A few thoughts on the Inauguration:
1. Contrary to my assumptions, most people in my office stopped working, turned up the TV and gathered 'round to watch the Inauguration. McCain supporters continued manning the phones, receiving deliveries, and discussing freight LOUDLY, while the rest of us sat, in various states of engrossment, and listened to the proceedings. Obama did not disappoint, though his consistent eloquence has gotten to be one of those things I take for granted, and therefore prize less. Thank goodness for the CBS editors, who panned to GW at just the right moments, reminding me why eloquence and consistency must be prized!
2. I was most touched by the performance of Simple Gifts, which reminded me of the majesty of Aaron Copeland and brought home the mythic nature of the occasion.
3. Everyone on Facebook seems to love the Pete Seeger/Bruce Springsteen rendition of This Land Is Your Land the most of all the pre-Inaugural performances. However, I gotta give a shout-out for U2 and Pride (In the Name of Love). That song even gives me shivers on non-momentous occasions.
4. Stevie Wonder singing and playing keys on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial just makes sense. It's like the place was built for him. I think Obama might need to footnote Higher Ground in his inaugural speech transcript.
5. Many thanks to several people who posted Martin Luther King Jr.'s April 4, 1967 Speech on Vietnam. It's not only still relevant, but still powerful and awe-inspiring.

All in all, a thrilling few days of media, pageantry, tradition, path-breaking, pomp, and true circumstance. I'm looking forward to the next 4 years.

I got out of work early today, so I started cooking. I made carrot soup in the same spirit of naive optimism with which I do so many things. I knew the soup was a puree, but persisted in thinking that a food processor/blender/mixer/puree-er would appear by the time I needed it, in about Step 5 of the recipe. It never showed; go figure. I mashed and mashed, but the soup is about as close to a puree as LA is to San Francisco. Not close and not alike either. I put it on the back of the stove and moved on to the next recipe. Viva la optimisma!

I've acquired a file cabinet, something I've wanted for a while but have no place to put. A lovely and lively woman whom I met while living with H died last week and left an apartment full of belongings. Her children arrived from Scotland and California to empty the apartment and H let me know there were various items available. The whole thing might have been a touch too macabre, even for my acquisitive sensibilities, if it hadn't been for the marvelous spirit and generosity of the family. The daughter I met was incredibly charming and put me at ease right away. I took several things after that first visit and went back today to pick up the file cabinet. The son was there this time and brought the cabinet down to my car. Inside the top drawer was a teapot and several tea-making implements that his sister had packed for me. It seems she had remembered all the little details of our conversation. I was very touched.

In any case, despite the lovely interactions that brought the file cabinet to me, the fact remains that I have no place to put it. My apartment is still a studio, though I seem to be bent on acquiring furniture and accessories for a one-to-two bedroom space. I may have to start stacking soon!

It's been a stressful 3-day week, which I guess is to be expected. The senior AP person who normally answers all my questions and handles the more complex aspects of the job went to Ireland this week, so I've been treading water more frantically than usual. My brain and body hurt from being tested so often. Although it is "okay" to make mistakes, it often feels much worse than "okay". I carry my weary body home at the end of the day and try to soothe the strains, both muscular and cerebral, that have accumulated at work. I hope the long weekend will give me time to regroup.

Man, I still hate my template. But then I never blog, so who am I to complain? I think a lot might have changed since I last wrote, but summarizing is beyond my attention span at this point. Today I am suffering (mildly) from a headache induced by grey weather and (I am convinced) inadequate office air flow. It's a typical friday here at the Bird. [My company is named after a bird of prey, which I will not name in this forum.] The coworker who sits closest to me has left for the day, so I feel free to put on Pandora and turn it up to almost level 3 in volume. I made a new station today - The Sea and Cake Radio - and Talking Heads' beautiful This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) is making my afternoon brighter. Today has been a slow day: a blessing for my dysfunctional brain but, by definition, not the best way to make time go fast. I am looking forward to a quiet evening at home, perhaps doing laundry, perhaps watching a movie, perhaps just watching the umpteenth episode of The Office on DVD, with commentary. I just got finished watching the first season of Arrested Development - the first time I'd seen the whole thing in order, all the way through. I always thought it was uncommonly funny, but now I am really floored by its brilliance. Such a perfection of elements present all at once: writing, acting, directing, chemistry. I am sad that it ended after only three seasons, but only in the purely childlike, selfish way of one who wants Christmas EVERY DAY, even though that would sour the whole effect of such a holiday. I am of the cliched (not to mention Puritanical) school that tends to think that too much of a good thing makes it less good. Also, I have some vague idea that it is better to have produced a small amount of brilliant art than a large amount of average or mediocre fare. I can't think of a show that was consistently good for more than 3 years, anyway. (The Simpsons probably comes the closest, but just try to imagine that achievement with live actors. Cheers? Nope. The Cosby Show? Nope. Seinfeld? No way.) As I write this, I feel like a crotchety old person. But short-lived brilliance does not make me feel crotchety or cynical or sad. It makes me wonder what kinds of brilliance might lie inside me and those I love. It makes me want to engage with the world in the hope of inducing such brilliance in myself and others. It is perhaps slightly easier to feel this sort of impulse in the wake of the recent election. The long, weary trudge of the soul through the Bush years has yielded to a more sprightly stride. I keep the New Yorker cover depicting a long red tunnel with a blue light at the end next to my bed. It reminds me to dream at night.

I changed my blog without saving my old template. I had a new look that I hated, didn't know how to change it back, and thus completely gave up on my blog. I would like to resurrect it, but I think a peach-tinted background is not the way to do it. Oh heck with it, I'll just write.

On Saturday, I will be moving into my very own apartment. This will be the first time I've lived alone since a brief stint in 2003. During all of the intervening time, living alone has been an insistent fantasy. I have now structured my life almost completely around that fantasy. I certainly took my job so I could make enough money to live alone.

I had a brief but stressful housing search which delivered me, at the last minute, into this beautiful and perfect little studio on Commonwealth Ave. (to be continued...I hope)

Today I got excited by the thought of listening to Sky Blue Sky after work. It's been a while since I thought about an album that way - as a certain source of pleasure, like ice cream or cool water I still enjoy music very much, but my iPod has changed my relationship to it. I crave songs now, but rarely albums. This has become a cliche, and I lament my own participation in the fragmentation of individual and collective life, but I still love my iPod :) In any case, Sky Blue Sky managed to slip past my fragmented attention span and insinuate itself in my unconscious life. Perhaps because I fell asleep listening to it last night...

Following a link to Janis Joplin singing Summertime, I found another link, to Peter Gabriel's version. Also very satisfying, though not nearly as raw as Janis. (Has anyone ever been that raw?)

The daily thunderstorm has passed us by without delivering. For a while, we were getting an intense burst of thunder, lightning, and heavy rain every afternoon. It would roll in quickly, last about 20 minutes, then clear up, leaving the air an iota less humid. I miss it!

This week will be my third week of working full-time. I'm already fatigued :) It feels like an exercise I haven't performed in a long time, and which my muscles have forgotten how to do. I'm hoping I'll feel more in-shape soon. I do get a kick out of the rituals of the work week: the ratio of talk:action that increases as the week goes on, the little snacks/breaks/walks to the bathroom that break up the day, the many crises (both real and imagined/invented) that add spice to the day. A big crisis is looming - the switch to a new accounting and shipping system in August - and the fear and panic about all of its possible forms both invigorates and paralyzes the whole office.

Ironic post-modern moment of the week: I got pulled in to act as clerical and administrative aide for a couple of new green initiatives, one of which involves pricing and researching the switch to recycled copier/printer paper. My coworker, who normally orders the office supplies, was excited about this, and assured me that recycled paper costs less than what we get now. I was pretty sure that it costs more, a fact which was confirmed later in the week. However, I realized that the foundation for my "knowledge" on the subject was a line from "The Office" in which Jim comments that he will be offering recycled paper to his biggest client, for 1 cent more per sheet. Ah, expertise. How easy you are to come by!

The weekend was a melange of small pleasures. I took the train down to Middleboro/Lakeville to meet Keith on Friday afternoon. I was reading a satisfying entry in the "chick lit" genre, and had iced tea, brie, and grapes to graze upon. Seeing Keith was wonderful - that first glimpse upon debarking is really thrilling. So is the coy flirtation we practice during the first several minutes of conversation. There was lots to say, so the drive went quickly. We knew exactly what to get for dinner, and enjoyed Keith's signature enchiladas. Saturday morning was pleasantly lazy, then we geared up for the Russia-Netherlands match of Euro2008. It was a thrilling game, not least because Keith was moved to alternate bouts of joy and agony by the play. Russia won, devastating Keith and secretly thrilling me, the devious underdog-supporter. That night, we watched a great little independent romantic comedy called "Wristcutters: A Love Story", with several nice performances and a great, gravelly turn by Tom Waits as an undercover messiah/saboteur. We also had some good conversations, Keith was finally able to explain his thesis topic in a way I could comprehend, and we made out like bandits at Kohl's. All in all, a good weekend, albeit one that sped by much too swiftly.

I've been thinking a lot about self-presentation. I noticed (not for the first time) that I tend to represent myself in a relentlessly negative light. This comes up when I get together with friends I haven't seen in a while, when people ask me about my job/goals/plans for the future, and when I'm figuring out what descriptors to use on social and career networking sites (eg Facebook, LinkedIn, etc). I've been spending time on LinkedIn lately and it really triggers those negative feelings. At first, I didn't want to invite anyone to be in my network, for fear that I would "poison" them with my lack of ambition and chronic temp work. Of course, my friends and acquaintances were not nearly as worried about this as I was (or at least were kind enough not to say so). As I added more connections, I began to look at their job/career/profession titles, and those in their extended networks. At first, this reinforced my feelings of inferiority - I seemed to be the only one who didn't have a "real" title, and, by extension, a "real" job. However, upon closer examination, I realized that the difference was not in the occupation, but in the NAMING. Most people choose to name themselves after the best-case scenario: the job they hope/want/expect to have. This creates the illusion of success, or the state of already-having-achieved whatever it is. This revelation must seem old-hat to anyone who has studied business, met with a career counselor, or read any kind of self-help book written in the last 100 years, but it is exciting news to me! Yet it is also a reminder that my limitations are self-imposed, and thus exceedingly hard to remove. When I try to imagine an ideal future, I stall completely and become transfixed by my own inertia. Friendly, well-meaning attempts to jostle me into dreaming or fantasizing or brainstorming possibilities only make me feel more stubbornly stuck in the same old rut. I don't want help, because part of the whole myth of adulthood that is so stultifying in the first place is that I should be able to do this myself.

I think that a small improvement might be possible: to find a way to present myself and my current life in a kinder, more positive light. The fear is that people are judging me negatively, so I should point out all my faults so they know I'm at least not ignorant and unaware, as well as being unsuccessful, lazy, ineffective, et al. But perhaps I could allow other people's judgments to come from them, without prejudicing them aforethought. There is always the possibility that if I felt good about myself, others would follow suit. Imagine that.