INTP do you know what i mean

So MB has a shirt with 4 letters on it which she later explained were her myers briggs letter. She then promptly sat me down and made me take the test. I took it, was puzzled with the intp result- didnt know what that meant...

So mostly i relied on my astrological sign, Aquarius, to describe my personality but recently i have been reintroduced to my 4 letters which happen to be intp. Basically i am an introvert who analyzes everything and feels very little.

http://www.intp.org/intprofile.html

http://www.personalitypage.com/INTP_rel.html

um yeah, explains a lot.

Went to California last week, saw old freinds, Alex and Christine,Angel, Ajani Jssica. My parents, sisters, grandmother and popo aunts. IT was filling. Lke a good meal. ALmost as though i had never left. rented a car, drove through berkeley for the first time. Saw the routes i used to walk, the whole tamale. Oh yeah, had tamales.

It as nice to go back. My weeks before I worked 58 hour weeks just to cushion the financial blow the week ould take, but it was well worth it. Drove to Big Sur, tasted the salty ocean, ate clam chowda in bread bowls in fishermans wharf, had crepes in the castro. Ate on Monterey's cannery row and watch the seals swim onto the docks. Took a trolley and chased the sunset... California showed off its best weather...

My sisters how they have grown. Im the oldest yet my sisters seem to keep outgrowing me...Its getting a little old.

ITs really late, having one of these night time insomniac attacks I thought i had it cured with my job and stability but something else is troubling me. So many things seem so hard to verbalize, cant seem to find the words. I guess ill just have to work through it.

Not much to report today, just trying to get some sleep

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind

Something thats been on my mind lately. how can everyone fit in?

I recently went to another branch of the system. THis one was in a more um 'urban area'. Now I oft compalin that we have too many damn books (this is usually when im the one having to reshelve them all) . I usually have to spend a few hours pushing books aside and squeezng in the newest bestsellers. THen i have to try and convince someone to weed some of these book...

But back to what i was saying. I was in another library and they seem to have the opposite problem. Too many shelves too few books. THe books on the shelves were generally unread, i could tell by the sound they made when i opened them.

Libraries and Journalism are two of my favorite instituions, both are threatened and i think some creative thinking can help navigate around that. Ive seen some cities (Seattle, San Francisco who have actually inncreased the numbers of patrons by offering innovative programs and cafes and all that shit) Unfortunately I dont think Atlanta is particularly innovative. (In fact most shit is reactive)

Im not sure i want to be a librarian. Sometimes Im geeked about the profession and other times Im hesistant...

Guess I just have to wait and see.

THings are looking up-I think its a direct corrolation with the weather

But i dont want to jinx anything. My secret project was stalled by yet another mishap but i havnt given up yet.

But on a nicer note- i got a new place. ITs cozy and seriously lacking in some areas but its also cozy and utilites are included so i wont complain. The job thing is starting to work out though. more hours, more responsibilty. Sure my co workers drive me nuts but its something to do. And if there is one place i can stand being in for hours its in a library. ALA conference coming up.

The weather is getting better which hopefully means my mood will improve. In two weeks ill be headed back to Berkeley. See family, friends and water. But until then ill be hustling these hours and working 50 hour weeks until i cant stand.

The secret project

That im too embarrassed to really reveal right now but its in the works. i'm signed up and everything. Hopefully this will distract me for awhile.

curiosity killed the cat (but satisfaction bought him back)

But im never really satisfied. Cant seem to follow through on things. In the midst of one thing im doing, i get bored and want to leave and start on something new. What about seeing things through or commitment?

I thought curiosity was a childish trait, I thought id grow out of it. Buit im realizing that perhaps I wont? In fact it seems to be getting worse.

Freeze

Sometimes I stop in the middle of something and i think

Where am I. Today it happened while I was closing the gym. I'm in Atlanta. At work. Cleaning. Working a double shift. Its cold.

Today I went to work at the library, got my eyebrows done, ate indian buffet, drove around, wroked a grueling night shift at the gym, took marta home.

Life can be so elusive at times, like just when you reach out and grab it, it slips through your fingers like quicksand.

Its funny like that..

What am i doing with my life?

I feel a bit aimless. I made some bad decisions that i rpobably wont recover from. Makes me depressed, keeps me up at night. Not sure how to fix that.


A gulty conscience needs no accuser

The day started so well

Sometimes im ioverwhelemd, espcially financally. Sure no one can make it on their own but i hate relying on people, asking people for money. I live in Atlanta partly because of the freedom i have here. I dont have a family member for miles. I like that space.

I got paid two days ago, add to that a hefty commission check and my tax return came back. Plis my birthday is coming up so that usually yields an extre spending change. so for while i was in the clear. finally, 2008 of to a new start.

Well just when i was riding igh. My cars transmission stated acting up. I took it by the shop, he put some new transmission fluid in it and for a day it drove like a dream. But then it reverted back to its old ways again and the problem came back with a vengence. I dont know how much its going to cost to repair it.

So i set aside some time this week to take it by the shop.

Tpday i went to piedmont park because the weather was nice. Walked some dogs, did that whole thing. Afterwards we decided to go to Six Feet Under. I bit into an oyster and wouldnt you know, it had sand in it which caused my teeth to crack and crumble out my mouth. AGHHHH!

Oh and did i mention that rent is due Friday?

I have alternating paudays so trouble dont last always. With this new job i had visions of moving into a studio of my own, have my own space, but i think i may still have to be with a roomate. Man we havnt made it past January and shit already falling apart.

Mardi Gras is next week, im excited about stumbling through the french quarter drunk, hearing music and partying. Hopefully itll be a good endcap for this misdirected month...



So now it looks as though i

They wear fur coats to the library

Because its buckhead. They talk with long southern drawls that sound straight out of Driving Ms. daisy . There is even a booster club to raise money for the library.
Its another world.

When i interviewed for positionsin the Atlanta Fulton Public Library system, it was my last choice. so confident and cocky i was certain i would get my top choice, that i didnt even feel the need to go to the last library. But i did...for 'practice'. (Dont you love being slapped back down?).

I wante something more 'urban', something where i could 'work with' people. I had a demographic in mind. Something more diverse. (and not to mention MARTA accessible). It takes an hour to get there on the train as opposed to the 20 minute commutes in the other libraries i interviewed at.
But the Lord works in mysterious ways. THey called 3 weeks after my interview. 'Which library I asked excitedly...

Oh...

Well. I needed a job asap. The money/hours were cool. And there was a bus that went there...

Those were pretty much the reasons i decided to take the job. I agreed over the phone and called the branch manager to confirm. "oh girl im so excited! you were my first choice! I was hpoing and holdong my breath that you take the posotion"

Well at least someone was excited. But i mean, how can you be disappointed when shes so happy youre coming?

I'm wondering what the lesson is here. Of the 30 branches of the Atlanta library system,, why this one? I think its partly karma for my cockiness and my issues with AmeriCorps. But most of all i think of it as a kind of resume rehab. THe last year has been filled with a string of short term stints and i need to show hat i can commit to a job. I mean what kind of trouble could i possibly get myself in in checking out books to socialites and their children? Especially when i have a manager ho believes in me. I need to do the best i can. At least for 6 monthes(after 6 monthes you are eligible to transfer)

Im starting to warm up to the quirkiness of the 60 something white librarians. In circulation class, i even had a little 'branch pride' moment surrounded by people from other branches.

I guess u cant judge a book by its cover

hard day

Everything was going well. Well actually it wasnt, Ive been fighting off debt and just when i got back on my two feet, my car decides to start acting up. Now ive had this car for a month and its been real good too me, in fact so good i named her lucky. She has her problems shes a maure woman but i like mature women.

Well im going from 285 to I-20 east to 75/85 North and shes sailing, keeping a good 70 mph. I get off Freedom at freedom parkway and the car starts thumping. I had about 4 more miles to go so i prayed the car wouldnt give out in the one lane surrounding the carter Library. I made it home, thank God.

I hope hope hope i dont need a new transmission.

Little bites

I'm not a meal person. I'm a nibbler. I like to take a portion of a meal, take it back and work on it then return back to the pot and take another scoop. If there is an entire meal put on my plate, i get overwhelmed. Its too much food at one time. Sometimes ill spread out one meal over a 4 hour time, keeps it eaiser for me to eat.
I have realized that this minute detail translates into other pieces in my life. Like college, work and lceaning my slovenly abode. In projects, i like to do little pieces of the project and return to the group. So with this bit of new found self knowledge, i wonder if i can conquer a few things that i have deemed to overwhelmong to deal with in 2008. We shall see.

what does this have to do with thoreau?

"I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can "see the folks," and recreate, and as he thinks remunerate himself for his day's solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and "the blues"; but he does not realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it. "

I read Walden my junior year in high school. My teacher, Ms. Carp, introduced the book as either you love it or hate it. I had grown eary of the obooks. Junior year english was full of literature. THeir eyes were watching God, The Scarlet Letter, The sun also rises, Huckleberry Finn. I dont like literature. As I dont like most fiction. Even movies, i generally prefer a good documentary over a heartwarming tale. In2nd grade in our trip to the library, I found it helpful to remember fiction vs. non fiction by pairing fiction with 'fake'. I wonder if that colored my later experieneces with it.

But THoreau and the rest of the trancedentalists caught me. It wasnt fake. It was something real. It was observational. Nothing intrigues me more than someones observations. But it turns out i was the only one who 'loved it'. Class after class, my peers lambasted the book, calling him cynical and a loser who had no friends. But what i saw in his work reflected my own experiences. Like literally sitting in a room full of people and not feeling in any way connected to another person. It was such a common feeling for me, i had grown accustomed to being the only one, loniliness was my steady companion. It was in this class that i realized that being alone was second nature to me.

I was talking to a friend. She asked me why i had built up so much resentment toward people with money. I told her that evryone around me had more money than me, it always seemed like they 'could' and i 'couldnt'. They got things, I wanted things. To try to even the playing field I worked at the local star market for a year bagging groceries. In my blue shirts and khaki pants i scanned groceries for 5.50/hr, but even that never reallly got me past first base. The resentment, i tell her, was the only way i could be jealous and still like the people around me. If i didnt hold the jealosy inside, i wouldnt be able to talk to anyone around me. It was a functional jealosy.

It hurt. I felt disconnected. Lost a lot of confidence. And it wasnt that i wanted there to be people poorer than me because i get nothing from feeling better than someone else. I just wanted to be able to relate to someone. The median household income in my town was 85,000. Our household income was not even a quarter of that. I wanted there to be another Black girl in Belmont, who lived with her single mother and shared a room with her sister. Or something even remotely similar. Never happened. Oddly enough, people i went to HS with complain about not having any rent money, or money for utilities, now as adults they can relate, but that was my entire childhood.

And sometimes that feeling of not being able to realte still haunts me. I still dont have a lot of friends that i feel close too.I fucked up the friendship i had with my best friend and now i feel even more alone than i ever have.

And what does this have to do with thoreau, well everything and nothing. he was just on my mind today. I needed to read that passage again and feel the way i did in that Junior year class...

Luck be a lady tonight

My new car, her name is lucky. Her rear defrost doesnt work. Its dangerous to drive when you cant see behind you. When things are obscured by shifting weather and cold mornings.

Got a napkin, reached backed and wiped it down.

Even im guilty sometimes of trying to please other people.
Truth hurts and im trying to deal with that the best way i know how.
My tooth is still broken and it hurts like hell- hopefully i can save up enough to pay for it. And everything else i need to pay for....aghhhhh

Deep breath


everything will be alright, she says, but do i really believe her?

um

There so much to say but im supposed to be working...

later

Its been awhile

I think God is tryna tell me something. And apparently i am not paying enough attention or being too hard headed that he has resorted to smacking me across my face. No more 'writing on the walls' and 'burning bushes' hes taking the direct approach.

Thats my only conclusion. Everyday just gets more ridiculous than the day before. Its past the point of painfully bad and entered into the realm of absurdity. And just when i thought it couldnt get any worse, i looked down to find a piece of my tooth in my lap. Just pathetic. I can just hear the 900 dollars oozing out my bank account...

Sigh.

Maybe tomorrow my foot will spontaneously fall off too...

I want to ride this bus (and im not sure why this is underlined)

The best part of Christmas

LEFTOVERS!!!!!

Homeward Bound

Again im getting on a flight- this time headed to Los Angeles California. And though i dislike Xmas and ive resorted to emailing Amazon gift cards to my family- it'll be nice to see my family.

My flight leaves at 9:10 and its 3:30pm. I plan to leave here at 6:30-allowing me at least 1.5 hours on the MARTA. Also for the long lines... I get to Los Angeles at 11:30 pm which is going to inconvienc my family but ill persevere...

Sigh. Its so quiet in this house. Silence is creepy to me- as is darkness. I keep forgetting to pick up a night light.

I've been so into this Discovery Channel 6- Part Documentary about climbing Mt. Everest. Its so fascinating. White People are crazy!!! There was a controversy over the summer that csome climbrs passed up a dying man on the mountain. Now i can understand how something like that can happen...

I'm so tired for no reason. Its been a long weeknd but i got to see some of my old friends that i hadnt seen in awhile-i also looked into a mirror. Now i can see what they all see. And after a 2 hour phone call with my sisterand a conversation with Shan I think i have a new understanding of everything- good preperation for 2007. I'm a stubburn ass Aquarian- but theres potential...

I have concluded that I dont make friends very easily. That I am very distant thus not very easy to connect with. That i live life in a protective buffer zone that keeps me from getting hurt but also prevents me from really feeling anything. I'm also extremely sensitive. Hmmm. I told my sister that like money, investing in a realtionship and getting no return leads to bankruptcy. But what happens when you are too disheartened to invest in anything? I heard once that Pessimists are usually right but Optimists are more sucessful. Hmm more food for thought. My best friend is the biggest optimist i know. And i admire her for it. But optimism seems to often lead to disappointment and failure is scary. But i guess i just have to learn to deal with that too.

So i have my hopes UP for 2007. That i can genuinely connect with the people who have reached out to me with friendship. Especially the people who havnt given up on me yet. That I can open up enough to feel a connection with others, even if it times i gt hurt or disappointed. THat i can speak from my heart and not be so peripheral with people.

A journey of a million miles begins with one step...

January 1, 2007