Month:
May, 2003
Notice : McRae’s is no longer on my list. It took two phone calls and some wrangling, but they removed the extra charge from my credit card, apologized, and credited me back a little extra. This is just in time, as I’ve got to go over there this weekend and buy a wedding gift, something I was gnashing my teeth about doing before they rectified the situation.
It’s Sophia’s birthday today. We’re going to have “pitzta” and cake and I’ve got to run get balloons after work. She’s got loads of presents to unwrap. Should be fun.
I have so many things to write about Sophia that I’ve started putting it off, so I guess I’ll just start and write a couple of things and if I don’t get to everything I meant to write, well, too bad. Anyways, this week Sophia moved up to Toddler C, the potty training class. They made this class because they had too many toddlers, and so she and some of her buddies have graduated. She first went to this class on Tuesday, and has yet to have the normal teacher that she will have in this class as she has been out with a sick child. She seems to be adapting ok, better than I thought she would, though maybe this is because she has most of her same playmates with her. On Friday it will be her birthday, and she will turn two. I’ve been talking it up all week, but I don’t think she fully understands what is happening. We’re just doing a family thing this year, but we’re getting balloons and an ice cream cake so it should be pretty festive.
The biggest news on the Sophia front is probably her now regular “I Love You”s. She has been saying it to Kurt as he left for work (mimicking me) several times for several weeks, but last Saturday was the first time she said it to me as I was leaving for a day of gaming. It was so wonderful. Now she sometimes says it out of the blue, without prompting, usually when one or the other of us is leaving. It’s very sweet and fills my heart with joy to hear it.
Dreams have been annoying of late. In particular, on Saturday morning I woke with a fully remembered dream, and told myself I’d write it in the journal that same day (and I hardly ever write in the journal on the weekends). I luxuriated in bed for a while longer, read about 20 pages of the book I finished today and then got up and sat down in front of my laptop to write about the dream and it had gone. Vanished. I think it was because it was night in the book I was reading and three of the characters had been dreaming. So I was trying to remember the dream and all I could evoke were the dream scenes from the book. Infuriating. So last night’s dream is trivial and largely unimportant, but as it is remembered, it will be recorded.
Several times a year, I stumble upon a song that I find I have to listen to over and over again, obsessively. These are songs that really move me in some way, whether by beat or by lyrics or by both or by something else that I can’t even begin to explain. Sometime in March, when I received a mix CD from Esthela, the song was Paulina Rubio’s “Y Yo Sigo Aqui”. I had to listen to it back to back to back and every time I heard it, it made me so happy. Usually, even if I love a song, I have no urge to hear it over and over, because I feel like I’m going to saturate myself and wear the song out. I ration my listenings carefully. Some songs overcome my reluctance for repetition though, and this was one of them.
Right now, the song that I crave hearing once an hour or more is Blue Man Group‘s “Up To The Roof” which features Tracy Bonham singing. This song is so moving and powerful that it has me screaming along the lyrics every time I play it in my car. I can’t even fully explain how strongly I feel about it. It gives me goose bumps and heart pounding and an irrepressible desire to dance but that’s like the smallest part of it. It speaks to me. It moves me.
To me, this is the essential power of music: to communicate on a level so visceral that the finer points of it become unimportant. And the other fantastic thing about this unquantifiable reaction to a song is that every person will have different songs that they react to in this way. The feeling may be universal, but the path to the feeling is as varied as the human throng itself. Sure, there can be similarities, and I’m probably not the only person who thinks this song is the best song ever right now but for as many people who feel moved by it there are probably others who just feel like it’s alright, or it’s good but not really grabbing them or overwhelming them in the way it is doing to me. Long live the music that moves us, whatever it might be for each of us!
Some of the lyrics, I hope they inspire you to check this
intense tune out :
Tried to live the life you sold me, no matter what the cost. Tried to walk the way you told me but each time I got lost. The stairs didn’t lead me anywhere. I’m taking the fire escape up to the roof. Don’t care if it’s not the way you find the truth.
Last night’s dream was appropriately nonsensical and surreal. Topics include travel and drugs.
Last’s night dream was sad, though I’m pleased about the number of nights in the past weekend that I’ve remembered dreams. I’ve always believed that writing them down helps ones likelihood of remembering them. It seems to work that way for me, at any rate.
OSI Position Paper on the SCO-vs.-IBM Complaint. I love the way Eric S. Raymond writes.
[Link credit to Kurt].
I had a fabulous dream last night, featuring a cast of characters well-known but completely from my imagination. I’m not going to bother explaining who any of these people are, so you might want to skip this one. Topics : sex, vampirism, the end of the world. High drama.
Categories 
Licensing 
This blog, Among Mad People, and its contents by Anna Schwind are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.