I hate menstruation. Half of me thinks I want to be pregnant just to be done with this for a while!

But there is good news. As if God didn't want me to have to face the fact that we failed to procreate this month, I was given hope through a phone call.

"Carrie? This is [Boss-Lady] from the Way Library. We checked your references, and I must tell you, I wish I had such glowing references as you. We'd like to offer you a position!"

Wallace DePue, bless his soul, is a saint.

Did you ever have one of those teachers who was from the "Old School"? Who isn't on the cutting edge, simply because he doesn't want to be? Who profoundly states that he'd rather be playing checkers than listening to some of the "nonsense" being written by his colleagues? Who begins sentences with phrases such as "Let me tell you something that I've learned, something nobody else around here is going to tell you"?

Dr. DePue was my teacher and my boss for a time during my graduate studies. He's retired now, and probably filling his hours with euchre. Anyway, he was very concerned with the fact that I wasn't trotting off to a doctoral program right after I finished my Master's; he's convinced that I'm going to "fall away" from music. Mind you, this is the man who wrote counterpoint between bussing tables when he was a boy.

Anyway, he always told my that if I needed him, or his rather well-polished name, for anything, he'd be there. So I used him for a reference. Now I'd give anything to know exactly what he said to Boss-Lady, because it worked.

I'm the newest Children's Librarian for the Wood County Public Libraries!

I start training on Tuesday, following people around and observing programs. This is going to be so much fun! When I told my brother about the job, he asked me, "Isn't that going to be boring as, well, shit?" Not at all! I'm already eagerly anticipating storytimes with roomfuls of toddlers, all staring with wide eyes...or wandering the room, pulling books randomly off of shelves, and bopping the other kiddies. Yes, I remember how it goes now...

When I was in high school, I babysat for my pastor's grandkids. Let me say that the words "high-spirited" just don't cut the mustard when it comes to describing little Dustin and Dougie. Little towheads with angelic faces, smiling beatifically upwards as if they could do no wrong. Ahem. Little clinks as, hidden, Dustin dropped his mommy's pearl necklace, bead by bead, down the heat register. Little footsteps as Dustin ran from me, around and around the house, forbidden knife in hand. Little war cries as Dustin and Dougie cracked each other over the head with their plastic Ninja Turtle swords. Little lies as they pointed fingers at each other, each solemnly proclaiming, "He did it."

Incidentally, I spoke to their mother a few years ago. She and her husband were trying to properly discipline the boys. Those little rapscallions, now seven and eight, had apparently been sword fighting with those Ginsu knives that can cut a muffler in half and still slice tomatoes. Ha, ha! Those boys!

But they didn't spoil me against wanting to work with children. I simply learned to be more "creative;" if I could keep them occupied, then perhaps they wouldn't get around to killing each other until after I was paid and gone for the night. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Part of the fun was the challenge of it all. And it did pay well, as far as babysitting jobs go.