All-the-thoughts-ever-thought - A Collection Of Thoughts

“In 1984, when Ruth Coker Burks was 25 and a young mother living in Arkansas, she would often visit a hospital to care for a friend with cancer.

During one visit, Ruth noticed the nurses would draw straws, afraid to go into one room, its door sealed by a big red bag. She asked why and the nurses told her the patient had AIDS.

On a repeat visit, and seeing the big red bag on the door, Ruth decided to disregard the warnings and sneaked into the room.

In the bed was a skeletal young man, who told Ruth he wanted to see his mother before he died. She left the room and told the nurses, who said, "Honey, his mother’s not coming. He’s been here six weeks. Nobody’s coming!”

Ruth called his mother anyway, who refused to come visit her son, who she described as a "sinner" and already dead to her, and that she wouldn't even claim his body when he died.

“I went back in his room and when I walked in, he said, "Oh, momma. I knew you’d come", and then he lifted his hand. And what was I going to do? So I took his hand. I said, "I’m here, honey. I’m here”, Ruth later recounted.

Ruth pulled a chair to his bedside, talked to him

and held his hand until he died 13 hours later.

After finally finding a funeral home that would his body, and paying for the cremation out of her own savings, Ruth buried his ashes on her family's large plot.

After this first encounter, Ruth cared for other patients. She would take them to appointments, obtain medications, apply for assistance, and even kept supplies of AIDS medications on hand, as some pharmacies would not carry them.

Ruth’s work soon became well known in the city and she received financial assistance from gay bars, "They would twirl up a drag show on Saturday night and here'd come the money. That's how we'd buy medicine, that's how we'd pay rent. If it hadn't been for the drag queens, I don't know what we would have done", Ruth said.

Over the next 30 years, Ruth cared for over 1,000 people and buried more than 40 on her family's plot most of whom were gay men whose families would not claim their ashes.

For this, Ruth has been nicknamed the 'Cemetery Angel'.”— by Ra-Ey Saley

“I very proudly entered the forestry school as an 18-year-old and telling them that the reason that I wanted to study botany was because I wanted to know why asters and goldenrod looked so beautiful together. These are these amazing displays of this bright, chrome yellow and deep purple of New England aster, and they look stunning together. And the two plants so often intermingle rather than living apart from one another, and I wanted to know why that was. I thought that surely in the order and the harmony of the universe, there would be an explanation for why they looked so beautiful together. And I was told that that was not science, that if I was interested in beauty, I should go to art school. Which was really demoralizing as a freshman, but I came to understand that question wasn’t going to be answered by science, that science, as a way of knowing, explicitly sets aside our emotions, our aesthetic reactions to things. We have to analyze them as if they were just pure material, and not matter and spirit together. And, yes, as it turns out, there’s a very good biophysical explanation for why those plants grow together, so it’s a matter of aesthetics and it’s a matter of ecology. Those complimentary colors of purple and gold together, being opposites on the color wheel, they’re so vivid, they actually attract far more pollinators than if those two grew apart from one another. So each of those plants benefits by combining its beauty with the beauty of the other. And that’s a question that science can address, certainly, as well as artists. And I just think that “Why is the world so beautiful?” is a question that we all ought to be embracing.”

— Robin Wall Kimmerer, “The Intelligence of Plants”, from the podcast On Being with Krista Tippett

Seeing a steady rise of people using the library as we carry through summer break, so here's a quick thread from a staff member on little things you can do (for free!) to make life easier on staff. Let's go!

If you want to put a book back, DON'T put it back on the shelf! Put it on the return cart or bin, or give it to a staff member. Not only does this make it MUCH easier to catch misfiles and gather abandoned books in one trip, our budget is literally based on returns. Putting it on a cart gives us more money!

(To expand on the above: not only do we get paid more based on more returns, our book-buying budget for next year is based on what titles seem popular. Even if you don't check out a stack of books, putting it on the cart lets us know there's an interest so we can order more in that genre and support that author.)

Conversely, if you see a cart already full of books being pushed around by staff, PLEASE don't yank books off it or loiter around it. Carts are unwieldy and returns can build up quick, so let a shelver have space to move around and do their job.

(Again expanding on the above, especially please don't yank books off a staff person's cart if you see them pulling books off the shelf instead of putting them back. Books are pulled for a reason--hold requests for another patron, damaged, need to be relabeled, etc--so taking one can really throw off our list.)

If you rent a DVD and notice it's scratched or doesn't play, please tell us! We don't have the time or resources to watch every returned DVD, so we rely on patron feedback. Even a note tucked inside the case helps it get flagged for damage inspection when we're processing returns.

Pay attention to news related to your local branch! The VAST majority of book-banning demands we get are bulk lists from only one or two people--which means contesting them (or requesting a challenged book) also only takes one person.

Remind your friends that most libraries don't do late fees anymore! We want to be a safe haven for low income and disabled/nd people, so don't let being late or disorganized or poor or anything else discourage you. Bring your books back whenever you can, or just mention to a librarian if you lose it, and you're always welcome to come back.

“If you promise to stay alive just a little bit longer I promise that we are going to make this world a place worth living in by any means necessary. I ain’t giving up. I swear.” 

Spotted in Clackamas, Oregon

"So, wait," said the thief, topping off the detective's wine glass. "You're saying that your stressful case is catching that hot shot cat burglar that everyone's talking about?"

The detective grimaced, but didn't change the subject. "Yep," they muttered into their Pinot and took a swig. "The celebrity criminal."

This was a triumph. This was their third date and the thief had spent the prior two carefully laying the emotional groundwork leading up to this moment. The detective, as a social partner, was affable and considerate - surprisingly funny even, in a dry, deadpan way - but rigidly guarded about their line of work. The thief had asked the normal questions about jobs and had been expertly deflected with self-deprecating jokes about spreadsheets and paperwork. The thief had been content to wait. The detective was a fundamentally honest person, and the thief trusted the truth would work its way to the surface soon enough.

"But that sounds exciting!" the thief prompted brightly. "I mean, daring heists executed by moonlight! It must be such a nice change from your run-of-the-mill crimes."

"Mostly it's just exhausting," sighed the detective, rubbing their temples. "This perp is such an asshole."

The thief blinked. "Excuse me?"

The detective shook their head, tried to force a smile. "I'm sorry. I've had too much wine. You were saying about your invitation to audition for the Bolshoi -?"

"Oh, forget about me," the thief said quickly. "Please, go on. You're clearly stressed about -"

"Do you know," the detective went on as if they'd never stopped, "the morning guy on Channel Seven had the nerve to call this a victimless crime?"

"Well, the insurance will pay for it," the thief started.

The detective slapped the table. The thief jumped. "What about the people?" the detective exclaimed. A few nearby heads turned in their direction. "Are people supposed to walk into museums and look at what, framed checks on the wall from Lloyds? And meanwhile, these masterworks disappear into the vaults of gangsters and petty criminals, never to be seen again. Because you can be sure," they added, jabbing a finger at the thief, "crooks that steal art have no love for it. They'll destroy it, every lick of paint, if there's the slightest risk to their own skins."

The detective took another deep swallow of red wine. They looked close to tears. The thief awkwardly patted their hand across the table. This was not at all what they'd expected on this little reconnaissance side mission. The detective caught their hand and squeezed it with a grateful look that wrenched something in the thief's upper chest area.

"Now those guys," the detective said thoughtfully. "The criminals with the vaults. Now that seems like a worthy target."

"I... huh?" The thief stared across the table. The detective looked back with those guileless, honest eyes. 

"I'm just saying," they said, with the slightest drunken slur on their words. "Walking the art out of some budget-strapped public facility is one thing. But emptying out of one of those vaults, liberating all those works of art and returning them to their rightful place before the public..." The detective sighed dreamily. "Now that actually sounds like a daring, hot shot kind of heist."

There was a moment where neither moved, gazing at each other like the lovers they were pretending to be. Then the detective tugged their hand free, stood up with an apologetic smile. "But I'm definitely tipsy," they said. "Let me go splash some water on my face."

When the detective returned from the restroom, the thief was still at the table, watching the waiter clear the plates. By unspoken agreement, they didn't speak until she was well clear.

"So, hypothetically speaking," the thief said finally, running a finger theough a puddle on the tabletop. "How would one go about this vault heist of yours?"

The detective smiled again, nothing drunk or vague about it at all.

everytime I remember that lesbian couple that have a marble statue of the two of them embracing and sleeping on a bed together over where their graves will be because the artists didn’t believe they would be able to be married before they died, so what they couldn’t have in life they could have in death, I fucking breakdown

dealing with the worst case scenario

your condom breaks

you feel a lump on your breast

your friends are ignoring you

you’re stranded on an island 

you got rejected by a crush

you get into a car accident

you got stung by a bee/wasp

you got fired from your job

you’re in an earthquake

your tattoo gets infected

your house is on fire

you’re lost in the woods

you get arrested abroad

you get robbed

your partner cheated on you

you’re on a ship that’s sinking

you fall into ice

you’re stuck in an elevator

you hit a deer with your car

you have food poisoning

your pet passed away

you fall off of a horse

you or your friend has alcohol poisoning

you have toxic shock syndrome

your house has a gas leak