Day 7

Today I satisfied a long term desire and got a new Library of Congress Library Card -with the time available to actually use it. Pictured is the main building of the library complex, the Jefferson Building of the famous round reading room. Across the street to the side of Pennsylvania Ave is the Madison Building and behind on 2nd St is the Adams Building. All are joined by an underground tunnel complex. The library supports multiple reading rooms associated with different subject areas. I don't think I will be bored here - and it's only a ten minute walk from the apartment.

After leaving the library I walked down around the Capitol to the National Botanical Garden by the Reflecting Pool and spent a few minutes cruising the exotic plants. Then walked further down, through the main first floor of the Air and Space Museum, reputed to be the most visited museum in the world and a virtual commercial for McDonald Douglas, Boeing, and Lockheed, Martin. After escaping the military indoctrination I went next door to the Hirshorn Museum of Modern Art but most of the second floor was closed for a new installation not yet open. So, I sat on a bench on the mall and thought about how I would divide up my Library of Congress time. But my bibliophile's fantasy was interrupted by the need to return home and assist in dealing with 41 boxes of 'stuff' shipped from the corporate apartment in Salem, OR.

K and friend Martha Mountain were already at work breaking down boxes and putting stuff away - where possible - when I got back at 1:00. Much to my surprise, by 7:00 PM we had pretty much emptied and/or repacked all the boxes and put those that couldn't be emptied into the apartment into storage in our rented garage. The apartment is still a wreck but what is left is just organizing. That may take several days but it's doable. Martha's husband Greg drove over and helped move the boxes to storage - in two trips. Without him and his larger vehicle I would have had to make 10 trips in the Smartcar. So, it's only smart some of the time.

K cooked a late dinner which we ate around 11:00 PM (this is theater time) and we are both settled in for a late night read - ignoring the piles of clothes and other stuff on the bed in the bedroom that will make going to bed a challenge.

Day 6

Another very indulgent day for me. I was up until almost 3:00 AM last night reading and listening to the Ramones so slept until 10:00 this morning. That's a habit I'll have to break soon (living on West Cost time). I skipped coffee and the paper at home and headed out to Eastern Market just for the ambiance. This is one of the things I have really missed about Capitol Hill - the weekend flea market and outdoor vegetable market. After a brief stop at Capitol Hill books (where I was careful not to buy anything since my 'to be read pile' is pretty high already) I walked the two miles to Chinatown to catch an early matinee at the Gallery Place multiplex - "District 9" - not perfect but very, very good sci-fi. Much better than average fare and intelligent to boot. On leaving the theater I split the difference and did the train half way home and got off at Capitol South to walk the last mile in the afternoon heat.

After taking out the recycling and garbage I have been doing the last few loads of laundry. K is due back from Indianapolis around 9:00 and we will have a late dinner. There are a couple of lamb chops thawing and some asparagus and other veggies in the fridge for grilling. We'll probably be up late getting caught up since we didn't talk much while she was gone and a lot is going on.

Oh yeah, and the first wave of shipped boxes arrive tomorrow. Joy. Now it will be unpacking, repacking, and storage. I can hardly wait.

Day 5

This was another day of spotty weather with bouts of rain followed by bright sunshine. I slept late and left the apartment around noon to go down to the E Street Cinema again. Another questionable movie selection ("The Hurt Locker") but I would see it again - and that criterion is more and more my base standard of aesthetic judgement.

After the movie I joined the throng waiting for Ted Kennedy's funeral procession. I walked the length of Constitution Ave from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial and back rather than just stand in one place. I knew they would be late but had no idea how late. There was to have been a short prayer service in front of the Senate side front steps of the capitol at 4:30 and then the burial at Arlington at 5:30. But by 6:00 the procession still had not arrived at the capitol and no one was keeping the crowd informed. I am reminded of the Will Rogers saying, "I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a democrat." As my wife keeps reminding me - these people need a stage manager. And then I remembered that I was really a closet Anarchist rather than a Democrat so gave up and went home to open a bottle of wine and read a good book. Later indulge in a marathon session listening to old Ramones CD's. Bop till you drop.

Day 4

Being retired is more of a challenge than I thought. Many more questions surface when one doesn't have WORK as a convenient excuse for scheduling most of one's waking hours. And as if my own mind is not enough of an ugly taskmaster, my iPod just went to Bob Dylan singing 'A Hard Rains A-gonna Fall'. This is where we were in the early 60's - and through most of the 50's - fearing day to day that nuclear annihilation was just a moment away. This, more than anything else, paved the way for the radicalism of the 60's and 70's - faced with immanent destruction the nine to five corporate life seemed like a hypocritical cop-out. But the whole sex, drugs, and rocknroll thing frightened the natives so along came Reagan and it was 'Morning in America' and everything was stood on its head with country music stars wearing long hair and beards and the aging hippies discovering how to make fortunes selling software, real estate, and designer drugs.When I was in college everyone wanted to be in the Peace Corps or join a commune. By the time my kids graduated from high school everyone wanted to be an Investment Banker or an attorney. No problem was so serious that it couldn't be solved with enough money and PR.

What is really strange is that now the real threats we face - from Global Warming to Energy and Water shortages - are equally as serious as nuclear war but largely outside the control of single states (or even groups of states). Yet people seem to be largely indifferent even though these problems are potentially lethal for all living things. I fear that by the time circumstances really get their attention it will be too late. I probably won't live to see it but for those who do it looks like the current crop of 'gathering threats' will be the biggest crisis humanity ever faced (see James Howard Kunstler's _The Long Emergency_). And we are singularly ill equipped to deal with anything of this magnitude that is so outside our experience and learned behavior.

And since this train of thought was really getting me down, I took the Metro downtown to catch a matinee of "In the Loop" at the E Street Cinema. This is a British political comedy and is very like a Tourettes Syndrome version of The West Wing as imagined by Robin Williams in his best cocaine days. Just what I needed. I liked it a lot.

Now back at the apartment doing necessary chores - laundry and such. Not as much fun but necessary. The real world is always there. But that's the thing - the "Real World" we talk about is just the up close world - the one we see every minute of every day. But that world is constructed for each of us by our limited senses situated in a particular culture at a particular time and place. We know what we know by virtue of our limitations. Outside of that tiny sphere there is an unimaginable world of variation over time and space that we are not privy to. From the earliest earthly fossil three and a half billion years old to the farthest galaxy - a billion stars a billion light years away - we are such a miniscule flash in the pan that our pretenstions to centrality and importance are laughable.

Day 3

Well, we're home all of one day and K has to be on the road - flying to Indianapolis this morning. So I get to take her to the airport in the Smartcar. Easy trip with sparse traffic and good weather. Not typical for your Nation's Capitol. I returned the car to the garage we are renting a few blocks from the apartment and walked to Penn Quarter to catch the early matinee of Tarantino's 'Inglorius Basterds.' Bad choice. I'm really not sure what Tarantino was attempting here but it didn't work. Lots of good performances but no script to sustain them. Great set piece scenes but no structure to link them. Fundamentally it was neither Interesting nor Entertaining. Though many disagree.

I've made up for the bad early afternoon experience by being totally derelict later in the day. I am listening to Incubus and Nirvana and reading articles about species extinction (hell, I was already depressed). Earlier in the day I thought I should take the time today to start thinking about those things that I ususally keep submerged - now that I don't have work as an excuse to keep putting them on the shelf.. But I'm finding that I don't really know how to think about those things. We have lived with lies and bullshit so completely and for so long that it's almost impossible to formulate a proposition or question that isn't distorted by unsupported assumptions we take for granted daily. Maybe I should just let it go but I don't seem to be able to. All my life I have been nagged by questions and imperitives counter to the dominant direction of ordinary life. Mostly I've pushed them away and gotten on with business, but they were always there. Now they are more intrusive but I feel less capable of addressing them than I expected. This is going to be a real test. Interesting.

I turned on the TV tonight briefly and then turned it off immediately. The whole political arena as presented in our electronic media is cartoonish, two dimensional, and dominated by a handfull of millionaire talking heads whose allegiance is to their 'betters' - the truly moneyed class to whom they are indebted for their status and way of life. Why would any normal person believe that either Sean Hannitty or Chris Matthews has anything meaningful to say to them?

Day 2

After travelling for fourteen hours yesterday we made it back to DC after 10:00 PM and back to the apartment before midnight. We checked four bags and carried four. We don't have this much stuff with us when we travel in Europe! I have no idea what all we are dragging back to the 'nest'. And that's without thinking about the 41 boxes of STUFF that we shipped that will be arriving next week.

I honored my second day of retirement by sleeping until 10:00 AM and essentially doing nothing substantive all day. K and I had a celebratory lunch at the Westend Bistro at 22nd and M St NW, another of those restaurants noted mostly because the chef is seen on TV. This is Restaurant Week in DC when eating establishments offer a special rate on lunch and dinner meals to lure in those who may have avoided them because of the cost. Four star chef Eric Ripert has great appetizers and desserts going for him. Main course? Not so much.

After lunch it was grocery shopping at Harris Teeter (K is boycotting Whole Foods because of their CEO's stance on health care). Tonight is all about unpacking and trying to find some place to put everything. This will be tough. But then, it will be a LOT easier than working on the 8.3b Data Conversion Specifications deliverable. Now if I could just stop thinking about that stuff my retirement could really commence.

Here in DC all flags are at half mast in honor of Ted Kennedy's passing. It really is the end of an age. I was a senior in High School when his brother Jack was elected President and in graduate school when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.

Day 1

Yesterday I went into the office for the last time to drop off my company computer, card key, and corporate credit card. Damn, that felt good. Fourteen years working for the same company and over fifty working forty hours or more a week for some entity with priorities other than mine. So now I'm free to do what I want with my time - and my mind.

K and I shipped 41 boxes - clothes, books, kitchen stuff - while cleaning out the corporate apartment here in Salem, OR. I have been living in such apartments in various cities from Anchorage, AK to Tallahassee, FL for over 15 years and it really feels good to have that behind me.

This morning we accepted a ride to the airport in Portland from friend Astrid who had just bought K's Jaguar - another possession behind us. In honor of our leaving, Oregon decided to put on a more typical overcast and rainy face than she had been showing for the last few weeks. But that was fine. We had brunch at PDX and then boarded the flight for Phoenix on the way to DC. Long day ahead but WE ARE OUTTAHERE.

Last night I had the only 'good bye' party I have ever had when leaving a project. Thank you Lisa for going to all that trouble. And thanks to all those who showed up to usher me out of town. I'll miss you - but not the project.