And that's what I feel like these days: a supplier of kiddie crack. When the books come in, I don't even bother to shelve them; I just slip them under my arm and go for a stroll across the library until I come to a kid who looks to be about seven or eight. "Psst, kid! Pokemon!" And the book vanishes before I can blink. It's magic!

Of course, that's on a good day, when I actually have Pokemon to dispense. Most of the time, I'm more like the dealer whose connection hasn't come through for him lately, so I'm surrounded, empty-handed, by junkies in need of a fix. "Please, lady. I really need it! Are you sure you don't just have a little Pokemon, maybe some you're keeping in the back room?" Quite pathetic.

The main problem lies in the fact that we currently have no one place in which all our Pokemon resources are kept. There are board books, readers, graphic novels, nonfiction books for collectors, and chapter books. We have sixty-four different titles, and three or four copies of most of them. Most of the kids don't care what you hand them, as long as they can come away with something. The question is never, "Do you have Team Rocket Blasts Off"; it's always simply, "Do you have any Pokemon?" And, short of crawling on hands and knees all over the children's room searching in the various places, I never have a definitive answer for them.

But soon I'm going to! We've decided, until the craze dies down, to step away from library science and into popular culture and label everything as a series. Fiction and nonfiction alike will be kept (can you believe it!) in a single place. Hooray! I'll be able to point them to a corner and say, "Just look over there, young man! A cocaine, er, Pokemon kiosk!" Life will be heaven.

Of course, this means first collecting all the books so we can re-catalogue and re-stamp them. It could take a while, and in the meantime, I'll have to turn away all Pokemon seekers. It will be saddening...ah, who am I kidding? It will feel marvelous to have a ready answer for a change. "No Pokemon for you!"

Note: I'm not being in the least bit critical of these composers. I respect them and enjoy their work. Heck, I just missed the chance to meet Cage some years back, and I sincerely regret that. But these were fifth graders, not music scholars. There are no kiddie biographies of avant-garde composers. The only biographical material I found in our library (which is, above all else, a popular reading collection) was waaaaay above the head of the small girl who needed it. And we had no printed material on Anderson at all. I told Boss-Lady that if I had known the kids were going to be swarming us today, I would have brought in my reference books from home.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in fear that I'd turn around to hear a small voice crying for books on Pauline Oliveros. This one I have met. I sincerely regret that, too. 'Nuff said.

Of course, I couldn't hide, because the young patrons were going absolutely bonkers. Playing tag in the stacks. Throwing candy wrappers. Screaming back and forth. I saw Boss-Lady almost lose it on one boy who mouthed off to her, kicking him out of the building. I tried to keep my cool with the kids, trying instead for a "preemptive strike." When I saw a kid wandering around, I'd corner him and say, "Have you seen any kids running through here?" Of course, they never had. "Well, if you do, can you tell them to knock it off? Some of the librarians are starting to get pretty ticked off. Oh, and you might want to find a book and sit down or something, so that they know that you're not involved." By the time I left them, most of them were sobered and heading for a table.

I'm really starting to dig being the youngest of the librarians. It makes my little "I'm on your side" ruses much more authentic-sounding.

And, true to form, as he was verging toward being rather late, his libido kicked in. Eric's libido is the king of Bad Timing. No matter the occasion, if we're running late, he's up for a bit of sport. If we have all the time in the world, it's another story entirely. Well, perhaps that's not always the case, but it does seem to be a general rule of thumb that the further behind we're running, the more attractive I become to him. Very frustrating.

Hey, maybe I should start scheduling evening meetings for us so we can be late more often!

New URL's seem to cry out for new designs. I'll probably try to rework at least some of the outer pages. Exciting, no? Last night, Eric gave me a full explanation of the whole nameserver thing, complete with a ketchup bottle playing the part of our Macintosh and Sweet 'n Low packages playing various nameservers. It was quite enlightening, if a touch surreal. His explanations have gotten so much better over the last few years, since I learned to preface all my queries with "Tell it to me like I'm a three-year-old." In other words, slow the heck down, and use puppets if you can. Don't skimp on the funny voices, or I'm going to wander off to look at passing trains.

No, I'm not still carrying a grudge or anything. Lousy trains...