There's a phenomenon that I have experienced in the music realm that goes like this:
I've rehearsed and practiced and thought my parts through repeatedly then practiced some more until I think I have it down. Then the red light comes on to let me know that this take is for real...this take will go out to everyone...this one will take an hour for the engineer to fix if I don't get it right.
That's how I feel tonight. I've been considering blogging Tungsten Fluff for over a month. I've thought of what I might write...considered what I should write...and shouldn't. I had a list, really. Faith, libertarianism, history, music, family life in LA - Lower Alabama, how friggin' hot it's been the last two weeks. Now I'm drawing a blank. It'll probably come back to me tomorrow at work but for now, here's what comes to mind:
Tonight I've seen a role reversal between two of my ladies. The first lady is my wife, Julie. One of her friends from out west told her that she has a MySpace. This is the same buddy that introduced Jules to text messaging and me to a $30 increase in my Verizon bill. The second lady is my oldest daughter, Savvy - a fine lady of 15 - who has had a MySpace for several months and uses it prolifically. Savvy and her friends live with one foot in that virtual world and one here in reality; there will be 8 teen friends of hers on my patio for hours at a time during the day then they will disperse back to their homes where they debrief the afternoon's interactions online.
There's a psychological doctoral thesis along the lines of secondlife in there somewhere, but I digress.
So for the past hour, Savvy has been helping Julie set up a MySpace account. I think this is the first time I have seen my wife eagerly hand the laptop over to anyone when it has not been broken. It's kinda cute. My daughter is the pro...showing mom how it's done with confidence and flair. This young student of life is becoming a master. OK, I know it's just MySpace but it's neat to see her take command, especially with her Mom.
It takes effort to step back and let her take control sometimes but scenes like this, however brief, reassure me that we are on the right track - or at least near it - with our family.
And, at least on MySpace Jules will be interacting with real people in real time...still using her firstlife.
