A few years back I bought a card to send to someone that has since fallen off my radar as a kindred spirit. It was a "miss you" card of some sort that said something like: Adding to My Misery: no one here thinks I'm funny. This pretty much describes my professional experience as a librarian.

I have never really thought of myself as funny - not pratfall funny anyway. Although I do seeem to fall down on occasion it is not by choice. Most of the time I can make a joke or say something funny and get people to giggle. I can even make a roomful of unenthused students giggle - and not just at mispelled search terms. I'm not what you would call performance funny, willing to get up in front of a crowd and having them rolling in the aisles. I have a friend who does that for a living (or used to anyway) and he doesn't need the competition.

No, on the contrary, my profession is finding information, disseminating information and honestly, when was the word disseminating ever funny? Maybe I'm a funny girl stuck in an unfunny library world. (That "Barbie Girl" song is going through my head at this point and you are now stuck with it for the rest of the day too). On library job postings they should just put this as a requirement: No one expects you to be funny here so stop making jokes. I just remember going for an interview and making the mistake of making a joke. The look on eight faces was the equivalent to them all saying in unison, "Oh God, she's funny." And not in a good way. I'm cutting back on the jokes and laughing for now at work and trying to figure out what is so darn serious about being a librarian. I'm thrilled to be at my new job by the way, laughter or no, just in case you were concerned. There is no misery at my new position, just some kind of confusion. This is the best freaking gig I've had in a long time and I intend to keep it.
Just in case you might think that all librarians are different from myself, ie not funny, here are two examples to the contrary:
A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette

Pop Culture Librarian Now this girl is a true kindred spirit.

Here's my last thought on the matter. Most librarians would probably self-destruct if there were more than one awesomely cool and funny librarian working there. They have to spread the love and funny around so library directors wisely only have one comedian on the payroll at once. Otherwise I'd work at a library with my own personal top ten of awesome librarians and we would rule the world with cool, funny and panache.

For Labor Day Martin and I saw an amazing thing that is usually on sung about. We traveled to South Dakota where the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play. That's right, we saw them all! At one point in Custer State Park our car was surrounded by a huge herd of buffalo. Moms and babies and big bull buffalo all walking within four feet of our car.

Of course, the main attraction in the Black Hills is arguably the faces on Mt. Rushmore. We saw that too, and it was something to see. Quite amazing to see it in person. We stopped at the official monument and then later in the weekend drove up Iron Mountain Road where the tunnels on the road frame the monument perfectly.

We also drove up to Deadwood - which amazingly or maybe to my relief, looks nothing like it did on the HBO show of the same name. It was quite scenic and picturesque actually and I had a pretty good prime rib for dinner while listening to a man sing old Willie Nelson and Townes Van Zant songs. Martin even played a few hands of blackjack at the Gem.

We stayed in Hill City at a cute little B&B called Mountains & Prairies. The owners were from the Florida Panhandle so that was something to talk about!

The biggest thing we experienced was climbing to the top of Harney Peak, the highest spot in South Dakota. Lest you think this was a 700 foot hill, we started the climb at about 6100 feet and reached the peak at 7242 feet covering 6 miles round trip. With the weird altitude adjustment for us it took a while for us to climb but we made it and the views were spectacular. At the top of the peak is a stone fire lookout tower. Lots of people were climbing the trail and we climbed out on the rocks around the fire tower and relaxed for about an hour before climbing back down. In total the hike took us about 5 1/2 hours including resting times. It was pretty much an all day affair, but I think we did great considering the altitude and everything we read listed it as taking 3-5 hours round trip.

Overall, we could have probably spent an entire week jsut exploring the Black Hills. We saved plenty for a return trip.