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.

The flipside of my previous entry is my angry reaction to the Red Sox game-day crowds. It feels like barely a minute has passed since the World Series, with all its attendant excitement, massive crowding, and delays. Now here we are again. Wednesday I emerged into Park Street station to face hordes of Sox fans, talking loudly about which train to catch, pushing and jostling to get on the trains, reeking of alcohol, and laughing derisively at people with dark skin or native dress. I missed my first train because of the crowding, figuring I'd grab the next, less crowded train. Dream on! By the time the next train came, a new crowd had formed, to merge with the crowd already packing the train. I got in line to get on and 5 or 6 groups of fans pushed in front of me. Cursing and scowling fiercely, I got out of line and moved down the platform, deciding to get on the D train and transfer at Kenmore. By this point, I was completely stressed and flustered, glowering at everyone and forgetting my manners. I put on my iPod, stopped pretending to read the New Yorker, and let Ryan Adams soothe my ruffled nerves. The D Train was fine, the transfer was smooth (especially interesting to watch the sea of fans trying to disembark, disgorge, and climb the stairs at Kenmore), and I arrived home a mere 2 hours after I left work. Play ball!

[Note: as you can see, this incident went a long way towards making me forget the fact that I like the Red Sox and often enjoy the fervor and fanaticism of their fans. I'm hoping those feelings will return, at least in between public transportation battles.]

The straggly tail of runners moving down Beacon Street across from my window represent the end of the 112th Boston Marathon. This is my first up-close experience of a marathon. I spent about an hour down on the sidelines, as waves of emotion washed over me. I was surprised by how touching and intense it is, even as a spectator.

It took me a long time to get home today, as crowds of people jostled each other to pack into any Green Line train, trying to get near Copley Square and the marathon finish line. After fruitlessly trying to board 3 C trains in a row, I hopped the D train and transferred at Kenmore, after the hoards had reached their destination. Coming up out of the tunnel at St. Mary's, I could hear the roar of the crowd, then saw the runners, a sea of them, moving in the bright sunshine. Tears sprang to my eyes. The combination of the grit and almost fanciful optimism of the runners and the excitement and supportiveness of the crowd packed quite a punch. This was about 1pm, after the fastest had already crossed the finish line.

Brookline witnesses such a crucial point in the race, as the runners enter the final few miles, but are just short of the finish. It was amazing to see Beacon Street transformed into a sea of runners and spectators. As the train made a slight incline, I could see several blocks ahead and the sea turned into a long river of runners. The day is perfect: sunny but not too warm. Plenty of people are grilling and boozing, taking the opportunity to party. Others are waiting for a particular runner and will jump up out of their seats and start running alongside their loved one, offering encouragement and liquids. Others are trying to cross the path of the marathon, dodging in between runners as they go by. The spectacle of it is entertaining, but the sheer emotion of it is overwhelming. I sat silently and wondered why I didn't cheer, wondered what ideas of focus, commitment, and hope I can take from this, wondered at the beauty of such occasions.

I really hate the bullet point in my last entry, but removing it now seems like cheating.

It seems like I am going to accept a full-time position at the company for which I am currently temping. This is either part of my comfortable, steady segue into mediocrity, or a smart way to bide my time until I can see more of the face of my true desires. It is probably a bit of both - like the road less traveled, it will become part of my mythology, changing its meaning as I tell about it at different points in my life.

Last weekend I returned to the Pioneer Valley for the first time since last summer. It was good to be there because I was seeing friends who are important to me and make me feel loved and accepted. Otherwise, the area instills a low-grade panic in me. I have come a long way from there to this current stagnation. I don't want to go back, but I want to feel the way I felt when I was there. I flirted with the idea of moving into the apartment upstairs from my friends, getting a job at one of hte colleges, and experimenting with that being "enough". Back in the city, I wonder how to make these choices. If I am baseless, formless, on what should I base and form my decisions? I feel a strong urge to be normal for a while, but my idea of normal is vague at best. I want to take this job, get an apartment, take some deep breaths, and stop worrying.

I went to the library today and stocked up on books and CDs. Now I am transferring the music to iTunes, where it will live forever! This seems amazing to me. Free things still look magical - "owning" these songs cannot be this easy. Got some things I'd been wanting for a while: Lucinda Williams, Wilco, The White Stripes, Sufjan Stevens, Prince, Modest Mouse, The Flaming Lips, Bruce Springsteen, Alicia Keys, and Bettye LaVette.

The weather has gotten beautiful, warm, sunny. Yesterday I walked up to the reservoir at Cleveland Circle, walked around it dodging dogs, BU runners, old ladies feeding the ducks, and pensive alterna-boys reading while walking. I sat under a tree and let the no-see-ems bite me while I whittled away at a crossword puzzle and finished up an article on magic from the New Yorker. It was a good afternoon. I look forward to getting more sun, wearing fewer clothes, and feeling my mood thaw along with the ground. Friday my parents will come for an overnight visit. I am occupied with thinking of places for us to go and things for us to eat. At times, this is a pleasant occupation, at others it is anxiety-ridden. I fear the exposure of my life, its limitations and preoccupations.

Today is rainy and gusting, but it is also 60 FREAKIN DEGREES!!! I am delighted to feel 60 degree raindrops being blown against my face by 60 degree wind gusts.

I can never seem to remember how changeable March can be. This year, it passed in a blur of snow-rain-sleet-sun-fog-cold-warm. I am glad to see April.

Even my alarm clock's failure to alarm me this morning could not shake my relieved ebullience. I finally unloaded the dark secret of my failure(s) to get into grad school to those I hadn't yet told. I feel so much better now, though the future looms perilously close.

This weekend, I will travel to Connecticut to visit my parents and see my sister and brother-in-law. I think it will also be an early birthday celebration for my Mom. Additionally, we'll be using the time to say goodbye to Willie, the sweet, elderly Cairn Terrier who has lived with my parents for the past 5 years. They have decided to have him put to sleep next week, after months of wondering and watching his decline. Blitz's rapid aging before her death reminded my parents that waiting until the animal is pain, paralyzed from a stroke, or completely incapacitated is not always the kindest path. Willie's infirmity over the last several months has prevented my parents from being away from home for more than a day at a time. His sphere and capacity are rapidly dwindling, though his spirit is not. We talked a bit about their decision, which mainly entailed

Posting because it's time to post. I doubt my capacity for coherency right now. Maybe bullets can help.

• Blitz, the cat who lived with my family for the past 22 years, was put to sleep last Thursday. I think of her as "my" cat, but she really belonged to my parents, and herself. She came into our lives accidentally; we had purchased two kittens, one for the family and one for my sister, who was now living on her own. Nora, the perfect, sweet, pretty kitten was to be for us, while Blitz, the scrappy, hyperactive, runt of the litter was to go to my sister. Blitz was soft and cute, as kittens tend to be, but she had been born with a bent tail that formed a club at the end, and her name was a true reflection of her personality. Long story short, Blitz never went to live with my sister, but stayed with the family. After a year or so, she had succeeded in driving her sister away and forcing our older cat out of the house. She knew, long before we did, that she ought to be the only cat in the household. Her ambition far outstripped her maturity and even while staging her not-so-subtle coup of the cat population, she was still trying to nurse at my mother's breast. The latter activity resulted, as one might imagine, in a contentious relationship with my mother, which lasted until the last 5 years or so of Blitz's life. Blitz was adept at bouncing off of walls, achieving high perches, and slaughtering birds. She broke her leg by wedging it into the crotch of a tree in our backyard, then gleefully dragged her tiny cast through her own feces. We have pictures of her snoozing on the couch with her brown-spotted cast. She was very much an outdoor cat, albeit one who enjoyed the comforts of home to the utmost. She spent her days denuding the neighborhood of rodents and hastening the evolution of the bird population by capturing the slower of the species. At night, she would come home to nibble on her food and collect the accolades and attention she so richly deserved. She loved to sleep on human bodies and could often be found colonizing the broadest (or softest) chest, back, buttocks, or thighs in the house. Even at her full adult size, she was smaller than most cats, but had an uncanny knack for taking over even the largest bed. The humans of her realm would wake to find themselves clinging to the edge of the mattress or contorted in pretzel-like shapes, while Blitz sprawled or curled in the middle of a wide nest. She also had a need to knead, and had no compunction about using her claws while she did so. We watched her approach with mingled dread and affection, blocking our tender skin with blankets, pillows, and other armor, so we could have the pleasure of stroking her incredibly soft fur without the attendant pain of her incredibly sharp claws. She also put those claws to use in her working life, sometimes pinning the tail of a small rodent as it tried to escape, other times batting it about, until finally using the same weapon to bring it to its untimely death. Up until the very end of her life, Blitz loved to play, and could be counted on to chase strings, ribbons, shoelaces, and other trailing objects. She was a fool for catnip and could often be found nesting in my mother's herb garden. She loved gardens in general and would find a patch of dirt warm from the sun and doze in the afternoons. She lived in 4 different houses with my parents and found her spots in each of them. In Hamden, her last home, she enjoyed lying half in sun, half in shade at the very edge of the hemlock hedge, where she could watch bugs, stalk birds, and receive the occasional scratch on the chin or ear from an obliging human. She always loved attention and affection, but it was not until her later years that she became truly needy of them. She developed a cantankerous yowl that she would unleash any time someone passed by. In earlier years, this sound would only have been deployed in a true emergency, such as being stuck out in the rain overnight. Several times, I awoke in such a circumstance to find a dripping-wet Blitz sitting outside the second story window, announcing her displeasure. After what one must assume were many attempts to gain our attention at the usual doors and windows, she had climbed up onto the roof and wanted to be let in there. The yowl also came in handy when she had snuck into the attic and been locked in there by an unsuspecting human. For me, she is the model for all other cats, and I find myself puzzled and disappointed when they do not respond to the same type of scratching and petting that Blitz appreciated. She trained me how to be a cat owner, and I know I will think of her whenever I put those skills to use. They will never be used so fondly or so well again.

Apparently, this post is like a sheriff in an old Western: one bullet was all it needed to get the job done.

The spring sun is here! Though it is still 34 degrees outside, the sun is shining and it is actually conveying warmth to the earth. I like it. I will even accept it in trade for having to wait for the T in the dark each morning, due to Daylight Savings. The seasonal transitions in New England are so miraculous. I never get inured to them, no matter how many I experience. True, they are hard on the body, which responds slowly to the changes, but they are full of so many hopeful signs and marvelous stimuli.

I am having a more positive week. Possibly, this is due to having caught on some much-needed sleep over my spa-weekend in Connecticut. I have also reached a point of semi-acceptance and hopefulness about the future. That is, I no longer think that my prospects for a productive, meaningful life are squandered. Also, the sun is WARM. This cannot be overrated.

One possibility: applying for an MFA program and working through it as a part-time student, while also holding down a job. Believe it or not, this possibility never occurred to me. I am not great at combining things, at least in my plans for the future, or "what I might do". Right now, the idea of not having to choose one path (ie. work or school), but actually finding ways to make my situation work for me, is very appealing.

I'm going to publish this now, because Blogger keeps frantically notifying me that it has lost its connection...

I've reached some new plateau; I am writing this from work. It's a slow day and I am bent on making it slower. It's rainy and foggy outside, with occasional bursts of sunshine. I am looking forward to seeing some good friends who've been out of the country for a while, wondering if my fatigue will lift enough for me to be a good companion, and worrying that I am coming down with a cold. A few people at work have been truly stricken with illness: strep throat, flu, and other semi-serious afflictions. I feel a certain amount of reasonable hypochondria is in order. I am loading up on zinc, vitamins, and liquids, but sleep has been elusive. Since that is usually the one ingredient that makes the cure, I am concerned about its lack.

After a brief foray into "real" literature, via Cormac McCarthy's bleak and satisying Road, I am back to popping romance novels at an alarming pace. Part of the reason for my lack of sleep is my habit of staying up too late reading the latest romance. I am not sure which comes first, the novel or the insomnia. My new therapist seems inclined to delve into my romance-reading proclivities, so perhaps some sort of revelation and/or acceptance is forthcoming. For now, I will begrudgingly admit that this self-soothing method is probably not the worst one I could pursue. How's that for damning with faint praise?

Today, winter came back with a vengeance. As I shivered at the T-stop this morning, I felt inexplicably delighted by the cold. I suspect that I am a person who has trouble letting go of seasons. I want to be in the throes of the weather, whatever it might be, not teased and tantalized by intimations of the next season. I like winter in Boston, too. I like looking out the window and seeing snow on the train tracks and snow on the tops of the trees and snow on the roofs of the houses on the opposite hillside. I like rushing through the cold wind along with the rest of the commuters, stepping into the warmth of a cafe or bookstore, and feeling my neck get prickly with heat under my scarf. As I remember from my short stay in Minnesota, the drama of piling on all those layers, only to peel them off quickly once inside, is very satisfying.

In other news: 2 out of 3 colleges do not want me to attend their graduate programs. This is extremely disheartening, though perhaps not as devastating as it seemed at first. The second rejection is still very fresh, but I have successfully numbed myself to it, only succumbing to a few flare-ups during the day. When I begin to consider the implications, I feel such a strong surge of panic that I am loathe to continue considering. I will need to think about other possibilities at some point, but right now I can't think what those might be. I feel fairly ashamed about not getting into these schools - I don't want everyone to know - and I recognize that I really do consider them to be arbiters of intelligence and merit, despite all my speeches and rants to the contrary. I have fallen short and it feels just as startling and painful as a literal fall.

For years, my parents have been telling me about a performance by Cyndi Lauper at a Joni Mitchell tribute concert that they saw on TV. They were blown away by the performance and it had become legendary in my mind, though I'd never seen it. The other day, I finally had the presence of mind to look it up on YouTube. It was easy to find and, boy, did it deliver. The performance is astonishing, almost wrenching in its intensity and beauty. She really mined that song for all it was worth. I got shivers and felt tears spring to my eyes several times. Check it out.

This was a good day. I slept late, breakfasted, read, then clothed myself and set out on an adventure. My adventures mainly consist of lots and lots of walking, followed by coffee and more walking. Today's was no exception. I decided to walk down to Brookline Village, returning High School Musical 2 (yes, I'm wincing as I write that) to the Redbox at Stop 'n' Shop on the way. Once I reached Brookline Village, it seemed advisable to keep going to Kenmore Square (which I've only just realized is NOT Kendall Square). It was sunny, in a pale, wintry way, and it felt good to be moving. The more I walk around, the more I actually begin to piece together the layout of the city - mainly the way in which places I've visited by train/bus/car are connected to each other. Most often, it turns out that a place to which I had journeyed by 2 or 3 trains turns out to be right next to a place that is within walking distance from my house. Also, walking allows me to stay in contact with the parts of the city that are not so shiny or groomed for consumption. After a few blocks of dingy warehouses, I walked through a lovely little park which happens to be the one I had glimpsed many times when driving M to school and H to the doctor. I figured out that if I walked some ways in the other direction, through that park, I would end up near the MFA and the Gardner Museum. Today, however, I stuck to the plan and walked down Brookline Ave to Kenmore. I considered several Starbucks, umpteen Dunkin Donuts, and a few independent coffee shops, but kept going. I stopped in the Barnes and Noble, eschewing their cafe for a quick look at a guidebook, then set off for the Trident Bookstore and Cafe on Newbury. There, I had an incredibly small but well-appointed cobb salad and 2 cups of really good coffee. The place was hopping, but the waitress seemed content to let me stay there all day, drinking free refills, reading my romance novel, and starting a new crossword puzzle. I, however, was not comfortable taking up space that seemed needed for others, so I paid and wandered over to the bookstore side to check it out. They have a good selection, but it is way too crowded on a Saturday to make for enjoyable browsing. I found a small selection of used CDs and ended up buying 3: Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose, Tift Merritt's Tambourine, and a Blue Note jazz compilation. Buying CDs feels so strange these days, as if I were insisting on cooking in a cast iron cauldron over a fire while the newfangled range sits unused. Especially since I will be downloading these CDs and putting them on my nano anyway. When I left the store, it was beginning to snow, so I bundled up, feeling like a seasoned New Englander for bringing all my winter paraphernalia. The air was cold and crisp and the snow fell so gently; my spirits were buoyed and I decided to keep walking. Half a block away, I followed temptation and turned down an alley. This alley contained the back lots and parking for rows of condos and brownstones. It was so quiet and peaceful to be just off the street this way. I put my headphones on and queued up Ryan Adams' "Come Pick Me Up". The snow fell softly in between the tall corridors of buildings. The song provoked its familiar combination of longing, aching, and happiness. The alley stretched on for blocks, hemming me into my own little slice of the city, as the music soared and my feet strode along. It was a wonderful series of moments.

Today I decided to vote for Barack Obama in the Massachusetts primary on Feb 5th. Subsequent to this decision, I read an interesting article in the New Yorker that ended up being kind of a character study of Hillary Clinton. The article made me like her more and empathize with her as a person and as a woman, but it didn't change my vote. I got more of a sense of the causes of her current affect and positions and a stronger narrative that makes her movements and statements cohesive in a way they hadn't been before (at least for me). I also got the guilty sense that it's her very womanhood (her experiences as a female-identified person living in the US, to be more specific) which has formed the opinions that I find hard to take. Her combativeness, competitiveness, and inability to show her humanity make her an unappealing candidate, one who resembles the garden-variety politician more than any sort of "new" choice. Her policy ideas and style of governance are not interesting or compelling to me and I see no reason to think that she will change those any time soon. Not to mention that voting for a woman simply because of the "fact" of her female-ness goes against all my training and belief. (Though there is definitely a political and social need for women-as-symbols in prominent political positions. See Condoleeza Rice for the ways in which this need can be fulfilled and stymied simultaneously.)

In short, it turns out that I'm just like the rest of the American people: prepared to vote not on the issues, or any concrete sense of how to change things, but rather on the emotional desire for change and the feeling that the rhetoric of hope is a good start on hope itself.

Work sucks more than usual this week. Today, I seriously considered quitting after this week - that is, if they don't let me go first :) Then I wondered what job I could possibly find that would be any better. I begin to sense why I might be looking for hopefulness in a political candidate; I get enough cynicism every day, just listening to my own thoughts. I have pretty much completely given up on the internship. I think I can trust the fact that I NEVER work on it to signify that perhaps I am not "on board". Now I need to figure out if/when I should tell Carol about this and whether I should allow myself to a) be swayed by her attempts to get me to stay, b) be offended if she doesn't make any such attempts, or c) put this off for several more weeks. If I quit the internship, do I have to start working full time? If I don't work full time, will I experience such overwhelming ennui that I will begin to miss the internship? Is change worth it? Maybe it's easier to just go along with the current program until I reach the edge of the world and fall off.

Inspired by my friend PG, I have decided to make a list of movies I want to see. Her list was of movies she has already seen in the past year, but it reminded me that I have been meaning to list the movies I've yet to see, so I can either rent them or put them in my Netflix queue. If the writer's strike continues, I will not watch the Oscar broadcast, which takes some of the pressure off! Though, come to think of it, I haven't kept up with Oscar-nominated movies for many years. I used to be a zealot about it and I used to read movie magazines like crazy, so I knew about all the movies before they came out. I also used to go to the movies once or twice a week. Now, it's more like once or twice every few months.

Movies I Want to See that I Still Haven't Seen (from 2007, mostly)
1. Michael Clayton
2. No Country for Old Men
3. Juno
4. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
5. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
6. Sweeney Todd
7. In the Valley of Elah
8. Eastern Promises
9. Charlie Wilson's War
10. Away From Her
11. The Savages
12. American Gangster
13. Gone Baby Gone
14. Control
15. The Darjeeling Limited
16. Half Nelson
17. The Good German
18. Once

I love making lists...until they exhaust me. Around # 13 I started to feel fatigue setting in. How/when will I possibly watch all these movies? At least I saw "There Will Be Blood". It was so satisfying, I might not have to see another movie all year. Even its flaws were beautiful and bold.

• Ah, the cheerful bullet point, ready at a moment's notice to turn morbid, rambling digressions into bouncy agenda items!
• It's grey and cold outside and I can't believe it's not snowing. The air looks edible, as though I could bite into it like firm, dense snow.
• I am living for the weekends now, racing through the weekdays in order to effect my escape as soon as Friday afternoon rolls around. When I think about people dying young (Heath Ledger), being diagnosed with incurable diseases (entire panel on NPR last night), or losing their ability to enjoy life as old age takes over (my roommate), I imagine that I should be suffused with a new sense of the NOW and how to live it. Not so. I am still mired in the curiously stagnant present.
• The second season of Weeds was fantastic. I can't wait for the third to become available!
• I got blindsided by the New Yorker recently. Absorbed in the tale of Sergio Vieira de Mello's doomed attempt to put Iraq to rights, I forgot that this was a true story, with a known ending. His death in the 2004 UN bombing took me cruelly by surprise, as if it were just happening for the first time. I was shocked and saddened in a way I hadn't been when hearing about the bombing in the news. Though I was reading the article as research for my internship study of SRSGs and their qualifications, I was unexpectedly most touched by the very attributes that made his leadership of the UN Peacekeeping Mission a failure. He was clearly ready to move on from his professional life into something more personal. He didn't get off on the danger anymore.
  
• I finally called the Boston Psychotherapy Institute to find a therapist. I realized that I am feeling exactly the way I felt 10 years ago when I first started therapy - like I am stuck in a rut and I can't find my way out of it alone. My intelligence, self-awareness, empathy, and emotional experience are not the only tools required. I am waiting for the intake person to call me back so I can get the ball rolling.
  
• Helen listens to romance novels on tape. Recently, she asked me to order some of my favorites for her. It has been embarrassing and awkward to hear these stories read aloud! I am alternately blase and defensive about sharing something that feels unexpectedly personal and almost shameful. For a long time, I have only shared romance novel recommendations with my mom.
  

It's a New Year, but, judging by the state of my blog, I am only turning over old leaves. My brain, heart, and life are very full, but not clear and hopeful, which is (maybe) the state which would provoke blogging. I get sick of writing about my same old anxieties, frustrations, and problems, and I imagine that my audience of 3 or 4 might get sick of hearing about them. Lots of nice transitory pleasures have crossed my path over the last few weeks, but the general state of things is pretty much the same. I have had bursts of optimism, during which I recognize how well I am doing. But these are eclipsed by a stronger feeling of "not doing well" that is very persistent and possessing of mutant strength. I have regressed to a feeling that would be very familiar to my young self, to my 20-year-old self, and to many other selves in between. The struggle of my life has been one against my overweening expectations of myself.

I have also realized that, for someone who is a true homebody, I have not done such a great job providing myself with a home. I have moved nearly 30 times in my 31 years, and I am not done yet. This realization exposes a gap between my inner and outer lives that is staggering in its width. I have never been good at figuring out how to make my external life - by which I mean jobs, houses, interactions - complement my inner life. Instead, I seem to try to force my inner self to accept the trappings of some other standard of living. It's a painful inconsistency.

See what I mean about old leaves? I hope they are turning into some good mulch by this point. I feel an urge to post the positives of my life, but that feels almost like a cheat. So many wonderful things happen to me, I do so many good things, I am surrounded and loved by so many good people, but right now these things don't seem to make a dent in my overall unwell-being. And yet...in general, my days pass happily enough. This deep sorrow and dissatisfaction only manifest when I sit still and try to write.