It's hot out and I'm having trouble sleeping. But at least I'm not sleeping over good things, instead of the job angst I was having six months-ish ago. I got my six month performance evalaution yesterday and the Professor jokingly said that it made me sound like I was the best thing since sliced bread. It definitely helped get things off to a good start on Monday.

And I have a clear plan of what I'm doing all week. Mostly things that need to get done for the week after my parents are here -- I've got a presentation for the correctional education librarians on September 12, so I want to get everything done this week. I will be in for three days next week, but it's probably a better idea to get things done now. Plus the family will be there and I'll be working on Friday and Saturday -- two days that I feel work slows down a lot.

So it's Tuesday and I don't have to work until 11 am. I don't know why I am up at 6:30 am. Well, I take that back. I totally know why and I just don't feel the need to tell the world. But it looks like I shall be going to the State Fair on Wednesday. I can't imagine that it will be as cool as the Wisconsin State Fair, mostly because there won't be a Leinenkugel tent or cream puffs, but I'm sure I'll have a good time anyway.

I haven't finished any new books, with the exception of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (8/25). It's a memoir all about Jeannette and her family and their adventures -- although adventures is probably the wrong word -- it's more like they lived their life outdoors for most of her early childhood and went from town to town. Her parents had the children be self-reliant and treated them in appallingly bad ways. But yet as Walls writes about it, it is kind of like an adventure. An adventure that I would never want to go through, but at the same time is somewhat fascinating. Walls could also write herself as a victim -- her father liked to drink, her mother didn't want to work, and their living accomodations were awful (sleeping in a refrigerator box or a bed with four children!), but yet she doesn't judge them. Her mother has one of the best lines at the end of the book, after all the children have escaped to New York City to fend for themselves -- "Being homeless is an adventure." I cannot even imagine having parents like that or how one copes with a life of difficulty and then becomes so successful and (presumably!) normal as Walls has done. All I can say is read it, read it, read it! It's a pretty short book and the story is absorbing, so it was a quick read for me.

At the recommendation of the Pie Librarian (who should get another nickname eventually, but I can't think of one now and she is entering a pie in the State Fair), I have started reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. I'm not that far into it yet, but it seems like a pretty weird book. I've never actually finished any of his books, although I own The Remains of the Day and started reading it...gosh, back before I moved to Baltimore.

I think I'm going to try to get back to bed. Maybe I can get an hour in before I have to face the day.