The Friday Five!

Give if you can.

1. This week, our entire focus has been the devastation in the western part of our state due to Hurricane Helene. The pictures out of Asheville and Black Mountain and the surrounding areas are beyond comprehension: so many places we have visited and know well just underwater or gone completely. Our friends there report as they can, when cell service is available, as they struggle to find basics like food and drinkable water. I don’t have the right words for any of it other than the need is HUGE. Here are links to The American Red Cross, United Way and

   World Central Kitchen, although there are SO many other places helping out. Please give if you can.

2. Big happenings around here for me: I got a new library card! (Okay, I know, but how to even continue this Five considering how much so many are suffering? I am going with libraries.) I lost my previous one and not replaced it in well….years. So on a recent Saturday I went to the fabulous Chapel Hill Public Library and moments later had a shiny new ticket to the stacks. I have always found solace in the library. When I was little in the kid’s section. In high school when I hid out in a carrel at Chapel Hill High waiting for the day to somehow end. And in college, when I often went to the current CHPL to read magazines and be in a quiet place before heading to the chaos of the restaurant where I was then working. So I guess it tracks that now, when the world feels particularly unstable in any number of ways, that I’d find myself back there. Although now to To Be Read pile has gone from steep to outright teetering. But you can never have too many books around you, right? It’s like joy that way.

3. In related news, today I am headed to my first School Library conference in forever. I am super excited to meet a bunch of media specialists. I am coming armed with bookplates and a few things from my swag box in my office:

This fall, as I’ve slowly begun doing events again after some time away, I feel especially rusty and, well, nervous. But again, these are librarians. I can’t think of a better group to start with. If you’re going to be at NCSLMA in Greensboro this morning, please come say hello. I’ll be the nervous one re-arranging my stickers.

4. Truth: I will watch ANYTHING with Kristen Bell in it, ever since 1) Veronica Mars (one of my favorite shows of all time) and 2) I won a contest to be her date for the premiere of the VM movie, which was somehow (?) a full TEN years ago. So I’d be into her new Netflix show Nobody Wants This even if it wasn’t so good and did not also feature Adam Brody. But you guys, it is fantastic, one of those rom-coms where the leads have great chemistry and you find yourself laughing out loud. Only ten episodes and we’re already up to number six and pacing ourselves, as usual, NOT AT ALL. In spirit of my love for KB, I’ll also put up this picture of us in the car on the way to the Veronica Mars movie premiere, which I am shameless about sharing, even all these years later. Hopefully they are already working on a second season.

5. I have to say, writing this particular Five has been hard. I feel like it is the epitome of navel-gazing to be writing about myself and TV and even libraries in the face of all the terrible things that are happening. So instead of a final item here, I’m just going send yet another good thought/prayer to everyone who needs it right now and ask you to do the same. Sometimes, all you can do is put your arms around the world and hold on as tight as you can. Here’s hoping for better days, when everything is about the most trivial of observations.

Have a good weekend, everyone.