Wake up! Networking is not advertising that I DON’T have my act together. Oops.

I went to my very first Rochester Area School Librarians (RASL) meeting last night, and it might even go so far as to call it a disaster. I can hardly stand to think about it, but I really ought to so that I might have a "learning experience" or something along those lines. I had a very busy morning that day and I returned home with my two month old to a sleeping husband and daughter and a very messy kitchen. A messy kitchen is one of my biggest pet peeves. I needed to rest, but of course I cleaned the kitchen mess up first and then began to relax just as I realized that I needed to leave soon… And that I had nothing to wear. In fact, I did not have one single pair of somewhat dressy pants that fit. I mean I have only jeans and sweatpants in my pathetically large post-partum size and so I guess I just wore jeans. That was a mistake. I am a fool and I have been cursing myself since I got home for even going to this event without owning the proper clothes. I wanted to go. I just needed to move myself in the direction of working and using the degree that I worked so very hard to achieve in the face of so many challenges, so I persisted. Time was getting ahead of me, and I arrived 30 minutes late. This was also mortifying. At least I wasn't the girl who blurted out that I had completed an internship at Play Girl Magazine… But maybe I would have been if I had actually completed such an internship. Rather I was the late person who showed up wearing jeans and a t-shirt saying that I don't have a job. I wish I could crawl under a rock and pretend that I never set it in my mind to attend RASL. Alas, I am a type-a person, and I must not give up. That's all there is to it. For next time I must get my hands on some decent professional clothes that fit, plan to leave an hour earlier, and print out some business cards. Wake up! Networking is not advertising that I DON'T have my act together. I can do better than this. I just need to practice?

It reminds me oddly of the third grade, when a teacher started giving me grief for the first time. Prior to that year I was an avid overachiever in school, but around this time my family life began to crumble and school was not all that interesting to me anymore. I never bothered to do my homework and I did not study my multiplication facts. No one at home cared about how I did in school. My teacher kept emphasizing that I needed to get organized. Organization was the sure fire cure to my slipping grades! In retrospect, I agree that organization would have helped, but how can anyone expect a third grader to impose organization on herself in the midst of violent ugly family struggles? What did I do at that time? I stuffed my nose in as many books as I could get my hands on and ignored everything else. At least I had that. Who cares that I never to this day memorized my multiplication tables. I aced calc 1, 2, and 3 in college. Yet I chose to become a librarian. Go figure. But anyway, what I'm trying to say is that it's not skill or talent that I lack. I simply need to get myself better organized.