A World of My Own

Last night I had dinner with some friends, and I made a big point of bringing the albums I'd just gotten my hands on that very day, Amy Winehouse's Back to Black and Karen Dalton's In My Own Time.

Everyone was okay with the Amy Winehouse record--which we listened to on the way to dinner--obviously, because she's a superstar waiting to happen. But on the way back from dinner, we popped in Karen Dalton's record and everyone began to make fun of how bad Karen Dalton's voice was.

The funny thing is that it really hurt my feelings when they began to make fun of her. This is never the kind of thing that bothers me, because I never give a shit about what other people think and, in fact, I prefer it whenever they don't like something I like, because whatever that thing is becomes another one of the things I can call my own, as far as I'm concerned within my own little world.

I guess it bothered me last night because I went out on a limb to share that music with them. I'm very possessive of the music I discover; I can't just trust the average person with it because they're sure to hook onto the most obvious aspect of the music (such as Karen's "ugly" voice) and not much else and bastardize it in a way. So I considered all that, then they made fun of it...

It also bothered me to see that while I was being so moved by the music, they were laughing. It was so beautiful. Karen's voice was cracking. I could hear so much emotion in her voice, I thought she was crying. I was beginning to cry myself. And they were laughing...

It doesn't bother me anymore, certainly not as much as it did last night. Thank goodness they thought Karen had a bad voice. That way her music stays pure. Well, at least to me, in my own little world.

Crispy Concupiscence

Today turned out to be a pretty good day, in spite of how it started. Basically, I did engineering problems for most of the day, taking needlessly long breaks to fondle the axe (hee hee I said fondle), pick up the dry cleaning, and run a little.

I had something to look forward to, though. This morning my sister asked me if I'd like to have dinner out with the family at Red Lobster. I was like, 'yeah!' then I remembered last week Iman mentioned that it was lobsterfest now so I was like, 'hells yeah!' It was nice to get out of the house. Silver Spring is getting a little crowded though, although it might be because everyone decided to come out today, the first bona fide nice day we've had in what feels like forever. So, fast forward to now, after dinner: I'm stuffed, more stuffed than I've been in a while, since that sushi dinner a few weekends back. I'm so stuffed right now I can't even say 'mmmm...sushi...' without lying.

Another great thing about tonight is I finally got around to buying Madeleine Peyroux's last album. I almost didn't because the line at Border's was so long, but since my sister was buying shoes I had plenty of time to wait in line. Ha, that's such a chauvinistic thing to say, but it's so true...

...So, the album--it's probably her most romantic-sounding album yet. On first listen it's not as good as Dreamland, but it's still very good. It's one of those albums best listened to at night, preferably with someone special. I've recently bought a lot of those kinds of albums, and not out of some bizarre need to feel wistful or wallow in self-pity. I think my taste is just--egad!--maturing. It feels like ages since I've bought a punk or new wave album (except for the Bow Wow Wow album I got at Joe's two Saturdays ago). Recently I'd been listening to the Marvelettes and Richard Hawley, and consequently I can almost hear my dad telling my mom, 'See? Your son's gay!'

Nah, my dad's cool. He wouldn't say that, but I suspect he's thought it before. It wouldn't bother me if he did, though--I mean, so what, right? But incidentally, Madeleine Peyroux looks a lot like a girl from my past--the only girl from my past, actually--the Polish princess. So see, Dad? I'm not gay. I just have high standards. And I put the pussy up on a pedestal.

The Awww Post

One of the great things about working so close to home is being able to go home for lunch, to just take an hour of and really relax.

Anyways, I learned something this weekend. I learned that the mundane things of the world can be made special just by doing them with the right person. I'm lucky to have found a number of right persons along the way, and I've put up links to their stuff to the right over there, as well as some others who don't have links. That's what I learned this weekend. So, thanks.

All together now--awww...