The most pointless year of my life started with the aftermath of the whole Sylvia thing on New Years Eve.  I told her I was in love with her despite the fact that she was already moving into a new relationship.  I needed to just put a cap on 2007 and somehow free myself from loving her.  It worked, and then the whole year went to pot.  There's this notion that our negative thoughts can bring about negative events in our lives.  If that's true than my tripping and falling on New Years Eve was that huge negative thought that still affects what I do today.  I think that it was an event significant enough that it will affect me for a long time to come.

I did have many positive things happen this year.  The major positive events have to be starting the two new jobs at the San Marino and Glendale libraries.  While the bloom is definitely off the rose at Glendale, I still like it a million times better than Ralph's.

Death struck my life once again in 2008.  Not only has it been a year since my father passed away but this year my old buddy Joe passed away.  Those events sound like something out of a movie.  I talked to him the day he died.  He called me early in the morning, I was awake because I had to go to work.  We spoke briefly, only a couple of minutes, and a few hours later he was dead.  His mother gave me his car to drive, which I do every day to work.

Another positive thing was that I started writing my book.  I've said it before, and I've tried to write something that was going to be great, and failed.  This time I have an idea, or group of ideas, that are so dark, so great, that if I don't get published it will be a crime.  At least I think so anyway.

Then came the mounting debt, mostly because of some plumbing problems that cost over $20,000.  I've been trying to sell the house that my father left me, but of course the market tanked.  But, I'm putting up the house for sale again, and hopefully soon someone will take it off my hands and I'll be able to wipe out all my debts.  Starting again at zero will be nice.  And this time I'll have a chance to actually stay in the black, and no longer go into the red.

I write this as a declaration, and a cautionary tale, of my formal bachelor for life status.  Through many failures I have withstood the urge to simply give up and no longer pursue the fairer sex because I thought that some day I would find one who would understand and cherish me.  After so many failures I no longer think that this idea is a viable one.  I have, as a matter of fact, collected evidence to the contrary.  Coming to this conclusion I am now ready to divorce myself from the delusion that has only served to be an albatross.  I formally declare that:

1) I will not actively, or passively, pursue any woman.  On the contrary, I will actively resist falling for any woman.
2) I will actively, and consciously, avoid becoming emotionally attached to any woman.
3) I will not ask any woman out on a date.
4) I will focus the energy that I would have used to pursue a relationship on my art, my writing, and anything else that will bring me true fulfillment.
5) I will devote myself to making being alone not be lonely.

I vow these things from this moment on, to the whole god-less world.  For my endeavors with women have lead to nothing but misunderstandings, ill feelings, and terrible heartache.  I have witnessed the death of my Mother and Grandmother before my eyes.  Those two events taught me some important lessons.  One of the lessons I learned is to know when one is beaten.  After each failure I have dusted myself off and resolved to try again.  But to continually get up, get beaten, and rise up again to fight is madness.  So I will stop this cycle of madness right here and now.  I shall be a bachelor for life, now by my own choice.  I shall direct my life away from the idea of romance, for the aforementioned reasons, and for my own sanity.  I have done my best and it was simply not good enough.  It is time to realize that I have been beaten by the indifference of women to me and move on with my life.  I have found happiness in knowing that from this point forward I need not carry this burden.

I've been working at the San Marino library for nearly a year now.  In that time I've developed some pet peeves relating to patrons that visit the library.

My biggest pet peeve is related to checking in books.  There are some people that STILL can't find the book drop.  I admit, the book drop is not easy to locate.  But the library has been open for nearly a year, enough time for regular patrons to know where to drop off their books.  Yet, to this day I still find people to come up to the check out desk and hand me a bunch of books, which I think they're checking out.  Sometimes I ask them if they're checking out, but other times they volunteer the information.  I politely tell them where the book drop is for next time.  But sometimes the won't answer the question, and I'll start to check the books out.  They will even hand me their card thinking that they need to do so to check books back in.  This only serves to confuse me and them.

My other pet peeve is late fees.  At the library we place a slip into EVERY book we check out that has the due date stamped on it.  There is an army of volunteers that stamp these things for us.  But do people bother to look and see the due date? No, because if they did they would clearly see it and they wouldn't be late.  Occasionally one can be late with a book because we all do lead busy lives.  In that case just know you'll have to pay a fine.  I like it when people owe money on fines and own up to that mistake.  Then there are those who insist that they returned that book.  "Yes, you did return it," I'll say to them, "but you returned it late.  Reluctantly they will pay, but not always.  I had a guy one day spin around and leave without saying a word.

My third pet peeve are the problem patrons, usually regulars, that aren't easy to deal with.  There's one fellow that comes in that will contradict every thing anyone says to him.  Doesn't matter how polite one is he will contradict them to no end.  There was another patron that doesn't show up anymore that thought we were stealing his information off the computer.  If the computers would go down because of a server problem he would think that we're trying to keep him from surfing the web.  Of course we could give a damn where he went online, but he was paranoid.  Then there's the know-it-alls that insist on telling you how you should do your job.