… only to find that, at once, an equally validating and horrifying experience.

I hope the shininess of that Newbery sticker distracts you from the knowledge that your industry is dying.

Enjoy the one day when it’s cool to be a librarian.

Congratulations on writing a book with a character that endures a tortured childhood that will go on to torture children on state reading lists for years to come.

Let’s face it, there can only be one Bridge to Terabithia.

After doing this for a few minutes I realized I had to stop before the part of my brain that got stuck doing 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon during college, causing me to fail my criminology midterm senior year, got stuck making children’s publishing someecards and wound up spitting out things like Thank god someone finally wrote a fantasy series about an orphan who’s The Chosen One every time I walk through a B&N teen section.

There was some controversy leading up to the awards this year (or, I should say, “controversy”– they’re still kids’ books. This is the great love of my life, but even I can acknowledge that we are not performing life saving surgery here) when people started questioning the relevance of the award and then other people started questioning the validity of that argument . I tend to side with Team A on this one– granted, I spend all day thinking about disney princess coloring books, so I probably have more of a tendency to Play To The Common Denominator than most do, but I think in recent years the awards committee has kind of turned into Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons (“Last night’s Itchy & Scratchy was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured I was on the internet within minutes registering my disgust throughout the world”) in terms of awarding praise to the obscure. In the 90s, they were like the Yankees– they couldn’t lose. Holes, The Giver, Shiloh, Maniac Magee, Number the Stars– that’s just a ridiculous lineup. That’s El Duque, Tino Martinez, Jeter, Paul O’Neill, and Bernie Williams in nerd-speak. There have been books that I’ve loved in the last decade that have gotten well-deserved attention at ALA midwinter–The Wednesday Wars {one of my favorite books of 2007}, Looking For Alaska, A Northern Light, Al Capone Does My Shirts, Kitten’s First Full Moon, The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins {Best dinosaur picture book EVER, and I would know}– but this year, as the crap has been hitting the fan for everyone in print media, I think we could have used a set of winners that had more commercial appeal. I know saying that kind of makes me the devil and it sound like I want them to give Gossip Girl the Nobel Prize for Literature just so we can move some units, but I think these awards could really lift the industry and you don’t have to go obscure to find something that’s quality. The Hunger Games is an UnEffingBelievable book for young adults and should have been named just for that, but aside from that I’m a little sad that we missed a chance to have an award winner with massive commercial appeal.

That said– some of the choices yesterday were just perfect. I love that Savvy and The Underneath got Honors– they seem like the old-school Newbery picks (Savvy reminded me a little of Each Little Bird That Sings, or The Penderwicks)– and I am so, so excited for Neil Gaiman, who has been doing amazing things for children’s books for decades. Also, his twitter feed yesterday was amazing. He posted (I refuse to say “tweeted”) about his assistant calling him at 5:30 in the morning before he knew what it was about and followed up with “Oh. Never mind.” (When you get The Call it’s always very early in the morning and you’re always sworn to secrecy for a few hours. I remember talking to Kevin Henkes after he won for Kitten’s First Full Moon {that’s right– we were totally bros when I was at OldJob} and him saying he asked the Caldecott committee if he was allowed to call his mom and tell her). After the announcement, he was all “About to drink second cup of tea without Marmalade this morning. Also, I just won the Newbury Medal for THE GRAVEYARD BOOK,” immediately followed by “Newbery, not Newbury. Also FUCK!!!! I won the FUCKING NEWBERY THIS IS SO FUCKING AWESOME. I thank you.” How can you not love this man? I totally forgive you for giving me nightmares with Coraline, Neil.

My major beef this year is with the Caldecotts. We Are The Ship got shafted. It got a handful of minor/ minority awards that don’t add up to a Caldecott and I think that’s crap. I haven’t looked closely at the winning books but I don’t think I’ll love a picture book biography of William Carlos Williams any more than I love The Little Yellow Leaf or Old Bear. Fail!

The other big disappointment I faced down this week was being told that there’s a BBYA panel at the conference where they bring in Real Life Teenagers to break it down and having to deal with the knowledge that I didn’t jump in on this action when I was 16 and working in a bookstore and spewing ridiculous thoughts about children’s books to people who don’t care at all while, unbeknownst to me, there was a forum where they would have given me a microphone and appreciated my Keeping It Real. And now I’m too old to qualify. This is worse than when I realized I was too old to be on The Real World. Especially when Jordan sends me emails like this one, subject line “Cristin Stickles, age 16:”

From a young girl talking about Melissa Marr’s Ink Exchange at kids’ day at ALA:

 Once again Melissa Marr entranced me. This book is just short of addictive. I really loved the reappearance of Seth, who is one of my top fictional boyfriends.

How can I find this girl? I need to know where he ranks against Phineas from Separate Peace and Holden from Catcher in the Rye, who were the running nos. 1 and 2 in our “Fictional Characters We’d Bang” game at college.

I love this so much that I’m going to give up the moment of re-remembering Pure Joy that I just described in order to have the slightly more subdued but more frequent joy of enjoying it every day:

Okay, so, if you don’t live in New York, you don’t get New York 1, which is our local news channel which, frankly, I think kicks a lot of ass. The first week I was in my apartment when I didn’t have internet or cable, the main thing I missed was being able to watch NY1 in the morning. I feel like people in this town usually reject automatically anything targeted specifically at them– I can think of several subway ad campaigns that start out with something like “We get it, New York!” but sounded like they were written from Austin for all of their actual relevance that made me want to walk in front of the train– but I’ve never heard anyone say anything disparaging about NY1. In fact, if it ever went dark or anything, I think people would panic. I say the sentence “Oh, that was on NY1 today” only slightly less than I say “Oh, that was on NPR” or “Oh, there was that article about that in the Times,” and I think those statistics are probably skewed considering “that article in the Times” is my personal code for “I overheard this somewhere but can’t remember where.”

The best part of NY1 is Pat Kiernan. You might also know him as the host of VH1’s World Series of Pop Culture competition as well. Every morning Pat does “In The Papers,” which is a segment where he reads the NY-based newspapers for you on television. It’s amazing. They made fun of this at one point on How I Met Your Mother, but even that was done in such a loving way that I knew the writers must also love In The Papers. He focuses on large national news and NYC based “news” items that you  might only get from your iGoogle page if you have the app for “ridiculous inhabitants of the 212.” I love In The Papers. When I hear him intro it I frequently drop my hair dryer and run out of the bathroom to stare at my TV in rapt fascination while Pat tells me what’s important for that day.

AND NOW: He started a website where he does In The Papers for OTHER CITIES. He’s covering THE ENTIRE COUNTRY, people!! Is there nothing this man can’t do?? He’s like a human RSS feed of AWESOMENESS.

Just as I was thinking “This might become my primary news scource,” I scrolled through today’s headlines and noticed that he included an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about how the dinosaurs died.

Thank you, Pat. I love you!

Trust me on this one– and happy earth day!

via Aunt K!

And thusly, I have a lot of stuff that I probably should have been rid of by now, stuff that ranges from entirely useless (of COURSE I need the pref night drinking shirt we made during rush, never mind that it’s too lewd to wear out of the house) to entirely awesome, like the set of mittens my mom got me in high school from Delia’s (yes, that Delia’s) that were ahead of their time with their option of converting to fingerless gloves that allow iPod manipulation without mitten removal. This saturday I decided to delve head first into Christmas shopping and dug the glove-mittens out to accompany me on my journey to The Container Store. (Is there ANYWHERE as awesome as The Container Store? No. There is not. The Container Store is one of a limited selection of places in new york were I would happily lease space and live there if the occupying party would allow it. {see also: dinosaur floor of the museum of natural history; david wright’s apartment}. And leading up to christmas, it goes from being the Happiest Place In The World to being the Seriously, This Is The Happiest Fucking Place In The World for me. I want to freelance for them and just do gift wrapping demonstrations all day long. I didn’t wind up buying any wrapping paper because I haven’t picked a gift wrap theme for this year… as dramatic as my theme was last year, black paper/ metallic ribbon doesn’t exactly scream holiday cheer so much as it screams I Am A Stark Minimalist, which isn’t even true, so I’m exploring new options. This year might be the year of brown paper packages tied up with strings and by strings I mean something in hunter green with gift tags that make use of my entire rubber stamp collection). And en route to The Container Store, in addition to accidentally buying myself three sweaters that you will say look identical but *I* say are each beautiful and unique snowflakes, or at least they are when your entire wardrobe is the same color, I spent a lot of time thinking about mittens, and how fall is most certainly my favorite season, but its one failing (other than not enough baseball) is that there’s not usually any need to wear mittens. Because really, it’s impossible to be upset when you have mittens on. In gloves you can be all kinds of upset, but if mittens don’t make you automatically happy, you have a cold, dead soul. I wore my mittens to The Container Store and had to physically restrain myself from hugging strangers. It’s the mittens (and seeing Enchanted), I swear.

(Okay– WHERE could this story be GOING? Master of suspense that I am… a regular dean effing koontz over here).

I came home with only one glove mitten. ONE. The other, it seems, decided that it would also like to live in The Container Store. I can’t say I blame it. But I will anyway. WHAT the EFF. I called Jordan as soon as I found out. “I LOST one of my MITTENS!! This is the worst possible thing that could happen to me at this exact moment!” Quite the gift for hyperbole.

Replacement glove mittens coming shortly after a long struggle with google “How could it possibly NOT know what I mean by ‘mittens that are really gloves and let me use my iPod???’ No, I am NOT feeling lucky, google, you asshole.”

Also, this bookfixes everything. I only hope that my lost mitten is similarly in love on the streets of manhattan somewhere:

Guys, really. They have TIGERS.

When we last spoke, I was “threatening” to send character references to The Museum of Natural History in order to sway them into allowing me to spend the night there. After soliticing two of my childhood best friends, both my brothers, The Boyfriend, my father, and a former coworker about writing reccomendations for me, The Boyfriend wins the prize for finishing first. (Hear that, DAD? There’s a new sheriff in town. You’ll write strongly worded letters to local newspapers about the selection of a college provost {that contain the phrase “belly up to the public trough.” not kidding} but you find my quest silly and futile? Come ON!)

Transmitted this morning:

Dear {Redacted}  

As promised, please see below and attached for the first of my character references. Should you need further information, he is reachable at {The Boyfriend’s Email Address}.  

Dear {Redacted}: 

I am writing regarding The Museum of Natural History’s “A Night at the Museum” program, a truly amazing-sounding opportunity, and one for which I know the ideal guest. It is my understanding that all current dates are sold out, and that the waiting lists are all full (wow – talk about a successful program!), but she is more than willing to wait her turn. The problem, and the reason for this correspondence, arises when/if her turn should come. You see, Ms. Medina, the perfect candidate for a night of flashlight-guided adventure is none other than my girlfriend, Cristin Stickles. As you have, presumably, already guessed, my girlfriend does not fall within the 8 to 12 age range – a good thing. If you recognize the name, you also know that she is without child, a fact which pleases us both, but puts a barrier between her and a night spent sleeping beneath a 94-foot-long blue whale or in front of her favorite seascape diorama.  Cristin has already written of her great appreciation for your museum, but allow me second her comments. Upon hearing about this program from me (I apologize for the headache which doing so has, or will, cause you), Cristin immediately sought out every detail possible and, as you know, began a letter-writing campaign to gain entrance. No one could be more deserving. This is a woman for whom no question is more vital than “what killed the dinosaurs?” This is a woman who takes days off to visit your museum, and returns home to a seascape diorama of her own, populated by two turtles (her “babies” – might they count?). While I can appreciate that the program is designed to give children a sense of appreciation and wonder at what nature has created, I can assure you that no one could be more appreciative or in awe than Cristin. I hope that you will reconsider your policy and allow Cristin to attend “A Night at the Museum.” It would bring great joy to someone who is 8-12 at heart. 

The Boyfriend

(ed note: Seriously, how cute is he? Awwwww.)

Dear Apartment 5B;

I have nothing but respect for personalized morning rituals. For example, for quite some time my own ritual involved obsessively switching between VH1 and MTV, frantically trying to catch the Pussycat Dolls video “Buttons” as many times as possible before leaving for the office. I see no shame in that. Your morning ritual, however, seems to entail speaking to someone who, judging from the decibel level of your voice, must be hundreds of yards away (a difficult feat in our “cozy” apartment building), and then throwing extra-strength trash bags filled with cinder blocks down the stairs. This morning you tossed in a high pitched scream in the manner of a damsel in distress who has just been tied to the railroad tracks by a man with a sinister-looking moustache. I would have been concerned for your safety, had you not punctuated your exit in a manner that allowed me to count every single stair between your apartment and the front door, your rapid fire footfalls echoing like a machine gun peal. I admire your Ready To Face The Day/ Grab Life By The Balls attitude and can only assume that, with this much energy at 6:30 in the morning, you must spend the rest of your day training for marathons and saving babies from burning buildings or, at minimum, filing your taxes well before the deadline, none of which I’ve ever been able to accomplish. As it stands, though, my favorite early morning ritual involves sleeping, a task that has become more and more difficult each day since your lease started. If you could keep in mind that you have neighbors in close range who reserve their zest for life until well after the 9am hour, I would greatly appreciate it.   Best,  Cristin (4A)

Dear {redacted},   Thanks so much for your email! I’m sure there are more pressing concerns at visitor info (eg, what happens if a member of my brownie troop gets lost in the hall of Ocean life, etc) and I was impressed with your speedy response regarding my quest to sleep in the museum.  

It does not surprise me at all that this exciting museum experience opportunity is sold out through the fall, and I will certainly make a point to visit your website regularly to catch the periodic updates. However, I’m still unconvinced that, between now and the open dates in the fall, I’ll be able to conceive a child, carry it to term, and then age it 8 years. Also (between you and I) should I find myself magically stumbling into the circumstances that I just described, I’ll have much bigger problems than acquiring museum visit tickets (eg, explaining things to my Catholic father, etc).  I don’t want to believe that we live in a world where my unwillingness to abduct a child can keep me from such a phenomenal experience as sleeping in the museum. (I imagine, anyway, that it is phenomenal. I can’t comment definitively, having never done it). I certainly understand that precautions that you have to take for various reasons, as having an adult participant of the sleepover wander off to do adult and unseemly things would, no doubt, not jive with the public image of your fine institution. I can assure that I would in no way abuse the gift of the museum sleepover in such a manner, and am prepared to offer a variety of character references to that point. They will arrive under separate cover in the weeks to come.  

Thank you, again, for your attention to this matter. I look forward to hearing from you soon.   Best,  CRISTIN

Dear Sir or Madam,

As of now, all of our sleepover dates are sold out through the summer. All of the waitlists for sold out dates are filled to capacity. We will have additional dates in the fall of 2007 posted on our website during the month of March. Yes, you still have a chance to attend one of our upcoming sleepovers as long as you are accompanying a child between the ages of 8 and 12 years old.

Please visit www.amnh.org/kids/sleepovers periodically for updates.

She foolishly goes on to sign her actual name and give an actual email address and phone number. Which means I have but one logical course of action to take here, which is to start a Studio 60-esque letter writing campaign in which I have all of the people close to me write emails to her about how much I want to sleep in the museum and how I promise I won’t do anything unsavory while dozing in its hallowed halls.

Up first: The Boyfriend. Immediately followed by The Best Friend (Jordan owes me for a reccomendation I wrote him for college) and, if we’re lucky, The Dad, then the coworkers (get warmed up, Nora/ Anna/ Emily).

Aren’t you lucky, person who answers the website “visitor information” queries, to have gotten this today:

Hello! I am a 25 year old NYC resident who cites the Museum of Natural History as her favorite place in all of New York (beating out such popular favorites as the polar bear tank in the central park zoo), and I make a point of visiting your fine institution as frequently as possible– usually around once a month. I’m sure you can understand my excitement when I heard about the opportunity to spend the night in the museum, and my accompanying disappointment when I realized that my lack of recent child bearing takes me out of the running. Say it aint so! Yes, I missed the cutoff by 13 years, but can I still be a part of this amazing experience??

All best,
CRISTIN

I look forward to their response.

Roar!