Natrona County Library, Casper, Wyoming

Upon arriving in Casper, Wyoming I determined that a sit down dinner was in order, so I started Googling around to see what was what. I eventually settled on The Office, a bar and grill with a high star rating described as a "quirky eatery serving eclectic diner fare, beer & cocktails amid Hollywood memorabilia." One reviewer referred to the interior design as "interesting" so I was really looking forward to whatever "wild" and "weird" decor was in store.

There was literally nothing weird nor quirky about The Office, other than the nonsensical name that did not match up with the basic interior that looked nothing like an office. I'm not even sure I saw any of the aforementioned memorabilia, but then I kept to front of the restaurant, so maybe it was more toward the bar? The Office was a nice place, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't special in the decorative sense. In fact, the most special part about it were the cutie pie fishies in the gigantic tank in the hallway. See how the biggest spud turns to say hiiiiiiiiiii?

What a happy little face.

No filter can save me
from lighting this bad.

The service was great and the food was excellent. I had a beef gyro with fries and a Dr. Pepper. While everything was good, the standout had to be the fries. It's worth a shout out and visit just for the fries alone. And it raises and interesting point: Why can't all fries be this good? It can't be that complicated. It just can't. So what's the deal? Why are there so many substandard fries? If you're going to eat the garbage and risk the poundage, it should at least be a spectacular taste sensation. Otherwise you might as well get chunky eating Swedish Fish and Circus Peanuts.

Side Note: In honor of Halloween, just days away, can we all agree that anyone who hands out Circus Peanuts on this, the most sacred of nights for kids, might as well put a sign in the window that states I HATE CHILDREN DIE DIE DIE? Because there is no love in the Circus Peanut. There is only a doorway to an abyss where all light dies and everything tastes like licking your 98-year-old Aunt Gertrude's kitchen counter. Sticky. Dusty. Bitter and sweet.

After another stellar AirBNB experience (I had the  basement to myself and the bathroom was stocked with every fun sized shampoo, conditioner, soap, face creams, lotions, etc. etc. you could possibly need), I headed over to the Natrona County Library, right in downtown Casper.

First of all, I loved downtown and wish I would have taken more pictures. It was as though Brooklyn and Wichita met at the Wyoming State Fair, do-si-doed, then had a fat, gurgling baby named Casper. The cutest. There were lots of old shops with old signage mixed in with trendy new places. Somehow the old coexisted in a pretty equal balance with the new. It was refreshing and dear.

The library was a hot mess of pure unadulterated PERSONALITY. I knew I was going to love it when I saw its entire front face was a gotdamned curved wall. Girrrrrrl. And born in 1972 to boot, just like me.

In addition to being a Soviet Spaceship from Polaris 5, Natrona library was bustling with activity. There were people coming and going at all corners. This was a library living up to its best potential, with an invested, present, and needful patronage many libraries could only dream of. I usually prefer an emptier library, but that's just a selfish desire. When all is said in done, the sight of a busy library warms my heart far more than eight hours sitting alone with the books.

Ask me how many times I ran up and down this ramp.

My favorite part of Natrona was the foyer. "Foyer" is a small word. Maybe "Grand Concourse" is more appropriate? That outer curved wall carries on to an inner curved entryway, with doors at either end, and an insane, 70s-perfect display case and atrium extravaganza. Interior to the outside wall are huge plants that were popular in the groovier decades: elephant ears, mother in law tongues, and so on. On the opposite side of the walkway are display cases, uniform in size and shape, curving upward as the entryway ascends.

The Office, take notes: This is how you get down in dirty with the quirky.

There was also a Barbara Bush Reading Room, pictured below. I looked her up to find that she was born in New York, so I am not really sure why Casper has a Barbara Bush Reading Room (and there is no information on their website or in my Google searches)...except maybe they just really, really love Barbara Bush?

I sat near a back corner and did some work while I watched the clock, knowing I would have to leave by a certain time in order to make it to the next library before they closed. The art throughout the library was all about the Old West, with cowboys rustling steer, lots of lonely pastorals, and representations of Native Americans that were specific to culture rather than Western legend.

I tried finding information on the artist, M. Sheppard, but ran into a wall. Per usual, Natrona's website does not have information on the art displayed there. This is pretty standard for almost every library I've visited where an art credit was required. I'm just glad there were no paintings of cowboys and indians at war, shooting their guns to and fro, all looking happy to be there.

The back door, also fancy.

Whitmore Library, Cottonwood Heights, Utah

Oh Whitmore Library, how desperately I wanted to stay. I loved everything about you from the minute I arrived to your ample parking lot and first espied your beautiful, foxy boxy glory.

Why are you like this? "Cruel and unusual" should be the only description on your "About Us" page. It aptly describes my visit there, to a razor sharp T.

I love a library that pretends to be a 1950s post office, especially when it's actually significantly newer, but I especially love a library that refuses to state her age. I had to look past the information page offered by the library system itself to an article on the Cottonwood Heights community website to find out that Whitmore is 43 years old (b. 1974).

But Whitmore has treasures in store...so much more than that drab, government-bureaucracy-at-work exterior could tell.

I parked around the side and immediately saw my first focal point of squeaking and picture taking: A curved wall. As I've screamed here before, they are my fave. Big Fave. I'm maniac for the curved wall. The best part of a curved wall, especially in an otherwise box-shaped structure, is that it has no reason for existing other than to be Special, Weird, and Pretty. There's no practical function to a curved wall. It vexes organization charts and resists traditional furniture.

The Curved Wall.

But there it was, in all its glory, which I documented with my usual, curved wall fervor. Little did I know that was the appetizer to a deliciously strange meal.

Once you enter the Whitmore, one element reaches out, grabs you by the cuff, shakes you vigorously, then french kisses you in the eyeballs. It makes NO sense, it follows NO logic, it is beyond purpose or reason, maybe even sanity itself. What otherworldly, completely psychotic element is this? The ceiling-lighting scheme. Look at it. LOOK AT IT.

O. My. GOLLY.

Heavens to Betsy.

I could barely contain myself as I stumbled in, trying to look cool taking my down-low pictures, but I could tell I was exuding palpitations and exhalations. It was so beautiful. So extreme. So completely nuts.

I love the Whitmore ceiling-lighting scheme so hard.

There were nifty little study corrals to set up shop next to other laptop laborers, so I sat down, plugged in, and started working on that day's blog entry. Little signs instructed patrons in this area to be courteous and quiet (no talking to each other or on cell phones) but a man that smelled like hot, angry lemons emitted a seemingly endless, breathless monotone under his hand and into his cell, looking up every once in awhile to see if he was caught. The rest of us just typed away, obeying the rules and not really minding the Monotone Lemon Man since his talent for speaking as though he was somehow white noise was kind of impressive, anyway.

Alas, I could not stay. Perhaps the weird, circus-tent structure of the building is the problem. Maybe it is some technical issue beyond my understanding or influence. Whatever the reason, the wifi would not cooperate. I tried every trick in my bag, but the best coverage I could get was weak or nonexistent, and constantly changing. Since my objective for that day was to track down links for an obscene number of 80s songs, it simply was not going to do.

I was truly sad to leave the Whitmore. It's not often that something so boring and charmless on the outside hides within it something so weird and wonderful. Au revoir ma étrange truffe.

Andover Public Library, Andover, Kansas

I'm going to give the Andover Public Library a second chance. I am sure they care (they don't) but what matters more is that I care...and such a pretty library deserves more than one shot at a first impression. Some libraries can't hope for better (God deliver me from ever seeing San Bernardino's horror house of a library again), but some certainly should. Maybe I was just having an off day.

The exterior of the building is very modern-handsome. I must again thank the Lordy Lord that the (semi)current architectural trend is toward 50s Gas Station Chic, with weird flairs that make sense to some but not all, catapulting the library somewhere into the mod-mysterious range of rotating styles and trends.

And FLAIR, it has, so much flair, many much flair. Stan would be proud. This library has a whole lot going on. It is aggressively interesting.

The Andover Public Library is a big fan of frosted glass, cool blues against burnt peach, Extrawhimsical Children's' Section Flairage, and curved half walls that can stop a person cold in her tracks, suddenly yanked back to a slightly more vapid time. But more on that in a minute.

The main circulation desk is breathtaking and cavernous, with trendy hanging lamps and bright colors offsetting the even more striking sight of the main library, which is, in a word, cavernous.

As I toured each section of the building, I became more and more excited to spend time there. The ambiance is upbeat, fun, and chill--it is exactly the sort of place you'd expect to be conducive to writing. Alas.

The Curved Wall. 

The Story Laboratory converts to a Tornado Shelter as needed!

 I found a perfect perch against the aforementioned curved half-wall and set up shop. I should confess that I'm a sucker for a curved wall. It's rather sad, but I'll carry that torch until the day I die, probably flung into a wave, tears salting the sea turned black by my bitterness because I never got a curved wall in my house. This is all the fault of my ex. We went to many, many open houses when searching for the right subdivision and home we wanted to build. Sometimes we would go to the higher end open houses for fun, but really it's just a means to a painful end, where you learn that maybe you're always going to pine for some bullshit THING that doesn't matter, never mattered, but dammit GIMME IT. It's like that sometimes. And once, in an outer-outer berg somewhere between Kansas City and Lawrence, we visited a terrible place that had every indulgent thing people with money to burn might want: huge bedrooms, all with private baths/Jacuzzis; huge entertainment room with bar that opened out to an elaborate, nearly forested back yard/enchanted land...and somewhere in that maze of space, dark wood, travertine, all things shining and new, there was a curved freaking wall. There was no reason for it, no rhyme. They just made it happen there. And it was smooth. And perfect. It changed me.

Flairy Flairage May Have Gone Too Flair

One step closer to demon! Oh well. Wanting things with empty calories leaves us forever starved, ay.

Note the pretty tiles against the orange painted walls--I'm not the only one who is reminded of the pool at the Y, right? Or the pool back in school? Everyone took swimming in high school gym, didn't they? Or were we the only lucky ones? I know we had to pass swimming in order to take canoeing, which was a rite of passage for any North High student since it was singular to our high school experience. Anyway, that was part of it, I'm sure. The "problem" with Andover. But that was just the start.

As I worked on photo editing, wrote, and researched (all things you can now do without cracking a book and from the seat of your ass, praise technology), I kept looking up, over, around. Behind me, up, down. You know that thing where you look off into the distance to think better? This environment was not conducive to that activity in particular. I took a picture to illustrate.

Aaaaaiiiiiggghhhh

It's so cool, right? All those angles, colors, lights, bars, joints, pipes, drop ceilings but only partial because FLAIR...it's all a bit shouty in the end, and I could not concentrate no matter what I did. It didn't help to be facing a busy-bright wall while people walked back and forth behind me, and ultimately I started feeling claustrophobic, which is a weird reaction to a place that is objectively huge and open.

In the end, I wrapped things up and fled for the hills, westward home. So, we'll try, try again, Andover, you frosted glass freaks. Bless your hearts! And your wild, unvarnished FLAIR.

[O Joyous Update: Of all area libraries, I've spent the lion's share of book-writing time at Andover, with Mulvane a second runner up. It turns out that Andover has these wonderful little study rooms at the back (near the "Story Laboratory") that are first come, first serve and have NO TIME RESTRICTIONS whatsoever. The times I've encountered the rooms already in use, I set up shop at the curved wall, put on headphones, and waited my turn. I have never had to wait longer than an hour to nab a room.

The rooms are perfect for quiet study and writing. There are no distractions, and people in adjacent rooms are more often than not engaged in quiet study, as well. The only time things got truly out of hand was when a big weather front rolled through, complete with heavy rain, thunder, and minor hail. When it first started, it sounded like floods of water were draining above me somewhere so I initially mistook it for a plumbing issue. Then the hail started. It was loud. I packed up my stuff to head out into the main library to see what was up. As soon as I opened the door: CACOPHONY. Epic, reverberating, bone shaking noise. Why so? Because the roof is metal and there is apparently no sound proofing of any kind in the main part of the library. It was LOUD.

It was a one-off, though. Most of the time, Andover is a haven for writing. I absolutely adore it. It does have one pervasive issue that persists to this day. Once I'm all the way back in the study room behind a shut door, it's barely noticeable, but near the front of the library and especially in the main foyer, it can get downright obnoxious: fumes. To me it smells most like jet engine fumes. Sometimes car fumes or paint fumes, but if I had to choose one, I'd say jet engine. While there are plane manufacturers between Andover and Wichita, they are not right next door. City Hall is right next door, and I wondered if municipal vehicles were left idling for some odd reason, but from what I can tell that is not the case. Nor is the parking close enough to create such a concentrated, noxious odor.

Worse yet? When I asked the circulation staff about it, they claimed not to notice it at all. I admit I'm a bit of a bloodhound, but if a smell has reached a choking and gagging level (which it sometimes does!) how on earth am I the only one who notices it????

Anyway! It's a non-problem for my current usage of the Andover Public Library. So, my overall rating has rocketed from Distracting Flair Monster to Oasis of Solitude Slightly Tinged with Engine Emissions.]

Entrance to the Children's section--it's even bigger in real life!