To be as comfy as my cat Josephinee (not happening) and to just be comfy in my own skin (life's purpose?)

Fact: I am unlikely to EVER be as comfortable as Josephinee seems to be EVERY DAY. Not clear from this picture: she has the WORST fish breath, so bad it is not to be believed. Clear from this picture (I hope): I love this floofbeast with a fraction of my heart that is not small.

I've written briefly about Josephinee before because hey, she's my floof baby. She's adorable, she relies on me (wisely, she actually mostly relies on Josh), she likes to wake me up at all hours of the morning.

What she really loves is to nap. I think this is a conscious decision on her part as to save up energy for random cat spaz sessions when she appears to be suddenly high as balls and chasing dragons. But mostly, she naps. She's one of those contortion cats-- she will lay down draped over the arm of our sofa with her front paws hanging down from the point of her shoulders, she will lay on the sofa with her head at a funny angle because she refuses to move from the sweet spot where the arm meets the couch. She'll sprawl on her back, very ladylike, legs akimbo. And sometimes she does this goofy thing where one paw is in front of her face and the other gets stretched out. I'm always tempted to make a little fan and put it in between her paw and her nose:

My little druggie coquette.

Anyway. My cat is adorable when she sleeps. And save the crying at all goddamn hours when the humans in the house try to sleep, she's pretty cute on the regular. I was looking at her earlier as she was curled up, appearing very sated after a chin scritch session, and wondered when I have last felt as comfortable as she seemed.

As graduate school winds down, my panic about finding a job is winding up. I hear classmates talk about applying in a way that seems so serious and so sudden and I wonder if I have missed something. Wait, that's not very comfortable, is it? This is probably the thought that keeps me from getting to comfortable lately, because otherwise life is puttering along in a way that's relatively free from major disquiet. I like my public library work very much. The very public nature of the role (I work mainly at the reference desk, so I'm there to get questions and requests and answer and satisfy when possible) means that the best and worst parts of my way to respond to people are out there every day that I am. I'm really very lucky because patrons at my library are almost uniformly very wonderful, so wonderful that exceptions are kind of jarring.

Last night a man was at the library as I started my shift at the desk. He'd been doing some research but was finished as I was getting a status update from a coworker. He asked for help with something, I got him what he needed, and then he started talking. 


And talking.


And he kept talking.

About himself.
 
I *know* it was wrong. I had other work to do, he was kept the seat at the reference desk occupied for upwards of half an hour, and he didn't actually have anything he needed other than a compulsion to satisfy that he be listened to. It was like being held hostage by someone without ill-intent but completely oblivious. I managed to speak! up! (!!!) and ask what his next question was, at two points, and he just launched into another monologue. He just wanted to talk to someone. I didn't want to be rude. But I did want him to move on.

I began to feel trapped and frustrated. I couldn't come up with a polite way to tell him to leave the desk if he didn't have a question because that's not really a polite thought even though that is the way it's supposed to be. I take my responsibility to be available to help every patron (this patron and every other) very seriously, but I couldn't think of a way to get out of this situation where someone was monopolizing the desk and my time... with no actual reference need. Eventually another patron needed help finding something in the library (thank goodness!) and while I was away from the desk he moved on. I was intensely relieved.

Gotta check out books on compassionate assertiveness. I talked to another librarian who had some suggestions on ways to address the issue if it comes up again, but I just... need to be comfortable realizing the importance of telling people to go away. Why is that so difficult?