Take the cilantro, leave the zamboni

Yesterday I was confused while searching in Forbes Library in Northampton, but I refused to walk up to a librarian and ask her to look something up for me, instead wandering around until I found an OPAC workstation that was free so I could look the thing up myself.

Yes, friends, even librarians do this. I do, anyway. Actually, I had company, which perhaps made me more self-conscious about the fact that I would blush horribly if I asked for help, because my request was somewhat scandalous.

Y'see, I was looking for the library's copy of Fanny Hill, but I couldn't remember the author's name, which I needed because Forbes uses YF < author last name > to file their fiction.

After some wandering around to find a catalog workstation that was free, I did find the book on my own. Then I had to hand the book to a library staffer to get it checked out, which I realize made the whole damn exercise ludicrous. But hey, the point was that I couldn't bear to walk up to a person and say "Excuse me, I'm looking for your copy of 'Memoirs of a woman of pleasure,' could you remind me what the author's name is?" I couldn't even tell the person I was _with_ what the name of the book was. On the other hand, I could hand the actual book to someone and hand them my card for check-out with no problem. I'm weird about words. We knew this already.

For his part, khyros did not tease me for this little production, well, other than about the point where I was reaching for it on a high shelf and he was like "which book is it, I can reach it" and I kept pointing and saying "erm, THAT one!" because of the aforementioned inability to make myself say the title out loud. In fact he sang a little of "Smut" by Tom Lehrer to me once we were out on the street.

Yay for smut, and for libraries that have it, and people who don't tease me more than a little about my weirdness about language. And the title of the book isn't even dirty, it's just infamous.

And the point is that now I HAVE THE BOOK.