October

October is usually my favorite month of the year. One reason is because my birthday is in October and my favorite holiday, Halloween. I’m not sure if Halloween is my favorite because as a child I typically got thrown Halloween themed birthday parties, because I like to dress in costumes, because there are usually a bunch of horror movies released, or because you can finally walk outside without dying from heat exhaustion. This year I’m not as into it as I usually am and I’m not sure why.

Don’t get me wrong, I celebrated my birthday. On Tuesday, October 15^th the Tim Burton art installation opened at The Neon Museum. I love Tim Burton’s art and I love the Neon Museum. That is where Zach and I had our engagement photos taken. Plus since the exhibit open on my actual birthday (on a Tuesday, weird, right??) I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my birthday. I went with Zach, my brother, Rufio, Lori, Robbie, Juan, Nathan & Natalie and we had a great time.

Since today is October 29^th I have had the house decorated for Halloween for about 2 months. I have a couple things up, but most of the stuff is still in bins. I haven’t even been to a Halloween store, which is unheard of, but I don’t really have much of a desire to go. I guess I’ll save money this year and not go. I did plan an event at my library. We are going to do a Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown photo booth and I’ll be dressing up as Lucy and several other people will be dressing up as Peanuts characters or as pumpkins. The night of Halloween Rufio, Nathan and I are going to the Haunted Cocktail Mansion at the Artisan https://www.facebook.com/events/artisan-hotel-boutique/haunted-cocktail-mansion/2359683840753810/. Rufio already bought the tickets so I’m going to go, I would kind of rather stay home. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me and why I’m not enjoying the holiday as much as I usually do.

I feel like one of the reasons that I’m kind of in a funk is because I haven’t been sleeping very well. I can fall asleep just find, but I don’t stay asleep the entire night. I’ll wake up and I won’t be able to fall back asleep again for a couple hours. I’m not sure what is going on with me but I really wish it would stop. I’ve even been taking Nyquil at night, but it doesn’t seem to be helping.

This past weekend Zach and I went to Pasadena and I attended the California Library Association conference. I had a booth for Emporia State University where I was recruiting students for the Las Vegas cohort that I started. Apparently CLA used to have thousands of attendees. This year they were down to just 1800. I got to meet several prison librarians, which was very interesting and hopefully I was able to persuade a few people to come to ESU. While we were there Zach and I went to the house that the Halloween movies were filmed in (Michael Meyer’s house), got to eat at Trejo’s Cantina (Danny Trejo), and walk around old town Pasadena, which was great. This next weekend I’ll be traveling to Reno for the Nevada Library Association conference. I’m not as excited about this one as I was about California. There will probably be 150 people in attendance at this conference. When the conference takes place in Las Vegas the attendance is usually around 300 people, not nearly what California has by a long shot. Plus, coming from LA to Vegas on take about 4 hours depending on traffic. Driving from Reno to Las Vegas take about 10 hours. No one from up north will be coming to Las Vegas for the ESU cohort and I think it’s kind of a waste of time for me to be going. Plus, this coming weekend daylight savings time ends and I would really like to spend my extra hour in my bed with my pets and not in a hotel by myself. I will get spend time with some of my friends, though and that is never a waste of time.