Are We Not Women? We are D'CALC!

While this is not my first memory of my time in Bloomington, it has had a profound effect on my time here. In fact, one of the best memories I will have of here will be of my time in a little apartment called D'CALC. I thought I'd use this, my second post, to explain how D'CALC came about. Warning: this post will be long!

My first year here, I actually lived on my own in a tiny little apartment that was just the right size for one. I liked it. Over that year, I got to know two fellow future librarians pretty well. They were both in my branch. I also worked with Ferskner, and I had almost every class with Control. Since we saw a lot of each other, it was only a matter of time before we discovered we had a lot in common, and we decided to be roommates the next year. We joked that since we were all librarians, we would put barcodes on everything in the apartment and catalog it. Then one day in June we were IMing with each other, and the following (slightly edited) conversation occurred. The rest, as they say, is history. And yes, when we are at our highest level of nerdiness, we do act just like this. Isn't it great?!

Ferskner: Control, was it on your wall that someone wrote "i hear you're living in the librarian apartment next year"?

Control: Yes, Amanda wrote something like that

Ferskner: oh right right right. i couldn't remember who asked it

Me: What?! Our apartment already has a name?! This is awesome!

Ferskner: . . . JM came over [for british sunday], and when i said who i was living with, JM kind of chuckled

Control: A chuckle of JEALOUSY

Me: You got that right! Do I need to beat up JM?

Ferskner: and i said "what does that mean?" and he said "nothing" and i said "is it because it's the nerdiest apartment you can imagine?" and he said "exactly"

Me: Or de-invite him to British Sunday? That's it! I'm totally not going to his birthday party!

Ferskner: lol you weren't anyway

Me: But yay our apartment has a name! Um, that's kind of the point.

Ferskner: well, is that an official name? i think it needs something more official that's kind of just a description

Control: I think it should be called....Montezuma

Ferskner: it needs something like the carnegie center for female advancement or something like that. oooo i like that too. we need to decide so we can have it printed on our barcodes

Control: Or maybe Alexandria? In reference to the library at Alexandria? It's totally fancy pants.

Ferskner: lol

Me: No, you're right, it does need an actual name. I don't see anything like a proper noun in "the librarian apartment"

Ferskner: i like carnegie in there too, though - he established so many libraries! something crazy long and convoluted

Me: Maybe if we name it after as many libraries/librarians as possible.

Ferskner: yeah!

Me: The Dewey Carnegie Alexandria Library of Congress.

Ferskner: lol what abut SuDocs?

Control: I like it. We can call it DCALC for short

Ferskner: LOL

Control: hahahahaha

Me: :D DCALC totally works. It sounds like d'calc, or d'hood or something

Ferskner: yeah, i was thinking d'calc

Control: It works. Because we're tough.

Ferskner: i think we may have a winner

Aaaaannd the name stuck. We never did catalog our apartment, but we do call our apartment D'CALC, and others refer to it as D'CALC as well, even though they don't know what it stands for.

Then, after we moved in together, Ferskner, our token Indie rocker, started singing part of a song: "Are we not men? We are Devo!" I turned to her and said, "Are we not women? We are D'CALC!" And the song stuck. So, we have a name, we have a theme song. What more could one want out of life?