Dear Friends/Readers, 

After many months of not posting, I have decided to retire my blog.  The past year has been very successful for the letting go and now I must focus on the go getting.

I have finally graduated from Library school and am facing the horrible job market with as much go-get-em as I can muster.  I have pretty much quit smoking, though I will occasionally succumb to temptation.  I am contemplating my future and where I want to be geographically and looking forward to whatever may come. I am also reading my ass off.

I hope to come back with a more focused purpose for blogging and more time for keeping it up!  

Until then, 

XXXOOO

Miss LGG

As I grew older, covers containing feather haired bad boys with motorcycles or surfboards totally came home with me in my denim purse.

These days, my taste is much better all around. Gone are the days of stone washed jean purses, bubblegum drama and the lure of the bad boys (aka jerks). I certainly care more about the inner workings of a book, and I can really appreciate a great cover design. Often a lovely cover can pull me in without (god forbid) even reading a review!

Joseph Sullivan at the BDR (Book Design Review) posts his top designs of the year.

I want to devour every single one of them!

XXXOOO
Miss LGG

ONE MORE WEEK!!!!
XXXOOO
Miss LGG

Courtesy of GiggleSugar

Wanna see more song charts? Check out this Song Chart Meme Flickr set by boyshapedbox.

XXXOOO

Miss LGG

Courtesy of Mike:

Bwah!

Miss LGG

Occasionally, I feel like this…

Check out this video from Ted.com (if you aren’t familiar with this site–it is an AWESOME collection of talks by really smart people on a countless number of topics):

“Artist and comedian Ursus Wehrli shares his vision for a cleaner, more organized, tidier form of art — by deconstructing the paintings of modern masters into their component pieces, sorted by color and size. Beyond the whimsy, of course, is a serious message, to honor and balance creativity and messiness, form and chaos.”

I could definitely use some of that aforementioned balance. Soon, soon I hope to meld my two worlds. Three more weeks!

XXXOOO

Miss Lgg

I was fortunate enough (thanks to my awesome boyfriend) to score a ticket to the ralley on Tuesday night! It was indescribably exciting, inspiring, emotional, beautiful and only mildly claustrophobic. You may have seen some pictures of the crowd in Grant Park. If you look closely there are some patches of trees in the way way way way back of the crowd. That’s where we were. Those trees, however, were on a tiny hill–and even though I was squinting through the leaves, and worried that the people who had climbed the trees were going to fall on me, I could actually see the stage, as opposed to someone’s back. I have to thank the awesome, tall boyfriend for sacrificing his branch-free, clear view for me to get a tiny glimpse of history.

It’s a long and sort of funny story of how we ended up way in the back of the crowd, but let’s just say it involves a VIP trolley, Spike Lee, the quick realization that we were not where we were supposed to be/way out of our league and a speedy return to the land of the regular people (aka a long ass line).

But, I digress…the whole night was incredible, and I am beyond amazed and hopeful for our future. Wow, it feels really good to say that, to think that. It feels really good to be proud of this country–I can’t remember the last time I felt that way.

Here’s to a new day!

XXXOOO,

Miss LGG

Dear readers, lovely friends:

I have slacked on my bloggings over the last couple of months.  I apologize.  I shall return.   Over the past month and a half, I have been:

• slicing my head open on a wrought iron fence while playing softball/sporting some nice shiners for three weeks.
• obsessively watching MSNBC.
• enjoying my last two graduate classes–Internet Publishing and Research Methods, the best classes I have taken yet, and the hardest…not good for a major case of senioritis.
• obsessively panicking over the end of graduate school and having nightmares that even after completing my master’s I am still working at current place of employment.
• looking for library jobs (in order to combat bullet point two)
• reading the ridiculous and highly addictive candy of a young adult series, Twilight
• thinking about Open Access and how I can make a career out of advocating for it
• missing my very busy, super talented boyfriend who has been working on multiple shows.

Sorry you had to look at the ATM of books for so long. 

XXXOOO,

Miss LGG

It is only $50,000.

Please. Pretty please. 

XXXOOO

Miss LGG

I didn’t know the guy. I’ve read some of his essays and struggled with Infinite Jest over and over and over again, but by the time I was finally done with it, I had a new favorite author and literary hero. I never knew much about the man himself, but through the loving words of his students, colleagues and friends am learning that in addition to being a genius, he was also a kind and gentle soul. I think those might be rarer than literary geniuses, which makes his untimely death that much harder.

This one, by another of my favorite authors Zadie Smith, hit me the most:

“He was my favourite. I didn’t feel he had an equal amongst living writers. We corresponded and met a few times but I stuttered and my hands shook. The books meant too much to me: I was just another howling fantod. In person, he had a great purity. I had a sense of shame in his presence, though he was meticulous about putting people at their ease. It was the exact same purity one finds in the books: If we must say something, let’s at least only say true things.¹ The principle of his fiction, as I understand it. It’s what made his books so beautiful to me, and so essential. The only exception was the math one, which I was too stupid to understand. One day, soon after it was published, David phoned up, sincerely apologetic, and said: “No, look … you don’t need anything more than high school math, that’s all I really have.” He was very funny. He was an actual genius, which is as rare in literature as being kind—and he was that, too. He was my favourite, my literary hero, I loved him and I’ll always miss him.

¹ And let’s say them grammatically.

—Zadie Smith

Crap, I’m crying again. So silly.

Read them all at McSweeny’s.

XXXOOO,

Miss LGG