Welcome to Lipstick Librarian Loses It, Wordsmoker’s newest feature, where everyone’s favorite bookworm and civil servant (sorry, Chillbear!) catalogs her occupational woes, wearing little more than a pencil skirt and a stern expression.

[What? -L.L.] [Just go with it. -Ed.]

We have two  public restrooms at our library: Restroom A and Restroom B, single-seaters about twenty-five feet square.  They used to be regular old “Men” and “Women,” but neither was ADA compliant, so after fifty years, Men’s doorway was widened and became A and Women’s became B. Both are unisex, and marked as such with those little Playskool outlines, and in Braille.

There’s a certain webplace that somehow continues to exist without the donations of its readers.

The sentence you’ve just read is quite remarkable and if one of that webplace’s serfs would have written it, this is how it would have looked:

There’s a certain webplace that somehow continues to exist without the donations of its readers!.

Which version did you like better? For the purposes of this post I’ll assume you liked mine better. Well, pat yourself on the back because you chose right. Now check your brain wave monitors……..not only was my version more enjoyable, but it took even less mental exertion.

Seriously. You are in the Stanley Cup Finals. It’s kind of a big deal. You already look ridiculous with your Winger mullet, and your oh-so-adorable peach fuzz beard, which took you three rounds to grow, because I don’t care what your birth certificate says, you’re fucking 12. You’re in the NHL. You’re playing with the big boys now. Keep the guard in the mouth. Because know that it not only looks sloppy and gross, but other players will clue in to the fact that you skate with it hanging out. You don’t think they’ll want to catch you in that act? How’s your dental plan? Jerk.

Mr. MarshMueller and I recently celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary. He sent me flowers at work (for the first time), we went to dinner, and we spent the remaining week reminiscing about when we were first married.  We were basking in the lovey glow that these types of celebrations tend to bring, when our love bubble was violently punctured by a co-worker. As I was carrying my vase of a dozen red roses to my car on a Friday evening, a gossipy co-worker asked the occasion for the flowers. I told her, and then she proceeded to ask me, “So…are you guys going to have kids?’

Tough love, that is.

You may already be somewhat familiar with this story, as previously reported upon by ChillbearLatrigue, our resident man of the badge (police badge, that is, if you’re a slow one) in his delightfully satirical piece, Suspicious Sombreros. 

It undeniable that James Cameron’s “Avatar” is the biggest blockbuster so far this century, reportedly taking in nearly three billion dollars in box office world wide.  That’s nearly fifty cents per person on the planet.  People went again and again, and some poor, demented schmucks even reported feeling extreme depression and suicidal thoughts “when they realize that Pandora, the fictional Utopian planet portrayed in the movie, does not exist.”

I’ve been depressed after a few movies, I will admit.  “Grease” even gave me thoughts of suicide until it was finally over.  But is “Avatar” really deserving of this kind of mental and emotional collapse? 

I wish I were writing this as I was sitting in a spa in Costa Rica sipping some fruity concoction after my seaweed wrap – waiting for my sliced papaya – while Lupe gives me reflexology and Juan Carlos rubs my shoulders.  Oh, if it were only about my skin or my weight. Actually, I have been staying close to home (which is full of cat hair and crap Mr. Hagen & I never seem to throw out in a freezing January) detoxing from DRUGS!

By now you’ve heard: The Haitians brought it upon themselves. That’s right; they made a pact with the Devil, so they could become a free people. That has led to their misery and suffering, and now, to the flattening of their country.

We have it on good authority: Pat Robertson told us so. And if there’s anyone who knows what’s up with Beelzebub, it’s Pat Robertson.

I’m annoyed. There are a lot of people out there in the world who have what could kindly be described as a tenuous grasp on the rudiments of political and economic philosophy. Like the dude to the left.

And, you know, his ilk.

A friend of the Spys family, Mr. Partridge, owns a vineyard; it has been in the Partridge family for many years. During prohibition, this law-abiding family sold grape juice instead of wine. Indeed, the family did a booming business during this era.  Perhaps it was because with each bottle of grape juice, the Partridge Family Vintners included a little public service flyer:  explicit instructions on how to prevent the juice from fermenting.  Should one do the opposite of the stated directions, the grape juice surely becomes wine. Along those lines…

You know the old blog post topic about how the word “douchebag” has jumped the shark, and we need to stop using it and/or come up with a substitute? Well that topic has jumped the shark, and it’s time to stop writing about it.

First of all, it’s pointless, because the pejorative use of  “douchebag” (and it’s cousin “douche”) will probably persist forever. Second, this has become one of the most unoriginal blog post topics on the Web: Ever since Emily Gould used it in a terrific, witty Gawker piece she wrote back in 2006, it’s been done to death.

Don’t believe me? Just check out the list of a half-dozen blog posts on the topic (the latest published just yesterday) that I’ve assembled here.

Young Woman: Fmm fmmm fmmmmmmm!

I: What?

YW: Fmm fmmm!  Fmmm fmmmm fmmm fmmmmmmmm!

I: What?  Hold on, sorry.  Let me turn down my stereo blaring really loud metal music that is particularly awesome.  There.  Is that better?

YW: Yeah. What the fuck did you flip me off for?

Yeah, we get it.

You hate homosexuals.

Yes… you. The narrow-minded, Bible-verse-flinging, ignorant, spiteful, fear-mongering segment of the population that views the idea of people loving people of the same sex so abhorrent, that if you could get away with it, you’d no doubt tie them to stakes and set them ablaze.

Well, here we are, boys and girls and whatevers, another Thanksgiving is upon us. I’ve come to the conclusion that I dislike Thanksgiving and almost all it stands for.

For starters, why do we have to have a special day to be grateful for our blessings? Is that not artificial? OK, cool, here we are, fat, rich, and happy. Let’s drop a box of mac & cheese off at the homeless shelter to feel good about ourselves and re-enforce our position in life. Then we’ll go spend money at the mall the next day. No, gratitude is like New Year’s resolutions. If it’s that important, you shouldn’t wait.

I married a guy who is more religious than I am. Not by leaps and bounds, mind you–we both grew up observing the minutiae of Orthodox Judaism, like not activating electricity, cooking, or driving on the Sabbath; not eating packaged food which does not bear a mark of kosher supervision; shaking palm fronds and citrons and eating in huts on Sukkot and forgoing the five grains on Passover. You name the insanity, and we’ve observed it.