First Post

Welcome to When You Were 5's new home on Blogger. I think that WyW5 will be much happier here, as God knows I am. It's simply easier to use and much more interesting a host site than livejournal.com ever was.

I'm hoping that I can get a real style going here, something bedrock instead of reactionary. But perhaps that isn't the point - the point is to post come hell or high water. Which, if both were to simultaneously occur, would make the mother of all weather reports.

I'm stalling here. Today has been another vague progression of hours spent on the 'net and in the library. I made off with the Survivor's Guide to Work, the memoirs of Nelson Rockefeller and re-upped my lease on the People's History of the United States. Kind of a cool trifecta, really. From oil-baron wealth to Chomsky, with a little tongue-in-cheek manual on cubicle survival thrown in the middle. In a dusty, rust-bitten filing cabinet stored somewhere in the back of my head is this notion that I'm going to put a stranglehold on my freefalling career and reach nirvana. Preferably before rent is due.

Going to the new, ultra-modern Seattle Public Library always leaves me cold, if not irritated. The place was supposed to be this amazing new architectural addition to the Seattle skyline, but the overall effect, at least for me, is having to browse for books in a combination airport/penitentiary. It's nothing but rivets and metal and sharp edges, held together by eye-burn bright plastic and ultramodern flash. What gets me the worst though, is the fact that the most basic premises of architecture seemed to have been brushed aside. Such as ease of navigation, putting the spotlight on the books themselves, etc.

The SPL is to libraries what Versace is to clothing: garish, overly complex, and very costly to manufacture. But you've got the link - go see for yourselves.