bxmar1@maila.wm.edu
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Okay, I love this time of year, but this Thanksgiving was a little tough. Both of my sisters and their families came into town to visit and it just got all around crazy. One of my sisters has 2 daughters and a son and the other sister has one son. I love every one of the little rodents, but one of my nephews whines incessantly. While it is fairly common for his age (3 yrs old), he does it more than I have ever seen before (and I have worked with small children before, what with my nursery school teaching mother and my own 6 years of teaching sunday school). It came time for Thanksgiving dinner and he was walking around with a bag of pretzels saying "I'm not hungry". I'm just worried that I'm going to turn into my brother and start deciding not to have any kids of my own because I can't deal with anybody else's. AAAAHHHHH!!! Sorry, the tone of the post started getting a little frightening there for a second.
I managed to get in touch with a couple of my friends from home over Thanksgiving. That was the real highlight. On Thanksgiving, my friend Rick and I got together and decided to go see Star Trek: First Contact (a 2nd time for me). We grabbed our friend Jay and went to the theater. When I was growing up, Jay and Rick were my best friends. Of course they didn't especially like each other, but what the hell. About 6th grade, Jay and I parted ways, still getting along, but not really travelling in the same group. Rick and I stayed close. We hit high school and the two of them became buddies because they played hockey together. It's always a strange experience to hang out with both of them at the same time...kind of a throwback to elementary school. Now Rick has gotten into med school and Jay is making movies in New York and living in the Village with his girlfriend. Both of them have a lot better idea of what they want to be doing than I do. It just adds to the feelings of weirdness. I remember playing G.I Joe with these guys.
Saturday night, I got together with another of my friends, Neil. He chose Duke over W&M which I have yet to forgive him for. He's 2 years younger and used to play piano for us when a bunch of us put together an informal band a while back. He's good, although he's been focusing on playing bells more the last couple of years (vibraphone, xylaphone, marimba). He and I still get together more than any of my other musician friends from home. I mention Neil primarily because he said he'd be reading the site and I told him that I'd mention him. Here you go, tough guy...
I've been having some trouble dealing with Paul over the last month or two, and I finally sat down and had a long talk with him last night. I recognized the pressure he was under with all of the various projects he has running at any one time, but he was handling things poorly with some of the people around him. He had been talking down to the brothers when it came to Alpha business, letting his control freak tendencies get way out of hand, and showing a lack of consideration when it came to his friends' personal lives and feelings. We talked for a while and I came out of the whole thing understanding where he was coming from a little better. At the same time, I'm not going to automatically assume everything is going to be different based on one conversation, but hey!...its a nice start. Communication is a mighty thing. Real communication, not criticism over the discussion area on a web site. I held off on posting anything about this situation until I actually talked to him about it personally, and then we both agreed that a little extra airing of dirty laundry wouldn't cause too much trouble.
I finally picked up a new album that I can recommend. When I went to Border's Books and Music on Saturday, I bought Dave Holland's album "Ones All." Its all upright bass and doesn't ramble too much like a lot of solo instrument work can tend to. If you like the sound of a double bass, check this one out. Holland has kicked ass for years and this is some of my favorite of his work that I've heard.
Bill
bxmar1@maila.wm.edu
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