Upstairs My progeny is showing a heretofore-unsuspected affection for alternative rock. This comes despite Mercury's efforts to play classical or jazz whenever the Progeny is in the room. It also comes despite Mercury's efforts to forbid hip-hop or rap anywhere in the Progeny's hearing, although I am an unapologetic Fifth Columnist in this regard. Eminem has a good beat. Howe'er it is, the Progeny now gives a big giggle and a pretty well-executed ASL sign for "music" at each mealtime. For her mealtime serenades, she has rejected in turn country, light rock, jazz, classical, and mariachi, and has glommed onto our local alternative station. Big giggles and hand-waving for Radiohead. Who knew. Now, they're playing remakes of The Cure . . . and Nirvana during the Flashback Lunch Hour . . . which makes them not very alternative, to my mind. So maybe we should call this the Mainstream Alternative station. But that The Cure remake, yes, that's what I really sat down here to contemplate. First off, I'm old. I'm hearing re-makes of the songs of my youth, on the Mainstream Alternative station, no less. Second off, I'm an old fogey. Because I know the original was much better. Third off, I recently got an email with a little .pdf attached, from B, who wrote, "Don't know why they sent this to me, but you may want to get the address updated." And it was, of course, the tax form for the little blue trailer up north. I wrote back that I could pay it off, if he'd rather not have it on his credit report. I've been planning to cash out that underperforming 401(k) anyway . . . and if I do, there is no argument over whether the little blue trailer could be a marital asset vis. Mercury. It's on my to-do list. And B wrote back that I could do that, sure, but he didn't mind either way. And that he always sort of smiled when he saw it on his periodic credit reports. Which puts me in mind, very much in mind, of that old The Cure song. When you're in your teens, or maybe even early twenties, can say that you'll always love someone, because you can't conceive of any circumstances that would change it. That's the original version. And, in the years when the original version gets no airtime, maybe you discover that you can choose to always love someone, because you realize life is a lot more about choices. But by the time the remake rolls around, you may be realizing that yes, maybe it's possible to always love someone, whatever words I say, however far away, however long I stay, because here you are almost 20 years on and it's still true. Now . . . you can say that about a child, and mean it, and be pretty sure that in some way it will always be true. But for another grownup adult with a wife and a life of his own? That, I think, takes 20 years or so, plus a lot of intervening grief, to decide whether it's true. So there we have that. In a neat circular moment, I took the Progeny upstairs yesterday so that I could put away some laundry. She trundled into the closet and got suspiciously quiet. When I peeked in, she had extracted from a box - and was closely examining in her fat pink chubby hands - my old, old, old Disintegration disc. |
7:51 a.m. - 02-27-10
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