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February 1, 2000 |
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Ever have one of those days that starts out hinting that it will
be a bad day? I go through my typical morning routine. I'm sure you all
have your individual morning routine and won't bore you with mine. I'm out
of conditioner and was caught without a spare. Make a mental note to get
more. Typically, I would make a note to get these things, but I normally
don't have a notepad handy in the shower. I was running low on shampoo as
well, but I normally replace them in pairs. It's just so much easier to
deal with. So I suppose that I can deal with a couple of days of my hair
being a bit less manageable.
So I'm finishing with the rest of my morning routine. The last step was to
put my shoes on. I'm put my right shoe on and pulled on the laces.
[Snap!] One of the laces broke cleanly off. Yes, this is an
omen. Maybe I should skip my run today… Maybe I should stay
at home… Ha! I'm defiant! Go ahead world, smite
me! Well, I didn't have a spare set of shoe laces that would fit these
shoes… well, not in the correct color and style. Flat laces with these
shoes?! Madness! I did however had a spare set of shoes, which generally
don't wear as comfortably, but they'll do. Make a mental note to get shoe
laces.
Oh, I finally got a response from Scott about yesterday's discussion on baseball and John Rocker. I prompted him for opinions and his response, in its entirety, is as follows:
I like ketchup.I simply cannot make this up.
Today is a multiple birthday. Happy birthday to Michael, Ted, and my father. I called Michael to chat with him for a little while. I do chat with him briefly, although I don't have a particularly lengthy or in depth discussion with him. What do you want?! He just turned five. He tells me that he wants a rocket. He didn't say a toy rocket although that's what I assumed. If he wants a real rocket, he should probably talk to Aileen, who is a rocket scientist.
I didn't call Ted because I knew he wouldn't be home. But I was there in spirit. [Really…] That's okay, I still have to go return his present and pick up something new. At least I have ideas now… Trains. That's just too "engineer" isn't it?
As for my father's birthday… it is a little strange. My father would've been precisely sixty years older than my nephew. We never celebrated his birthday while he was living. Well, at least not that I can remember. In this respect, it has always been tough to remember and celebrate it. I look at my nephew who will never know his maternal grandfather, and I think of my father who never got to hold his grandson. It saddens me a little. I feel priveleged to be one who can carry memories of his grandfather to Michael. Someday Michael will know enough to ask about his grandfather. All he'll ever get is a tapestry of pictures, stories, and memories in the form of what was a great man. He'll never love the grandfather he never met. How could he? I remember the loving, gentle man my father was as I continue to watch my nephew grow and mature into manhood. It pains me to know that they'll never meet; it's almost too much to bear.
I'll be a mess if I ever have kids.
I started listening to the Marc Anthony CD that I got in the mail. I found it absolutely amazing! I'm sure part of the appeal is that his style happens to fit right into the groove of my (Spanish-English) cultural mix. Although to be honest, I didn't particularly care for the few salsa tunes on the disc. That being said, the music has an endearing mixture of strength, finesse, and passion. He sings equally well in Spanish or English.
Note: Then there are people like Gloria Estefan. Nothing about her personally or her music in particular, but the woman, or more specifically, her singing irritates me. I'm not talking mere dislike here… I'm talking feeling physically compelled to change the radio station to get that infernal voice off my speakers. You see the one thing about her is that she has an accent. [Well, duh! She's Latin-American…] Well, there are good accents, like say a Sean Connery or a Salma Hayek, who have exotic accents that make them sound even better. Then there are people that simply sound very wrong, like say Jackie Chan speaking English. Well, to me Gloria Estefan sounds like this. Try to imagine Jackie Chan singing, you'll get the accurate mental picture. Listening to her singing is like hearing someone drag their fingernals across a blackboard. Her Spanish accent is only half the problem. Care to speculate as to what the other problem is? …her English accent. The woman sings in English with a bad Spanish accent and sings in Spanish with a bad English accent. Very wrong!Oh, getting back to the Marc Anthony disc. Well, his voice doesn't give away his ethnicity, although the style of the music might. I don't mind that, actually. I do listen to Latin music. When I first heard "I Need To Know" it didn't occur to me that it was done by a Spanish speaker; it didn't carry the obvious Spanish influence that Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias both have.
He works the two languages quite seamlessly, so much so that I occasionally find myself wondering in which language was the previous song performed. His music reminds me a little of Luis Miguel, only not as passive and with a bit more raw passion. Maybe it's Anthony's American influence peeking through and not allowing the sometimes overbearing Latin romanticism to drown its energy. Or maybe it's simply his style.
Either way, I like this CD. Thumbs Up!
Well, as it turns out, my predictions of today were pretty far off the mark. Which is an incredibly good thing when you take into account what my expectations were.
I started exchaging mail with a young woman today who seems quite charming. In the interest of protecting her privacy, I won't go into the details. But if she happens to be reading… I am thinking about you. I'll just leave it at that.
February 1, 2000