Your Neighborhood Librarian Avoids the Clap

Gracious, looks like I never posted this, despite having written it in about March. It's about a surprising thing:

So, here's a surprising thing. Today's adventure - in our ongoing series of Your Neighborhood Librarian Gets Shit Done - involves something that I was putting off for a reallly long time, and that's buying jeans. My New Year's Resolution was... oh wait, the surprising thing. I don't want to leave anyone in suspense. That shit kills, you know. Nobody needs excess suspense.


Your Neighborhood Librarian Buys Jeans at the Mall

Times when you wish Purell made lube.

The surprising thing I'm talking about, the thing that will shock and alarm you is - I have just spent basically the whole day at the MAAALLLL, and I am in really a ridiculously good mood. Just chew on that for a second.

THE MALL. The place where crowds and perfume samples and overpriced throw pillows and the sinister alleyways of the second floor - I mean, you could get a raging case of genital warts even just from lingering outside Abercrombie and Fitch long enough to tie your shoe. NEVER touch the floor, or god help you the benches, outside of Abercrombie and Fitch.

But I. Prevailed.

Let's backtrack. Let me give you the backstory, the exposition for how I got to the MAALLL in the first place.

Your Neighborhood Librarian Can Hear a Bell Ring

I don't have cable, and I mostly don't miss it. I would like to watch the E! Oscars pregame show, yes granted, and I would probably waste a lot of time watching marathons on SyFy if I had it, but mostly I am ok with my collection of James Bond / Veronica Mars DVDs and Sports Night on Netflix.

Last Sunday night, however, was another matter ENTIRELY. That night, the hotly anticipated Lifetime original movie Liz and Dick was to air. I had been hearing about it for MONTHS. The gossips had news from the set that Lindsay Lohan could barely function. The trailer was so snipped-up you just knew they never got an entire coherent line out of her. And you know how Google sometimes tells it like it is? Like how if you're researching the history of lawn-ornament Blessed Virgin Mary statues and you google "antique yard Madonna" and Google's top result is a review excoriating Madonna's 2012 Super Bowl halftime performance I AM NOT LYING TRY IT YOURSELF - oops, there's another sentence that got away from me...

I mean... right? WRONG.

Umm anyway. You google "Liz & Dick parody" and it's all reviews of the actual movie. Plus this montage of Lohan breathing and touching her head. She's like taxidermy, really.

So right, since I don't have cable, I was reduced to watching Liz&Dick on Twitter. And if you don't think that is a thing you can do, look up the hashtag and scroll back. Every line, every costume - every hat! and even most of the backdrops were critiqued. At one point there was a robust rally to nominate the Liz&Dick green screen for an Oscar. It was amusing, mesmerizing... and it eventually made me sick. It's one thing to watch something that you yourself think is TERRRRRIBLE. It's another thing to witness an entire nation throwing up their arms in captivated horror.

After about 45 minutes, I closed Twitter, fired up the actual TV, and put on Mamma Mia!

MAMMA MIA YES I DID.