plant_library e_o_i In my dream, lilacs are giant pale purple flowers made of layers of decaying mesh. The specialist says they grow on my almond tree because they were grafted there. The almond tree is really a birch tree. Red roses grow spontaneously in late summer. Late spring is the yellow-orange-red season, early summer (now) is the pale purple season, and late summer is dark red. There are too many flowers. I sign up to borrow four flowers at Dorval Library, all of which are growing in my own yard. I have to remember to take them out - pick them - or else I'll forget to return them. The library principle falters, maybe to echo my real-life thoughts about borrowable e-books (why "loan" files that self-destruct in three weeks? It's not as if one person "borrowing" them prevents other people from doing so at the same time. Why not just put in place a low-cost subscription service, like academic databases use? Like Netflix, except bookier?) 140612 ... e_o_i To be fair, academic databases are expensive in themselves - but divide the cost by every student, and it's not so bad. I can access them as a graduate of the place I went to - in fact anyone can at Concordia if they sign up for a temporary account - but there's an air of snobbery around the whole university setting that's intimidating sometimes. Even though Concordia is fairly left-wing and student groups are pretty good at raising awareness of classism, the political/academic jargon itself can be intimidating ("Whaddya mean by privilege or kyriarchy? Just tell me how to borrow books and look at articles for free!") Netflix? Compared to cell phones and Internet it's cheap. I don't have it here, but the people I lived with in Ontario while doing my MA had a subscription, and it was useful for watching films needed for teaching. When they went away for the summer, it was more of a time-waster since it was so accessible (access was granted to TV, computer, and anything left in the fridge in exchange for cat-sitting; I didn't get much done on my project those two weeks.) What does this have to do with plants? Everything has to do with plants. 140613 ... e_o_i It was either Westmount or Atwater that had a seed library - you could "borrow" seeds and then harvest the seeds from plants you grew, giving them back to the library. All the libraries are closed now (physically). 200409 ... e_o_i I think Dorval actually has one now. I mean a seed library. 230819 what's it to you? who go blather from