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It bothers me sometimes how different I am from the rest of my family. I have two examples prepared for today.
1. I'm always the outsider. Often, when everyone else is in a good mood, I'm in a bad mood. I hate that. But as soon as someone else in the family gets in a bad mood, I kind of wise up and change attitudes; I think it's because by seeing someone else in a bad mood, it makes me realize how ridiculous it is. And when my whole family's in a bad mood... I'm like the perfect child. My favorite role in the family is bemused observer. It happened this morning before church: my sister was all crabby because she has to work at the tennis club and she has all this homework, and my dad was lecturing her about snapping at everyone and being rude, and then my mom got mad at him for getting on my sister's back. And there I was, leaning on the kitchen counter off to the side, just kind of being mellow. My sister rode with me to church, and I coaxed her out of her bad mood by talking to her and singing The Vines. I kind of like it when the family's in a bad mood, because then I become peacemaker.
2. Music. It bothers me that my family isn't into music very much. My mom would disagree with this statement, because her case is a mix between having OK taste in music and wanting to have good taste in music, but not having time to listen to music (the same can be applied to "books"). Every now and then she'll pick out one of my CD's to listen to as background noise in the car, but she uses it only for that. Generally she has a few CD's that revolve in her stereo: Sting's "Ten Summoner's Tales," The Beatles's "Help," The Barenaked Ladies's "Marroon," and a mix that she made herself with a lot of CSNY, Sting, and corny modern songs like "Had a Bad Day Again." Excepting Sting, none of these are really bad, but she listens to just these few over and over and over.... and after a while I can tell that she's not really listening to them, she just has them for something to put on. For me, music needs to be more than that: whenever I get in the car, I say to myself, "Ooh, what am I going to play this time?" to fit whatever mood I'm in.
My sister is too busy playing tennis to worry about music. She has nothing but a passing interest in the latest play on Star94. Sometimes she'll pick up a Jimmy Buffet, and she loves Dobie Gray's "Drift Away." I tease her that she'll become a Tennis Mom, going to Bahama Breeze on weekends to sip margaritas while some Buffet-wannabe plays easy listening on an acoustic guitar. I imagine that she must be like how my mom was as a teenager: occasionally she'll find a song she likes, and listen to it over and over, and her CD collection will be full of albums she bought just for the new single.
As for my dad... I know for a fact that he's had the same Steely Dan CD in his car stereo for over a year. Literally, my dad does not have time to listen to music. You know in movies, where they show the stereotypical corporate exec who's attached to his cell phone? They base that on people like my dad. Sometimes I worry about him.
Most of my friends have parents who are music fans. Kristen's dad has a collection of old Rolling Stones, and he's always fiddling around with his guitars when I'm there. Thomas's mother studied opera in Paris for a year, and she runs her own freaking music studio. Even Stephen's parents have a bunch of old Beatles and Allman Bros. LP's in their living room. I wonder a lot where my genes came from. Then the obvious answer appears: my uncle. Everything from tastes to physique. He played freaking trumpet in the freaking marching band, he's artistic, and he ran cross country. But my question to him is: I know grandpa and grandma; where did your genes come from?
I just wish there was someone in my immediate family who was as passionate about music as I am.
It bothers me sometimes how different I am from the rest of my family. I have two examples prepared for today.
1. I'm always the outsider. Often, when everyone else is in a good mood, I'm in a bad mood. I hate that. But as soon as someone else in the family gets in a bad mood, I kind of wise up and change attitudes; I think it's because by seeing someone else in a bad mood, it makes me realize how ridiculous it is. And when my whole family's in a bad mood... I'm like the perfect child. My favorite role in the family is bemused observer. It happened this morning before church: my sister was all crabby because she has to work at the tennis club and she has all this homework, and my dad was lecturing her about snapping at everyone and being rude, and then my mom got mad at him for getting on my sister's back. And there I was, leaning on the kitchen counter off to the side, just kind of being mellow. My sister rode with me to church, and I coaxed her out of her bad mood by talking to her and singing The Vines. I kind of like it when the family's in a bad mood, because then I become peacemaker.
2. Music. It bothers me that my family isn't into music very much. My mom would disagree with this statement, because her case is a mix between having OK taste in music and wanting to have good taste in music, but not having time to listen to music (the same can be applied to "books"). Every now and then she'll pick out one of my CD's to listen to as background noise in the car, but she uses it only for that. Generally she has a few CD's that revolve in her stereo: Sting's "Ten Summoner's Tales," The Beatles's "Help," The Barenaked Ladies's "Marroon," and a mix that she made herself with a lot of CSNY, Sting, and corny modern songs like "Had a Bad Day Again." Excepting Sting, none of these are really bad, but she listens to just these few over and over and over.... and after a while I can tell that she's not really listening to them, she just has them for something to put on. For me, music needs to be more than that: whenever I get in the car, I say to myself, "Ooh, what am I going to play this time?" to fit whatever mood I'm in.
My sister is too busy playing tennis to worry about music. She has nothing but a passing interest in the latest play on Star94. Sometimes she'll pick up a Jimmy Buffet, and she loves Dobie Gray's "Drift Away." I tease her that she'll become a Tennis Mom, going to Bahama Breeze on weekends to sip margaritas while some Buffet-wannabe plays easy listening on an acoustic guitar. I imagine that she must be like how my mom was as a teenager: occasionally she'll find a song she likes, and listen to it over and over, and her CD collection will be full of albums she bought just for the new single.
As for my dad... I know for a fact that he's had the same Steely Dan CD in his car stereo for over a year. Literally, my dad does not have time to listen to music. You know in movies, where they show the stereotypical corporate exec who's attached to his cell phone? They base that on people like my dad. Sometimes I worry about him.
Most of my friends have parents who are music fans. Kristen's dad has a collection of old Rolling Stones, and he's always fiddling around with his guitars when I'm there. Thomas's mother studied opera in Paris for a year, and she runs her own freaking music studio. Even Stephen's parents have a bunch of old Beatles and Allman Bros. LP's in their living room. I wonder a lot where my genes came from. Then the obvious answer appears: my uncle. Everything from tastes to physique. He played freaking trumpet in the freaking marching band, he's artistic, and he ran cross country. But my question to him is: I know grandpa and grandma; where did your genes come from?
I just wish there was someone in my immediate family who was as passionate about music as I am.
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