» Everything Peripatetic

Yeah, I know, I haven’t been posting much, and I’m behind on my reasons to be cheerful,* which I had hoped to do weekly. Didn’t have that many as of Friday, though; it was a tough week at work and an unproductive week at home. My head is better overall—a lot better, really—but my energy level is so low that I can’t seem to do anything. I actually nodded off at work this morning, though fortunately it was right after I got here (at 7 friggin’ AM), so I don’t think anyone noticed.

Anyway…it was a pretty great Valentine’s Day nonetheless, and I can scrape up a few RTBC.

Bill, after swearing up and down that he wasn’t getting me flowers for Valentine’s Day, sent me a bouquet of 40(!) gorgeous little roses (they’re not the miniature kind, but they’re not full-sized either) in various colors. They’re from the competition (even though I told him that I’d give him my employee discount code if he wanted to buy from my company), but they’re still pretty spectacular, and they were a big surprise. Not quite as much of a surprise as my other gift from him, though. We’re both huge fans of the brilliant (and possibly canceled) HBO show “The Wire,” which ranks among the best things I’ve ever seen on TV, and we both have a soft spot for the character of Omar, who robs drug dealers for a living and carries a sawed-off shotgun that he’s never shy about using, but also has a strong moral code of his own; for example, he never robs or shoots “civilians,” and he doesn’t swear. You can tell that the show’s creator, David Simon (who also created “Homicide,” another brilliant and long since canceled show), has a soft spot for Omar too; otherwise, he wouldn’t have made him such a compelling character (though I guess Omar is based partly on a couple of real Baltimore criminals whom Simon has encountered). And Michael K. Williams, a young actor who hasn’t done much else other than some guest appearances on various TV shows and some off-Broadway theater, does an extraordinary job bringing Omar to life.
Anyway, the Baltimore alt weekly, City Paper, did a story on the show and its future recently, and Bill liked the illustration that went with it, which was a sort of free-form study of Omar, showing him with his trademark shotgun, money sticking out of his jacket pocket, and a TV remote in his hand. So—here’s the amazing part—Bill contacted the paper, who forwarded his e-mail to the artist, and he arranged to buy the original artwork. Then he hand-framed it for me. “Speechless” doesn’t even begin to describe my reaction (though I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t recognize the illustration right away); I’ve never received a more creative gift or one that had so much thought put into it. “Stunned” would be closer to the mark. I Am a Lucky Girl.

That alone would be enough for this week’s RTBC, but I’ve got some others.
We had our Valentine’s Day dinner on Saturday night, since I knew I’d be studying on the actual night, and going out on Monday nights isn’t very appealing anyway, and decided to try out a newish Japanese place that’s closer to our house than the excellent place that we usually visit for our periodic sushi indulgences. (Whenever we eat sushi lately, we keep having people in the restaurants marvel at our capacity for it—but when you only eat it a few times a year, it’s hard not to splurge.) It wasn’t as good as our usual place, or even as good as the place way far away from our house that we went to with friends a while back, but it was quite good nonetheless, and the atmosphere of the place was a lot of fun. We sat at the sushi bar and listened to the head sushi chef bantering with the regulars. It was also cheaper than our usual place, so I have a feeling we’ll go back. I have mixed feelings about eating fish, since I’d prefer to be a real vegetarian, and I go back and forth about whether I eat it or not (currently I don’t), but somehow I’ve always been able to make an exception/justification for sushi. Actually, “justification” isn’t the right word, because I can’t think of any reason that it’s acceptable under my moral standards to eat fish—hell, I don’t even wear leather. I’m just powerless to resist the occasional urge for sushi.

I got my proposal for the term paper for my advanced cataloging class done in time, and I think it even sort of made sense; more important, I think I’ve actually got a handle on the topic, which I was having trouble pinning down. It’s going to be (nonlibrarians may take a brief nap now) a look at how Dublin Core metadata might either replace or supplement MARC21 in the library catalog—not only for cataloging digital resources, but also for plain old bibliographic cataloging. I came to cataloging bass-ackwards, after a metadata class that was hands down the best class I’ve ever taken in any phase of my education, and I was smitten with Dublin Core and deeply suspicious of and baffled by MARC when I took the intro cataloging class. Now I’m more aware of the limitations of Dublin Core (though I still love it for its ease of use and its “flexibility and extensibility,” to use those tired buzzwords) and more aware of the advantages of MARC…though I’m ambivalent about MARC; on the one hand, the linguist part of me is drawn to the idea of librarians having their own secret, arcane language, especially now that I’ve learned to speak it on a basic level, but on the other hand, I think that arcane aspect of it is what’s going to doom it to some extent in this digital age. Anyway, the proposal is done, and the paper doesn’t seem insurmountable. (On the down side, I’m behind in the reading for my IA class and I’ve done absolutely nothing on my independent study project, but hey, this post is supposed to be upbeat and positive.)

My copy of “Dap-Dippin’…with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings” finally showed up yesterday. It took forever to get here—I get tired of buying stuff from Amazon, and my favorite online retailer didn’t have it, but I don’t think I’ll be buying again from the legendary indie retailer from which I ended up purchasing it any time soon—but it got here, and I’m listening to it now and it’s just knocking me flat. I love the retro packaging, and more important, I love the way Ms. Jones and band manage to make their vintage soul influences clear without sounding self-consciously retro. The lyrics, production, and overall style are thoroughly up-to-date…though if you close your eyes and pretend you’re not listening on a computer, you can sort of imagine you’re listening to a late 1960s/early 1970s Detroit soul record. Killer stuff, and I’m kicking myself now for not driving to Lawrence on Friday night to see her.

Without going into any details that might get me in trouble, I’ll just say that I’m finally going to get a legitimate chance to work on something at work that will make actual use of the skills I’ve been spending the last couple of years (and thousands of dollars in student loans) acquiring. I’m not sure where to start with it—details will become clearer next week—but I’m as excited about it as I’ve been about anything job-related since I left the Wonderful World of Children’s Publishing.

OK, I think that’s enough for this week. I’ve got a bunch of assignments due this week, so it may not be much of a week for blogging, but I still have a post brewing in my head about traditional Celtic and British Isles music (I’m thinking of making a comp called “A Decade or So of Celtic Music That Doesn’t Suck,” but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t get any takers for that one.), and maybe I’ll manage that on Thursday or so.

*In case anyone is curious about where the phrase “Reasons to Be Cheerful” comes from or why it will always be “part 3,” it’s from a very wonderful song by the late great Ian Dury. The closest approximation I could find to what I think the real lyrics are is here; unfortunately, it’s a site with popups, but the usual big lyric aggregator sites got the first line wrong, so I didn’t bother with them after that.

One of the weird things about my particular brand of depression is that somewhere in my late 20s/early 30s, in spite of going through some moderate to severe depressive episodes, I became and remained a (mostly) unshakeable optimist — and one of the things that’s been most disconcerting about this latest and worst round of severe depression (which is plainly ebbing, but not all the way gone yet) has been the total disappearance of that optimism. And I’d like to bring it back. So, inspired by the late, great Ian Dury, I’m going to try to make a weekly list of things that have given me moments of pleasure and/or hope in the past week or few days or morning drive to work or whatever. Here’s the first attempt.

1. My classes this semester. I’m finding my advanced cataloging class a little more challenging than expected, but that’s not a bad thing at all: it’s invaluable to find out how much I don’t know, and how much more I want and need to learn. And I get almost giddy in my information architecture class, because the professor is so good, the discussion is lively, and it’s surprising and reassuring to find how much I know already. I might actually be able to get a job in it someday, which is cause for optimism for sure.

2. Getting the new Bettie Serveert record *and* the X “Unheard Music” DVD in the mail this week. The Bettie Serveert record showed up yesterday, so I’m listening to it for the first time now. I’m on track 5, and so far it’s sounding almost as good as Log 22. First impression two tracks in was that it was a little poppier and maybe less adventurous than Log 22, but now I’ve hit a couple of longer, slower songs, including one that had a slightly orchestral feel that reminded me just a little of the Delgados. (I never miss an opportunity to mention the Delgados, who got a brief but audible bit of exposure on “The O.C.” last night. I don’t watch the show, but a friend had alerted me that the Delgados would have a song featured in a scene in last night’s episode. Bill watches it devoutly (he watches a lot of shows that have teenage girls as their main target audience; I’m not sure what this means, but I can’t tease him too much about “The O.C.” because a) I watch reality shows on MTV, not to mention “Joan of Arcadia”, and b) “The O.C.” seems to be pretty well-written and entertaining, based on the glimpses of it I’ve caught), and he called me in when the song — “Everybody Come Down,” a fine choice — came on.)* It’s weird to refer to the Betties — a band that I’ve followed for more than 10 years — as reminding me of the Delgados, a band I only found out about a couple of years ago. But there it is. Up to track 6 now and still sounding excellent.

I also got the new Low record in the mail this week. Haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, but My Favorite DJ played another track from it yesterday that I liked a lot, so I think it’s going to be a keeper. Which may mean hell has frozen over, I’m not sure.

3. A new season of “Murphy’s Law” and a new (to the U.S.) mystery series on BBCAmerica that’s one of the best shows I’ve seen in a while. They’re calling it “Night Detective” here; its UK title was “55 Degrees North,” which I guess they thought wouldn’t mean anything to USians. (Though I’m not sure the average Brit knows what latitude various cities are either, but maybe they do; 55 degrees N is Newcastle, among other places, and that’s where the show is set.) There’s only been one episode so far, but it was excellent, both because of the premise (smart, sharp, successful and slightly flash senior London detective is transferred to Newcastle for reasons so far unrevealed, and has to battle to earn respect and recognition in his new post — including the superior officer who seems determined to keep him on nights instead of the day shifts he needs to earn that respect and recognition) and because of the star, a guy named Don Gilet who was apparently in a very successful UK series called “Babyfather” but whom I’d never seen before. He’s perfectly cast, and pretty riveting to watch. (And also quite hot, though that has nothing whatsoever to do with my appreciation of his acting.)

The second season of “Murphy’s Law” started out on an unexpectedly dark note, when spoiler alert
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his gorgeous boss, with whom he was just starting a relationship, was killed off in the first few minutes, and if the first episode is any indication, the show may be a little darker and less just darkly funny this season, which would be okay, I guess. The series was created by Colin Bateman, a clever and very funny (darkly funny) mystery novelist turned screenwriter who’s a Northern Irish Prod, as is the lead character in the show, Murphy (played by James Nesbitt, for whom Bateman apparently wrote the part — I think Nesbitt’s a Northern Irish Prod himself, in fact), and it was good but a little unsatisfying in its first season, because Murphy teetered on the edge of self-parody so much of the time. That was necessary sometimes because he’s an undercover cop, but I thought they overdid it at times. Still, it was good enough to keep me interested, and I think I’ll enjoy the new season more.

4. Starting a new knitting project last night: a hat that lands just on the right side of the line between fun and silly-looking. I hadn’t done any knitting in a couple of weeks, but when I saw this pattern on my pattern-a-day knitting calendar (which has been something of a disappointment overall so far), I realized that I had no desire to finish the hat I was knitting just for practice, my first on circular needles — so last night I frogged it and started the new one. It’s in the purply-blue colorway of eyelash yarn that I had left over from my security-blanket scarf, and I think it’s going to go relatively fast and look pretty cool. Should be done just in time for me not to need a hat for the rest of the season.

5. Managing to miss pretty much all pre- and post-State of the Union punditry and pontificating (as well as the speech itself, of course) by observing a total news blackout Tuesday through Thursday.

6. Realigning my relationship with the online universe, at least temporarily, because I needed to quit letting online snits on my part or others’ get to me, and also in order to concentrate more on work and school. (Taking my job more seriously doesn’t make me like it any better, but it does make me feel less guilty and generally better about myself.) So far, it’s doing good things for my self-esteem, because I really am getting more done, and because avoiding social contact for the most part is sometimes good for me when I need to pull back and stop worrying about how people are perceiving me. I’d like to keep it up for as much of the semester as I can, though we’ll have to see how successful I am at that. I’ll have more to say about this later, I think; for now, I’ll just say that I’m not disavowing the very real friends and friendships I’ve formed online, just saying that I need a break from obsessive e-mailing and e-mail-checking for now, and for the foreseeable future.

7. Finding out that the Gophers beat Michigan quite handily this week — I’d have been happier if I could have actually seen the game, but they’re not exactly getting a lot of national TV exposure this season. This Gophers team isn’t blessed with all that much genuine talent, far as I can tell, so they’re actually kind of overachieving this season — in spite of the mediocre coaching of Dan “Why Haven’t They Fired Me Yet?” Monson — and that makes me happy. Sometime I’ll try to explain why the Gophers mean so much to me and probably always will, but if I did that now, it would get me a little teary-eyed, which would contradict the RTBC theme.

8. Hearing enough of the Earlimart and Reigning Sounds records on the LynxPod to determine that I do like both bands; I hadn’t been quite sure before. The Reigning Sound record (Too Much Guitar) is kind of inconsistent, but overall I like it and want to hear their other records. I’m slightly more enthusiastic about Earlimart, I think; the record that’s on the ‘Pod (can’t remember title right now) is one of their, um, earlier ones, but I’ve also heard songs from their most recent one that I really loved, so I think they could be a band I could actually get excited about, maybe. It’s always cheering to find a band (new or just new to me) that I can get excited about. And I heard a track by the Gentleman Callers, a St. Louis band, on Memphis to Manchester yesterday and was crazy about it, so there’s another one to explore. (I’ve also been seriously digging another recent discovery, a wonderful Irish singer named Cara Dillon — more on her, and on Celtic/UK traditional music, some other time.)

9. Figuring out where the CD version of my Sandy Denny boxed set probably is, even though I haven’t actuallly found it yet, and learning that there’s another Richard Thompson box coming out sometime soon (a 4-disc one that, based on the description I read, will be more representative of his entire career than the previous box, Watching the Dark, was; I didn’t have as many quibbles about that box as some people did, but it did have some major gaps).

So those are the RTBC for today; I can’t say that my mood is particularly cheerful yet, but I’m at least having moments of cheerfulness and finding things to be cheerful about, and that’s progress. I could actually come up with more, but I’ve spent a long time on this post already, and I’ll be contradicting #6 above if I keep at it much longer. There’s work to do, and I’ll feel better when it’s done, so off I go.

*Parentheses within parentheses and a footnote–beat that, Jamie!

Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3 (Belated Valentine’s Day Edition)

Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3