Sherri Cornelius

The electricity is out, so this is my excuse to finally write a post. I’ve said it before, the more I have going on the less inclined I am to write about it, and I guess it’s still true.

My job at the library has its pros and cons, as every job. Working in the stacks can be lonely, shelving books tedious and dusty. But I also love knowing where everything is. I get to see all the new books as they come in, and feel a bit of pride in being the one to place a new book for the first eager hands. After reshelving the same authors over and over I know who’s popular in a hands-on way, rather than a sales-numbers way. (Looking at you, Roberts and Patterson.)

Straightening a section to perfection satisfies my need to tame chaos. When I come back around an hour later and see that my beautifully aligned books now look like a mouthful of broken teeth do I feel annoyed? Nope. I feel happy that people were there, diving in head first, and I joyfully straighten them again. For some reason I feel this especially in the teen section. I love connecting people with books.Sure, I have to wake up the occasional group of homeless people sprawled in Adult Fiction. But I love love LOVE leading a customer right to her favorite author.

I wish I could work full time, but I don’t think my body could handle shelving 40 hours a week. It’s a physically demanding job what with all the walking and bending and kneeling. And mentally demanding, what with the constant Dewey Decimal figuring.

I rarely think of the sewing factory. When I do, the memory feels more like a dream, one of those awful tedious things that lasts all night and gives me a headache. If my time at the factory served a purpose in my growth, it might have only been to remind me what it feels like to earn a full paycheck. I do miss the money. But I also know that there’s potential to move up in the library to a level I’d never reach at the factory. So it’s a better long-term investment.

The only thing I’m really worried about is my headaches. The migraines are a regular thing again, and when the city installs air fresheners in our building in a month or two, I think they’ll only get worse. (You can bet I cried when I heard that news.) I’ve a renewed determination to find out why my migraines are happening, and going back to work has actually helped to better home in on the likely problem.

I’ll try to keep updating the blog on a more regular basis, since I also have some writing news to share.

I started calling the sewing factory “the place where dreams go to die.” My brother pointed out that in “Dinner for Schmucks” they say cabbage is the smell of dead dreams. Two days later, early morning, I smelled cabbage. No way, I said to myself and laughed. At lunch I smelled it again, and a feeling of rightness seeped into my being. Cabbage, dead dreams, fits this place to a tee. Apparently, one of the girls can’t get enough cabbage and heats it up in the microwave, sending the smell wafting over to my machine. I told her about the dead dreams line, and she laughed. We shared a moment. One of the few bright spots I’ve experienced there.

I guess I had forgotten just how much it sucks out in the job world. I was expecting reason and welcome and cooperation. I had forgotten how everybody gets up in your business while you’re just doing the best work you can, how there’s always someone judging you and strangely willing to tell you how you fall short.

BUT…

I had a job interview at the library. My interview was less nerve-wracking since the interviewer was my volunteer liaison at the library. I don’t know why, but she likes me a lot and is willing to go out of her way to help me. It’s good to have someone on your side.

The next step is waiting for my background check to complete. My advocate called me on Wednesday to make a provisional offer of employment, contingent on the OSBI report coming back clean--which, uh, yeah. No problems there. I had to suppress my joyous noises because I was in the snake den, i.e. the break area of the sewing factory, so I hope she understood how pumped I was. I think she did.

So the only thing I’m worried about is the part-time nature of the job. I’ll be making about as much per hour, but varying hours. It’ll be a challenge to fill in with a supplemental job if I need (or want) more money. That’s a worry that changes nothing in the way of the action I will take, which is to quit the soul-and-hand-crushing sewing job and cannonball right smack in the middle of a part-time question mark.

If everything works out I’ll be a shelver in less than a week’s time. Whenever I remember this tidbit my eyes well up and my body tingles. I belong there. You know how people say “you just know”? I knew from the beginning I didn’t belong at the sewing factory, and despite my natural optimism and every attempt to fake it till I make it, I haven’t had a single moment when I thought I might belong there. It literally smells like cabbage. However, I knew from the first time I set foot in this particular library that it was my place. When I go there I smile. I relax. So what’s the smell of vibrant, living dreams?