Library Legs, Spring and Fall 2017, A Terrible, Terrible Visual Representation

First of all, I apologize. 

I had to share it. It sat there looking at me from my desktop, daring me to do it, for nine-ish months. There's no denying I've been distracted in 2021, but you could understand my hesitation in sharing it at all. Look at it. 

Such meaningful shenanigans corner me into one particular existential corner: Am I or am I not a Serious Person? 

Or am I but a Dancing Monkey? A Cop from Keystone? A Gibbering Foole?

Finally, in this year of our lord 2021, can I not be all? The truth of the matter is that I had great, dissociative fun making this insane map. And if you've clicked the link to get this far, I've made you look. That's good enough for me.

It started semi-seriously. I just wanted to see a visual representation of my travels. After all, I'd trekked some 13,000 miles (not including in-town back and forth from lodging to libraries to dinner to tourist sites, etc.). It was worth seeing the whole picture. 

Any endeavor to "make" a map from scratch was immediately out the door. A quick Google search reminded me of ye olde publishing days, when more than one author asked, miffed: Can't you just make a map? As though we had cartography interns on call, ready to scratch out a detailed rendering of 1756 South America, denoting cultural shifts, death tolls, political upheavals and in all the eye-friendly colors of the world. If Google Maps served me so well on the road, it could do it once more, by way of entering all the destinations up and taking a screenshot* of whatever came up at the end. 

It was more challenging than expected. For one, there are limits to the number of destinations you can add to one trip in Google Maps. It would have made my life much simpler if Google had allowed them all, but I was happy to at least get the general outline of the trip, regardless. 

The lucky break to the whole, messy undertaking was the fact that I'd saved links to every single destination in the spreadsheet I made to plan the trips back in 2017. Every city, place I stayed, every site I visited. It should surprise no one that I had the whole adventure planned with very little room for spontaneity. Not to say I was never spontaneous, especially when I had no choice, like when I got elevation sickness in Colorado followed closely by the flu in California. There were times I could not bear the idea of sleeping in the car, whether I was jonesing for a bed, a bathroom, and privacy or just getting a bad vibe from a rest stop, so made a reservation at a hotel instead. This may not be so much "spontaneous" (which suggests positive attributes like courage, fun, outgoing, and so on) as it is just "less rigid," but being able to roll with the changes was still a significant departure from the person I'd become in New York: sequestered, heart-sick, and deeply anxious. It still shakes me up that I did any of this at all.

So, the map.

Hearts mark cities and sites I visited, though they do not represent every single place I went (impossible in this format); lizard eyes mark where I bunkered down, sick as hell; places in gray are Google; places in purple and orange are mine; dark blue line is leg one; light blue line is leg two. Note the directional arrows! I visited every state in the Western United States, with the starting point in Wichita noted with the giant smiley star. Why stop there? I added clips of photos I took on my journeys (which rendered crazy) and then, for reasons known only to my 2020-sequestered-psychologically-addled mind, I added pictures of my cats, too. WHY NOT. After all, it was during one of the first car-sleeps during leg two that I realized how completely I loved them as I laid there in the dark of my Rogue feeling blue and keening for their little fur-faces, followed immediately by snorting in derision at what a marshmallow peep I'd become. But if you find maps boring...well, that's weird, but if you do, the cats really add a level of zip and zing most maps could never offer. Look at those little faces. A few twerpy cats would have certainly spiced up some of our scholarly monograph maps. This is a fact.

Why the giant yellow eye icon at Loveland Pass? Why the rainbow sticker at Jackson, Wyoming? Follow the links and relive my library tour of the western United States! I'm doing a bit of that myself over on my new Instagram page, created primarily to supplement my new freelancing website, though it has been a blast revisiting these travels. Even more so after the grim, anxiety-ridden wake of 2020. 

So does my fever dream of a Library Trip 2017 Map make me less of a Serious Person? More of a Giant Doof? Does it matter? And that's what made me finally post it. It's stupid and I love it. And it shows just how far I went...and how far I've come. Liberation from constant panic is next door to one's best conception of heaven. Next up: liberation from self-consciousness. That would take care of the serious/not question for EVER.

Actually, I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry at all.

*fair use, look it up, bay-be

Hampton Branch at Oak Hill, Austin, Texas

Everything feels skewed and strange, but I'm probably still discombobulated from watching Get Out at the Alamo Drafthouse yesterday. There are many across the city, I chose the South Lamar location due to its proximity to the Ruiz library and the fact that it played standard flix (as opposed to the closest location, which only had "art house" showings at later times...I am not sure I would consider The Warriors an art house movie, though it is life changing).

Get Out is smart, cutting, and uncomfortable; it is in many ways the cinematic equivalent of side eye. Good God, Allison Williams with that goddamned bowl of Fruit Loops, glass of milk, having the "time of her life"? I just about fell out of the chair. It pinches in all the soft parts, and if you don't squirm and groan at least once, you are clearly missing the point. Mixing the sociological incongruities and injustices with straight up horror is just brilliant. I don't think I've ever rooted quite so hard for a protagonist (Daniel Kaluuya, shattering) in my life, especially since horror fans are all too aware of the vicious Night of the Living Dead conclusion, where we learn the hard, cold truth that there really is no justice, no fairness, just an ugly white light of the now.

When I pulled up to the Hampton Branch at Oak Hill this morning, the dissociation was still lingering. I felt a little exposed and a lot spread thin, seeing things through a fantastical lens (more on that in a minute) that was not entirely bad, at least until I entered the library.

It is a very small space. All previous small libraries I've documented were nowhere near as small. The only space reserved for deskwork is dead smack in the center of the library's main expressway: On one side, the DVD collection, on the other side, children's books. I had to put on my headphones to block out the constant noise.

It is a library due for refurbishment (it says so on the website) but they have a pretty large collection of books for such a small space. The library is clean and well kept, though, as the website would suggest, new carpet, chairs, etc., would make a huge difference.

What threw me off, especially this morning, was how strange everyone seemed when I walked in through the main doors. The way front desk staff treats patrons when they first arrive makes every difference to people like me (anxiety prone, hyper sensitive, especially when freefloating and not quite "anchored in"). Two women were speaking together at the front desk, then stopped and looked at me pointedly--one beat, two beats, three. I charged forward (never retreat--it is the instinct but feels so much worse in the long run) trying to keep my expression neutral because I know more often than not it is my imagination running wild, and nothing more insidious than that. But the feeling persisted. Since I've been here, the hustle and bustle of this library has been nothing short of Soviet-propaganda-film levels of industry, and for such a small library it's just plain weird. I don't know, perhaps they haven't shelved books in weeks and today is the Big Day. People, people everywhere. All glancing far too often for no logical reason.

My decision to use AirBNB on this trip is a very conscious effort to confront my discomfort in other people's homes. So far my experiences have been mostly positive, but there is always an undercurrent of self consciousness; I am a stranger occupying someone else's space and I am never really welcome. Even if I am, it doesn't matter: In my head, I do not belong here. Most of the libraries I've visited feel like deliberately public spaces. They are a blank slate, an open arena that no one owns and everyone belongs. The Hampton at Oak Hill feels quite the opposite, so it's best I keep it brief. I am going to do some research then book it out of here.

There was one thing, though. That fantastical bit? When I pulled up I found a perfect, shady space at the back of the lot, right on the edge of a large greenspace with two curious indentations.

A giant sat upon yon field.