Started out full of optimism.
A brand new president.
Aretha got a new hat.
Speechifying…and stuff.
But ended with pessimism. Oh is the learning curve on this new job bending me in new directions. But it’s a good job and the new President said we all have to work harder.
Well.
No choice but to end the day with the fruit of Napa Valley.
Then go to bed, and try again tomorrow.
I am grateful to Dr. King for many, many things.
I am also grateful for my new employer because they give employees the day off. This is the first employer I’ve worked for that honors this day.
So Happy Birthday to the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
It is, indeed, a happy day. I wish Dr. King would have been able to see the historic even that happens tomorrow. The realization of much of his dream.
2009 is filled with lots of possibilities. And that’s the first time I’ve felt that way in a long time.
The upcoming film “Hotel for Dogs” was a book penned by none other than New Mexico’s own Lois Duncan. As a kid, I loved many of Ms. Duncan’s books.
I understand that the hype from the film has given new life to her writing career that went a bit off track after the brutal unsolved killing of her 20 year old daughter.
Back in the day, my mom used to take us kids swimming on a hot summer day to the Coronado Club on Kirtland Air Force base. Occasionally we’d see Ms. Duncan there (I believe her husband worked for Sandia Labs).
That was back in the days when mommies stayed at home and would take the kiddies to the pool and we would meet daddies after work for dinner. It may do my mom’s heart good to know that I have incredibly fond memories of those days.
And that fondness includes Lois Duncan. I’m happy to see her back in the show.
This was all brought to the front of my mind by a great article written by Joline Gutierrez Krueger for the ABQjournal:
“Real-Life Tragedy Almost Derails ‘Hotel for Dogs’ Author’s Career”
Today was a particularly tough day for me to roll out of bed with the alarm and come to work.
I didn’t sleep well last night due mainly to the crazed feline. I have a friend who has a theory that occasionally the cat brain will release some hormone that is akin to kitty crack, which then is the reason for the dilated eyes and tendency to gallop around the house making crazed movements.
If that is true, then my personal feline got deep into the kitty crack at about 3:30 in the ayem, and is, today, my least favorite person in the world.
Sleepy eyed, I ventured out onto the highway to make my way into my place of employment. I was heartened to see the sun slanting over the hills with the promise of a really warm day. This never fails to cheer me.
But that smile turned into a snarl when I made the merge and found myself rolling behind this.
Click for full size if you can’t make it out. If you can make it out, what you see there is a Forerunner with two surfboards sticking out the back.
Dude driving and his long-haired blond lady in the passenger seat are headed, I assume, to Pacifica for a nice day of surfing.
While I drive to work to sit under florescent lights all day and literally watch my muscles lose their elasticity. In a building located in what is considered one of the most foggy and windy areas of the Bay Area.
And this is fair how?
I remember as a kid, and especially a teenager, being really, really into music. I still am, but it was something most vital to me back then. An escape, a place to speak emotions and thoughts I didn’t have the words or maturity to say. It spoke to my soul.
And I remember my grandmother or mother or some adult making a comment about the music that mattered to me, and thinking, “they just don’t get it.”
I recall swearing to myself, SWEARING that I wouldn’t let there be that generation gap as I got older.
And I’ve fought it. Hard. I listen to current music. I do my best to stay up to date, so I’m at least conversant.
Yesterday, I was listening to my iPod on the way home from work, and the shuffle landed on a Rihanna song.
I like Rihanna. I like her a lot, actually. I think she’s not only stunningly beautiful, but she’s talented.
The song that came on is entitled “Unfaithful.”
In the song, the story goes that the woman is with a guy, and that it’s more than love, he is “The reason that the sky is blue.”
But gosh darn it all, she just can’t seem to stay true to him.
She cries out, “And I know that he knows I’m unfaithful/And it kills him inside/To know that I am happy with some other guy/I can see him dying.”
She then wraps up the chorus with, “I don’t wanna be…/A murderer.”
Ok, ok, this is all very emotional. Her cheating is “killing” him. He’s “dying inside” and she is the “murderer” for doing this to him.
And this is when the yawning chasm that is the generational gap became oh so apparent and the years of my experience in this thing called life kicked in.
I found myself, listening closely to the words, and then *yelling* at my stereo:
“THEN LEAVE HIM! IF THERE IS NO WAY YOU WON’T CHEAT AND IT PAINS YOU TO SEE HIM ‘DYING INSIDE’ THEN BE A GROWN UP AND WALK AWAY!!!”
Ahem.
Yeah.
Sure, I know that, “He’s a nice guy but I just can’t be true to him and so I did the mature thing and broke up with him so I could go sow my wild oats, knocking boots with everything that walks so that one day I can be a sad, bitter old hag wondering whatever happened to my life and why I never found a nice guy,” doesn’t really make for fun, emo deep pop songs.
And I’m fairly certain that the young twentysomethings that work for me would roll their eyes and think, “she just doesn’t get it.”
I think I just grew a new gray hair.
“Hey you kids, get off my lawn!!!”
