Thursday, January 30, 2003

Tomorrow morning I will pack my sweet baby computer into its boxes and move it to the new place. I may be offline for several days.

Here's something I wrote earlier. It makes me look so pathetic that you may not even miss me.

I should really know better.

I turned the television on this afternoon to provide background noise while I packed. Despite the DVDs that I left unpacked for this very purpose, I decided to flip through the local stations first. All that was on was news and Oprah. One of Oprah's guests was Maya Angelou, so I stupidly left the show on. Today's topic was the new display at the Museum of Tolerance ([eyebrow]) which features rooms of memories of Maya Angelou's, Billy Crystal's, Carlos Santana's, and the manager of the Yankees' family histories (I obviously cannot remember the latter's name, and honestly, he could be the manager of the Mets). Interesting stuff, and it reminded me that I've been meaning to try to find my family's geneology. My mum's side of the family should be easy, as an aunt has already done it, and all I'd need to trace is my grandpa's family. My dad's side of the family will be...interesting, considering that they don't even know if the family name is Barranti or Barrante, or whether we're Sicilian, Spanish, or Moorish. (The family is from Sicily, but who knows.)

Anyway. Back to Oprah. One of her guests was a writer, whose name I also forget (he is a poet and the screenwriter of Smoke Signals), who is a native American whose grandfather died when his father was six. In tracing his geneology, he discovered that his grandfather was a decorated soldier, but the medals had been lost. After he told his story, and explained that he was trying to have the medals replaced for his father, so that his father could make peace with his father, Oprah called out several United States military officers (I am ashamed to say that I don't know what branch. I suspect Army. I also don't know the officers' ranks), who presented him with replacements for his grandfather's awards. About a dozen medals and 2 plaques.

I was bawling like a baby. No. Babies don't cry like this. They have more dignity.

I've learned my lesson about daytime TV. Now that Days of Our Lives sucks, I shouldn't watch anything before 6:00 - possibly 8:00 - in the evening. (Of course I mean after 10:00 am - Regis and Kelly crack me up.)

Could I possibly have incuded more parenthetical statements in this entry? (I don't think so.) (And nevermind the confusing pronouns. Sorry.)