Mary tells me that Lauryn Hill doesn’t want white people listening to her music. I tried to look this up on Google through a filtered Internet connection at the library tonight and gave up after running into bunch of hate sites.

I bring this up because I don’t hate Lauryn Hill or her music. Miseducation will always remind me of my sophmore semester at Wabash when “Doo Wop (That Thing)” was everywhere and not too annoying. I picked up MTV Unplugged No 2.0 from the library a couple of days ago and, while the replay value probably isn’t too high, it’s a neat little listen a couple of times through.

I can’t tell if the honestly bit she’s pushing is entirely legit but she definitely sells it well while crying on at least one song and emotionally cracking her voice repeatedly on most of the others. I guess whether it’s legit or not, I do like her theme of be yourself, trust your dreams, and all that jive.

Disc two was playing in my cd player as I was driving home from my team meeting this morning. I had just made my official retirement announcement to the team to the response of mostly blank faces (though they all knew already). So I was feeling a little melancholy but I wasn’t entirely sure why. And I thought about it a little more and thought it’s certainly not due to missing this job or my coworkers or the hours or the stress or the twenty minute drive. Maybe a little from missing hanging out with the kids.

Anyway, I figured out the melancholy and I think it’s at least seventy-five percent due to missing my steady paycheck. That feeling that every two weeks I would have a consistent chunk of money direct deposited in my bank account. It’s unfortunate that I’ve tied my self-worth into how financially secure I feel. I’d like to get away from that somehow.