I have always had a soft spot for libraries and spent a lot of my childhood in them. Perversely during my university period I spent very little time in the university library, maybe because there were other places that were more interesting like a. the bar and b. the bar. But one thing I do remember about UK libraries was that a lot of tramps sat in them all day which would be fine except they smelt very strongly of pee - which is not okay.
Now that I live in America luckily things are different. Well not that different as the library I frequent is peopled with the usual colourful collection of care in the community mental cases and alchoholics but God Bless America - not one of them smells of pee.
Now you may well ask why I spend so much time in the library? Well it is part of my perverse nature - to need some kind of white noise to write my books and blog - to have people verbalising in the background without having any impulse to actually engage in conversation with them.
Like, what is the point of cafes where people sit about staring silently at their lap tops? Surely they'd have more fun at home because at least you can blog in the nude, fart at will and not pay $6 for a capuccino.
No, believe me, when you've gone library you can never go back. It is just so damn amusing.
The regulars are:
Hygiene Nut who wears surgeon's gloves while typing on the computer - I presume this is to ward off germs (and who can blame him?)
Man with flaking face Yes, worse than dandruff his face flakes all over the keyboard and he constantly picks at it.
Snoring fat man This obese guy has a bright red face and is always wearing headphones and snoring like a train in front of the keyboard. What's up with that? What's wrong with a bed?
The anorexic/bulimic She was really skinny for a long time, then she blew up like a balloon. She once came up to me and told me 'I don't like you.' Thanks for that. I've also seen her panhandling outside the library.
The usual suspects:
Many many men are looking at porn and subtly fiddling with their crotches but the funniest people are the Google virgins. They sit down at the computer and just scream over to the librarian:
"How do I get on Google? I wanna get on Google!"
Librarian: "What do you want to do on Google? It is a tool you know."
"I wanna find something!"
Librarian shows him how to get on Google and goes away.
Two minutes later the virgin screams again:
"I wanna go on Yahoo! How do I get on Yahoo?"
Librarian: "Do you have a Yahoo account?"
"No but I heard I can get some some free mail from Yahoo."
Librarian takes out a gun and shoots him in the head. Not really ....but I'm amazed they don't.
Strange incidents:
Yesterday a ten year old listening to music on headphones was bellowing very loudly along to the rap lyrics until someone told him to shut up: "Yo mutherfuckin ho, yo bitch I think I need some sno, so ho off you go, you lazy mo fo bitchin ho." (I may have got the lyrics wrong but you get my drift).
There are quite a few drunks at the library and sometimes they will start a punch up - why I have no idea.
There was a girl who screamed at the librarian that she was a 'Fucking Bitch Cunt' very loudly until she had to be escorted out. But what was wierd is that they let her back in the library the next day!
A man who sat next to me staring at me who slid me a note that he 'wanted to connect with me' and left me his number. I ran out of there so fast I left skid marks.
They're like a wonderful dysfunctional family to me. A family I don't ever have to deal with. What bliss.
What about you, what kind of white noise fuels your creativity? I find that inspiration strikes with a backdrop of tourettes syndrome and people talking very loudly into their cell phones.
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30 comments:
Your library sounds far more colourful and entertaining than mine. I type to the sound of my baby crying / farting / burping / more crying. Or, when she's in bed, the sound of my partner crying / farting / burping / more crying. Especially if he's lost his latest computer game adventure.
God I need to go to your library. Then I may actually get some work done.
Library lush, that's me.
Do I hang my head in shame that I've stacked the deck against my kids, too?
They follow me there, their own library cards in hand, as soon as they could print their names.
The TV on low and the kids fighting in another room get me into the writing mood. Good job too because that seems to be my natural environment.
I always studied better with background noise--just enough distraction so what I was reading didn't blur into incomprehensibility. Now I have kids that provide the background noise.
this place sounds awesome. I get those same types on my daily commuter train....I definitely feel you on this.
You are nuts aren't you? Long suspected that but this is tangible proof.
I have a newfound respect for librarians too now.
Writing noise - as little as possible, which is a bit difficult with all the sirens that I usually hear either going to the nearby hospital or off to sort out another "gang-related incident".
The sounds of the TV on low and my boys fighting in the next room gets me in the mood for writing... just as well really.
Haha!! I almost wet myself reading this.
I am heavily pregnant I'll have you know...so probably should think twice about drinking large sums of water and visiting your blog.
These people sound very much like those I must contend with at work. If nothing else, they make me feel a lot better about my life choices...and personal hygeniene habits.
LOL!
I've worked in a library for almost three decades. They are crazy places, and, most of the time, a lot of fun.
Only once, many many years ago, do I remember a homeless guy trying to sleep in the library. He smelled like a pile of wet hessian bags.
Most of the really outrageous things which have happened in our libraries were things I didn't actually witness, but which have gone down in library legend. Like the intellectually impaired man and woman who began having sex in one of the chairs. Children's storytime was going on at the same time, and my unfortunate colleague said she was trying to get them stop while not drawing the attention of the children to what was going on.
Also, apparently, there was a hooker who was caught doing business in one of the toilets at one stage.
We have a blocker on the internet to discourage porn viewing, but it isn't 100% effective. At one stage I was helping out a teacher and she said that she'd just seen the little Sudanese boy (who looked about 10) looking at something he shouldn't. I looked over and he was looking at girls in bikinis. I said, "Well, you see more than that at the beach." She said, "That's not what he was looking at a minute ago." Sure enough, next thing I heard he had been banned for, as one of girls said, "Looking at a cock that went all the way across the whole screen."
One of the other girls was embarrassed the other day because she happened to wonder if Playgirl magazine was still in operation. Trusting that the filter wouldn't take her to anything graphic, she did a Google search and up popped a very naked man. Being conscientious she had to point out to her male supervisor the hole in the blocker, but that meant admitting what she had been looking up. :o)
This was sooo funny and true! I love our library restroom. It has a hand lettered sign that says, "Do not steal the TP. P.S. I know who you are. "
There's a bar near ASU called the Library, that why when your folks ask where your going you can honestly tell them.
Sounds like the same group I see on the bus all the time.
I need absolute silence to write nowadays, I am too easily distracted. However, your library sounds like great fun to hang around.
I have an aversion to university libraries. All my years at uni, every time I went in there I would immediately have the urge to go to the toilet. How fucked up is that?
I find my child crying in the background is enough white noise for me.
P.S. the word captcha is arsei
that's it, I'm definitely coming over to visit now. Our library is just full of dull stuff like people checking out books and talking in hushed voices.
Your library sounds more fun than mine - I tend to find that my soundtrack is the sound of two small people 'playing' and then creativity sucked away as they start physically damaging each other...
Of course you know that if I joined you I would just insist on taking surreptitious photos of everyone.
Before we get thrown out.
But hey - looks like they would let us back in the next day!
LCM x
I only like libraries because I have a fetish for librarians.
Electro-Kevin....that is seriously wierd. Mostly librarians are middle aged, overweight, with a bun. Maybe you have more hotties down Devon way!
Embarrassing library story - first year at university, aged 18, attractive American girl approaches me and I'm thinking, "Heh, here we go." She says to me, "Do you know where I can find 'The Diary of Anne Frank'?" Asked her to repeat it. I'd never heard of the book. She gave me a look of such wilting contempt that I've still not recovered my full height almost 30 years later. "You've never heard of 'The Diary of Anne Frank'?" she asked aghast. Nope, I said, writing the title down on my jotter. She walked away and the subject of meeting for a drink never came up.
Later I said to a mate, "Hey, have you ever heard of a book [reads jotter] called 'The Diary of Anne Frank'?" And there it was again, that same look. "What, you've never heard of 'The Diary of Anne Frank'?" Yeah, well obviously I f***ing have now.
Some people make no allowances for you having grown up in Lincolnshire. Now I wish I'd just answered the original question with, "Have you tried looking in her bedside drawer?"
Are you sure you are describing the library?
Anyhow, I reckon Hygiene Nut has flaking hands... and just think of the mess he could make on his keyboard.
I like to write with the telly on - I need something visual going on.
Sx
Stay-At-Home Indie Pop...
Some people make no allowances for you having grown up in Lincolnshire.
LOL!
I know [sigh] we always think of those witty come backs hours if not years too late don't we?
I'll tell you what doesn't fuel my creative engine - solitude !!!
I lock myself away at the beach house some weekends and...nothing.
I take out the laptop on long flights and...nothing.
I take the Ipad to the loo for a dump and...nothing.
But I'll be busy as all fuck at work and the urge to write will just overwhelm me...
Fingers...I know what you mean! Whenever I had a job I was always secretly writing a novel at the same time at work. Something about being secretive or doing something naughty gets the juices flowing methinks.
I need to get in touch with your commenter 'glowless' and tell her that I too always need to go to the toilet when I go into a library. I thought it was just me. I once worked for the Book Dept in a department store: I was hardly ever there.
Love the piccy. When I lived nearer, I used to love spending a lot of time downstairs in Southamptons City library doing all kinds of thinking and planning with all the students and researchers. It was always a rich and naturally productive environment/atmosphere for me. White noise as well as environment is a big thing with me. Street cafes are perfect, especially on cold or rainy days when your ensconced by the windows inside. Under a shady tree in a green and pleasant park.
Mostly at home though I write with a large selection of ‘nature sound’ loops playing softly in the background. It’s been a bit of a pet passion of mine for many years. Rain, distant thunderstorms, waves on a beach, cicadas and crickets in Provence and so, and so on. Never fails to work for me, for hours on end as well.TV, shouting and loud or heavy music is an absolute ‘no no’.
I’m a big fan of the following website, which allows anyone to ‘very easily’ contrive their own mixes of nature sound loops from the various simple to use sound files on the main page sound mixer – then save them onto your own PC for personal playback etc. All you have to do is register and its totally safe and free. It’s not a techy skills site at all. I’ve been talking to the site owner for some months now about developing the HTML code for a specific Blogger widget ‘player’ app, so bloggers van insert a nature sound player into their sidebars. He’s very close to finishing it as we speak. Take a look, and if it grabs your attention, let me know and I’ll post you the links to some of my own mixes.
http://naturesoundsfor.me/rainlooncricthund
This specific link is one of my own mixes. It should just load up and repeat play for you, although there is an outside chance you may have to ‘register’ onto the site first. Once you get it playing for you, try fiddling with all the sliders and other sounds inside the drop down boxes to create your own mixes (you cant screw things up for my mix either cos its already saved) then if you produce a mix you like, just go through the saving process. It will email you to send you a ‘please confirm’ link each time you compose a specific mix. After which you can just save all your white noise sound loop mixes to a folder on your PC and play them in the background when ever you choose. Another tip – try listening to these sound loops with headphones on while you close your eyes and doze off on the sofa. Guarantee it will make you smile as you drift off into a sublime blissful kip. Perfect.
Good lord woman, you don't go to a major metropolitan library in the US. You go to either a university library or the public library in a smaller town, hamlet or village (i.e., that doesn't have people smelling of pee).
What I want to know is whether Hygiene Man wears the same gloves each day to type. If he does, well, what an amateur!
Linda A....lol...I could probably find a less eventful library if I drove to the burbs. But the way I see it this is better than any avant garde theater production and it's free!
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