Just what do you do?

I've gotten some grief lately over why I don't write about my workplace and my job as a cataloger. It's simple: the work I do is tedious and a little dull. We don't get many people wandering in to watch the trained monkeys. Hell, the other day, the library executive director came by the circ desk downstairs and asked for a key to cataloging. A key! As if we're escorted to our 12' x 15' room and locked in each morning. How else could they get anyone to do this kind of work?

Ask me what I do, and I'll try to keep it as simple as possible, narrowing my response down to a couple of sentences before you get that glazed look in your eyes. It's like data entry, only more complicated. It's logic and access points and taking a 3-dimensional object and translating it into a 1-dimensional medium. A constantly changing field, with a language unto itself.

But mostly, it's relentless. This poem sums it up:

Cataloger's day

book book book book book
book book book book book
book book book book book
book book (break) book book

book book book book book
book book book book book
book book book book book
book book (lunch) book book

It goes on for another 3 paragraphs, but you get the idea.

I wish I had the ability to retain every little detail I read, the tidbits of information I pull from paragraphs scanned: topics such as the Black Death, bartending, brownies, barbeque, bird migration. Sometimes I surprise SO with an occasional nugget I dredge up from the back of my mind. "How did you know that?" he asks, amazed. "Read it somewhere," I shrug, secretly thrilled I remembered. If I had total recall, I'd be some kind of game show freak. Poised to hit the big time with the weight of my cerebral superpowers, I'd make a million dollars and buy an RV, traveling across the country in search of the perfect blackberry jam. It'd be a sweet life.

As it is, I'd barely remember the books I read last month if I didn't keep a reading journal.