O-O-Obama

I'm barely showered, spent the day in my sweats preparing for a class I am teaching at church on Sunday, and I finally decided to emerge from my apartment tonight to walk to a local pizza joint for a slice. I was bundled up, but didn't feel quite like a typical Madison Ave resident as I strutted down the street behind a rinky dink wiener dog wearing a cashmere sweater. But then again, the longer I live here the more I realize that even on the Upper East Side you can find every kind of person imaginable. I need to wear the sweats with pride.


It's been a big week people. I hosted an inauguration lunch gathering at my apartment on Tuesday and wept with a zillion others as the new guy got sworn in. If you haven't read/heard Lowry's benediction, please do. It is theologically rich and he prays a prayer that begins, "God of our weary years, God of our silent tears..." Doesn't get better than that. This guy had me at hello. By the way, I have been keeping track, and tonight marks the first time in over a week that I have opened the New York Times website to see a front-page article/picture dedicated to a story from OUTSIDE the U.S. Sheesh. I get tired of us!!

By the way, tis the season of fertility. Babies, babies everywhere. Babies in some bellies, babies at the breast, babies in the hearts and minds of barren women, and sometimes two at once. Twins are quite in fashion it seems and it is a gift to be witness to what truly is strangely mundane and miraculous. They cause problems, these little ones. They reveal much about us, they sap our energy, and divide the attention of lovers-now-parents. But as my friend Micke says, they have much to teach us if we would simply pay attention.

I'm waxing poetic about nothing right now, so I will quit. Wish I had some achingly beautiful pictures to share-- they seemed a dime a dozen in Zambia, but my eye feels hazy of late.