Wind Beneath the Pitch

I am hoping that my present temp assignment is the equivalent of employment purgatory. Cut off from all daylight, at the bottom of a corner cubicle with walls so high I feel like I've been dropped down a well, I'm sitting here counting the seconds until the day ends. My time here is truly agonizing. I think I'm rather hoping that I get "caught" blogging and dismissed. The potential repercussions are preferable to sitting here for another week in the headache-inducing fluorescent light of compensated solitary confinement.

I did two interviews this week, including one yesterday morning for a job that I think might be a very good fit indeed, so I am keeping my fingers crossed. They said they'd make a decision early next week.

The apartment continues to come together; I conducted what essentially amounted to raid on Target last night, picking up a new microwave and a cookware set, among other things. Finally I can stop doing take-out and live like a real suburban person. (Yes, tongue firmly in cheek there.) I also bought the most awesome cocktail shaker ever at Pier 1. You can take the gay boy out of Manhattan, but he's still going to make cosmopolitans.

After my extensive retail therapy session, I had time to catch the last hour of American Idol. I think the right person won. Memo to Randy Jackson: check it out, check it out, dawg, it's not "a singing competition." If it were, they'd compete behind a screen or just submit tapes. The "Idol factor" requires presence and charisma, in addition to singing ability. In pure terms of vocal endowments, Melinda Doolittle is a phenomenon. But in person, her star power is of lower wattage than the natural radiance of Jordin Sparks. Between Sparks and Blake Lewis it was not an easy choice, because he's clearly the more engaging entertainer. Still, I think Jordin's career trajectory is higher and farther than the two runners-up. She is not now nearly the artist I think she has the potential to become; the same cannot be said of Blake or Melinda.

Slate's Katherine Meizel wonders if there wasn't something technically amiss at the Kodak Theater that prevented performers from being able to find their pitch. Intonation was a disaster for most of what I saw, beginning with the adorable soloist from the African Children's Choir and culminating in the black leather catastrophe that was Bette Midler. As a gay man, it's hard for me to write this, but I had to get up and leave the room for a while. It was like a housewife who'd had one too many glasses of wine and found the courage to try karaoke; the tune was nowhere to be found. Surely execrable Idol contestants have been publicly ridiculed by Simon and tossed out on their ears for lesser offenses.

Because the temp job is a little slow, they're giving me the day off tomorrow. Hurray, four day weekend! Time to continue to put my new life together and also, hopefully, to relax a bit.