with

“It’s convenient.”

But it is a good beer.

Work

The office these days

Oh work. You little time occupier you. I see so many opportunities for you to grow and improve yet you keep insisting that I change to be more like you. Don’t you know that’s not how you love, work? Don’t you know that that isn’t change at all, but rather a recipe for stagnation and slow death? Look, I know we’ve had some rough times, work, but obviously we’re going to have to see this thing through for a while. Why don’t we both try to come to a better understanding? I understand that you like things done a certain way. I’m frustrated that your way of getting things done moves along at a snails pace, and that it requires having at least one committee, more often two – climb aboard that snail and make the travel that much more infuriating. I get that, work. I don’t know if I’ll ever dig it though. I’m beginning to suspect this is done intentionally to allow a meticulous purging of topical ignorance. If that’s the case, work, why not just say so? I don’t mind talking one on one. I like communicating with people. But when you put me at a table with a bunch of other people, each trying to convey something different from the other, that’s when I tend to bury myself.

Oh, it’s not all bad, work. I like the shopping bit. I like finding new and useful resources. I don’t even really think of that as work. I think of it as social networking and sharing and only realize it’s work when I incorporate it into a reference question. And the reference questions – sometimes you really do bring up some interesting and challenging queries. I do seem to learn something new everyday. Perhaps I should keep track of that as a way to stay positive…

And then there are the things that I made an effort to incorporate into work that were put on the backburner for so long until they could be properly supervised that I have lost any ambition to pursue. I like the spontaneity of social networking and the conversations they create. If every little blurb I put out there under the library’s name is scrutinized by somebody else – it just saps the energy – it’s a chilling effect.

work work work, no time to fix glasses

Ugh you guys, enough about WORK.

Ferndale Library
I’ve been spending my time off from the library working with…another library. I volunteered to be the President of the Friends of the Ferndale Library last year and have been making an effort to help out however I can with the newly renovated library in my neighborhood. It’s been a rough year. The library had it’s grand opening last summer, but unfortunately a loose pipe over the Thanksgiving holiday flooded the library, knocking it out of commission until sometime in February. More recently I’ve learned that the Director submitted his resignation and a search committee is being rounded up to find a replacement. It’s a lot to deal with in your first year as a Friends organization. I’m still hoping we can put together a number of successful projects we’ve been discussing throughout the year.

Yoga
I started hitting up this yoga joint last year but slacked off over the holidays and can’t seem to get up the nerve to go back. I need to, as is evidenced by the above stress points and the growing feeling that I am morphing further into a fat, lazy slob.

I get exercise anxiety. I get too nervous that there are eyes on me or that my form is completely off and these are things that yoga is supposed to ease you out of, and it did for a while – but then the studio went ahead and put themselves on groupon and what was a smaller, less intimidating class became a crowded room that I couldn’t deal with. Also, the holidays. Also, I missed somebody farting in class recently, which would’ve been hilarious. Also, ugh.

Food and Drank
Again, relating to the above – I’ve become more attentive to food and drink in the past year. On occasion I will find the time to experiment with a new recipe, often with a good measure of success. I’d like to find more time to cook and create – including getting back into the groove of homebrewing. Somebody suggested incorporating scheduling into my Sunday evenings. I think I’m ready to take that plunge.

I’ve also started subscribing to a greater number of food related sites. In addition to subscribing to search alerts for “Quick and Easy Cooking” through my library’s Gale PowerSearch database, I’ve managed to attain “participant” status in the forums of Gourmet Underground Detroit. There are a lot of good people lurking there that have opinions and tips, some of them expert, on the food scene in the Metro area. A number of them are on twitter, easily found through #GUDetroit.

Greenmarket Produce Scans

www.Scanwiches.com:

Also of late, in addition to staring at pictures of scanned food, I’ve been wanting to begin making bento boxes.

Social Customs
Things are the best they’ve been on the social scene in quite some time. I’ve made some really great friends since I’ve been back up here in Michigan and seem to meet someone interesting and intriguing every few weeks.

I occasionally hear from the Georgia peeps. There were rumors of a visit last summer that never seemed to materialize. I’ve kind of made a promise to myself to not head down there until one of those rascals becomes a houseguest up here.

I also don’t hear from the Westside Librarians as much. Hopefully they are still my frenz, cuz I like having them as frenz, especially when they are frenz with you even though you fell off the deep end.

WELP. That’s it. A 1,000 word update on life at the moment. Hopefully I’ll make this part of the Sunday scheduling.

Following the Beerfest we marauded over to Brian and Debbie’s for a graciously hosted cookout.

Then I closed my evening out on a roof in Hamtramck with Seestore and Nicole. We saw a Wendy’s scraping monster and fireworks with a nice breeze.

Anyways, I made a quick video.

Beerfest 2010, Ypsilanti MI from kevinyezbick on Vimeo.

and the bounty of pizza was had by all.

Fashionistas, originally uploaded by Kevin Yezbick.

Last night I headed to the East Side of Detroit and the Atwater Brewery to pitch in on a fundraiser for the residents of the Forest Arms Apartments. A few weeks back the apartments were gutted by fire leaving hundreds homeless, many of them students of my alma mater.

I met up with Carlie and Eva, had a few drinks and a really good time. I heard about the event via motorcityblog, saw Carlie online and threw it out there for something to do. An hour later we were all gangbusters at the bar and getting reacquainted after not seeing each other for many months.

There were DJs and Bands and a Fashion show – which was rather interesting and can be seen above.

It was good to get out of the house. Tonight it’s Ferndale and the New Way.

He knew he’d been lying there for some time. The sun had passed the corner of the bed and moved slowly over the television so that he could now see himself reflected in the screen, gray and devoid of life. It was in staring at this image that he began to wonder wheteher or not the image was not the self and everything had been turned around and all that hogwash philosophical bullshit began to invade his mind until eventually he just turned back to the image in and of itself, thinking that could put him at ease.

Instead, staring into that tube of reductionism caused Emp to begin to imagine that the course of events over the past few days had not taken a drastic turn, a worrisome turn, or rather any turn at all. In fact – the events over the past few days had played out just as they had been scripted and he was the only malfunctioning cog in the machinery.

He lay there in bed, struck. He marvelled that he was able to come to the realization that he had been “struck.”

“It’s funny,” he thought. “Usually you only read about people being ‘struck’ in moments of greatness or moments of tragedy.” He really didn’t want to move, but he knew that time was egging on because the sun had made its way into the window and spread across the room, the brightness now splaying across the screen so that our great reduced hero was no longer reflected upon it.

“Here I am,” he thought, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to hover over the cold, wooden boards. “700 miles away from my own bed, trying to make good with a girl who hasn’t wanted to have anything to do with me since day two.”

It’s been a coupla months since I’ve had one of these.
I went along with Willi last night to meetup with his old friends from our childhood neighborhood at cadieux cafe. They bought us food and stuff.

Upon my return I promptly broke one of the firmly established rules I had while in Georgia — and sent out an email. Sorry, AH. I think I may have gotten a lil emotional…

At least I didn’t use the phone.

That sound you hear is the wind rushing out from underneath the sails.

Ahhh – the Democratic process…