bizgirl

I think it was the Thursday afternoon shift tidying up the Children's Library that gave me the cold.

Not only am I on extra shelving duties as part of my penance for my blogging sins, I've also pulled a couple of extra end-of-the-day-clean-up details in the kids' area. I love kids, but they really do make a mess of the library. I can completely empathise, of course, being a slob, but where I don't mind my own disorder, other people's untidiness makes me furious.

As such, I was building up a right fury on Thursday afternoon, after having spent nearly half an hour recovering the picture books from every nook and cranny, and then fifteen minutes trying to reunite a Hi-5 video-tape with its respective case. As per usual I reached under the cushions of the reading area in the likely scenario that the video's case, or some other random library item, had ended up under there over the course of the day. My fingers plunged into a sticky glutinous mess. A nappy. A fully used one. The odour hit my nose just microseconds later. I just about spewed when I pulled my hand out to view the shit now encasing my digits. Ugh.

When I got home later that night, I had a terrible head-cold. I swear I could still smell the baby-poo on my fingers, despite half a dozen washes in super-hot water with every anti-bacterial soap and cleanser available to me in the library's extensive collection of hygienic products. It was either the bacteria from the infant faeces or a more general malaise that had snuck up on me after a week of slogging it in dusty shelving bays, but wherever it had come from, there was something in my sinuses that my body was extremely keen to expel with the aid of vast amounts of mucus.

I rang in sick Friday morning, not even having to try that hard to put on a 'sick' voice. I went back to bed, Vicks Vaporub liberally applied after a long hot shower, and promptly slept until noon. I got up, logged in, checked my email, and spotted the invitation noizy had sent me to the Radio Active end-of-year DJ party at the Melrose Workingmen's Bowls Club that afternoon. Feeling a lot better after a decent sleep, I figured I could probably do with a couple of medicinal drinks or two - gin and tonics were the order of the day apparently, and nothing, other than brandy, perhaps, strikes me as a better alcohol-based cure for what ailed me. I pulled on some party clothes, stocked up on handkerchiefs, and walked the short distance to the Bowling Club.

I don't actually know any of the Radio Active staff except noizy, so when I turned up and he wasn't there, I did my usual gravitate-to-a-quiet-corner-with-free-drink-in-hand to watch events unfold. I found a nice nook overlooking the bowling green, where a small tournament between some of the Active staff was under way.

Lawn bowls is so soothing, especially when you're not actually playing. I just sat and watched from my sunny spot, sipping an ice-cold vodka and lemonade. I hadn't been able to find the gin that had been spoken of in the invite, but I wasn't complaining - I'm sure the fine 42 Below vodka has just as many palliative effects as it's juniper berry based counterpart.

Or maybe not: my nose was still running like the proverbial tap. I had soaked one hanky through, and was just befouling a fresh new one when a shadow passed in front of me and I found someone sitting on the bench-seat next to me. A guy. Quite a nice looking guy nice, too...

"Natalie?" he enquired.
"Errrr, yes."
"Aha! I thought it might be. Hi, I'm Darcy."
"Hi Darcy. How did, you, er..."
"The top. Your duck print thing from World. I read about it. You are bizgirl, aren't you?"
"Oh, yes, aha. God, this is the first time this has happened."
"There was the pink lady, I seem to recall."
"Oh my god. You read that? Well, obviously you read that. But, yes, well, I could deny it that time. This is the first time I've been busted outright in public."
"Ah, well, you're practically famous now."

If I wasn't already so hot and bothered from the sun, sickness and vodka, I probably would have blushed.

"Hardly," I said, "flash-in-the-pan on a slow news day."
"A great story though. How did you get the idea?"

And so it went, back into the story, yet again. I might have to get a new T-shirt made up - 'Just Read the Blog' - but, this time, at least, I didn't mind too much. Darcy, decked up to the nines in full whites, was cutting quite a striking figure, and I happily gabbled onto him through another couple of vodkas until he got the call up to play another game.

I topped up my drink again, and returned to watch my hero-for-the-day engaged in his bowls battle. Darcy started out spraying the bowls all over the green, but he wasn't as bad as his opponent, a portly blonde gentlemen who I couldn't decide was a 'mature' DJ or an actual bowls club member who had partaken in too much of the free booze. As the bowls spread far and wide over the green, Darcy edged out to a lead, much to the amusement of both me and a gathering crowd of Active DJ coolsters, all of whom offered no end of inane advice in his quest for victory.

"Just nudge this one in a bit, Darce."
"Darcy, mate, push that one to the right and you'll block his drive."
"Just a toucher here Darcy, a wee tickle to the left."

The game eventually came to an end, with Darcy the winner. From somewhere a magnum of champagne was produced to celebrate then win, and, quite the gentleman, Darcy poured and handed me a flute, full to the brim with the bubbly stuff.

"To victory!" he toasted.
"Yes," I agreed.

We proceeded to drink the rest of the bottle of champagne, and then found room for a couple more vodkas.

By now, with the sun beating down, my cold, a total lack of food, the vodka and the champagne, it would be fair to say I was completely and utterly rollicking. Darcy's ongoing attention and insistence that I was not only 'a million times better than that Bridget Jones lady', but also his outright fibs on how nice I was looking had me flicking my hair and touching his upper arm with salacious abandon. Before I knew it, we had found a quiet cranny around the back of the club and were snogging up a storm. Or, at least, kissing desperately for about 10 seconds, interspersed with short breaks where I had to come up for air. We'd tangle tongues, then, when I felt asphyxia coming on, I'd disengage, snort back the massed tide of snot in my nose, take a deep breath, and head back for more. After about 10 minutes of this, the thought of kissing this virtual stranger, infested with germs as I was, struck me as being hysterically funny, and I snorted in mid-kiss, which had the unfortunate side-effect of sending a spray of snot onto his cheek, much as football players send their excess mucus speeding to the grass with a well directed blow of the nostril.

"Oh god, sorry," I giggled, proceeding to smear my sneeze-spray over his cheek with my last, only moderately used hanky.

Darcy was very gracious, told me not to worry, and, indeed, looked as if he was keen to continue. But, much to his dismay, I told him I really wasn't feeling well, told him to 'email me sometime', and again refusing to be walked home, staggered the two blocks back to my flat, where I collapsed into bed, and slept (perhaps 'became unconscious' might be more apt) for about 18 hours. I woke up early in the afternoon on Saturday, utterly dehydrated, my tongue rasping my parched lips as I tried to spirit some moisture from somewhere, whereupon the memory of Friday afternoon flooded back into my mind, and I curled up in my bed in embarrassment.

I spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday in hangover-headcold hell, only moving from my bed to the kitchen to top up my glass of water as I fought a losing battle against dehydration. It seemed that every drop of water that went into me was destined to be blown out my nose in a more sticky form shortly afterwards, leaving my swollen and pounding brain short of necessary fluids.

Ugh, so so sick. I will never drink again.

Mrs Darjeeling requested my company again on Monday.

"Natalie, you must know why I've called you here."
"Not the blog?"

I'd have thought, after laying low for a week, that they might have forgotten about the whole thing. Apparently not.

"Well, yes. I mean ... Mrs Oolong, and actually, I also ... we both thought...well, after our discussion last week, I thought it was understood that you would refrain from commenting on work matters in your ... blog."
"But ... but ... I'm not. Really. I mean, you've read it. You can see how I change things."
"Yes, and I do appreciate the effort. But, when it comes to us, your work colleagues that is, you see, no matter what you do, we can see that it's us."
"I'm sorry if Mrs Oolong takes offence. I think, perhaps, that's she reading more of herself into the stories than is warranted. Really, no one knows who I'm talking about, and the characters themselves are only based on the staff here in the loosest way, and much less than they used to be."
"Did the reference desk encounter you wrote about the other day happen as you described it?"
"Err, well, sort of. I mean, yes, I suppose."
"So you can see what I'm getting at?"
"Yes, I suppose so."
"Now, this alone gives me no reason to give you a formal written warning. But Mr Nonsuch has informed me that someone has been logging into one of the cataloguing computers using Ms. Bates' profile and reading your blog."
"How do you know it's not Norma?"
"She was away on leave last week. But there were several logins using her profile, and on every session she, or he, accessed your website."
"Well, it's not me, honest. Anyone could log in to her profile - she's got her password post-it noted to her cubby hole."
"Has she?"
"Yes."
"Well, regardless, whoever it is ... it's obviously a distraction for people around here. I'm really just going to repeat what I said to you last week - please take more care in what you write, and what you say about people. As you yourself have discovered, even if you are masking the facts of the situation with a healthy dose of fiction, people will strive to find themselves in a story, especially those that have already made appearances."
"Mrs Oolong?"
"I won't name names. I'm sure you can probably figure it out for yourself."

Mrs Darjeeling actually smiled at this point, and raised one of her super-fine eyebrows.

"Natalie, I'll let you know that your writing has been a hotly discussed at the last couple of senior staff meetings. You have certainly stirred up a hornet's nest of intrigue as to the true identities of the characters involved."
"There aren't really any true identities. It's all just made up and mixed up."
"I thought as much. But again, just be careful. There are no grounds for a formal warning at this point, but some people are pushing for one, whatever the grounds."
"Thanks, I'll try and be good."

Mrs Darjeeling laughed.

"I'm sure you will, Natalie. Thank you. That will be all."
"Erm, thank you."

I left her office, and headed back down to a shift on Issues. thinking: What the hell? There's a conspiracy against me? Who wants to get me to the written warning stage? I had to check my employment contract that night to find out where I stood legally. In short, it says (I think, legalese not being my strongest language) that I must first be given a written warning about some sort of behaviour that gives the Library 'good reason' to fire me. Once I've got that I'm allowed to respond and/or change my ways so as to fix the situation. After that, if we still can't see eye-to-eye, they can give me the chop.

Dooced! Imagine it. Actually, probably best not to...

warning: some kiwi vowels in use.

I hid out on Monday night, and only caught up with Josh when we were rostered onto Issues together on Tuesday. He told me that my blog retelling of his school-days playground accident had caused some mirth at his expense.

"I was on the info desk, telling a guy where the toilets are, left, right, past the magazines, left, and Bella said 'you're sure you don't mean right, left, right?'"
"Ahaha."
"And people telling me to 'not poo my pants' is getting rool old."
"Ah, diddums."

I shouldn't have been so flippant. The very next shift I was on Reference with Mrs Oolong - our first encounter since my 'outing'.

"Morning, Mrs Oolong."

Nothing. She took her seat and made busy with some reference items that had been dumped on the desk by patrons.

Ouch. Icy. It was going to be a long shift.

Now, the thing is Mrs Oolong is a wucked reference librarian. She knows her old school printed sources like the back of her hand. If you need to know the name of every opera that features the character Figaro, what river inspired Daedulus to build the labyrinth, or the GDP of Liechtenstein in 1957, then Mrs Oolong is your lady. But when it comes to the online and immediate world, well, I'd like to think I hold not only the upper hand, but also the lower hand and both feet.

Things were set up for a reference show-down. An unsuspecting patron - an innocuous middle-aged corporate drone walked up to the desk and addressed us both.

"Sorry to bother you, do you keep speeches made by MPs?" he asked.

Mrs Oolong, as my senior, tackled the reference interview...

"Yes we do. Is there anyone in particular you're after?"
"Um, yes, a John Tamihere speech."
"Any of his speeches in particular? The one from his recent resignation from his cabinet portfolio? His speech on the role of what it is to be a kiwi man?"
"Yes, yes, that's the one."
"Ah well, let me see, that might be in..."
"I've got it," I said, pointing to my monitor. As they'd talked I'd already googled and found Brash's 'Orewa', Tamihere's 'Kiwi Man', and Trevor Mallard's 'Indigenous Pakeha' speeches.

Mrs Oolong's head whipped around, and she narrowed her eyes at me.

"Is that on the internet?"
"Um, yes?"
"How can you be sure it's authoritative?"
"It's in the John Tamihere section of the Labour Party website."
"That looks perfect," said the patron, peering round at the screen. "Can I get a print-out of that?"
"Yes. That'll be twenty cents a page. If I cut and paste the text out so we don't print out all this extraneous stuff, it'll be ... two pages. Unless you want all the website graphics and whatnot?"
"No. That would be great. Could you just include the web address at the top as well. I need to cite my source."
"Of course. Aaaaand, done."

I handed over the pages. The patron paid and left with a cheery 'thanks!'.

I resisted the temptation to hold up my mouse like a gun and blow it like a smoking gun, but only just.

Well, while I'm still working on my post of the week that was (plenty to write about, it turns out), this story might amuse you...

[via Short and Sweet]

I was in the Head Librarian's office. Mrs Darjeeling had requested my presence as soon as I'd arrived at work on Monday morning. I went upstairs and, despite the soft cushions of the armchair outside her office, spent five uncomfortable minutes waiting to be ushered in. I finally got the call. I went in, palms sweating.

"Close the door and sit down please Natalie."

Uh-oh. I looked at her PC. My blog was on her screen. Even more telling, I could see she'd just been reading my scanners post.

"Natalie, I've been reading your web ... journal ... thing. What is it that they're called?"
"Um, a blog?"
"That's right, your ... blog."

She said the word with a slight hint of distaste, as if it was a rude word she wasn't used to saying in company.

"Yes, well, first things first, I suppose, congratulations on winning that award. I can see from your writing that you have something of a knack for story-telling."
"Thank you."
"But, well, as you can probably tell from me having to call you in here now, you've ruffled a few feathers about the place. Despite your efforts at masking the identities of those involved, some of the staff have taken umbrage at being ridiculed in public."
"But, err, I really didn't..."

The excuse failed to come, and the words withered in my mouth. Mrs Darjeeling continued...

"Well, whatever you intended, you've certainly hurt some feelings. And now that your identity is known, I'm sure it will be even harder for you to maintain any level of anonymity with regards to yourself and your workmates."
"Um, yes."
"And the less said about your comments on some of our patrons the better."
"Um, yes, sorry."
"Obviously, we can't force you to stop writing your ... blog, but I'd strongly advise you to think carefully about what you write about in future."
"Yes."
"I've also talked to Mr Nonsuch this morning about your role on the web team, and we've decided for the time being that it might be best to remove you from your current role, and return you to normal duties."

Noooo!

"He made some mention of log files that made it apparent to me that removing you from the team for a time might be a way to avoid any unnecessary problems should people become too interested in just how our work computers are getting used during work hours."

Ah, well, fair enough, I suppose.

"I haven't heard if anyone up the Council chain has shown any interest in your story yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some questions asked. I'd like to stress this is only a short-term measure. Mr Nonsuch is actually very pleased with your work so far, and your work generally is excellent. We'll let the dust die down over the next couple of weeks, and reassess the situation after that."
"Okay. Thanks."
"Right, well, that's all. Again, congratulations. Sorry to have to rain on your parade."
"That's okay."
"Thank you Natalie."

I got up and left. The roster posted in the staff room confirmed Mrs Darjeeling's edict - the shifts where I would have been rostered on to the web team had been replaced with, ugh, shelving.

Ms. Biz, welcome to library purgatory.

I tried my best on Sunday, but couldn't help but take a quick peek in the morning to see what the stats were doing. Saturday had topped a thousand visitors. Sunday, traditionally the slowest day of the week was nearly five times my average. I shut down my laptop before I got into a spiral of referrer checking and comments reading.

The door knocked. I couldn't hide any more. I opened the door.

"Oh, hello Josh."
"Hey. It's the Mystery Girl."
"Ahaha."
"Coffee?"
"Always."

We walked around the corner to the Newtown shops, and took a table at my local cafe.

"Well," said Josh, "congratulations."
"Thanks."
"What's going to happen next?"
"I have no idea."
"Man, it was amazing seeing that article on the front page yesterday."
"I can't believe they put that story about us top and tailing on the front page of the paper."
"What about the Herald article? They reprinted your story about me shitting my pants at school."
"Oh, yeah. sorry."
"That's ok, just, you know, a bit weird."
"Mmmm. Tell me about it."

We had a long brunch, in which I told the full story of Friday night to Josh. After I'd bought him up to speed, he suggested we buy some champagne and head back to my place to more fully celebrate the victory. But my vow to stay offline all weekend was starting to waver, especially after Josh, who had been waiting for a new post all weekend apparently, had told me there were 30+ comments on my last entry. I told Josh I had to spend some quality time with my laptop, and looking only mildly puppy-dog hurt, he gave me a fumbling kiss on the cheek and we parted ways on Riddiford Street.

I went home, booted up, and settled in. I didn't move again for about 12 hours, except for bathroom and snack breaks. There is nothing I find more compelling than stats-watching, especially when the stats are piling up before your eyes.

In between checking comments, backtracking referrers to see who was saying what on their own blogs, and watching the visitor count click up to the five hundred mark, I worked away at a post that told the tale of the evening. It took forever. Combined with the constant distraction of my site visitor ping going off, I had a terrible case of stage-fright. There were literally hundreds of people hitting site, and I was terrified of dropping something new into the online feeding frenzy. It took about five hours to get a thousand words down, and despite not being the most sparkling writing ever done, it did tell the tale. Finally, just after midnight I hit the publish button, did one last check on the site to make sure it had uploaded ok, and went to bed.

And still people were reading...

I sidled into the librarian's staff-room to drop off my bag. It was about two minutes before my shift started. I hadn't seen the paper. There was one strewn over the table in the centre of the room. I took a glance. And froze.

There it was, bang at foot of the front page, a two-photo story about my blogging victory from the night before. The big photo was of the anonymous librarian's photo that had replaced my old profile pic, with another thankfully unrecognisable mug-shot of me they must have found over at noizy's site.

I quickly scanned the article. Hah! A Bridget Jones comparison - classic. I went to the Children's section, where I was filling in for the morning. Bella was the other librarian on the shift. Her eyes widened when she spotted me. She ditched her shelving and made a beeline for me...

"Congratulations!"
"Um, thanks."
"So is Mrs Kambaa actually Mrs Kambaa?"
"Err, no."
"What about Mrs Oolong? Is that Mrs Oolong? It is sooo Mrs Oolong, isn't it?"
"Uh, no, actually. It's all made up."
"But it's so not, isn't it?"
"Well..."

Ah, to hell with it, I thought. I told her the truth. It was bound to come out eventually. I figured rather than being the person everyone came to for the full story, I could tell Bella and let the usual information-dissemination that librarians are so good at run its course. A distributed peer-to-peer networking paradigm, as opposed to overloading a single central server, as such.

I laid low for most of my shift, slowly shelving in the most distant corners, squatting between the book-stacks, out of sight. A couple of colleagues still managed to track me down so I could tell the 'Why?' story again. All the while, at the back of my mind, a vision was fermenting - of senior management trawling the site, spotting their characters, making notes.

Cataloguing is deserted on a Saturday, so I headed there after my shift, Dominion in hand, to have a proper read in peace and quiet. It was all there - the whole story of last night and of the blog. I logged on to a PC to check out what was going on online.

Site traffic was going through the roof. I checked the referrers. People were pouring in from the two big NZ newspaper sites: nzherald and stuff.

So there was a story it was in the Herald too!

Before my eyes another stream of traffic opened up from bookslut, and my visitor pinger started going off every couple of seconds.

I was too frightened to look at the comments. I turned off the computer and vowed to not look at the web again until Monday.

It was another beautiful day in Wellington. I caught the bus, bought a bottle of champagne at the supermarket on my walk home, took the phone off the hook, then went and sat in the shade of my wonderfully overgrown backyard, read some Vonnegut, listened to some Groove Armada, drank the bubbly, and dozed the day away.

Elsewhere, people were reading...

4pm Friday finally clicked over.

A hot humid Friday. Another step closer to knock-off, but also a step into the longest hour of the week - the slow wind-down to 5pm. To make it even worse, today was the day all the cool geeks were congregating on the free booze and nibbles at the Auckland Hyatt Regency for the snazzy Netguide Web Awards.

I did my hourly gmail check and got a conciliatory ping. 'Subject: NetGuide Awards.' I popped it open in a full window. 'Please get in touch. Urgent.' It was signed by one of the event organisers. I rang the number. Rebecca, a very clear-talking lady answered, and, upon revealing myself, she told me they wanted me there for the event, all expenses paid, flights, cabs, whatever. Just keep the receipts.

Who was I to say no?

I put the phone down, wondering if I was to be the butt of some elaborate joke. My boss walked up to me the very moment, and, incredibly, asked...

"Natalie, do you know about this bizgirl blog?"
"Uhhhhhh, yes. That's me."
"Ahaha. I suspected as much. You've done well to get a nomination for that award."
"Uh, thanks, actually, I've just found they want to fly me up for the prize-giving. I need to catch the next flight to Auckland. I was actually about to come and ask you if could skip off a bit early so I can catch the plane."
"The awards people are going to fly you to Auckland?"
"Yes."
"Well, you'd better get going. Congratulations."

I had no chance of getting home to get changed. I couldn't have gone glam anyway. I was in full-fledged post-sunburn skin-peel mode, so had worn a plain long-sleeved blue shirt and some loose slacks to work that day to hide my scorched skin. As a result, and combined with the humid air, when I got to the airport I was in desperate need of a deodorant. Whifftacular? Definition: me.

The plane-trip made me even more hot and flustered. When we landed I had the sensation that the pilot left his braking manouveres far too late, and we were about to plunge off the runway. Then my run of luck with taxi drivers continued when, outside the airport doors I somehow managed to get two of them into a heated argument as to who had 'bagsed' me as their fare. Two minutes later I was huddling nervously in the victor's back-seat, wondering how much of my remaining $80 in the world this taxi-trip through Auckland's Friday rush-hour was going to cost.

$69.80

But I was there. And not in bad time, truth be told. Rebecca somehow picked me out of the other late-comers straggling in, quickly introduced me to a few people, then gave me a glass of champagne and guided me to a seat in the Hyatt's function room, where a few hundred people in their 'smart casual' clothes were watching events unfold.

For an awards ceremony, a lot has to be said of the organisation of this one. They just rattled them off one after the other - no speeches - just a handshake with a corporate head-honcho, a quick photo, and that was it. So, although it was 14th of 16 awards, the Best Personal Blog category arrived in a flash...

Blogging is where it is at on the Web right now! And there have been some amazing examples given world attention in the past year. We're looking for enthusiasts who have created their very own content-packed diary on the Web. The subject matter may vary from personal thoughts to daily life experiences written in a way to enthrall the reader, making us come back for more. Age or occupation is secondary; of primary importance is the interest factor created by the content. Who amongst you is keen to make an impression on the Net?

That was the introduction to the category read out by the emcee.

I started grinning.

"And the winner is..." she read, "...bizgirl!"

Woo-bloody-hoooo! Now smiling like a loon, I leapt up and quickly strode to the stage. At the back of my mind I was hoping DC - who I had emailed and asked to pick up the award on my behalf in the unlikely event I win - had seen me and wasn't halfway into some horrible Zoolander-like embarrassment.

I suspect, however, that most eyes were on me as I ascended the steps to shake mega-salary man's hand and accept the award.

"Natalie Biz?" said the CEO.
"Err, yes. Hi."
"International Librarian of Mystery?"
"Aha, not any more."
"Haha. Brilliant. Congratulations. Here you go."

He handed me a, er, plaque thing, we posed for the photo, and I left the stage, still beaming, but feeling a little alone and bashful at this point. I stared at my plaque until the ceremony was over, all of about five minutes later, and then dreamily drifted with the throng into the next-door ballroom. The first person I saw that I knew was one of noizy's workmates, and, happy to see a friendly face, I went up and said hello. Thereby followed the first variation of what I've now come to refer to as the 'meta-Blog': an adjustable 30-second-to-5-minute description of (sometimes) what a blog is, (usually) why I do it mine the way I do, or (nearly always) just Why?

Rebecca found me again and guided me to a couple of people who I was informed were big-wigs in the publishing company who owned NetGuide magazine. I told them version #2 of Why?

I then made a dash for the cooler air on the outside balcony and finally met DC in one of those weird when-online-personas-become-real-people moments. We chatted, and then I got hauled aside by the magazine people for another bunch of photos, a few 'Why?'-stories with various people, and then, believe it or not, rather than staying and drinking the town dry of free champagne, I took the opportunity of sharing a lift with Rebecca - who was heading that way anyway - back to the airport and catching a plane home to Wellington.

I had volunteered for work on Saturday morning, and had left it far too late to organise cover. Besides, I only had $11 in my bag, and, although I had a 'keep the receipts' recompense deal going on, it's hard to get the receipts without the cash in the first place. The thought of telling Why? a few dozen times in one night didn't appeal too much either, and a lift to the airport with uber-efficient Rebecca meant guaranteed delivery to my doorstep. Just for once, I thought, I'll take the safe option. It was - I was home by 11pm.

What a surreal evening. The next two days weren't any less interesting. The story on that is to come.

Me!

Full story to come. Still recovering from the shock.

Wooo-hooo!

The NZ Netguide Web Awards Finalists have been announced, and I'm in the running for Best Personal Blog. Thanks to all you regular readers who took the time to vote, and hello to the many new readers who have been coming this way as a result.

Pretty long odds on me winning the thing - here's how I see it panning out...

The Contenders...

publicaddress.net
Now, if I was going to get picky (and yes, I'm about to), this isn't really a 'personal' blog, is it? It's a collection of blogs under one banner. If the contest was for personal blogs, the individual blogs within would have been nominated on their own merits (Hard News and Cracker being the obvious choices - for me, anyway). It did win last year though, so the precedent has been set, and it's hard to see them not being hot favourites again this year, with a massive readership and a high non-blogosphere public profile.

idolblog.com
This is probably the main competition for publicaddress, in that it's been wildly successful, had a lot of mainstream coverage, and no doubt gets a truckload of traffic. But, having said all that, again, it's not really a 'personal' blog in the traditional (traditional being 2001) sense of the word. While 'The Critic' and 'Admin' appear to be the main posters on the main page, the whole thing is really a massive community-driven forum designed to facilitate information sharing (ie. gossip, criticism and unbridled fawning) of the NZ version of the American Idol craze.

The Dark Horses...

kiwiblog.co.nz
David Farrar's excellent site is a personal blog in the truest sense of the phrase. It's all his own work, he's prolific, and one of the best political bloggers in NZ. He updates regularly (even to the point of tabulating not just how many posts all the other political bloggers are making, but also how many comments their blogs are attracting). If the judges can look beyond the glitz and glam of idolblog, and the sheer weight of numbers that publicaddress generates, kiwiblog might just slip in there down the inside...

bizgirl.blogspot.com
Me! Still quite excited. If they were going to give out the award based on a words-per-post criteria, I'd be a shoe-in.

Total outsider...

tylerryan.orcon.net.nz
a.k.a. Tyler Ryan 2004. Never heard of the site before, and I'd like to think I was pretty au fait with the NZ neck of the blogosphere. Now, no offence to Tyler, but no-one even links to the site - one of the keystones of blog worthiness, surely. Beyond recent mentions in relation to the awards, there's not even any action on technorati. He averages an update every three weeks or so, and his entire archive can be viewed on one not-too-large page. My only explanation for this blog being a finalist over literally dozens of other more worthy NZ blogs (off the top of my head: supergood, promenade, tam I am, ms. behaviour, hubris, noizyblog, fighting talk, short and sweet, the backyard) is that the category is being sponsored by Orcon, and Tyler's site is hosted on, umm, Orcon. Or is that just a conspiracy theory too many?

Anyway, I'm obviously just making up excuses before the event, so little hope do I hold out. The real kicker is that having given up any chance of being a finalist, I didn't book any tickets to go to the big event this friday in Auckland, so, despite my claims that I was over awards ceremonies this year, I will be feeling slightly disappointed that I'll be sitting at home on Friday night, instead of being at the Auckland Hyatt Regency, partaking in the free food and wine, and generally having a good time of it.

I won't mind so much if I win, though. Fingers crossed.

The problem with Artemis swearing me to secrecy on his little scheme is that I really can't tell you. What I can reveal is his discarded plans, which he's decided to drop due to being too complicated, too resource-intensive, or just nigh impossible.

1. The Kirkcaldies & Stains Big Heist.
This involved the stormwater drains, which Artemis had calculated ran close enough to the big old Wellington store for him to gain access to some random (probably imagined) utility tunnel which would get him into the store after hours. He figured ten minutes inside before the alarms went off would give him sufficient time to grab a couple of things his mum had shown a desire for. And maybe something for himself too.

2. The Big Bank Computer Scam.
Again with the stormwater drains. Apparently Artemis's mum is in pretty deep debt with the Bank. Having seen Fight Club recently, Artemis had decided that if he could somehow wipe clean the hard drives of the Bank which issued her card, that all her debt would somehow be erased as well. The plan was to get as close as possible to the bank via underground means, and then detonate some sort electromagnetic device that would wipe clean every hard drive within the vicinity. Actually, I quite liked this plan - my card was issued at the same bank.

3. Aliens in the Archives.
Somehow Artemis has got it into his head that alien remains are stored down in the vault of Archives NZ. This plan involved yet more tunneling, with the added bonus of probably having to find a means of cutting his way through some concrete and steel at the end. The theory was to find and steal the alien remains and sell the story to the media for some astronomical (ha ha) sum.

"What's with the tunnels, Artemis?" I had to ask. "Surely you could just walk up to Kirks and smash a window, or trigger your ECM bomb outside the bank on the street?"

Look at me: giving criminal tips to a nine-year old.

"Surveillance, Natalie. There are cameras everywhere, but not underground."
"Oh. Of course."
"Some criminal you'd be."
"I don't have any desire to be a criminal, Aretmis. Neither should you."
"Actually, I don't either. My mum finds it hard to get by with me and the twins. I thought I could help out."
"How about a job?"
"I already deliver circulars and mow lawns. It's not enough."
"I'm assuming from the way you talk that your father isn't on the scene to help out?"

I held my breath after I asked this question. He'd never mentioned his father, and it was pretty obvious it was just mum, Artemis and the twins at home, so I had no idea where Artemis Sr. might have got to. Dead? Done a runner?

"He's in prison," said Artemis. "The police think he murdered someone. He didn't. But he's still there, and will be for another five years at least."
"Ah, that's no good."
"No."
"But doesn't that show you that crime doesn't pay?"
"It does for some people. My father isn't a criminal. He was framed. Whoever committed the murder he got convicted for got away with it. With a lot of money too. It paid for him."
"Really?"
"Yes. "

Wow. Anyway, that was the gist of his main 'underground' schemes. He had a couple of variations and alternate plans that aren't really worth repeating, but it was obvious he'd spent a fair bit of time planning and researching just how he would go about achieving his schemes. And discovered, of course, that they were all far beyond the means of a nine-year-old boy. He had come to the obvious conclusion that he needed some grown-up help to help him achieve his aims. Thanks to some twist of fate, that someone had become me. Yay for me.

We discussed some of his new ideas, and I did my best to shoot down all the ones that involved any obvious illegal activities. I'll say this for the boy - he's not short of ideas. And he likes his information. In fact, it would seem my role is to be the information gatherer, with Artemis as my roaming field agent. The best, and most law-abiding scheme he had was...

...oh, that's right - I can't say. I can confidently say, however, that I will not be personally involved in any illegal activities, and nor will Artemis (if I can keep him in check). There may be some 'social engineering' going on here and there, but nothing that will deny anyone from anything they are rightfully entitled to.

Errr, yes. Perhaps more will be revealed as our plan proceeds. Or doesn't, as the case is more likely to be.

Until then, mum's the word.

previously: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ]

And continued here...

The end of my last post can be partly explained by my exploits from the weekend, which left me short of time for blog-writing.

Josh and I met for a coffee on Saturday morning, having called a truce to some pretty petty mind games that had been going on over the course of the week. He commented favourably on my new World blouse: a white cotton number with short-sleeves, a high neck and festooned with the most fantastic little-yellow-duck print. His praise of my garment choice melted any resentments I may yet have been holding against him. When he asked whether I'd like to head out to Island Bay to check out the primary school fair, my plan A - which had been to go home and write up the rest of my Friday afternoon meeting with Artemis - went out the door.

It was a beautiful spring day in Wellington. We caught the bus out to the southern coast suburb of Island Bay, and traipsed up to the primary school where Josh had received his childhood education. On the playground where some miniature cars were doing loop after child-pleasing loop, Josh showed me the exact spot where he'd pooed his pants in terror when called upon to answer a question that required him to demonstrate a working knowledge of the difference between left and right, a knowledge he did not have at that fateful moment.

We wandered amongst the sugar-laden kids and frazzled-looking parents, taking in the sights. And then, without warning, I was introduced to a woman - 'Kate' - who was manning one of the plant-selling stalls.

"This is my mum," Josh informed me.
"Oh, hello,"
"Natalie, I've heard so much about you!"
"Ah, really?"
"Oh yes, Josh sings your praises. It must be very satisfying being a librarian."
"Er, Yes."
"Did you love books as a child? Josh didn't. Just playing with himself all the time. Don't know where this librarianship notion came from,"
"Mum!" cried Josh. "Don't be an egg."
"Sorry dear," said Kate to Josh. She looked back at me. "My mistake Natalie. As far as I'm aware, Josh has always played very well with others."
"Um, yes. How much for one of those flaxes Kate?"
"Oh, a dollar for you dear. Take two, in fact."

I did, and was then whisked away by Josh. I'm a big one for judging a person's character by their parents, and I was now intrigued enough to wonder what Josh Sr. might be like. I mentioned this to Josh. He laughed, predicted I would love his father, and told me a story about him (sworn to secrecy again, unfortunately - it appears some people are becoming aware of how the blog thing works) that made me suspect his prediction might be right. It has to be remembered that male librarians like Josh are still pretty rare - a bit like male nurses - and that it takes a particular sort of man to want to dedicate himself to a profession the is traditionally seen as feminine one. What makes them tick? Is it in the genes? I am intent on finding out. Josh is my test subject.

Anyway, we loaded up on candy-floss, and then participated in the most flaccid raffle-wheel competition I have ever seen. Instead of spinning 20+ times and slowly clicking its way around to a number, this wheel seemed to be lacking in any sort of spinning impetus and managed nothing more than half a turn on any spin. "The Speed-Wheel!" the hawker called it, perhaps talking up the speed with which it was removing $2 from every unsuspecting dupe in the vicinity. At least the coconut shy was satisfyingly easy, and Josh and I both sent our targets clattering to the ground with a satisfying clunk.

By this time, a little after noon, with the sun beating down and the throng getting even larger, we made the decision to skip the no doubt picked over second-hand book stall and just head down to the beach. It was such a nice day, standing amongst a couple of hundred tantrums-in-waiting was starting to wear thin.

So we looped around via the supermarket and got ourselves a wee picnic and a couple of bottles of wine. Island Bay really is the most beautiful place. Some of the pohutukawa trees that line the Parade - the main street that runs down to the beach - were starting to bloom, which, Josh assured me, is a sign of an impending long hot summer. I could easily believe him - the day was scorching. I was regretting not having bought a hat of some variety, and I could feel the sun's rays burning into every part of exposed skin.

Walking to the beach laden down with our various picnic supplies, a couple of small flaxes and our coconuts, we were both completely sweating up a storm by the time we got to the beach. I would have loved to have gone for a swim, but was sans swimming costume. Josh didn't even hesitate, stripping down to his boxers and plunging into the sea without even breaking stride. I stayed on the beach, cooling myself instead with a large plastic cup of cheap Pinot Gris. And then another. And then, when Josh returned from his swim, a couple more, as we decided we'd better drink it all before the sun warmed it up too much.

Needless to say, on a stomach containing little more than candy-floss and some belated sun-dried tomatoes, feta and pita pockets, we were absolutely rollicking by mid-afternoon. After a quiet, alcohol-induced doze in the soporific UV rays, we decided to head back to town to continue our day in the shade somewhere, but, as we walked through the park to the bus-stop, we saw noizyboy playing with his two kids and stopped to say hello. He invited us back to his place where he was intending on getting the first barbeque of the season under-way. We accepted and did another round-trip via the supermarket to re-stock the booze and food supplies.

Noizy's got a lovely place in Island Bay, on the spur of a hill that gets sun until late in the day, and with a huge back lawn on which his two young sons seem to do nothing else but tear around playing whatever game takes their fancy at any moment. Tucked into one corner of the yard is a big brick BBQ, on which noizy cooked up a feast of dead animals and my token vegetarian sausages. Mrs noizy had prepared some delicious antipasto type treats, and Josh and I tucked in to the whole feast with gusto. The wee one's went down for story-time shortly after dinner, and the grown-ups retired inside once the sun had finally dipped below the horizon and went about finishing off another few bottles of wine, accompanied by a couple of smokes as the evening wore on.

Josh had been making noises about going to the Fly My Pretties concert in town, so, around 10pm we bid noizy and his lovely wife farewell, and wandered down to the bus-stop. Walking in the cool night air with only a light cardigan for warmth, it occurred to me that I was feeling far hotter than I should have. I touched the back of my arms, and felt the sting of sunburn upon them. The instant I became aware of it, I could think of nothing else. When the bus got to Newtown, I decided to leave Josh to it, and, despite his protestations that he should walk me home, I ordered him to stay on the bus, jumped off alone, and shuffled home to survey the damage.

I stripped off in front of my full-length mirror, and literally shrieked when I saw myself. It looked as though someone had painted my arms and legs a particularly shocking shade of neon pink. The tan lines from my blouse and shorts so sharply delineated the burn from my winter-white skin that you might have been fooled into thinking I was wearing some sort of elaborate pink coloured arm and leg warmers. I praised the stars for my SPF+15 Oil of Ulay that I use as my face moisturiser, which probably stopped me from taking on the total lobster look, but that was of little consolation as I climbed into the shower to 'take the sting out'. I ended up shrieking again as a million pin-pricks of pain lanced into my tender limbs.

I went to bed, pointlessly as it turned out, as I lay awake all night, tossing and turning as the burn settled in. By morning I had a colossal hangover to add to my misery, and my limbs were even redder than the day before. I had another stinging shower, drank several litres of water, popped some panadol, considered getting drunk again just to ease the pain, but ended up just sitting in my room for the afternoon with the curtains closed, listening to The Streets and Ghostplane. Every time I got up to turn on my laptop I felt a stabbing sensation in my temple and my arms and legs threatened to crumple up and fall off like so much old desiccated paper.

Hence, no Artemis follow-up. It is coming, I promise...

My 3.30pm coffee date with nine-year old criminal mastermind Artemis loomed. I was on a seemingly un-ending reference desk shift, usually a highlight for me, but, today, a deadzone. No-one, it seemed, was in need of expert information retrieval. The minute hand crawled on, and eventually staggered up to the half-hour mark.

I didn't see Artemis in the cafe upon my arrival, so I grabbed a flat white and a scone, took a table and pulled out the latest New Scientist I'd snaffled from Acquisitions.

Artemis arrived about five minutes later, walking in wearing one of those anonymous white-shirt-black shorts-brown-socks-black-shoes school uniforms. Tucked under his arm was a large folio-holder. He spotted me and walked over.

"Hi Artemis."
"Hello Natalie. How are you?"
"Excellent thank you. Could I get you something?"
"A short black thank you."
"Haha. I am not buying you coffee Artemis."
"Why not?"
"Artemis, really, I'd need to see a parental permission slip to buy you coffee. In fact, I'm probably breaking some obscure librarian's code that prohibits me from meeting patrons outside of work hours."
"You're a librarian Natalie. And I have coffee all the time."
"I'm not buying you coffee."

Artemis huffed at me, then marched off to the counter and ordered. He pulled out some plastic to pay with, got his number and came back to the table. He popped himself on a chair and pulled his folder open. Sitting inside was the map of central Wellington's underground drains and utility tunnels he had copied from the plan I had found for him in the Dungeon. Like he had told me, Artemis had added a transparent film layer of the overground streets and manholes, and then, on top of that another layer onto which he'd added several notable buildings. The usual suspects: the Beehive, the Cable Car, the Railway Station, but also all the McDonalds, Kirkcaldie & Stains, National Library and Archives New Zealand.

A waitress bought his coffee over, setting it in front of me. Artemis pointedly pulled it across to himself, took a sip, and nodded. I looked at his map.

"This is fantastic Artemis," I said, "well done."
"Thank you."
"Although, where's my library?" I asked Artemis, pointing down at the map. "You've got all this other stuff."
"Your library's not important enough to go on."
"But Kirkcaldie & Stains?"
"It's a heritage building."
"Where's the Old Bank Arcade then?"
"Ugh, it's a dinky-trap."
"A what?"
"Really, if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you."
"Please Artemis. I hate not knowing stuff."
"You must have a hateful life."
"Oh haha."

Wee shit. I ate some of my scone, not offering Artemis any. He leaned forward.

"Natalie," he said, "would you like to look after my map? I really don't have anywhere at home to store it, and it's just going to end up getting chucked out."
"Really? You'd give me your map?"
"Not give. You'd be looking after it."
"And I get from this ... what? Exactly?"
"I thought you might like to look after it. I thought that was a librarian thing."

Fair enough.

"Well, actually, you're right, I would like to look after it if it has no better home, I could even add it to the catalogue if you wanted."
"So other people in the library could use it?"
"If you wanted. Probably just as a reference item."
"Would you find my name on the OPAC if you looked me up by author?"
"Yes."
"That would be brilliant."

Artemis seem genuinely pleased. He took a rest from verbally sniping at me for a few minutes, and, despite a persistent case of know-it-all-itis, he acted like a normal nine-year-old for about ten minutes. We talked school.

"Soooo," I said, having decided his defences were down a bit: "What's the new project then?"
"New project?"
"Scuba diving? Archives security?"

He knew I was onto him.

"Er, Natalie, okay. Promise you won't tell?"
"I promise," I said.
"And that you won't laugh?"
"That too."
"Okay. I'll tell you."

[ continued here... ]

previously: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ]

Yesterday was my first day working with the web-team. I had the usual first-time-on-the-job jitters, absolutely sure I was going to be given a task I was completely unable to handle, and that my ongoing bluff - where I pretend to know even the first thing about actual IT architecture - is about to to be called. As it turned out, I was given the most basic of data entry chores as a way to familiarise myself with the (pretty clunky) content-management system they have running their back-end. I was chugging away quite merrily when the e-mail ping went off, and I instinctively ALT-TABbed across to check what was up.

Wanna Ro1ex?

Ugh. Damn spam. But then another email popped into the pane.

from: my-library-listserv
subject: A4-paper-holders-or-something

Another innocuous request for some library-specific bit of information. I returned to my task. Five minutes later, another email ping, so I go to check...

from: hotmail auto-responder
subject: re: A4-paper-holders-or-something

Uh-oh. I've seen this before. It's robot v. robot. And yes, without fail, five minutes later. ping...

from: hotmail auto-responder
subject: re: re: A4-paper-holders-or-something

...and five minutes after that...

from: hotmail auto-responder
subject: re: re: re: A4-paper-holders-or-something

...and then, of course...

from: unthinking-librarian #1
subject: re: re: re: A4-paper-holders-or-something PLEASE STOP
Please stop sending this email.

...which, naturally, has the five minute echo applied with equal measure...

from: hotmail auto-responder
subject: re: re: re: re: A4-paper-holders-or-something PLEASE STOP

...and on it went. All afternoon. Another couple of people fell into the 'please stop this' pitfall: adding to the mail-server ping-pong that was taking place between Victoria University here in Wellington (where the listserv is administered) and wherever in the world the Hotmail server lives. After a while someone had the sense to post a "How to Filter Email" message into the loop, and it was maybe a couple of hours before someone at the root sorted the actual problem, so it was only a few hundred errant emails in the end, but, still, it makes me laugh that this sort of information chaos can happen on a list for information and IT professionals.

Beyond a couple of revelations on how I could do what I was doing an easier way, I had no such e-mail ping-pong 'highlights' until the end of the shift. I wrapped up what was required of me with about an hour to go, so, on a whim, I had a go at downloading Google Desktop and installing it on the machine I was working on. I was logged in on some generic profile, so I'd normally expect the permissions to be set so I couldn't install software, but, in this case, no worries, and it ran fine. After half an hour or so it had built up a pretty decent index of the machine's files, and I ran a few keyword queries on it. And, I must say, there was some interesting stuff on this hard-drive. Not rude, mind, just interesting.

Information technology. Fun for work and play, eh fellow librarians?

In news that has been picked up around the world, All Black and Wellington rugby centre Ma'a Nonu has confessed to wearing eye-liner while playing. There's a bit of controversy as to whether or not Ma'a has been wearing the make-up as some sort of in-team punishment, or purely as a fashion statement that sets him apart from the other dreadlocked Polynesian players in the team (Tana Umaga, Rodney So'oialo). From what Ma'a says, you'd think the latter...

"When I first started playing at this level I had dreads, the same as Tana and Rodney. I tried a different look by colouring it. Then last year everyone was colouring their hair as well. I'm just trying to bring a different thing in by colouring my eyes, I think.

It's a personal thing, I put it on myself. It's a bit of a fashion statement, I think. Everyone's giving me grief, especially my best mates. I'm just going to stand by what I think and keep on doing it. And hopefully other players will try it as well."

Go Ma'a! And yes, I reckon Dan Carter should join the make-up club - a spot of eyeliner and some nice lipstick would make his fine features even more spectacular.

I'm also amazed no-one in the media has raised the possibility that Ma'a might possibly have been raised as a fa'afafine, but, well, that might be a step too far, methinks. What next - a gay All Black?

I have the most shocking New Zild accent. Working in a public library I try to talk as 'proper' and clearly as I possibly can, especially when dealing with the increasingly large number of patrons who don't speak English well, but, sometimes my vowels just morph together into a mass of dipthongs and random noises created by my tongue falling over my teeth.

Yesterday I was on reference when a guy about my age came up to the desk.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for a book that will explain the various types of air conditioning."

He had a very pleasant English accent - a bit posh. Very nice.

"Ear conditioning?"
"No, air conditioning. My ears are in fine condition."
"Ear?"
"Umm, air."
"Ear."
"Haha. Nearly. Can you hear it? Ear. Air."
"Err. Err."
"No, you're losing it now."

I laughed at myself, and suggested we just look it up. Having found some likely hits, I took him to the right shelf and let him browse for himself. I spent the rest of my shift silently voicing the words to myself: 'Air'. 'Ear'.

I cannot, for the life of me, discern the difference between them.

My maps cataloguing project that I was assigned to down in the Dungeon is at an end. It took twice as long as the original month that had been scheduled, and I was feeling a little wary as I tramped up to Mrs Kambaa's office for a 'debrief'.

"Shut the door please Natalie."

Argh! No! I shut the door, fearing the worst.

"Take a seat."

I did.

"Now, Natalie, first of all, I'd like to thank you for the excellent work you've done with the maps over the last two months. Both myself and Mrs Liddesdale have been most impressed with your thoroughness and attention to detail."
"Oh, thank you."
"As such, we've dipped into the miscellaneous budget and have found enough spare change to award you a bonus for your work. We thought a $100 voucher for World might be of some use to you."
"Wow! Really? Wow, thanks. Yes it would."
"Now we're not normally in the habit of giving out bonuses, so we'd prefer it if you kept this to yourself."
"Of course."

Strictly between me and my blog.

"Now, Mrs Strathsprey is back from maternity leave, so there's no need to move your secondment hours back to cataloguing, but it seems a waste to be using your talents on front-desk duty all day, so I've chatted with Mr Nonsuch of the web-team, and he seems to think you'd be able to help push through some initiatives they're working on at present."
"Great."
"The new responsibilities will come with a movement up in your salary band..."

Woo-hoo!

"...and will necessitate a review of your employment contract. Here's the amended contract, you might want to take it away to study in your own good time. There's nothing unexpected in there, just make sure you've read it through and pop it back to Mrs Liddesdale when you've signed it in the appropriate places."

Mrs Kambaa gave me the contract, and then we chatted a bit about the maps project, which made me realise that despite how lazy I'd felt doing the work, how much I had actually achieved. Mrs Kambaa congratulated me again on the work, and showed me out of her office. I caught the lift down to the ground floor and skipped my way merrily to returns where I was due a shift, when I nearly tripped over Artemis, who was staggering out of the children's non-fiction section with his latest haul of books.

"Artemis!"
"Natalie. How are you?"
"Very well! And you, up-to-speed on library security?"
"Or lack of, you mean."
"Er, well, perhaps. I meant to ask you what the interest was."
"Just that. Interest."
"You're not planning on robbing us, are you Artemis?"
"I would never rob a library, too little return for too great a risk."
"What would you rob, then?"
"Ah, well, there are several options."

At which point he realised he had, perhaps, said too much, and changed the subject...

"Natalie, would you still like to see that map I drew?"
"Very much."
"Can I meet you on Friday?"
"Sure. Just pop in and ask for me."
"How about at the cafe?"
"Um, yeah, suits me. I get a break about half past three. Can you make it by then?"
"Yes."
"You won't be robbing any banks before then I hope, Artemis?"
"No."
"Good. See you Friday."
"Yes. Goodbye Natalie."

He lurched off with his haul of books towards the issues counter, and I spent the rest of the afternoon wondering just what scheme he is working on.

Roll on Friday!

[ continued here... ]

previously:
maps [ 1 ] [ 2 ]
artemis [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]