I realize that today, the 1st full day of a new administration, I should be filled with expectation, or anxiety, or sombre meaningful thoughts on patriotism. Instead I want to make lots of cheesecake, and paint my hallway, and buy a permanent Obama umbrella, to stop you people from raining on my parade.

My mother, (who's composite image of me I think is based on some friend of a friend's daughter, since she forgets that I haven't dyed my hair in ten years, I do wear colors besides black now, and my employers love me and I'm never in any danger of getting fired also I do love her despite all these things) left me a voicemail that said, in essence, "Bridget, don't be disappointed, he's not a miracle worker, the world isn't going to instantly change".

This is a ridiculous expectation, because I am regularly one of the most cynical people you will meet. Especially to her. Especially about miracles.

Okay, so yes I know that he's not a miracle worker, or Nelson Mandela, which I swear I heard one of the tv commentators say last night. I'm probably more aware of that then most of you. I understand Obama is a centrist, that he'll backtrack on a lot of things, and due to lack of money most of those ambitious social programs are not going to happen. I understand that there is a good chance he will do none of the things I think he should, like freezing foreclosures, expanding internet access to all of America, and impeaching Bush.

But I like having a president who at the very least will not actively contribute to making things worse, and will at least try to wean us away from oil. Obama won a lot of loyalty from me with his Secretary of Energy pick. I am no longer scared that NASA will be closed down, or that America won't contribute to the LHC effort. I think PBS might actually survive. And for god sakes, he believes in global warming. That seems like a minor miracle to me.

So leave me alone. I'm tired of being defensive and angry for the past eight years, I don't need you all trying to deflate me. The reason I am so excited is that the bar has been set very low for my expectations. When Obama gets as bad as George W Bush,( you know, starts another war, lies to us repeatedly, and talks about we have to save Israel because of the End of Days, destroys every environmental law he can get his hands on), then I will lower my enthusiasm. Maybe. He's still much cuter and knows how to use Twitter.

The reviewing stand looked like they were about to watch a horse race...

Okay, I'm drunk and about to get drunker, so let's keep this short....

1. In the crowded Palace Theater today I watched that, you know, thing that was going on today.

very secret cult like gathering....

2. Behind me was an old man who kept calling, "The Peanut Man!" every time Jimmy Carter came on screen. S. says he heard him saying later he couldn't remember his last name.

check out the secret of Acorn's success - Zombies!

3. Several standing ovations happened, and lots of hisses.

some things should always be experience in crowds..


4. Obama mentioned "non-believers" as part of America! Yay! We exist!

5. I cried when Obama said he would "restore science to its proper place".

6. That bow was amazing.

7. That poem was awful.

8. That entire inaugural speech was a damning diss of Bush, and it was awesome.

9. Cheney in a wheelchair was a) Old Man Potter and b) the best thing EVER. S. was hoping that the wheelchair would sprout rocket jets and fly off into the sky, leaving behind a magic rainbow...

10. The presidential swearing-in happened late, so technically we didn't have a president for ten minutes.

11. I called my dad afterwards to thank him, which sounds really cheesy(and is), because he volunteered and worked for the Civil Rights Movement, and ever since then he's just always been working for the rights of poor people and poor cities, and I was really overcome with the idea of it all. I mean, I couldn't ask for a better person to aspire to (even though I ended up a corporate slug), and I just felt like this was a victory for all the people like him across the country who try so hard to change things, and have been trying since they were marching in Selma, and recycling computers started, and steel mills started to unionize. And I said "you know, thank you in a generational way" and he said "well, in a generational way, thank you for knowing how to use the internet." Then he mentioned some thing about drawing water before and drawing water after and Buddhism, and went back to work.

11. I then got very drunk. And I am very very very happy. I kept calling my mom to come have a drink with me, but she was working.

12. The Obama girls are the best princesses we could ask for. Maybe Disney will now actually have a black princess.

13. There was something that Rick Warren (*spit*) said in his prayer that actually struck me. He said we should celebrate the "peaceful transfer of power for the 44th time", and you know, above everything else, he's right. In the grand scheme of things, the fact that we have such contentious elections and then the guy wins, and he's just in, and everyone just accepts it? That's amazing.

Diane Feinstein said something similar when she talked about the "supremacy of the ballot over the bullet".

14, I like Michelle Obama because every time the camera pans to her, she's looking at her kids. And that's what the mother of a 7 yr old would be doing. Not concerned about looking at her husband, or appreciating Perhlman, but making sure the girl isn't lifting up her skirt.

15. The entire time I have known S., worked for my company, owned a car, and had short short hair, Bush has been president.

Random things I collect when I don't have a computer at home, and I have a whole day of not talking to anyone

1. Ding Dong the Witch is dead! Which old witch? The Wicked Witch! Ding dong the Wicked Witch is dead! (or will be, as of tomorrow, although in not as satisfying a way as some of us would have hoped...). I hope the name George is going to be some generation name, like Katie or Tiffany. I don't need a bunch of little Georges popping up in the next ten years. We don't need them to steal the thunder from the Thousands of Baracks that are to come.

2. Tomorrow I will be headed downtown to watch the Inauguration at either Playhouse Square or the Wolfstein Center. Then I will be headed to Tremont to drink. At this point, it looks like I'll be alone for all of this, because everyone else is working, so if you're not, feel free to holla at me. I want to be in a crowd, I want to see happy people, I want to hear shouting and clapping and drink a lot. Unfortunately, none of my friends consider this the holiday I do. It's probably because they partied on 11/2, while I was stuck in a hotel room by myself. Anyway, I miss having friends that didn't work 9-5 jobs. Like, you know, all of us before two years ago.

3. Watching Stranger Than Fiction and then Adaptation the next morning will play serious tricks on a wannabe writer's mind. Watching the Ernest Angley hour afterwards will not help, and not having a computer while in the mood to not eat anything only drink and smoke and smoke and drink? Well that will cement the crazy and lead you to scribble massive amounts of nonsense down on your watercolor pad (being the only paper in the house). These crazies will seep into your dreams and give you the first nightmare you've had in years, though that could be due to the champagne, edam, and garlic triscuits you consumed in mass quantity before sleep. Also, triscuits is the weirdest cracker name ever, and I don't believe it can really be spelled that way.
I couldn't go to sleep after that nightmare. I wasn't scared during it at all, but when I woke up I got really really spooked, which is one of the downfalls of living alone and also being the kind of person who forgets to lock her door all the time. I can say that safely on the internet, because it will NEVER happen again.

4. Einstein's first wife intrigues me, and I will probably write more about her soon, if only because desperately thwarted women are a thing with me these days. Also, let's talk about how weird it is that it's called Gravity, so sombre, so formal. I'm not sure I believe in gravity. I mean, I believe these reactions occur. But I don't believe gravity is one law, one force, acting everywhere always the same. I think it's probably more of a set of related laws, involving forces we don't have names for yet, which act differently in different areas of the universe. Of course, I have no basis for this, not even a reliable background of basic level physics, only my imagination and observation of how many of the other mightier laws of nature have fallen since the dawn of Science. So you know, okay for a L'Engle novel, maybe not so much for the formal debate.