Being surrounded with yummy sock yarn is oddly comforting. Isn’t it?

I’ve embarked on a little something called “Project No” for the months of June, July and August. I figure that if I don’t make a concerted effort to say “no” to library-related stuff (which is mostly conference presentations and workshops of late), I’ll keep saying yes and drive myself a little crazy with due dates and deadlines and traveling (which is quickly becoming more annoying than enjoyable). May, however, is going to be crazymaking for just those reasons. I head out to Prince Edward Island in four days, which has all the potential to be a lovely trip, except it’s going to be practically a fly-by. I have around 8 hours on Saturday to explore Charlottetown (got ideas?) before flying home to more tight deadlines, then another fly-by to Chicago for more conference action and maybe a little socializing with library-type friends. Also? I’m teaching my grad course again, starting tomorrow.

Friends, I can’t wait until the effects of “Project No” start to kick in.

Sebastian is not spotting celebrities. He’s watching the leaves sway in the wind. It’s a lot more riveting than celebrity-spotting, see.

Claire over at Loobylu started it: take the “six unimportant things about me” meme and add celebrities. Truth is, I’m not much of a celebrity spotter — all the sightings below are the result of other people pointing out the celebrities to me. Seriously.

My sister and I were hanging out downtown, taking in a few used bookstores, when she happened to spot Roger Ebert on the sidewalk in front of us. We walked over, got autographs, and my sister had the presence of mind to ask him how he was enjoying the film festival. He said something like, “it’s always good.” I don’t think I realized who we were talking to until after we walked away.

Walking out of the Buddha Bar in New York, having just had dinner with the mister and some of his work colleagues, we spotted Beyoncé Knowles walking out right in front of us. Or, I should say, one of the mister’s colleagues spotted Beyoncé Knowles. I didn’t fix my eyes on her until we were outside and she stepped into her massive Hummer limo. In fact, it was such a quick glance that I couldn’t tell you what she was wearing.

I almost got run over by Jeanne Becker crossing Yonge Street at King. A few months later, she bumped into me (literally — with her shopping cart) at an overpriced grocery store in our old neighbourhood. I was already mad at her over the Yonge Street incident, so when she didn’t apologize for the shopping cart incident, I was supremely incensed and vowed never to watch Fashion Television again (even the reruns!). If you don’t know who Jeanne Becker is, you’re probably not Canadian, in which case you can just move on to the next sighting because she’s not worth Googling.

Standing in line waiting to get into a movie at the film festival a few years ago, Olympia Dukakis grazed my arm as she tried to get by me on a crowded sidewalk. She graciously stopped, turned around, touched my arm, and apologized. Jeanne Becker could learn a thing or two.

Other uneventful film festival celebrity sightings: George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr., Robin Williams, Jeff Goldblum. George had his tabloid smile on, Robert looked tired, Robin was in a mad rush, Jeff was tall, really tall.

And two more local celebrities to round out the list: Rex Murphy said “hi” to me while crossing Front Street, and Ben Mulroney checked out in front of me at the grocery store. Rex is short and professorial, Brian is tall and really should have washed the make-up off his face (after what I assumed was a taping of eTalk Daily) before exposing himself to the unforgiving fluorescents at the grocery store. Yeouch.

And that’s it, how totally lacking in “wow”. I could tell you about the time the mister chatted with Larry Flynt outside an LA restaurant, or the time he ate dinner a table over from Angelina Jolie, but those aren’t my stories, so I won’t. Instead, I’ll let you regale me with six unimportant things about you involving celebrities! Remember, Claire tagged everyone, and that includes you!

Research is proceeding apace. To-day is my second last day of leave, I’m back at work next Tuesday. I can scarcely believe it’s been four weeks. I’m pleased with what I’ve managed to get done, although I haven’t done a scrap of blogging about my research, which has surprised even me. I think I’ve come to the realization that I don’t do well with in-progress-blogging: that is, blogging about things about which I am still forming an opinion. Does that make sense? I’ve generated some process-oriented ideas as a result of all the reading I’ve been doing, and I’ll probably blog those, but the rest of it is all still too amorphous at the moment. I had hopped that the blogging would stand in for a formal research leave report, but, well, obviously that won’t be the case now. Best get to report-writing.

Happy weekend, friends!

I’ve been sitting on this list of household/crafty to-dos for months, it’s time to put them out there to force myself into action. After Florida.

• make window snakes for several windows (like this lovely one).
• caulk the holes in the porch (the holes are invisible but still allow in an alarming amount of moisture).
• hang shelf in kitchen (the mister bought a lovely little shelf from a garage sale about a year ago; it needs a coat of paint and as soon as it gets one, it’s going in the kitchen, where it will hold tins of tea).
• get pictures/stuff on the walls (I’ve been planning this for as long as we’ve lived in this house (31/2 years) but I’ve never quite mustered the courage to tackle the massive (and daunting) expanse(s) of white walls. I think I’m finally ready).
• quilt a couple of throw rugs for the kitchen and bathroom.
• make a lap quilt for use on the couch in the basement.

Windsor was good, the symposium was excellent, if you have any interest at all in the future of the ILS, head over to my other blog for a play by play (non-librarians: the ILS is the monolithic platform that runs most aspects of what a library does: the catalogue, the book-buying, the borrowing & patron info, etc. And, oh yeah, it’s in crisis).

It’s good to be home. Now I get to go upstairs and curl up in my own lovely, but seriously pillow-deprived, bed.

Of course I’m not feeling near well enough to tackle the front yard, which is still not ready for winter. I know I’m playing with fire here because we’re probably perilously close to that first snowfall (I’m pretty sure this time last year we’d already had one) and the leaves have not been raked, the hedges have not been trimmed, the lavender has not been pruned, and the bulbs have not been planted. How about this, Universe? How about you give me a single hour of sunshine to-morrow and I’ll have it all done in time for you to rain your fury down upon us? Great, thanks.

And, lastly, it was brought to my attention recently that there are a few crafty librarians out there who read this blog but not my library blog, so I thought a little cross-posting might be in order. If you work in a special library that uses 2.0 tools (blogs, wikis, RSS, IM, etc.), would you help me out by answering a short survey? More info here. Thank you!

In other news, I’m catching up on missed episodes of Veronica Mars (praise be to PVR) and I’m enjoying her again (Veronica, that is). I’d sort of forgotten that this show does a great job of developing story arcs that span multiple episodes, which is one of the reasons why I keep coming back. And, yes, I still think Veronica might be taking the hardboiled thing too far, but she still is the best young TV heroine du jour.

That’s all. Back soon with another book review (I took the entire weekend off, you see).

The truth, friends, is that I haven’t sewn a stitch in 7 days (my apologies to those waiting for birds!). Instead, I’ve been reading a whole lot and planning & plotting the course. I’m attending an info session next week, the purpose of which is to introduce new courses to the students, and I’d really, really like to have a finalized syllabus to give them. Complete with reading list, assignments, and due dates. I’m not sure I’ll get there (to a finalized syllabus, that is), but I’ll definitely get close. If I can manage to hammer down the assignments and due dates (and percentage worth), I’ll be happy. I don’t think they’ll be too cut up about not having a complete reading list. Hopefully.

Andrea reports having her knitting mojo back and I think I do too. Not sure what it is (perhaps August being on the horizon? Closely followed by September?) but as soon as I saw KnittinK’s progress on Lady Eleanor, I knew I was ready to assume entrelac duty. Meanwhile, it’s 35°C outside and I have a substantial heft of wool/silk on my lap. Summer knitting would be all but impossible without air conditioning, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, my last day of work to-day, I’m staring down 10-days off (I said 8 before, but that’s because I forgot our long weekend next week. Wheeee!) and the course description couldn’t have been posted at a better time because the next 10 days are going to be solid, nose-to-the-grindstone, no-messing-around. I’m going to take a few moments to-morrow to plan out a schedule for myself, something along the lines of: 9.30 am – 3 pm work, half hour for lunch somewhere in there, break at 3.30, craft for a bit until the mister gets home. Hey, I guess that’s it, The Plan.

I’m throwing crafting in to provide a bit of variety and some sanitymaking (as opposed to crazymaking, another non-word that I enjoy) and also so that I don’t fall drastically behind on a few softie committments I’ve made. Including, Plush You II, thank you Kristen for posting and emailing about it, and thank you Fiona for starting your submissions now, thereby making me realize that now is not early at all, but just in time!

Also, a new coffeehouse has opened right in our neighbourhood (yes, that’s what they’ve called themselves, “somethingorother coffeehouse”, because “coffeehouse” is trendier by far than “coffee shop”, you know) so the mister and I have a date to investigate it this weekend. He’s interested in good coffee, I’m interested in free WiFi. If all goes well, I might have a new place to get work done, 9.30 am – 3 pm next week. Hip hip!