Last night I experienced one of my less charming quirks.
I had emailed R at school on Wednesday, nothing important, and hadn't gotten an answer. Friday about five I emailed her again -- the official acceptance papers had arrived from graduate school for her -- and expected a phone call soon after that. No call.
I called her about 7 and left a message on her dorm phone. I called her cell phone right after that, but it wasn't on; I left a message there.
I began to lose my mind.
Where could she be? What could possibly have happened to her? I talked to her on Sunday, but what could have kept her from answering two-day-old email? And on and on. I can't explain my reasons for gradually becoming certain that she was most certainly missing, kidnapped, probably dead, because it's so irrational. And it's not the first time.
I get this way usually when I'm expecting someone home, or to call when they arrive somewhere after a long trip, and I always have. It connects in an odd way to this weird supersition that, as soon as I allow myself to become convinced that it's over, they're gone forever, that they will immediately walk through the door or call. This is actually what almost always happens, or at least, I think it does.
So I called her back, not often, just every ten minutes or so, until I called a little after 9 and she answered the phone; she'd just gotten in from a sorority function. Her cell phone battery was low so she turned it off. She apologized, but for what? Having a freak for a mother? She's 22 years old; she hardly needs to call me to tell me she's going out to dinner 65 miles away.
In other words, I am some sort of freak. As we like to say, I come by it honestly: my grandfather was so afraid that I would be hurt while riding a bicycle that I never rode when he was visiting, rather than worrying him.
Oh, and I'm also reminded -- I can't imagine why -- of this moment in my life a few years back. I was standing on line at the supermarket and glanced over at a tabloid headline: "Find out if YOU are descended from space aliens!" Well, I just started to laugh and laugh, so loud that my children were embarrassed to be with me. Finally I pointed at the headline to show them, and when I could stop, I said that I didn't have to buy the paper, I already knew.
It's really more like a Saturday 5 than a Friday 5, but whatever:
It's an interesting topic, mostly because I'm not sure how well I can answer any of these questions. I think I did an entry about some of this recently, but I can't find it at the moment. I like music, listen in the car, mostly, and have all kinds of mix CD's as well as about 6 gigabytes of mp3s on the computer. Yet I am known around here for having a weird wide range of musical taste, not all of it good. By this I mean mostly that Hubs and R laugh at me for liking show tunes, and having a tolerance and sometimes enjoyment of disco and some country classics. They like Clapton and quality rock and roll. K likes everything, I swear, and can identify groups and singers that I never heard of, from oldies to show tunes to rock to classical.
1. What was the first band you saw in concert?
I think I was about 13 when I went with a friend and some friends of her family to see Little Stevie Wonder at an outdoor concert in Central Park, in New York.
The best concert I ever saw was Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, in a pretty small theatre on the boardwalk in Asbury Park when they hadn't played at home like that for a couple of years. Rockin'.
Also very cool to see Paul Simon in Washington just before he released "There Goes Rhymin' Simon" -- about 1973 -- and we talked to him outside afterward and asked if he needed a lift since he was walking and we (about 6 girls had a car.
2. Who is your favorite artist/band now?
I always say that the Beatles are my favorite all-time band, and they are, but I don't listen to them all the time or anything. Who I listen to changes all the time, and it's almost always someone from the past, and very little of who's contemporary now. Beatles, John Denver, Harry Chapin, James Taylor. My favorite band of all time, though, I'm just thinking, is probably the Moody Blues. I've seen them in concert about a half dozen times.
3. What's your favorite song?
Is it really possible to pick one? I like "Circle" by Harry Chapin -- it's number 1 on my Magic Mix -- and everything else there.
4. If you could play any instrument, what would it be?
Drums. I would so love to be a rock and roll drummer, even a bubble-gum type, like Dave Clark of the Dave Clark 5. I also love to listen to the great drummers of the swing era, like Gene Krupa.
5. If you could meet any musical icon (past or present), who would it be and why?
The first name that came to mind is Paul McCartney, but since that would just turn me into a stammering blob of goo, he probably wouldn't be a good choice. Why? Because he's Paul McCartney. Harry Chapin, probably not an icon, but definitely an interesting person. I saw him in concert; it was like he was talking to thousands of friends in his living room. I never saw any performer relate to an audience like that, or that well. Don MacLean, I love his music, but he never picked up his head and looked at the audience; it didn't matter if anyone was there or not. He seemed very shy. I didn't really answer the question, did I?
66dF - wow
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I'm watching SNL rerun with The Rock
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