Melissesages

When I was a little kid, I loved going to the library. I’ve always been a big reader, and I remember leaving the Chippewa Falls Public Library with a stack of books so high, I had to wedge it between my hands and my chin to carry it around, dropping Babysitters Club paperbacks and Madeline L’Engle novels with every step towards the car. I loved the library because I could get books there that, in my pre-employment youth, I would never have had access to otherwise.

By the time I hit high school, I was beginning to suspect that I had pretty much exhausted my options at the Chippewa Library. Not because I’d read every book there - even I’m not that ridiculous - but because I’d read most of the books that I WANTED to read, within my own personal parameters: I was strictly a fiction girl, and I didn’t bother with any books that had much to do with war, prison, horror, folksy character studies of small-town eccentrics, hard-core fantasy, the romance genre, etc. Basically, I read some classics and sci-fi and comedy and so on, but my favorite genre was brilliant-female-FBI-profiler-hunts-psychotic-serial-killer. And by the time i was 17, I’d realized that most of those books were crap - not because the genre is crap, but because it’s populated by some terribly crappy writers.

But, I digress. At any rate, by the time I got to college I had pretty much ceased all library activities. Instead, I became a Purchaser of Books. It’s an easy habit to get into, especially if, like me, you’re already buying so many novels for authentic classroom purposes anyway (thank you, English degree). So I developed some favorite bookstores in LA, and I pretty much forgot all about the public library option.

Fast forward a few years, and suddenly I find myself very much needing the public library system again. Buying books has become a financial and storage issue by now, and Tyler and I just can’t afford to support either of our book habits. So I got a public library card, and for awhile everything was good. But in my long absence from the library, things changed a lot, and I no longer recognize the library of my childhood.

First, Madison doesn’t really have A Library, they’ve got a dozen, and most of them are tiny little things tucked away in the corners of strip malls. True story. That really cuts down on any browsing potential. Secondly, by now, as a fully realized adult with two liberal degrees under her belt, I have pretty clear-cut ideas about what I want to be reading - down to titles. And that brings me (finally) to the whole point of this post: the library is Too. Damn. Slow.

When I know about a book I want to read, I immediately go put my name on the online (yay for technology!) hold list. And then I wait. And wait. Every few days I check to see if I have moved up in line yet ("Thank you for using the Madison Public Library. You are person number 40 of 40 on this hold list. You are screwed. Have a nice day."), and invariably, I haven’t. So I continue to wait, and stew, and wish I could just go to Borders and buy the damn thing, already. But I can’t, you see, because even if I had the money, by now I feel obligated to Support the Public Library.

Libraries, like newspapers and letter-writing, are dying a long slow death (boo for technology!). With the advantage of the Internet, people don’t have to go to the library to do research anymore - in fact, the information contained in those stuffy old books is outdated compared to the up-to-the-minute info online. And with the rise of things like Amazon.com and Netflix, people are no longer obliged to visit the public library for popular books or movies. And all over the country, public libraries that once served as a social and informational hub for their towns are suddenly seeming more dusty and old-fashioned by the minute. They’re trying to find their place in a world that no longer considers them a useful tool, and unfortunately, if things don’t change, I think the days of the public library system are numbered. Budgets are cut, book inventories are sold bit by bit, and as people stop needing the libraries, the libraries are slowly no longer able to provide them with what they need. Hence, Melissa spends three months waiting to borrow a book.

Sad, isn’t it? Right now, the library is a source of constant annoyance for me, but I just can’t give up on it, even if I could afford to. I still remember the feeling of walking to my mom’s car with a great big stack of books tucked under my chin, and that’s an experience I want my kid (ah, you knew the baby would get mentioned SOMETIME) to have as well. I want to take my baby to storytime at the big public library downtown, not at the mall Barnes and Noble with a latte in hand. And so, even though in the long run we can’t win, people like me continue to use the library system, even as it disappears around us. At least that way, we know that we tried.

I read this phrase online today, and it make me crack up at my desk. I’m pretty sure I am, in fact, maternally challenged. As of right now, in my 15th week of pregnancy, I have absolutely no warm fuzzies towards the thing at all. Sorry - I mean the baby. It’s not that I won’t love it when it’s born - I’m sure I’ll be obnoxiously, head-over-heels in love with him or her the second I meet him/her (that game is getting annoying, by the way - I can’t wait until next month when I can find out the gender of the thing). But for right now, in all honesty? This kid has caused me nothing but pain.

Tyler and I stopped at the mall this week to have our ring sizes measured, and we ducked into Motherhood Maternity for a moment - that is the warmest and fuzziest of all warm and fuzzy stores. Clothes aside, everything in that place is all about taking care of your body for the good of the infant - as those once one becomes pregnant, their only function in life is as a host. Like in those ’50’s b-movies about pod people. If this attitude is to be believed, I am now condensed down to a big bag of gestating meat. Awesome.

Speaking of aliens, I think the moment of this pregnancy I’m most nervous/excited/worried about (besides the actual labor, which I will be pretending isn’t happening for at least the next four months) is the first time the kid moves inside me. I mean, up until now, I’ve had plenty of nausea and discomfort - PLENTY - but I haven’t actually experienced any feelings that I’ve never had before. I have, in my pre-pregnancy life, been sick, and uncomfortable, and vomit-ous, etc (though never so much at once). But when I feel this kid move for the first time inside my stomach? How weird is that going to be? Something IN YOUR BODY moving independently of you. God help me, every time I think about it - EVERY TIME - my mind goes back to the baby-alien-pops-out-of-chest scene from Ridley Scott’s original Alien movie. (Most of the time, my head then proceeds to the Spaceballs version, in which the alien then dons a top hat and cane and dances down a restaurant counter, singing “Hello, My Baby"). That’s bad, right?

Anyway…this blog has been pretty heavy on the pregnancy stuff lately (mostly because I have so little else in my life), and I want to end this post with something non-baby related. So here’s a little mini-rant for you: What is UP with the stand people in the mall?? I haven’t spent much time in malls for the last, oh, two years or so (since I had to quit my role as Tracy’s shopping beard, by the way), and upon my return this week, I was shocked at the number of people who stand out in the middle of the mall, begging you to come over to try the newest lotion/water therapy/illegal recreational drug at their stand. What happened? I mean, one or two, sure, but five? Eight? These people make me sad, with their obvious little ploys (the current champ: they say “Hey, can I ask you a question?” in a friendly, conversational tone, as though that question WON’T involved you forking over a credit card) and their sorry-but-I-have-to winces right before they ambush you. Where did all these people COME from? I have this mental image of, every time our backs are turned, more and more of these people crawling out of air conditioning vents and rapelling down from mall skylights. Every time you look their way, their numbers have doubled. And they are legion.

The big puzzle, to me, is that there’s always more of them, and yet, they never seem to be actually having any success. Think about it: when’s the last time you actually went over to see what the stand person was selling? How many times have they been surrounded by a crowd of people eager to make purchases? We all HATE these people, and they know it, and yet they a) persist in annoying us, and b) continue to grow in numbers. How is this possible?

Someday, I swear, I’m going to go into the mall wearing an honest-to-goodness pair of horse blinders. Just to be funny.

I was in the shower this morning, minding my own business, and just as I was turning the water off I suddenly bent over and puked all over the bathtub floor. Disgusting. (Though, happily, I did manage to get my hair out of the way.) The throwing up came as a complete surprise to me, as I’ve been feeling so much better since my first trimester ended, about ten days ago. This time, there was no warning, no nausea, just…guerilla vomiting, and suddenly I’m right back to three weeks ago when morning sickness ruled my life. I had to come in late to work this morning, where I promptly dragged myself around, barely able to form coherent sentences. Just like old times.

This happens just as things were finally getting back to normal for me, or at least as normal as life gets, so that’s kind of depressing. In all fairness, though, I did follow up a full weekend in Illinois with two days of shooting, spending all day yesterday running around outdoors in mid-80’s temperatures. I don’t really blame the kid for objecting to my renewed level of activity, but it is getting pretty frustrating: if I take it easy, I can’t do my job or my life very well. If I push my body, I get laid out on my ass. Or, in this case, in my shower.

Sigh.

In other, somewhat happier pregnancy news, I got my first pair of maternity pants last weekend. They’re jeans, and they’re actually pretty cute, as long as I wear a shirt long enough to hide the wide elastic panel that makes up the front, where a button would go. My aunts all moaned sympathetically when they saw the pants ("the dreaded panel!!"), but I think they’re AWESOME. They’re super comfy, and I don’t have to worry about gaining weight while wearing them. Truly, I wish I’d bought some years ago to wear on Thanksgiving and Christmas, when my food intake reaches epic proportions. Seriously, though, it feels SO good to be wearing jeans again, panel or no panel. I’m a jeans kind of girl, and they were the very first thing I grew out of when I started gaining weight with the baby, so this has pretty much been the longest I’ve ever gone without wearing any. It made me feel surprisingly more like myself to don the old denim again.

Tyler and I have also been going round on baby names. Our girl name is all picked out, but I’ve been growing more and more suspicious that the little parasite inside me possesses a penis. So I’ve been trying totalk Tyler into Samuel for a boy. He doesn’t like Samuel, so I’m campaigning by trying to slip the name subliminally into conversations and emails. For example, the other day I emailed him:

“So what do you want to do for dinner? I think all we have is peanut butter and jelly, which we could (SAMUEL!) eat for sandwiches, but I don’t think there’s much for side dishes…”

And sometimes when we talk on the phone, I end the conversation by going “Bye! Love you! (SAMUEL!)”

It’s a fun game.

It has come to my attention in the last week that there is a significant difference (besides the obvious) between movies and books.

Here in America, at any rate, the financial success of any movie is completely public information. Every Monday morning, news outlets all over the country report the statistics from the week before: who’s in first place, who’s rising, who’s falling, how many theaters a movie is shown in, the percent of viewers per theater, and so on. Even if you don’t watch or read the news, anyone, anyone at all, who is the slightest bit curious can go to a website like imdb.com or boxofficemojo.com and figure out what movies are in top place. Knowing whether or not a film is successful is, in fact, so typical that it’s a part of pop culture itself: When The Dark Knight trounces the previous opening weekend record, we hear about it everywhere. When a new sequel is announced, it’s not uncommon for one person on the bus to look at another and say, “ah, yes. Because the first one made money.” It’s just something that we have had access to, for as long as most of us can remember, and knowing the relative success or failure of any given movie is so completely commonplace it’s part of normal conversation.

But books are a different story. To begin with, the success of books is measured not in dollars, but in copies. At first, this seems much more fair - after all, movie grosses are never adjusted for inflation, which means that very few people realize that the most successful movie of all time is not Titanic, but Gone With the Wind - but there’s a trick to it. Books have two separate numbers: how many books are ordered by the publisher - in other words, how many are in stores and homes combined - and how many are actually purchased by consumers. So if I’m a promising new author, my agent could brag that I sold a half million copies of my first book…when really, only ten people have purchased it. The rest are sitting on shelves at Borders.

That in itself seems kind of unfair, but we expect that sort of trickery. Like the inflation thing with movies, or the fact that there are no salary caps in baseball, and no refills on a medium popcorn, we all just kind of accept that kind of thing as one of the ways that “they get ya.” It’s cheating, but so what? It still isn’t surprising.

What did surprise me, though, was the discovery that the success or failure of any book is Never. Made. Public. There are no websites delivering the news every Monday on which Janet Evanovich book beat which John Sandford one. You may occasionally see a “bestseller” list, but it’s rarely accompanied by actual numbers. Every once in awhile, someone will release a number in triumph - “The Da Vinci Code sold 65 million copies! Aaaaah!” - but for one thing, that may be the number of books published instead of the number of books sold, and for another, who has any idea how many books that is? If I say that a movie made $100 million, that means something to most people. If I say a book sold 3 million copies, does anyone know whether or not that book would be considered successful?

I’m very confused by the difference here. Why is the success or failure of movies public information, but the success or failure of books is not? Who decided not to tell any of us how many copies of books are sold? Why is it such a secret? It kind of makes you think: what would entertainment be like if we never knew what movies were successful? If you didn’t know that The Dark Knight made a kajillion dollars, or that Speed Racer didn’t make any, would that affect your decision to go see one? Are publishers actually handicapping themselves by not telling us what’s successful, or is it better that we don’t know, so we don’t just make decisions based on what is already popular? In a world where critics seem to be becoming more and more obsolete, how many of our choices are based on box office?

For once, I don’t really have a strong opinion on this one. I just think the double standard is interesting. What do you think?

Pregnancy week 11:
Still sick. It’s unfortunate that pretty much the only news in my life at the moment is, “yep, still sick.” I’m now on a double-dose of anti-nausea medication, which helps just enough that I can make it through my day, but not enough for me to do the things I want: eat properly, exercise, enjoy leaving the house, etc. At first the morning sickness was actually beneficial to my writing: I got quite a bit done while lazing around. Now, though, I’ve been feeling too sick to do much of anything besides lay around and try to think up foods that don’t make me want to vomit. This is a much more complicated process than you’d expect: every time I need to “feed” (because I’m rarely actually hungry), I try to think of pretty much every food in the world available to me, within about 45 minutes. I have to be careful in doing this, because if my thoughts linger too long on one of the bad foods (and they’re ALL bad foods), it makes me sicker. I can also turn on my chosen food with a frightening speed - last week I wanted my grandmothers’ casserole, but after begging her to send it and convincing my sister to bring it to me, I could only enjoy a single portion. A week’s worth of leftover casserole has become my new arch-nemesis, and I can’t open the fridge without cringing at the smell.
On the bright side, Tyler and I are arranging a complicated system of punishment for my unborn child: the more he/she makes me sick, and the longer he/she causes me to be in labor, the worse his/her names are going to be. If he/she stops making me sick and I have an easy labor, it’ll get one of the cool names we’ve picked out. If, however, the child continues to torment me with no regard for my need to make a living (I can’t even determine how much work I’ve missed), then we’ll start looking at names like Mildred, Ethel, and boy names that rhyme with Barry. (This is a recent phenomenon I have discovered: there are lots of boys’ names that rhyme with Barry, and they’re all terrible: Gary, Larry, Harry, Terry. Apologies to those of you out there who are saddled with one of those names, but come on: would you really wish it on my unborn baby?)
I’m opening this system up for suggestion: if you’ve been sitting on a really great terrible name, now’s the time to let it out. I’m counting on you, people. Respond below.