Decisions, The Flood

Monday, 04 April 2011
Have I ever mentioned how much I hate making big decisions and big changes? Does anyone really like doing that sort of thing? I’m not sure. Actually, I probably hate making big changes more than I hate big decisions – so my decision usually defaults to maintaining the status quo. Better the devil I know, right?
So now we are at that point in our lives where it’s time to once again make some decisions. This happened back in 2004: we suddenly needed to make a whole mess of decisions. These included big things, like: Are we going to have kids? Am I going to start a new job? Should we move to a new house and city? And it included smaller things, too, like: Should we go on that cruise my Dad wants us to go on?
Anyway, I seem to have muddled through that year well enough.
And now there’s a bunch of stuff on the horizon again: I’m starting a new job…that, at least, was somewhat forced on me due to impending lay-offs. But now I’m fretting if I’ll like my job and if I will perform well enough at it. We also keep having discussion about our next place of residence, which of course has repercussions on Owen’s schooling…which is actually a more difficult decision than where to move.
Anyway, I just had to get all that off my chest.

Tuesday, 05 April 2011

Today, my copy of The Flood arrived in the mail. I’m not what you’d call a “prolific album purchaser.” In fact, I can’t even recall the last album I purchased. Nevertheless, Mason Jennings is one of a very select group of musicians in which I am willing to shell out and buy a copy of their work – sight unseen (or would that be hear unheard?) – as it is released.

When the package arrived today, my wife rolled her eyes imagining that I was buying yet another book about Noah’s Flood. She wondered why I need so much information about a historical non-event. Ha! The joke was on her: this album (as far as I can determine) has nothing to do with Noah and his god’s monomaniacal genocide.

I played the album this evening, though I admit that I was distracted for large parts of it, and Owen even shut it off before it was finished (Isla had fallen asleep and, in a rare move for him, decided it would be prudent to quiet things down a bit). Jennifer noted that Mason seems to just keep writing the same songs, but with different lyrics. Even some of the lyrics appeared to be rehashes of other songs. I said that I probably have enough familiarity with Mason’s music and lyrics to spontaneously parody his style.
This got me thinking – perhaps I should create a Mason Jennings parody music video. Of course, it would be all original lyrics and music – kind of like Weird Al.
I probably won’t ever do that, but it was fun to joke about.