| | Ben mentioned today that Ani Difranco was playing a concert in the area, and that he thought i would like it. Although I haven't listened to it in years, I actually own one of her albums. Don't know where it is, but that's beside the point. So maybe it was actually fairly reasonable for him to think I might like it.
Except, my first thought was that she's scary.
The album I have involves a lot of cursing and talking about getting an abortion. As Dana calls it, an "abortion song". A fairly explicit one at that, given that I figured it out when I was 11.
Yes, I obtained this album when I was 11. Maybe even 10. So it's entirely possible her music has changed in the past decade, or that, given my (hopefully) added maturity, I won't find her frighting anymore.
The realization of the moment, though, wasn't about the music of Ani Difranco, but rather about how miraculous it is that i turned out half as normal as i did. Or at the very least, have maintained the ability to pull off looking normal long enough to get a job. My dad decided to take me to a CD store and let me pick out a couple albums... so I had him get me the Julie Andrews Christmas CD, the Alvin & the Chipmunks Christmas CD, and Ani Difranco. It was one of the CDs you could listen to in-store, it was the nearest one, and I liked the first 30 seconds, I think. My dad never bothered to listen to any of it, never looked her up online, never bothered to check, in any way, if it was appropriate music for a 11 year old. Either he thought I was sufficiently lame that I would never want to listen to inappropriate music, or he was just oblivious. I tend to think it's the latter.
See... this is the same dad who thought it was ok to tell his 12 year old daughter and 8 year old son, who still (God knows why) believed him, that he was actually Martian, and had been adopted by my grandparents. My mother and grandparents both would not deny this story, even if they never actually confirm it, either. And we believed him. I mean, it explained a lot. And meant that we could get away with all sorts of mischief - after all, we were half martian, and had different customs.
Same dad who knows that I have now spent 2 christmases with the same boy's family, and yet isn't bothered by the fact that he knows practically nothing about this boy. Who, when told that his daughter's car has been dented and she is looking at getting a new one, sends some money, his only instructions being "Hybrids are cool! I want one but your mom won't let me get one..." Who expresses no concern over his daughter wanting to go volunteer for 2 weeks in Mongolia or Africa, except for warning her that she might have to eat some pretty gross food if she does. (my mother banned both destinations, so I settled for Thailand.) Who, after missing his daughter's graduation, tells her (via the mother) that she can take some friends out to a fancy graduation dinner on him since he didn't take her out himself... how does he know my friends aren't the type who would spend hundreds on drinks? how does he know I wouldn't take 20 friends to the most expensive place we could find?
Either he places incredible trust on my mother's ability to repair any damage he might do to their children, or he thinks that since he is the geeky scientist child of a geeky scientist, he must produce geeky scientist children who could only get in so much trouble if they tried, or he simply doesn't understand that most kids aren't as boring as my brother and I. seriously... I don't know what he would have done with kids who never studied and had tattoos and did drugs.
He's lucky he ended up with such nerds for kids.
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| | Posted 3/6/2009 5:08 PM - 7 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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