Good morning world. Welcome to blog.
O what a productive Monday! No, really. No sarcasm to be found. Dust rose around my desk as I set up then knocked down to-do after to-do. Vacation tried to make me soft, but I came back with a heat in my eyes. I left the office dizzy at five, the sun already down past the horizon in this idiotic light-deprived time of year. Ruined bodies of undone tasks cast away in my wake, nothing more than bloodied shells of their one-time threat. Work lost today.
Sometimes I slow things down and just listen to my daughter’s voice not for the words but the sound alone. The pitch, the timbre, the tone. Small and almost miniature feeling. But confident and well-versed for her age, her vocabulary seeming overmatched to the sound of her own voice.
Sometime in the earlier days of our dating relationship, Sharaun and I were going through a box of old things in her room to kill time. In there was an audiotape her folks had made of her reciting the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme around the age Keaton is now. I can remember thinking how amazing it was to have her voice on tape at that age… to be able to hear the youth of it and try to reckon it with the voice I knew at the time.
I think having heard that tape is partially why I record Keaton as much as I do. Even though we’re really bad preservationists when it comes to video, we’ve got audio and still images down I think.
Yeah I love her voice. Talking, praying, singing. I just love it when she sings.
Too bad most of the stuff she seems to parrot is the Top 40 junk Sharaun listens to. I did, however, catch her singing the hooks to a couple catchy tracks the other night and made her repeat herself for the iPhone so I could capture the verses for posterity. Here, then, is our little songbird flexing her pipes on her own takes of some popular tunes. Enjoy.
[audio:MeetMeHalfway.mp3]
Keaton sings the Black Eyed Peas’ “Meet Me Halfway”
(direct link for those on mobile devices without Flash)
[audio:NewYork.mp3]
Keaton sings Alicia Keys’ hook from Jay Z’s “Empire State of Mind”
(direct link for those on mobile devices without Flash)
And yes, I do some minor editing for continuity’s sake – she’s not that perfect. But for really though, isn’t that something to hold on to? I’ve locked it away in my head as a memory, but the aural reminder these recordings may offer in ten or more years will surely be acutely appreciated. I can’t remember everything, you know. Humans fail.
Oh and before I go, a note about some small enhancements here and there to the blog. If you view any individual entry (not sure many regular readers do this, as, if it was me, I’d just be checking the homepage every so often or reading via RSS) you’ll now see a list of other entries written on the same date in the past. With more than six years of blogging-past to exploit, I figure these “also written on this day” links might be a neat window into the past.
I also tinkered last night at getting a running list of what I’ve been listening to on my iPod for the sidebar, but gave up when it proved to be too stupid to deal with. Maybe I’ll give it another go on an evening when I have a little more patience. Always looking to make this place more readable… shoot me any suggestions.
Goodnight.
Also written on this day...
- built an outdoor shower - 2023
- and so on and so on until forever - 2019
- pinks - 2006
- my moby dick - 2005
- another thing to work on - 2004