take up your pencils. begin.

I'm just warning you that I'll probably be spammy today. Or not.

Anyway, the consolation for not going to DC this weekend after all was not only attending greylightning's birthday party on Saturday and being around a lot of good friends, and catching a movie with W_____ on Sunday, but also being able to do pretty much what I wanted to do on Tuesday but with different folks: have some brunch and watch the festivities on television. ali_wildgoose, stella_art and W_____ came over, aethelflaed2 obtained patties from our local bakery, and I made sweet potato-chicken apple sausage hash. We settled in to watch with our mimosas and yes, I cried.

• I loved that Michelle Obama brought Laura Bush a little present (and Meredith Viera's reaction to same, which was basically to melt into a puddle).
  
• I loved all the hats, like Aretha's grey crystal bow and Bush 41's fur ear flaps and that random guy in the stands with the red fedora and Carter's rust colored cap. Very dapper day!
  
• I loved the music just before Obama was sworn in, and that there were four people playing classical music and only one was white (and he, Jewish) was not lost on me. I love "Simple Gifts" anyway; it's one of my favorite pieces of music so I was pleased to hear it.
  
• I loved Obama hesitating when Roberts mixed up the oath. As many others have said, it actually doesn't matter; law made him president at noon, during the music.
  
• I thought the poem was pretty good, actually.
  
• I love love loved the benediction.
  
• I love that the most visited page on the senate's inauguration site was the recipes for the inauguration luncheon.
  
• I adored the NASA float that closed the inaugural parade.

I know that many of you were dismayed to see how much praying goes on at these official government events. All I can say to that is yes, it was ever thus. With the exception of Kennedy and Biden, we've had nothing but Protestants in the top two offices of this nation—and those two exceptions are Catholics, which was still a really big deal in 1960. I'm not saying our future can't be different, but we have a big past weight behind us, not to mention that most of this country is Christian, and some of them feel that this is a Christian country in its essence. All I can say to that is, I can't teach the history of this country without talking about religion: the early settlements of religious objectors, the First and Second Great Awakenings, the rise of fundamentalism in the 1920s, how both the abolition and civil rights movements came out of the church. I guess I'm trying to say that I wasn't surprised by it at all, and I can't think of a public ceremony I've ever attended that didn't include those sorts of things—and there was a live broadcast of Obama at the National Cathedral this morning.

( An aside about fashion and gender. )

bsg season two

I know my reading of the recaps was controversial (believe me, I've heard about it) but I've found that watching the show goes a lot better when I know what is going to happen, because then I don't have that sense of overwhelming dread that I had when I didn't know.

This is the thing with BSG: I keep feeling like everyone who is telling me to watch the show wants me to care about it in a way I can't figure out. Is it detached fascination? Is it confirmation that life is ultimately futile, or that humanity no longer deserves to exist? I can't seem to work out where the pleasure is in the show; I'm alternately annoyed and infuriated, with about ten minutes of interest every fourth episode or so.

( Season 2. )

On to season 3 shortly, thanks to illogicalvulcan. Season 4 is on the TIVO thanks to Sci-Fi, so I reckon I'll be caught up at least by the finale. Thoughts, anyone?