There are words that I come across in my reading that I want to incorporate into my ready vocabulary, but they never seem to make there. Abstemious is one such word. Let it enter my head please. And obsequious. And sardonic.

Ann said the other day that she thinks she’s opposed to hate crimes laws. These are typically statutes which provide for enhancing punishment for regular crimes that are motivated by some form of bigotry. I think the recent hate crime against people in a gay bar in Massachusetts brought the issue to her mind. I think I agree with her.

There’s a man at my gym who wears blue hospital garb every day for his workout, and black leather clogs. I hate him for the clogs more than for the hospital attire. The clogs can be overlooked only if he is very European, which he is not. He’s just an ass. The clogs are unforgivable.

A few days ago at work we were all in a meeting in the middle of what, at one time, I would have regarded as utterly intolerable—a fruity discussion about what it means to be an engaged team member. I’ve mellowed somewhat, and now I regard it merely as silly. Silly but tolerable. We were brainstorming ideas, spit-balling, as it were, and someone mentioned that an engaged person is focused, focused on their job or tasks, or something. She gathered up a head of steam, muttering about engaged persons being interested and involved in multiple things, having multiple focuses, and they’re likely to. . . I started to laugh, visibly laugh so that everyone turned to look me. And I said simply, playfully, I thought, “If you have multiple focuses, aren’t you then unfocused?” Later I was asked by a co-worker how I get away without being called to the carpet for such behavior. I don’t know, but I thought I was just poking fun in good humor. I was.

I’ve bought a lot of new music lately, and I’ve been trying to listen to it. But little has interested me much—a Strauss opera, Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, some orchestral music of Grieg, piano music of Satie, etc. There are a few exceptions to my indifference, however. In the right mood, usually in the morning, when I’ve just sat down at my desk, while I’m still groggy and my mind hasn’t been focused by a cup of coffee, I’ve been listening to Bach keyboard music, the Partitas and the English Suites, and enjoying their perfection. I could go on about them, but I don’t want to talk about Bach. The one true pleasure in my listening lately, even above Bach, has been a collection of American orchestral music that I bought on a whim—pieces by Hanson, Piston, Diamond, and Creston. It’s all wonderful music. It’s the first time I’ve really appreciated Hanson’s music. His first two symphonies always fell flat on my ears, but these other pieces are different. And of course I like Piston, and this is the first Creston I’ve really listened to. But towering above the music of these other American composers is Diamond’s music, which again has captured me like no music has for quite some time. I can’t stop listening to his music for Romeo and Juliet, especially the balcony scene. It evokes for me nothing at all related to the play—it has no programmatic feel to it at all. When you think of Romeo and Juliet, you of course think of Tchaikovsky’s piece, which DOES suggest the Shakespeare play. But this Diamond piece is so beautiful in a completely different and unassuming way. Like much of his music, it doesn’t have immediate appeal. You listen and wonder why you spent your money for this bland American music. And you do it again, and again. But eventually it begins to creeps up on you. Now this music is so emotionally satisfying to me. It’s so authentically American, written in the early 40’s before the war. It has an innocence to it, but not a naivete. It’s melancholy but hopeful. I love Diamond for this piece alone. It’s become one of those handful of pieces that can always move me, always make me happy.

I’ve been listening to this collection while I work on stained glass, and it seems to fit me perfectly--the music of this generation of American composers, easterners, many from New York. For the last two weeks I’ve been dragging myself through my work days, bored but not really discontented. For much of the day I’ve been listening to whatever is lying around. Late in the afternoon, when most have gone home, I’ve been pulling out this Romeo and Juliet piece by Diamond and listening to it in the stillness of my cube, as I empty my mind. It’s fortifying, genuine music that makes me happy. Like many of the pieces that I really cherish, it doesn’t remind me of persons I love, or of times, places or ideas. It’s beautiful beyond those things. If I had none of those things, if I lost all of that, this music would still be beautiful to me, would still speak to me.