Dissipate shadows

It's been a while, eh? Bit of a musty smell in these parts. Time to open some windows, I think.

"Green shoots of recovery" is, in the current economic climate, acquiring a bit of a dimension of naivety but, this last week, it summed up my gentle pricklings of... for want of a better word, optimism, for the first time since early December. In retrospect, although there's much I've enjoyed over Christmas and New Year, the last month or so has felt unusually cobwebby somehow, draggy, and now that faint sense of gloom is finally lifting.

I think B's death probably affected me more than I realised at the time, not just in terms of the feeling of great and abrupt loss (which has receded but still hits me, vertiginously, when I'm in certain places or have certain thoughts) but also the knock-on effect in terms of concentration at work. Over the last month or so, a huge paperwork backlog had built up and that's taken a while to work off - and, whether symptom or cause, the amount of outstanding paperwork always seems connected to my general mood.

Buuut, in the last week or so, I could feel myself getting back on top of some of that faintly emo stuff. I'm almost caught up with myself, work-wise, and it feels good. Of course, the fact that the planet's sole remaining superpower is now run by someone intelligent and sexy and cool (in a geeky way) helps. I'm sure I'll relocate my cynicism eventually but, in the meantime, I'm quite enjoying a bit of optimistic honeymoonery.

(How fabulous was Michelle O's inauguration outfit? The embroidered white/gold coat, I mean, with superheroesque matching green gloves and shoes. Loved it.)

One of my New Year resolutions was to wear everything in my wardrobe or get rid of it - and I'm trying to be ruthless about this. I'd quite forgotten the dubious joys of EBay selling but have made quite a bit of cash already, which is helping me feel relatively buoyant in the face of, ooh, capitalist meltdown. And I'm eagerly awaiting delivery of a new Little Camera, which'll make it easier to take photos at the likes of Duckie and KUNST. Pics won't be as good as with the Good Camera but at least I won't have to check it into the cloakroom when I'm sick of looking like an American tourist.

Mind you, maybe it'll now be cool to look like an American tourist? Well, less uncool, anyway.

Incidentally, this entry's title comes from the Fleet Foxes' Mykonos, which I'm absolutely loving:



I'm finding the apparent cultural mismatch surreally amusing, though. For the Fleet Foxes, Mykonos apparently conjures up images of wispily exotic coastline, magical "ancient gate"s and the like - whereas the word makes me think of this. Ancient gays, perhaps?

Reminds me of reading Lionel Shriver's The Post Birthday World (on the back of We Need To Talk About Kevin, flawed but invigorating) and finding unintentional American-writing-about-the-UK humour in her description of the dangerously seductive glamour of the world of, er, professional snooker.

GOODNIGHT AMERICA - WE LOOOVE YOU

He did it!



In the event, I sat up until around 4am despite having to get up for a full day's work today; watching that blotchy map go blue was just too exhilarating. I went to sleep after Ohio and, I think, just before New Mexico. The BBC's coverage had been amusingly partisan (they weren't trying too hard to conceal their obvious delight) and Simon Schama was gently baiting John Bolton.

The booing Republicans during McCain's speech were truly pathetic.

I'm finding myself slightly obsessed by Michelle Obama's outfits, and was tickled that she seemed to have dressed as a black widow spider. Wonder what kind of puppy they're going to go for?

It's a relief to be able to like America again. I'd quite got out of the habit.

All gone to look for America

Good luck, 'Merkins, we're all counting on you.

Let us be lovers again!