Things I have learned, version 10: May/June 2008

[silveradept]

May Flowers in bloom and wisdom with it. Theoretically. And June was actually kind of quiet for Things Learned. Perhaps because of all the Summer Reading stuff. Well, hopefully. Anyway, this is what I learned these two months:

1) Left Behind: The Kids has at least 38 volumes. How long can the end of the world take?

2) My brain works in odd ways - hearing someone describe the idea of having slept through terrors by carrying a practice sword in one hand, and a teddy bear in the other, made me think of how appropriate that imagery would be for the tarot card The Magician. Perhaps someone with better Tarot knowledge will tell me it suits The Fool better, or The Emperor, or The Hermit, but The Magician is what came to mind first.

3) The fashion style of wearing pants that permit obvious view of boxer shorts or other underclothes is not limited to men.

3b) Although I will give credit that the people I observed this trend on choose flannel boxer shorts to show off, rather than, say, a g-string or other, more revealing attire.

3c) I still, however, find this style of dress to be odd - the purpose of wearing underclothes is for them to be under clothes, not visible. Thus, wearing or pants or shorts on top of already-visible underclothes seems to defeat the purpose.

3d) The reverse of this style has the same difficulty as the original - wearing one's athletic shorts so low as to permit the full view of one's jeans underneath tends to defeat the purpose of the athletic shorts in the first place.

4) It's a good day when your credentials are called into question by an irate customer. It's a better day when you have enough good relations to ask a favor of the person that's annoying the customer and he's cool with toning it down for a bit.

5) Some things I have learned the library is not, according to my users:
a) A playground
b) A hanging-out space
c) A place where people can check out any books they want to
d) A place to play games on the computer
e) A place where noise of any kind is permitted
f) A place to talk

6) Not everyone feels that their fellow beings are deserving of common courtesy, nor is everyone considerate of the possible effects their actions have on others.

Comments

[draxynnic.livejournal.com]

Ummmn...

Isn't 5c pretty much the definition of a public library? Short of any not-for-loans material if they mean checking out as in borrowing rather than checking out as in simply looking at, of course...

[silveradept]

Yes, but there are plenty of self-appointed censors for the adults (and kids), and plenty of parents that believe their kids should only be reading a narrow band of material in their "reading level" or that's approved by their religious or personal beliefs.

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

I take some exception with your definition of the purpose of underclothes - the purpose, surely, is to be the clothing closest to your skin, and therefore have various properties of softness and comfort compared to the kind of clothing you wear far from your skin for other reasons (like warmth and hard-wearing-ness)?

[silveradept]

Okay, I can see that. Some part of me says stubbornly, "And you would wear those farther-from skin clothes on top of the underclothes, wouldn't you? So that they would still be under your normal outer-wear clothes?"

But the comfort and softness point is well-taken - a layer of comfort against a potentially itchy or otherpurporsed outer layer(s).

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

What's worse than looking at boxers is looking at a female wearing low-rise pants, a short top, and then you *do* see the top of their g-strings.

[silveradept]

I think most boys and men, and possibly quite a few women, would make a first check to see if she was an attractive female before passing judgment on whether it was something to be decried.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

No, I really don't think attractiveness matters in this. Butt cleavage is just not the same as boob cleavage.

[silveradept]

If you focused solely on the cleavage, perhaps, but generally speaking, the people checking for attractiveness aren't. It's the same principle hat makes breast cleavage so attractive - it doesn't show anything, but it does give definition to the size and shape of the breasts nearby, which is what someone is probably really checking out.