinner, and I can wear things I used to,” said another. “I have a fabulous yard. I am so amazing I make my own cross stitch patterns.”

Still another said, “I have dinner prepared and the table set when my husband walks in the door. I am wearing an adorable apron with matching heels, and he has never been so impressed with any meal in his life.”

I am these things, they told me.

I do these things.

All the dreams were similar, no matter how many women I asked:

We cook organic, delicious, nutritious meals using seasonal ingredients (from our own gardens). We create our own blue ribbon preserves (again from our gardens). We plan perfect, thrifty grocery lists each week, eschewing all pre-packaged, chemically-enhanced products. We lovingly pack excellent sack lunches for our husbands and children (including cute little notes of encouragement on handmade stationary).

We keep our homes impeccably clean. We maintain linen closets full of crisply folded linens tied with ribbon, little sprigs of lavender tucked in the bows. We have seasonal decorations (“changed out promptly,” one friend says), including a seasonal tablecloth (“lovingly ironed weekly,” another friend tells me). “The toilets clean themselves,” one friend added. Dishes and laundry never pile up because we have a system: it only takes ten minutes a day. We have plenty of time and energy left to workout! And we don’t sweat! We look fantastic!

We can see it so clearly! “This,” we think, “is my true, inner self speaking to me from my subconscious! It’s the self I would be if I had more money, more energy, and more time!”

It all sounds so wonderful!

Ladies…

It’s not wonderful.

It’s not your true, inner self.

It’s a trap.

You see, ladies, there’s a parallel universe not too far away from ours where the robots are winning. No, not the Cybermen.

In this Other World, you’ve been replaced by a Stepford Wife, and she is speaking to you.

It’s the only explanation that fits.

That’s why they never sweat.

Because they’re robots.

That’s how they clean the house in ten minutes a day.

Superhuman speed. Because robots.

They’re in perfect shape because they were designed that way.

They’re never stressed because they’re unfeeling robots with no emotions whatsoever.

This isn’t science fiction, ladies. It’s real. The invasion is already underway. This trans-dimensional rift is getting wider and the Evil Robot Usses are trying to get in and every day you listen to them is a day the robots win.

Don’t listen to their lies.

Don’t let them upgrade you.

You are perfect and amazing and awesome just the way you are. And so am I. 

Because we may be disorganized, we may live in flawed houses, we may blow off the laundry to watch another episode of Doctor Who, but you know what?

We defeated some soulless robots today.

And for today, that’s all that matters.

The Book of Benjamin

Prologue

“So that’s the library,” said Janelle, concluding my tour of the library’s inner workings my first day on the job. I already knew a lot of it from volunteering there two mornings a week, but now I was seeing it all in more detail. “You just need to meet your coworkers from the evening shift – oh, and Benjamin, but you probably won’t meet him for a few weeks.”

“Who’s Benjamin?” I asked.

“He works on Fridays and Saturdays. But he has the next few weekends off because of high school graduation.”

“That’s nice,” I said. “Is he going out of town for one or something?”

“No,” said Janelle. “He’s in one.”

And that’s how I went from working as a school librarian to working alongside a teenager no older than the students I used to preside over.

Chapter 1 - Introductions

I heard it over and over for two weeks: “He’s really smart, like you! You like the same stuff! You’ll get along great!” But now that we were working our first shift together, he wasn’t living up to the hype.

“Wait a minute,” I said during our first conversation. “You mean to tell me you missed the eighties altogether?”

“Um, yes. Yes, I did,” he said.

I sighed. “I was really hoping we could be friends.”

“We can be friends!” he said. “I’m sure we have other things in common!”

“You just told me you’ve never even seen Princess Bride!” I said.

“So what?”

“So, that’s kind of important!”

Chapter 2 – Gadget Freaks

Oh, joy! It was going to be a good day at the library! New computers! New features! New extra large monitors!

New desktop backgrounds to play with!

“I’m going with this one!” said Benjamin. “It’s beautiful. Look, a spaceship!”

“Mine's a pumpkin,” I said, pointing out the Halloween theme.

Benjamin scoffed. “Mine's better.”

“Pumpkins are better than spaceships,” I argued.

He made a disgusted noise. “Pft. How many pumpkins have visited other planets?”

“We'll never know, will we? Because of the infinite blackness of space,” I said.

“What we should do is…” and he spent the next several minutes telling me about some science he read about somewhere, that would allow us to use protons to send information so that we can access the internet from distant planets. I’d like to explain it more thoroughly, but I was paying more attention to pictures of pretty pumpkins.

Finally, I said, “Why would we want to do that, until we're able to visit the distant planets and access the internet therefrom?”

“Because,” Benjamin said with a long suffering sigh, “other life forms are already there and they can meet us on the internet!”

I shook my head. “Interstellar internet dating? I don’t think it will work out.”

“Of all the millions of planets out there, one of them is bound to be a match!” he insisted.

I said, “Have you ever TRIED Chatroulette?”

Chapter 3 – Great Minds

In a book, I read that when Google tracks searches for flu symptoms, their maps of the searches mirror the CDC’s maps of flu outbreaks, only Google’s results come in nearly two weeks faster. I couldn’t wait to tell Benjamin.

He was suitably impressed. “Google should run for president!”

“I’m pretty sure you have to be a citizen first,” I said.

“It was technically born in America,” he pointed out.

“Good point,” I said.

“It should start by running for governor or something.”

I nodded. “I'd vote for it. It already tells me what to do and where to shop.”

“It'd be the perfect candidate: its opinions would change to match whatever is most popular! It could solve all the world's problems by running simulations before it implements the solutions in the real world,” said Benjamin.

“So how do we start the ball rolling?” I said.

“Beats me.”

I sighed. “We have the solutions to all the world's problems. If only we weren't limited by this crippling laziness that stops us from implementing them.”

“We could tell somebody?”

“That's too much work.”

Benjamin nodded. “Our solutions shall die with us.”

Chapter 4 – Shared Mortality

Suddenly, Benjamin stopped everything, pulled up the calculator application on his desktop, and punched in some numbers. He looked at me, face grave. “28,470,” he said.

“That’s a big number,” I said. “What is it?”

“That’s the number of days you’ll live if you reach the average life expectancy of 78 years old.”

“I take it back!” I said. “That’s not a big number at all!”

He typed more numbers in. “That’s only 4056 weekends.”

“That’s a small number!” I said, moving in to look at the numbers on his screen.

“I know!”

“How many have we lived already?” I asked.

“Using the average of our ages?”

“Sure.”

He typed some numbers. “We’ve already had 1248! We only have 2808 left!”

“Holy crap! What are we going to do?!”

Chapter 5 – Word Games

I stepped back from the display case to admire my work: a lovely tableau of children’s books with matching stuffed animals. Yup, I thought. The kids will love it.

“Nice,” said Benjamin from the circulation desk behind me.

“Do you like my fluffy octopus?” I asked, pointing it out.

“It’s very… fluffy,” he said, diplomatically.

“I just bought that leather-bound copy of 20000 Leagues Under the Sea yesterday,” I explained, joining him behind the desk to empty the return bin.

“And they include a fluffy octopus with every purchase?” he asked.

“No, I already had that. I really wanted to put him on display so I bought the book to justify it.”

“That’s… obsessive,” he said.

“Octopuses are awesome!” I said in my defense.

After a long pause, he said, “When you have more than one, I believe it’s ‘Octopi’.”

“No,” I said. “It’s octopuses. Greek, not Latin.”

“But if you bake them in a pie,” he said, “it could be octopie. Octopi pie.”

I nodded. “If you use eight octopuses in a pie, it’s octo-octopi pie.”

“Guys,” said Carla, gesturing at the pile of books at the circ desk. “Can we get back to these now?”

“Sorry,” we said together.

Chapter 6 – Just Yesterday

Carla slouched into her chair as the clock rolled over to 4:00PM. “Finally! No more passports!” The library is also a passport acceptance facility. The fees are a good source of money for the library, but it can sometimes be stressful for the librarians who double as passport agents. “When are you going to start training to do this?” she said, looking at me.

“Ha!” I laughed. “As disorganized as I am? Really?”

“It’s not so bad,” said Carla, heading toward the back to prepare the passports for shipping. “They just make you crazy when you have to do several in a row.”

“With you and Benjamin both doing them, one of us has to stay sane,” I called after her. “I’m like the designated driver!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Benjamin. “Let’s back that up a minute. ‘Stay’ sane? This presupposes that you are actually sane at this moment, and I think the evidence against you—”

I cut him off with a wave of my hand. “I just gave you the opportunity to use the word ‘presuppose’ in a sentence. I deserve points for that.”

He stuttered to a halt. “You’re right,” he said eventually.

And the discussion ended there.

Epilogue

“I told Matt our Google idea,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“He helpfully reminded me that you have to be at least thirty five years old to run for president.”

“Dang it!”

A Heartfelt Letter to My Friend Liz

 Dear Liz,

Many years ago, a brilliant group of college students (of questionable sobriety) philosophized over how many days they could spend playing video games in a dark basement before they all devolved into more primitive creatures. Thus the Cult of the Blind Cave Salamander was born.

As one of the founding members of the Salamanders, you do enjoy a certain number of enviable perks: in addition to automatic inclusion in no less than twelve zombie contingency plans, spanning most of the Midwest, you also have a spot reserved in the Utopian commune we all plan to erect should any of us ever win the lottery.

However, this membership also carries with it certain obligations: I am speaking, of course, of your duties to the group re: your unborn child. As you are aware, a member of the next generation of the Cult of the Blind Cave Salamander currently resides in your womb and it is your responsibility to raise that child in such a way that he or she contributes to the betterment of Salamander society.

Regrettably, the first step in assuring your child’s maximum usefulness to the group is one over which you have no control.

You see, Liz, I’ve done the math and I’m afraid you have to have a boy.

Quite simply, your child is the linchpin in our diabolic plot to take over the world. A misplaced variable at this point in the game could set back our plans to found the Salamander nation (tentatively called “Salamandia,” but the name is open for debate) by decades.

Soon you will join the ranks of Salamander mothers who have been strategically planning arranged marriages among their growing brood for several years now. Alas, a brief census of the Salamander children reveals that we currently have too many girls. If you and Aaron contribute yet another girl to this equation, the group may not recover from the lopsidedness for years – if ever, considering how many Salamander couples claim to have reached their upper limit.

If you have a girl, we may have to dilute the purity of the salamander race by allowing the children to marry outsiders. While there is some precedent for that (seeing as the Cult is in early days yet and your own happy marriage is the product of such an intermingling), if a suitable candidate cannot be found, your daughter may find herself relegated to the roll of priestess or virgin oracle – and the genes for those lovely red curls of yours would die with her!

If it was only a matter of making the arranged marriages work out, we could get around that, but there are other factors to consider. In order for our budding nation (or post-lottery Utopian commune) (or post-zombie-apocalypse safe zone) to be self-sustaining, our Salamanders must fulfill a number of very important jobs. We have plenty of doctors, scientists, engineers, and other clever-thinking types essential to the governance of our new country. We even have survivalists who aspire to garden, can preserves, and live off the land.

What we lack, though, are hunters and for that we need more men.

This is not to say that women can’t hunt, only that so far all of the female Salamander children (and at least one of the males) prefer dresses and princesses to being outside and tracking wild game. All girls are different and like different things, but while there is always the slightest chance that your little redhead will grow up to be the next Katniss Everdeen and single-handedly feed District Salamander, the odds are probably not in your favor.

“But wait!” you’re thinking, and right you are to think so. “What if I’m okay with the idea of having a Salamander priestess or virgin oracle?”

A valid point! Not many cults can say they have one, and such would give us a leg up on those poseur cults with the charismatic leaders and the spicy kool-aid.

Unfortunately, her presence would interfere with my own plans.

You may have noticed that Matt and I have spent the past several years currying favor among the younger Salamanders: buying Christmas presents for them each year, bringing them small gifts and party favors, not to mention a fabulous birthday card system I have brewing which will kick into effect when they are older. As such, by the time these children attain their majority, I will have garnered their unending devotion, and thus will be uniquely positioned to become their queen.

However, any daughter of yours, inheriting both your sweet personality and curly red hair, would obviously be the fairest of them all, and therefore stand in direct competition to my (totally benevolent) rule.

Years of Dollar Store Christmas purchases would be negated. You can’t let this happen, Liz.

Obviously, I understand there is probably nothing you can do to affect the outcome of this situation. But just in case there really is something to all that talk about the power of positive thinking, here it is: When you go in for your ultrasound, for the sake of Salamandia, think blue!

Reasons my job is better than yours

1. The job comes with a title.

“This is a really nice library!” said the elderly British lady, visiting from overseas.

Her daughter Rebecca, one of our regular patrons, agreed. “The kids love it here,” she said.

“And it’s so big, too! You can’t really tell from outside, but there’s so much space!”

“Actually, ma’am,” I interjected. “it’s bigger on the inside.”

“Ooh! Like a Tardis!” said Rebecca.

“Well,” I said, “it can take you to other times and places…”

But wait a minute, I thought. If I’m driving this Tardis, does that make me a Time Lord?

2. The Dewey Decimal System is flexible.

I was putting spine labels on the new books when I came across a book about cabinetry. "Nonfiction..." I thought. "740s... possibly 749 for furniture..."

I checked the sheet of spine labels in front of me...

But none of those looked right. 

I used my barcode scanner to look up the book in the computer. 

"Fiction? That's not right." I put a note on it and prepared to send it back to Cheri, our cataloger, for correction.

Then I wrote a fictional story about cabinetry to go with it.

"Once upon a time, in the mythical land of Cabinetry, there lived a bookcase who dreamed of being a knight. Now, as it happens, a built-in from the village down the lane dreamed of being a squire. 'Let us set out together,' said the bookcase, 'and seek adventures!' One day, just after the spring festival, a dragon came to Cabinetry..."

3. There are dinosaurs involved.
Originally created to advertise an event, Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates (from left to right) now live in the craft room and delight the children after story time.

Things I got to say at work that totally made sense at the time: "I need more paper. That was just a practice dinosaur." See also, "I'll get right on that. Let me just hide this T-Rex in the closet for now."

4. It's the finest library in the empire.

5. We keep a surfboard in the closet.

"Quick! Take the picture before the patrons start asking questions!"

6. We have puppet shows.

"How was work today, Tori?"
"I got to be a rabbit AND a bear. It was a very full day."

7. This:

"Excuse me, but where can I find picture books?"

Well…

Pass through the arch made of giant books…

Turn right at the beanstalk…

And check under the alligator.