I apologize for my less than clever title, but today sucks pretty much any way you cut it.
I am at work. No one else is at work. No one is buying houses today. But I'm here in the office, bitterly not-watching and not-listening to the tiny tv that our office manager brought in to watch the inauguration.
The combination of weather and road closures for the inauguration has prevented me from seeing Connie since Monday, even though she just 6 miles away in VA. I miss her!
I guess what's bumming me out most of all, though, is the damned event itself. I know that even though I didn't vote for Bushie, I should be behind him in some small way because he is going to be the president of my country for the next four years (or even longer, as my friend Drew points out, given his penchant for changing the constitution). But I'm just not feeling it today.
Even if I'm not happy about the president, maybe I should appreciate the grandeur of this national day of celebration. Perhaps I could look at the history of the inauguration and be fascinated by that. Memorable speeches have been made on inauguration day-- maybe if I watched I'd have the chance to hear live something that will be remembered for years to come. Somehow I don't think so. I have a feeling today's speech wil be full of sickeningly self-righteous platitudes about freedom and wholly inapropriate references to God.
It all seems a little silly to me. The nine zillion inaugural balls seem excessive. I won't go as far as to say that because of the thousands of lives lost in Asia and Iraq that the ceremonies should be curtailed or done away with altogether. I understand that the money comes from private donations, and should be used the way the donors intended. I also get that people simply need to have their parties. The celebration is something that gives people pride and not having them would cast a shadow over things. I just worry that we are giving more fodder to the people in the world who think America is a nation of over-indulgent rich assholes who are oblivious to everything outside our borders.
Phew, that turned out to be more than I thought I would write about that... I apologize if I sound whiny or melodramatic. I'm sure everything will look a lot better once this is all over and Washington isn't so crazy.
