Let's call this Photo Friday

It's Friday! And I spent all day at work getting conflicted every time someone asked How are you? I still don't have the hang of it. I tried taking Scott's advice and just saying Hello in response, but that kept feeling like I was walking off a dock. Like there was supposed to be a boat underneath me but suddenly I was up to my neck cold, fishy water. Then I went so far as to ignore one man who asked me how I was while I was shelving, and then it seem like he recovered by pretending he'd been talking to the New Nonfiction shelf. It was uncomfortable, and I had to make up for it by being extra nice to him at check-out. Finally, at the end of the day, a patron I knew to be consistently super nice came up to the desk and without even thinking about it I blurted out How are you! and she said, I'm fine! How are you!, and she said that even though she had $100,000,000 in library fines, but she made me remember that How are you? makes sense when you really want to know how someone is, or just to hear them talk about themselves for a minute. Some people are just exciting to be around, though I guess if the library has you on the brink of bankruptcy, you might be a little excitable.

The view from the snack bar at Golf 'n' Stuff Ventura, California, December 31, 2011