square with the railing

Here's what you need to know today.

* My Canon PowerShot A640 makes me sad. It burns through batteries way too quickly; something is wrong with the camera. My next camera is going to be solar-powered or nucular-fueled. (I'm going to say nucular while I still can.) Plus I am not happy with the images--they lack depth and clarity. My wife has been encouraging me to get a new camera because she's grown weary of my ongoing laments about this one. But before I make the plunge I'm waiting to find out if I qualify for one of Obama's target tax credits--I'm making a pitch for blog photographers, and my guess is he'll deliver.

* A couple of days ago, I spoke with a person who reminded me of me. Mostly on account of her tyranny. She is a student who I've never had in class before but who I see a fair bit in the course of most weeks. She "pals around with" (my new favorite phrase) with some of my students and she takes classes on my hall and I see her at a student organization for which I'm a sponsor. Also, she somehow seems ubiquitous. And not just because she shares a name with one of my daughters. In any event, she knows that I'm down with the cool music. (Cool music defined: music I listen to.) She looked at the playlists on my iPod and expressed opinions about it. Some positive, some negative--which is to say, partly right and partly wrong. I'll let you guess how. She noticed a gap in my music collection and said she would remedy that. (The nature of the gap: Music that she likes.) That was weeks ago.

Then a couple of days ago she gave me two CDs that would somehow redeem my music collection. Well that's nice, I thought; I like checking out new music. And I was especially happy that the music she gave me was basically secular. She's an extremely devout woman, and I feared I would receive a collection of Christian contemporary. Though I suppose that too would have been fine because, let's face it, Christian Contemporary music pretty much is awesome. (Defined as used here: not awesome. Also defined here as: don't think that I hate God because I'm not wild for Christian contemporary music.)

Ahem, well the point of all this is that she was good enough to give me music, but I was surprised to find she also gave instructions. They're not to be listened to at work. Too distracting. Can't be listened to on short trips around town. Too disrupted. Some songs are best at night. Some must be listened to only on long car trips. Some are for my daughters. Some songs must only be listened to in the car when I'm lost. This is to be listened to only with my daughters at night while lost on a long car trip. And so on.

As I listened to all these instructions, this thought occurred to me: So this is what music tyranny feels like from the other side. So this is what I'm like.

A couple of years ago, I learned of the "enneagram" personality typology. It's just one of many such tests like the Myers-Briggs test. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_types Career counselors love them, though I was a skeptic until I took the enneagram test and felt personally violated by how closely its description of my type matched my own personality. Anyway, the place where she works required that they take the enneagram test, and her type is the same as mine. Though there wasn't a "music tyrant" category per se, it's clear that my type (as described by the enneagram test) is a rich source for music tyranny.

By the way, the music is fabulous--mostly sad and soulful.

* Why didn't you let me know?! Shame on you.

I did a radio interview about the election results this week with the local affiliate of Georgia Public Broadcasting, and it was kinda fun. Got to go to the studio and spout my opinion about stuff. I didn't hear it on the radio, but they posted it online. But what you should have told me long ago is that my voice is awful and that I clip my words and I speak in staccato-like bursts. I speak like a an AK47--a spray of words followed by odd pauses where apparently I'm reloading the clip in mid-sentence.

Shame on you! A little help up front would have been nice. Not telling me how I speak (so I could work on it) is a little like letting a guy walk around with his zipper open. Or with a piece of spinach in the teeth. Or a piece of cauliflower on the plate. It's just not right.

Shame on you.

* I'm on my fourth cup of coffee, and it's just past 6:00 am. I love early morning. It's my favorite time of the day. By far. I've got the house to myself (in effect), and all is quiet. My sweet family is still slumbering away. I don't even listen to music most mornings, though I am this morning. (At this moment: Patty Griffin's "Rain.") The quiet and solitude is lovely.

Which is not to say I hate humanity. Or my family. I don't. I'm pro-humanity, and I love my family.

Shame on you for saying otherwise. Your manners this morning are awful.

* What happened?!?!

We received in the mail some photos we ordered from Snapfish. A couple things caught my attention. First, there was an 8X11 photo of my three daughters all cheerful, smiling, and looking at the camera. Huh?? What happened!! Then I remembered that my wife took this picture, not me. I stared at that photo. Wow. That's kind of nice, I thought. Maybe I should take photos of the girls in their natural happy state instead of putting them in caves and capturing their faces after I tell them there's a monster in the cave with them.

I'm JOKING! I don't do that. That's abusive. I tell them that there's a bear in there. Because there could be.

Those happy faces made me rethink the morose-is-good motif.

Second, my girls are growing up. Which is better than them shrinking, I admit. But still....oh, this growing up thing is hard.

But why?

I have theories, but I don't have time to discuss them now.

So you got that to look forward to in the future. Plus I have a great question for y'all, but you have to promise to respond.