Author: Erica Firment

In the spirit of wildlife adventures, I will now recount for you the sighting of a Mink on the pond outside our window at work. I say “on the pond” because the pond is frozen. The mink, who is not currently part of an elderly lady’s coat, was jumping in and out of some holes on the bank. He then bounded across the ice with mink-like speed and disappeared.

Once more: I love my job. Bill, our fearless lead developer, spotted the mink outside the window. Then the whole development team crowded around vying for the binoculars. I’m telling you people, you do not get this level of rad working in the city. Nope. You’ve gotta come to Ithaca. And freeze your ass off.

• Eat more stinky cheese.
• Redesign the website. Get some content. Get the forums up. (whip cracking sounds)
• Send more weird haiku-filled postcards.
• Quit with the crushingly high self-expectations already.
• Edit more of Chinamike’s book. Be faster. Much faster.
  
• More dancing.
• Stop doing that Midwestern thing where I feel compelled to explain the motivation behind my every action. (New me: “I am going to watch this DVD.” Old me: “I feel like I have done enough work today and my right knee is kind of hurting, so I think I will put this DVD in and watch it that is unless anyone minds?”)
• Get over it.
• Take free Cornell classes. One per semester! Scottish literature! Hooray!
• Stop eating stinky cheese in my small shared office.
• Visit Erin and George in San Francisco.
• Call my grandma at lunch at least once a week.
• Stop negatively comparing myself to David Foster Wallace.
• Get involved in local board of elections and make them change their shitty signs and poorly designed voting material.
• When confronted with religious zelotry, aggressively sing showtunes
  

It’s like frikkin’ Hoth out there. I went out at lunch to sweep out the dead bees from our beehive and chip the ice out of their entrance. They were fine, but I swear I saw an imperial probe droid out behind the barn.

I have a crush. On the Boston Public Library. Don’t tell Tompkins County, ok?

I was on the way to replenish my supply of cardigans and sensible shoes at the Anthropologie store on Boylston Street, when I happened across the Boston Public Library. Our eyes met across the line of cabs and homeless men, and a shiver went through me. I had encountered the Library on a previous visit, but hadn’t noticed the sexy inscription on its side:

“The commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty”

When I got home, I e-stalked the Boston Public Library. A quick conversation with the Mass 24/7 librarian revealed that the inscription was written by the library’s Board of Trustees. Wow! A hot library that still gets along with its parents. Not bad.

Dear Ms. Magazine online store,

Yes, I completely agree. Conservative Supreme Court appointees make me dyspeptic. Your online letter-writing service has on many occasions helped me send acerbic emails to my elected representatives. I appreciate your need to raise funds. But do you need to send me fifteen identical emails promoting your new online store? I will never be that interested in Wonder Woman notebooks. It seems that every time I log in to your political action webpage I sign myself up for another helping of pro-woman spam. Granted, it makes for a nice change of pace, but I could do without.

Your friend,

-Librarian Avenger

I’ve been feeling kind of down lately. Maybe it’s the almost daily rain. Maybe it’s the sun setting at 4:30 every day. Or maybe it’s my To Do list:

– Call insurance company about bill

– Deposit checks at bank

– Pull file cabinet out of closet & transfer files

– Mail receipts for health care savings account

Yes, these are all indicators of a successful life. Health care, income, organization. Still, looking at this list makes me want to travel back to a few years ago when I solved beaurocratic problems by ignoring them, and all my important papers were stored in a pile under a copy of the Norton Anthology of Poetry.