Filed under: Good day, Music, memories | Tags: AZ, brendan james, club congress, Mike, Music, pinkerton academy, the day is brave, Tucson
January 10th, 2009
I met Brendan James.
I was tooling around The Space in early December, thinking about dumping my account. I was swimming around in “Edit Friends” thinking about how cool it was that I have or have had all of these awesome people in my life over the last few years. I decided against dumping my account, because I remember how everyone was like hands-to-mouths in shock when I dumped my Facebook (okay, all two or three of you). I thought about perusing my bands and wanted to see if anyone was going to play local. Very few ever do because Phoenix is the place to play, big gigs, big crowds and all. It isn’t that I don’t want to travel to Phoenix to see some shows but it is a hassle. It isn’t like back home, Boston was what 40 minutes, sometimes under a half an hour depending on traffic or how late you were. I drove to a Radiohead show and I swear we got there in like 23 minutes. Great Woods, now that’s a different story. That’s how the drive to Phoenix is… forever… and it’s two lanes of forever. And forget about getting home before 2am, which is cool when your 18 and young but not when your sleep is so much more important than even food. Oh, damn do I not miss that parking lot at Great Woods. Lucky if you made it out under 2 hours.
So I was checking the shows calendar in Tucson and I see Brendan James is coming in a week. IN A WEEK! Sweet! Don’t know who he is? You can read about him here. His music is destined to be celebrated for a long time to come. It is genuinely heartfelt, heartwarming and heart wrenching all at the same time. Brilliant. His voice is warm and touching and gets into the deepest parts of you. His delivery is honest and open and brings you into it’s sunlight like a long awaited embrace. Refreshing and renewing.
I scooped up two tickets for under $20 and the show was at Club Congress; what a cool place that is! Stepping into it you forget where you are and think you’re back in Portsmouth, or better yet, the Back Bay. It’s stylish and historic, the perfect setting for this music. Mike and I enjoyed some beers before the show and then approached the stage for a unforgettable set. Brendan was fighting off a cold and apologized for it a few times but he never lost his composure or his musical professionalism; you could tell that he really really cared to give us the best show he possibly could. Tucson was nearly his last stop on his Mtv tour and you knew he was giving it his all and that’s all you could ask for. He played lots of tracks from his album The Day Is Brave and then mixed it up with lots of new stuff from his upcoming album. All of the songs were outstanding and exactly how I had hoped they sounded live, beautiful. He even played my favorite, All I Can See. I was mesmorized.
After the show, Brendan and his band mates came out to the front of the house to sign autographs and to meet the people who had come out to see them play. I think that is awesome. I haven’t been to a show that intimate and personal since… the Murmurs in Cambridge, what 1996? Maybe Liz Phair in Boston, 1997or8? You are wishing these small venue artists success but at the same time you would never trade these kinds of experiences for anything. (I was about half a mile from Robert Smith in ‘97 but would have given a limb to be in the front row/at least I wasn’t on the lawn.) Being that close to them when they play, being able to share with them their emotions through their music. Being able to meet them afterwards and let them know that lyrics like, “I want to know where the stength of a person lies, in their past or their future. Is it in the way that they hurt or they love themselves or is it all an illusion?” have reached the nether of your being (although I didn’t tell him this, I was too star struck.)
We wait in line for a little bit and then it is our turn, Mike bought me a cool poster of the tour for Brendan to sign. The first thing I do is shake his hand and tell him how much we loved the show. OMg, I’m going to get a cold! Of course I said that in my head and not out loud. It will be my first famous cold. I didn’t say that out loud either. Then I didn’t know what else to say, I’m sure I was mouth agape and all googly eyed. Mike took it away and was his normal friendly self, he is that way around everyone, calm and collected. He told Brendan that we were from Derry too and the look on his face was amazement and you could see that twinkle of homesickness in his eyes, the kind I get when I miss things like leaves, apple picking and the ocean. Mike added that we were also Class of ‘93 Pinkerton and Brendan said that he was Class of ‘99 (I felt old 
and then he said, “Go Astros!” We laughed all together and it was so sweet. Mike shook his hand too (famous sickness!) and we thanked him again for a great show and I told him to feel better soon.
Yay! It was so much fun! We stepped out into the cool air of the night and we knew we just had a great time and my mind always races through experiences like that, flying around in a pool of this-is-what-life-is-all-about and I’ll remember this forever because Mike and I experienced it together and that is so special to me. Walking to the car I looked down and saw that Brendan had written on my poster, “To Tara, Go Astros!! Brendan James”. How cool is that?
(Neither of us did ever get the famous cold
Filed under: Music | Tags: All That You Can't Leave Behind, Boy, Mike, Music, October, Rattle And Hum, REM, The Cure, The Joshua Tree, The Unforgettable Fire, U2, War
July 26th, 2008
Before embarking on this quest to compile my favorites from my top musical influences of all time, I had to consult a source. I’ve got all sorts of musical sources, my latest being my punk/rock/emo source and my other being my country source, I’ve got others but all of my sources are top secret. But my source for all things great, being the music that we grew up on and what shaped who we are is Mike. No surprise there. I do tend to pick on him from time to time for not getting up on the times, not partaking in any new music. Mike’s opinion is that no good music has been made since 1999. I don’t agree, actually, I vehemently disagree, but to each their own. So when it came to combing over my past he was certainly the one to journey that path with.
I introduced him to The Cure in 1992 and he introduced me to REM that same year. I started him out with Cure-lite, with the album Mixed Up, like saccharine filled goodness for the maudlin newbie. I mean I started out hardcore with (the best album ever created) Disintegration. And he started me off slowly too with Eponymous, a compilation of early REM besties, letting me discover (their best album ever) Life’s Rich Pageant. We would do our homework to these tapes, do our chores, do hum-drum everyday things to this melodies not knowing that we were letting these songs into the very fiber of our beings.
But this post isn’t about those two bands, that’ll be next post, if I can even come up with a nice and neat and presentable compilation of each, hence… impossible task. We decided to tackle U2 first. I had a love affair with U2 the moment I saw this, that video stays with you for a lifetime. But I broke up with U2 when they started releasing crap, and I’ll say this, IMO I was hearing crap because I wasn’t ready for U2 to change. Their sound had to change but at the time, 1990-1991, I just couldn’t handle it, I was changing too much already, I needed my music to stay constant and familiar. I have since added newer U2 to my library because they have managed to recapture their original sound, like many other bands who have survived their sophomoric branching out, only to come full circle to what made them great in the first place: their honesty.
So I humbly present my U2 Essentials, in no way does this encompass a “best of” or “greatest hits”, these are the songs that influenced me, were expressions of bottle necked rage and emotion and were there for me in those ever changing times.
1. I Will Follow from Boy 1980
2. Gloria from October 1981
3. Sunday Bloody Sunday from War 1983
4. New Year’s Day
5. Two Hearts Beat As One
6. A Sort of Homecoming from The Unforgettable Fire 1984
7. The Unforgettable Fire
8. Bad
9. Bullet the Blue Sky from The Joshua Tree 1987
10. Running to Stand Still
11. Trip Through Your Wires
12. All Along The Watchtower from Rattle And Hum 1988
13. All I Want Is You
14. Silver And Gold
15. Walk On from All That You Can’t Leave Behind 2000
Bonus track: 16. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me from Batman Forever Soundtrack 1995
Filed under: Emotions, Introduction, Living, love, marriage | Tags: love, marriage, memories, Mike
July 24th, 2008
You and I aren’t the same people we were when we fell in love.
And how could we be? We were so young and so fearful of what would become of our feelings for each other. We guarded ourselves behind gossamer veils of pretension that meant so little when it came to embracing passion. Giving in to the newness, wanting to make first contact and wanting to freeze every moment in time, forever. How do you hang on to that? And can you, or should you rather? That isn’t a place for permanent residence because other things clamor for attention, like trust and security. But that sense of protection can come quickly, either by choice or by happenstance. And with the latter, you are thankful that you have met your soul mate, lucky that you can stop looking, or better, you have found each other. You hold each other and you can almost see it all laid out before you, as if the future is playing out and someone else is playing the part, someone so much better versed in the script and dialogue. When you embrace you can’t see into that person’s eyes, instead you are looking past them– ironic, because you have never felt closer and there is no where you would rather be. The dark, starless night is bitter cold, dense with lost time and you never want to leave that place, or that memory behind because it is who you are wanting to be and who you remember wanting to be.
Who is with you now? Do you remember the hesitation as you picked up the phone and remembered a lifetime as he spoke those words to you? Trembling inside because the loneliness was washing away, the pain was fleeting. And when he left you after that first reunion, you didn’t touch the ground for weeks, for months, not even now. The coy smiles, the bright eyes, the electric touch of two people finding that connection between heaven and earth and each other. It is the giving in completely to fate, the stripping down to the bone, the unmasking… that is what will let love in. It can’t be scary, it will be blind, or at the very least like searching around in the dark shadows cast by moonlight. It will lead to the brilliant dawn, the cold still bites at your naked body, but the sun will warm you and keep you close, as two hearts now beat as one.
We aren’t the same people we were when we fell in love, but that love is better now, stronger because we made it through the shadows into the light. The expectations of what this love was going to be built from the ground up, deeply rooted in trust and understanding, is something greater now. It isn’t complete yet, and in time it will grow higher towards the sun, and its roots will expand ever deeper into the ground. And the stars start to show through the night’s cover because love is ever changing, always constant and forever. You cannot go back to the person you were when you first fell in love, and why would you want to? You would lose forever the growing, the learning, the memories of an awkward and fledgling romance turned true love. Don’t look to turn back the memories of love, instead look to what you could become, chances are it will become more than you ever dreamed it could.
Filed under: Emotions, Etsy, Family, Food, blogging | Tags: blogging, David Cook, Eli Manning, Emotions, Etsy, Fij, Food, food porn, jenn, Mike, mother, Ricky, Sick, tag cloud, Work
July 18th, 2008
I don’t know who coined the phrase “food porn” but my sister gets the credit for introducing it to Mike and me. Ame’s a vegan so just about everything “consumable” fits into this category, and consumable, she’ll argue too. Food porn is fried, greasy, processed, sugary, evil and oh so good! The other week Mike turned our kitchen into a greasy spoon by throwing just about anything into a pot of oil turning out the best fried food this side of the Mississippi (seeing that the best fried food on the other side of the Mississippi happens to be found here.) We even considered frying the Twinkies but even I passed on that one. I don’t crave as much as I used to, I have an occasional hankering for something sinful and wrong, like eating at a chain restaurant… I know! We have all but ruled them out but I can’t say that I’m not excited to be going to one tonight. It almost makes up for having to attend something educational on a Friday night… can I bring my iPod? Can I text during it, please? I feel like a kid needing the promise of something heavenly at the end of something painful like having to go to the fabric store or the adult section of the public library… and I don’t mean adult like that, I mean like big ol’ dusty reference/microfiche section of the library.
* * *
I installed this new feature on my blog, it’s called a tag cloud, my friend Fij has it among others* and I thought it would be interesting. And it has been, to say the least. Maybe even eye opening, but not so much in a good way. There are those topics that I’m glad are there, like my Etsy shop name (yay), Mike’s name, Ricky’s name, Jenn’s Etsy shop (how sweet) and of course “David Cook” because I’m an obsessed crazy fan, but who’s really counting. Oddly, I guess I talked a lot about “Eli Manning”. Didn’t know that I had. But the one’s that really stick out for me are: sick, work, and emotions. Why aren’t happy, healthy, and feelings there? We are half way through the year and those are the highlights? Wait, I’m pleased with all of them through Eli, but after that… I’m sick of work, work makes me sick, and I’m emotional about it? Haven’t I been in that place for too long? A friend of mine turned it all around just a little while ago and he seems happier… I think. I mean, he’s so busy he doesn’t really update his blog anymore, as much anyway. So he assures me that he is well, and I believe him, he’s an adult and he can take care of his shit. And that’s my point, I’m not taking care of my shit.
I don’t know where this is coming from really. It started up again yesterday around midday. I knew something was in the air and then my mother called me almost near the end of my shift at work. Do I really want to air all of this here on my blog, f*ck yeah. This is my place, I don’t care how public it is… isn’t that the beauty of it all anyhow? I want to go on and on about how this was sh*tty and that was f*cked up, and how there was no love in my life for the better part of it… but where will that leave me? With more angry, sick, emotional tags popping up in my cloud. That damned cloud!
* * *
And that last thing… I don’t think that’s a good idea… and I’m not talking about an alcoholic bender (been there, survived that), I’m talking an emotional bender. I think I’m due.
Filed under: Family, Humor, Music, dork-out, love, marriage | Tags: amy, David Cook, Family, gifts, Humor, Mike
July 15th, 2008
No one has been more effected by “the birthday gift” like Mike has. I now refer to it as “the birthday gift”. Of course on Saturday when I talked to my sister I had her explain, slowly and in detail how the whole situation played out… and I mean slowly and carefully, in detail. I’m still on cloud 9 about it but have had my feet touch down here and there. Mike still makes jealous/envious references to it; tonight he informed me that he is now going to start signing things, “You rock, David Cook”. I told him that would be strange seeing that his name is Michael D********. People might be a little confused… I also added that he can’t because he’s not a rock star. That should have been obvious. The point is he isn’t letting it go.
In fact he wrote this email to my sister to thank her for her gift to me. Pay close attention to the snarky sarcasm… it’s kind of like chicken or the egg with Mike and I; neither here nor there.
Here you go:
(email to Amy {sister} from Mike {husband})
So, what do you get the girl that seemingly wants nothing? Apparently you get her a birthday card signed by David Cook! Seriously awesome gift! I bow to you! Awesome! But I seriously hate you! How am I supposed to compete with that! Damn you! I figured the only way to top that was to call in a favor from Michael Buble, but funny enough he won’t take my call. I don’t suppose you have something signed by him that I can borrow do you? Maybe an active cell number. I’m kidding of course…no I’m not.
Here was the scene earlier. Tara asked me to bring her some paper after I got out of work today, so being the darling and dear husband that I am, I gladly brought the paper to her at American Eagle (I later found out that she had received your gift just after we had spoke). When I entered the store I noticed a crazed woman clutching a FedEx package. She somehow maintained a twenty-one-foot perimeter around her precious cargo with a dizzying combination of the “hairy-eyeball” and a stack of AE gift cards. My first thought was that someone had lost their grip of the tether that once restrained this poor autistic women, and now there she was clutching her new friend “Mr. Boxey”. That’s when my world slipped between my realm- the normal realm where there are no such things as Hobbits and Wookies- to a hot pink, Hello Kitty, super-Iggy-POP-Culture world. I could feel my shoes turning various shades of neon. A sheath of Emo drizzled onto my once adult exterior turning me into a zit-faced, greasy-haired, androgynous teen. I stepped back several paces and the Emo-ness was suddenly vanished. The crazed autistic woman caught my sudden movements in her periphery. She spun like a hot pink Barbie top and looked me directly in the eyes- the hairy-eyeballs were upon me. But there was something familiar about those eyes- brown, soft, slightly human. That’s when it hit me, “holy shit, that’s my wife!” My newly autistic wife, upon seeing my face, let forth a screech that blew the lenses out of a poor nearsighted child’s glasses that had been hiding behind the latest in jean cut-off fashions (high fashion really- these things had built in belts….yeah…I know…high fashion, that’s what I said). My wife, who had once been completely sane, lurched toward me like a fat man who had sat in one of those hard chairs you find in a Burger King restaurant for far too long. As she inched closer, box pressed to her chest like it was the last life preserver on the Titanic, I could feel the wall of pop culture once more consume me…horrible. When she was no more than five feet from me I tried to call out to the woman who had once been my cute wife. “Lady Bugs?” I said. Her response started from the deeps of an invisible abyss, shaking the walls, spilling over a stack of hangers, and setting off every store alarm in a five block radius, and ended in a high shrill that sounded like someone had too much helium at little Johnny’s party. “YOU ARE NOT GONNA FRICKIN’ BELIEVE WHAT MY SISTER SENT ME FOR MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!” I’m pretty sure that what she said, for my eardrums had left their posts sometime around the middle of what she said. Sounding now like Charlie Brown’s teacher, my wife “whaka-waa-waa’ed” something at me. I was able to decipher two words- David was one, Cook was the other. She slowly, almost painfully, pulled out a gold foiled envelope. A poor woman- clearly frightened by the recent earthquake- venture too close to us. She had no idea of her transgression until she saw my once frail wife. For a second I really thought I saw a forked tongue jet out of her mouth. After the woman that ventured too close to us was consumed in fire, my nutty wife opened the envelope and produced a hand-written note that read : To Tara, Happy Birthday, You Rock, David Cook. Like a vegan smelling a large pepperoni pizza when everyone’s back is turned, my fork-tongued wife sniffed the surface of the note in ecstasy before slowly putting it back in the box. I told her that it was an awesome gift and that I wasn’t going to be able to top it. Her cold, black eyes looked deep into my soul, “Just and awesome gift?” She cackled. Somewhere in the distance a child cried. “This is the best thing anyone has ever gotten, do you hear me!” Had I not pee’d myself at that very moment, my pants, socks, and shoes would have all caught on fire. I reached for the box and told her that I’d better take it home for safe keeping. Yeah, bad move. Like a ninja, she laid into me with movements almost undetectable in this strange pop-emo-world. I tried to block a dizzying forehand strike, but her David Cook necklace refracted the neon lighting directly into my cornea. Once she was certain that her precious note was safe, she snarled, hissed, and spit a few words at me. “If you lost it somehow, I would divorce you.” I coughed up blood. “Just go home and clear out the entire computer room. And get some white cloth to drape the room in. A shrine will be erected before the sun doth rise in the morrow.” I crawled toward the now deserted hallway of the inner mall. Behind the cell phone cart a small child and mother popped their heads up to look at me. I gestured for them to hide. One of the cell phone cart guys popped out too. I decided I’d let him go- maybe if she took him out they’d stop asking what kind of service I had every time I walked past them. Once I was a safe distance, I got up and ran for my life. Like Jimmy stewart in “It’s a wonderful life” I shouted to every one I passed, but it wasn’t about how great life was, no. I was more like, “Run for life! David Cook has consumed her and he’ll consume you too! The evil is upon us! First John Denver, now this.”
That is what happened. Every word is true. See what you did? When I woke up this morning the world was normal. Now my shoes are neon, and David Cook is president. Oh shit! She just pulled up in the driveway and I haven’t finished the shrine. Head for the hills, the David is coming for you too!
Seriously, awesome gift!
Filed under: Commentary, Humor, dork-out, movies | Tags: Mike, pauly shore, totally pauly, mtv, encino man, brendan fraser, son in law, sean astin, bio-dome, stephen baldwin, generation x, jury duty, in the army now
June 28th, 2008
It’s hard for me to even present this little nugget to you without bursting into laughter and tears, and in all honesty Mike offered this opinion to me completely serious.
Mike: “I think Pauly Shore was a really important figure from our past*… not the actual guy Pauly Shore, but the character Pauly Shore.”
*something to that effect
You heard that right. My highly educated, very successful, brilliant minded husband thinks that Pauly Shore, the character, defines our generation, was an important figure in history and was one of the most influential character actors of our time.
Again, I’m not kidding.
Let’s examine:
-his career started, as himself, on MTV, hosting Totally Pauly in 1988. We were 13 so I could see how completely idiotic bathroom humor and looking at girl’s breasts were the hot ticket to a boy about to go through puberty.
-Coined “Hey, Buddy!”, the “Wiez”; and some of my favorite movie quotes of all time include and are not limited to the following:
No weezing the ju-uice.
Look, Steven Tyler peejays!
Can I call you “General Sweetpants”?
Shave the poochie poochie!
-I could watch Encino Man and Son in Law probably back to back all weekend long because they are mindless movies that remind me of when everything was neon and plastic, when the early ’90s were fun because we were all still stuck in the ’80s.
(and I love how that bad bad movie was promoted, “If you liked Wayne’s World…” not even comparable. And people forget that Sean Astin, Lord of the Dorks, was in this movie. On the other hand, it’s worth watching just to see Brendan Fraser’s hot body.
I’m getting off topic.
-Bio-Dome- Mike is convinced that this is one of the greatest comedies of our time, daresay greatest movies of all time. Although I have a place in my heart for Mr Shore, I can assure you that I do not rank this movie any where near my top ten movies of all time. He also thinks that this was Stephen Baldwin’s best work. I have to say his best work was in this past season of The Celebrity Apprentice, where he played the sneaky villainous Jesus freak.
In conclusion, love him or hate him, as most people do, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Pauly Shore shaped the face of our generation. I mean, we are Generation X, and really we have our own bad rap already: losers, slackers, bane… we certainly don’t need the D+ comedy of say Jury Duty or In The Army Now to bring us any further down. But if you take those movies and the annoying yet slapstickling funny and memorable comedy of Pauly Shore with the proverbial grain of salt then it’s okay. Because if we are the generation without a face at least one of comedy, laughter and goofiness is better than the alternative.
-See, he’s just a regular Joe now.
Filed under: Humor, Photos, love, marriage | Tags: anniversary, matthew lesko, Mike, photograph
June 25th, 2008
Mike met that guy, you know that guy, at his convention in Chicago this past weekend. So he can say that he spent our anniversary with that crazy question mark guy from TV. I love Mike’s face in this picture… really a face only a wife could love:
Filed under: Baby!, Family, Food, Good day, holidays, love, marriage | Tags: American Idol, anniversary, Baby!, David Cook, glendale az, La Dolce Vita, Mike, waiting
June 20th, 2008
Is actually tomorrow, but Mike will be leaving for Chicago in the morning so we celebrated it today. We went out to dinner to my new favorite Italian restaurant, La Dolce Vita. It was great for me but Mike’s order got kind of screwed up and even though I assured him that they wouldn’t spit in his food or put his meat down their pants, he just couldn’t bring himself to send it back so he enjoyed it anyway. It was nice and we had good conversation. He then told me what he got me for our anniversary and lemme tell you, I’m just keeping in my excitement, only because I’m really really tired and… well that’s the only reason.
When he found out that his company wanted him to go to this convention on our anniversary he scored two tickets to that show. We will probably be the oldest people there without chaperoning our own children but I don’t care, I’m wicked excited! And why wouldn’t I be, I’m an Idol fanatic and a David Cook fanatic… just enjoy his music, not really going to stalk him, much.
I’m so happy that we had a great anniversary and I know we’re going to have a 100 more. By the way, we round out our evening with browsing the baby clothes* at Khol’s, it was so cute and fun and we reminded ourselves that not long ago we never even wanted to have kids… how somethings change while others stay the same.
*still not pregnant, but still trying
Filed under: Good day, Humor, blogging, marriage | Tags: Good day, Mike, power out, zombies
May 22nd, 2008
(written May 23rd, 2008 )
Last night we lost power and the first thing I thought was, “Crap, I can’t blog!” Maybe after the thought of “Crap, I can’t see anything!” came. It was about 8:30 and we had been experiencing wicked winds here all day, it was oddly only about 75 degrees and raining like crazy. So everything just shut off right quick as if someone pulled this giant power cord. The TV even did that funny thing where everything gets sucked into that tiny silver dot into the middle of the screen, I think it even went, “Poof!”
Mike and I just sat there, maybe looking right at each other but unable to see each other’s expressions. Now what? Flashlight.
Me-We have a flashlight? Cool.
Mike-Light some candles.
Me-We only have the smelly kind.
Mike-Okay.
So we did that, put some candles on until the house smelled like potpourri.
Me-Now what?
Mike-This is when the zombies come.
I’m not kidding, that is what he said and that is the topic of discussion into the wee hours. He talked about how it will happen and then went into the bedroom to get his gun. Asked me where his second clip was, I said by the door and we sat and drank wine and waited for our impending doom.
The power did come back on eventually and I guess technically by then I still could have squeezed out a post in time but by then I was drunk, tired from my eyes trying to see in the soft glow of candles and too afraid to be alone.
Filed under: Commentary, Emotions, marriage, soapbox | Tags: Emotions, marriage, Mike, soap box
April 16th, 2008
If you have ever been around me, especially at work, you know that I have a big mouth, I say what I want to say and I use the power of my voice and my large vocabulary to talk anyone under the table. That’s my super power I suppose, yay for me. No flying, super strength or cunning, no, I’ve got the power of the spoken word. There is only one person I know of who is more wordy, more boisterous and more opinionated than I: my husband, Mike.
My mother-in-law puts it like this, and remember this is her pride and joy she is speaking of, “Everyone else is normal, it’s you.” When she is saying “it’s you” she is referring to the fact that he is so over the top when it comes to tackling challenges, defeating the competition, obtaining a new skill, even day-to-day routine activities like how he does his hair and how his military training taught him to expertly iron a shirt. I’m not picking on him here, I’m pointing out the facts. He is worldly, chock full o’ information, can readily understand what the hell the Science Channel is talking about, and has mastered every subject he has taken in college.
So, what am I complaining about here? Not complaining really, just needing to get this off my chest and what other venue is there but this one, somewhat anonymous, oddly vast? It is the constant need for him to fill me up with his chatter, his knowledge, smidgens of fact, nuggets of smarts. Is it that he is smarter than me that bothers me? Am I jealous/envious/intimidated by his brain power? Unlike him I have not memorized every lyric to every song ever written. I cannot tell you what the periodical chart abbreviation for Plutonium is. I am not completely sure/nor do I really care what the difference between centrifugal and centripetal force is. I mean, I know I learned that at one point, probably from one of his ramblings, but I don’t retain knowledge, never have.
I think that is the real problem to this problem, I shut him off now and he knows it and he gets mad at me for doing it. He takes a lot of energy to listen to. I’m sure I do too to a point. I’m a moody person, I have needs too. That is the root there, I liked to be listened to too. I have to be a very attentive audience. He almost demands that I not only understand what he is saying, I acknowledge that I am paying attention/understanding and here’s the one that gets me every time, that I agree with his point of view. And here we introduce the argument segment of the problem. I can’t possibly disagree with him. In his defense, he assumes I agree with all of his points of view because he believes that I am also a very intelligent person so we must see eye to eye. This is an illogical argument. Okay, there’s one thing I am smarter at, logic. Neither here nor there in this problem.
So I have become accustomed to just smiling and nodding and even that is becoming increasingly hard to do. He sees through my veneer of weakened interest. I don’t know how to fix this or at least to stop doing this. I use my little voice now. I don’t disagree or agree, I don’t give my input, any input is just filtered through and spit out at me or disregarded usually. I don’t like using my little voice because when I am able to use my big voice I end up unleashing it on some unsuspecting soul, like a co-worker. I have an opinion and I like debating but what I have to say is just as important as what you have to say. There is no winning in a conversation yet I always feel like I’m on the losing end nevertheless.
My little voice may just turn into my silent voice.
