Library

Yesterday I took my brother to the library. Now, this may not sound so impressive. If there were more readers of this blog, I daresay every single one would exclaim that that was nothing to be proud of. Why, hundreds of people every day take their brothers to the library. However, my brother possesses a special talent, a talent responsible for taking any hum drum excursion and turning it into, for lack of a better term, a journey.

To start off with, my brother is constantly plugged in. It is difficult to get him out of the house in the first place, for all of his favorite things are here. Quite frequently he will be found with a dog on his lap, his television on, and his face plugged into his computer like a three pronged electrical device. Within the time frame that I asked him to go to the library, my brother watched Hannah Montana, played on Neopets, and watched all three Charlie the Unicorns. As we left the house, I forced him to leave his Nintendo DS behind. I was determined that this excursion was going to end with my brother gaining a deep understanding of the love I have for books, and with him fostering one of his own.

"Do you want to look upstairs or downstairs for books? The kids section is downstairs, I used to love it when I was your age."

"I guess I'll look downstairs,"

"Ok sweetie! Find a nice chapter book. I'll be upstairs if you need me."

I proceeded to pat myself on the back, for the last time we went to the library, he had refused to look downstairs, favoring the "Prehistoric Fish" section upstairs, a section primarily devoted to books with few words and large paintings of said fish.

I looked for maybe twenty minutes around the library before he came upstairs again.

"Can you help me find this book?" Two call numbers were inscribed on a white sheet of scratch paper. With a sinking feeling, I realized that this book included large full color illustrations of fish. I guided him to the section and I could not find either call number. I told him to keep looking, and I resumed searching the non fiction section for books. Ten minutes later he came back with a big grin on his face and the book in his hand.

"That's great. I'm glad you found it. You should get a chapter book too. Go back downstairs."

He began to move in the opposite direction of the stairs.

"The stairs are that way, J."

"Oh, I know. I've been riding the elevator."

"What? Why? You know. . .never mind, just go find a chapter book, ok?"

"Ok. Maybe I'll look upstairs."

I started to become exasperated.

"The only books upstairs are ones for grown ups. What's wrong with the kid's section?"

"It's creepy down there. It's too young for me."

"J, just please, go find a book. And use the stairs."

At this point a librarian came over with a dirty look on her face. Our argument was attracting looks. J headed back downstairs. He returned ten minutes later with a book about twenty pages long.

"Can we go home yet?" He stood in front of the bookcase I was looking at. "I got a chapter book."

"That is not a chapter book. Where did you get that?"

"We read it in the fourth grade."

"It has a picture of a smiling mouse wearing a suit on the cover. That book is for second graders."

"Don't judge a book by its cover."

I gave up. I finished looking, let him put back the 'chapter book', and took him home. On our way back home, I learned exactly what I was fighting.

"You know, I bet this book has more words than any chapter book."

"How many pages is it?"

"One hundred."

I suppose a picture's worth a thousand words, but for his sake I hope the SATs are fish themed by the time he takes them.

"A mackerel is an a)Fish b)Pot c)Dog d)Cat"

Dear lord, please let him pick 'a'.

Music

I am here today to defend my music. I will say straight away that my favorite type of music is. . .Broadway. Yes, yes, I know that this can be strange to some, and believe me, I try to not force my music upon others. In fact, though it is customary for teenagers to compare MP3 players to see what others are listening to, I have come to simply withdraw my music player for fear of alienating any straight men within the 25 mile radius.

"Music player?" I ask while shoving it into my back pocket and covering it up with a conveniently long tee shirt, "You must be mistaken. I don't have a music player. . .at least one with anything you'd be interested in."

It usually works pretty well, unless I've pulled that trick with the person before.

"No, really. I want to see your Ipod. Maybe there's something I've heard of on there."

Thinking of the three Eagles songs, four Sheryl Crows, two Queens, and the Twilight soundtrack I uploaded by mistake, I hand it over. Familiarity sets in- I notice a glazed look in the eye as they skim through my albums. They hand it back as quickly as they had taken it, but their knowledge of me is now tainted. She is the quiet one, the actress, the sweet one, but she also likes. . .showtunes.

So, normally, I just enjoy them quietly and I don't get too much flack about it. I figured people just don't understand them. It never occured to me that anyone thought anything bad about them. Until today, when my mother and I went to go paint pottery at a little shop downtown. We live in a town in the upper Midwest part of the United States, and while it isn't the least urban place one could live, it's also just rural enough that people fancy themselves cowboys and cowgirls, especially when they own no farmland. Country music follows me everywhere, and, apparently to even out the fact that I was having fun painting pottery, God decided to smack incessant country music in my face to turn it into my own personal circle of hell. After the third song about how everyone should follow George W Bush's moral code when the man was clearly already two years out of office, I've had just about enough of Mr.twangy twang.

"God I hate country music. Can we make it stop somehow?"

"Good luck with that." My mother says, glaring at the woman placing items into the kiln. I glare at her too. But mind control clearly isn't working. The radio continues to blare country as loud as ever.

"It's just such awful music," I say, "You could probably replace all the words with gibberish in a Southern accent and people would still eat it up. It's garbage."

My mother snorts

"Well, at least we instilled some good music taste into you."

"What do you mean? I've always hated country."

"And thank God. Your father and I hate country too."

"I like good music! Musical theatre has good music!"

My mother rolls her eyes and gets back to painting her gravy boat. I watch her for a moment.

"I've met other people who like musical theatre!"

"Who?"

"Well. . .most of them were gay men. . ."

There is an awkward silence as we go back to painting, and all I can think of is why the fan base of the music matters at all. Punk people listen to punk music, emo people listen to emo music, Midwesterners listen to country music, and musical theatre people listen to musical theatre music. So what if the guys who listen to it often end up being as straight as an "S"? It doesn't make the music any less relatable or good. Sondheim's compositions contain some of the most complex vocal and instrumental combinations ever created. Jason Robert Brown writes constantly about harrowing, deep emotion. I simply don't understand the stigma. But I guess what it all boils down to is something my mother said when we got home.

"There's nothing wrong with it really. It's just not on the radio."

Hello Internet!

I have awoken from a seemingly never ending sleep to finally post on my blog. Yes, yes, I know, oh internet, that you have been feeling impatient. For all I know, you have been frantically checking it whilst foaming at the mouth. I became some sort of deity if you will, doling out blog posts hither and thither, never stopping to think of the good of my people, but rather shining in the golden light of the Gods, allowing you all to bask in my glow, and then sinking back into the clouds that contain whatever heaven you may imagine and leaving you to ask, similar to Job

My blogger, my blogger, why hast thou forsaken me?

Well all you non- believers, I happened to have a very good reason. My computer was confiscated because I spent too much time doing what my mother calls "Facebooking". I have come to believe that my mother has no idea how to use Facebook at all, an idea supported both by the fact that she has only been on it twice and that she thinks Facebook has functions that it has never, or will never have, including:

Chatting with people who aren't online

Knowing who other people are talking to online

Using facebook chat with my cell phone

Twittering

In reality, my Facebook is up all the time, and most of the time I'm on the computer surfing the internet, completely oblivious to anything happening on Facebook. And, when I am on Facebook, I am usually just chatting. My mother lately has seemed to have a problem with any form of non verbal communication between me and my friends.

"Honey?"

"Uh huh?"

"Why must you text in the car?"

"I'm sorry. Did you want me to talk to you instead?"

"That's not the point. It's rude to text in the car."

"Why?"

"Can't you just call them or something? How about you talk on the phone?"

"Wouldn't it be ruder if I had a loud conversation with them in the car?"

"I guess. . .I just don't like that clacky noise. . .clack clack clack."

This discussion happens every time we leave the house to go anywhere. I don't know what my mother dislikes so much about texting in the car- I can only assume that she believes I am training to be an undercover spy and she is afraid my texting noises will give me away in a moment requiring stealth.

I suppose I can live with it if it means being a spy.