Monday, January 6, 2003
Dear Diary:

There was a music video channel playing on the tee vee at my gym today. I didn't bother to take off my headphones because Laura's second workout CD kept me bopping along happily on the elliptical machine.

There were some very odd moments, though, since I was running on a completely different soundtrack to what was driving the images on the screen.

For instance, watching Jennifer Lopez' video featuring her and Ben Affleck while listening to the Janet Jackson Paula Abdul song "Cold-Hearted Snake" certainly added a whole new dimension to the experience.

(Note to J-Lo: Honey, I get it. You're sleeping with Ben Freakin' Affleck who you find totally HOTT and Who Makes You Feel Like A Woman In A Way No Other Man Has. I would have gotten that point without seeing him kissing your bikini clad butt. Subtle is a good word, dear. You might want to add it to your vocabulary.)

Now, where was I? Oh yes, music videos.

I found my attention constantly wandering from the videos. There would be little flashes of stuff that would keep me amused for a bit (Madonna in her "Like A Virgin" period was so preciously 1980's that it should be preserved in amber) but nothing held my eyes for the whole length of the video.

And then an old Michael Jackson video came on.

Look, I know. If ten per cent of what has been written about Michael Jackson is true, then he is probably a severely damaged soul. But oh, man, watching that video really drove home to me how visually brilliant he is.

I don't know what the song was, because at that point I was listening to The Stray Cats, but Michael was wearing the black suit, fedora and a bright red sequined shirt. The single white glove wasn't there and instead he was wearing nails so long they would have made generations of Chinese emperors shrivel up and die from pure nail envy.

Oh, yes, in many ways it was seriously creepy.

And I couldn't stop watching him.

I mean, when was this done? Fifteen years ago? Twenty years ago? Yet it was still mesmerizing in a way that the more contemporary videos simply weren't. Even my trainer, Jamin, stopped what he was doing and wandered over to the screen to watch, which speaks to the power of something that was probably made back when he was a child.

Like I said, it held me to the end. Then a little ugliness involving Gloria Estefan in her Miami Sound Machine days came up on the screen--summed up by the words Insanely Moussed Hair--and we all dispersed.

For the rest of my workout,I felt terrifically ambivalent about my reaction to the video, I guess because the oddness of Michael Jackson the person icks me out.

I find it hard to just stand back and enjoy his brilliance, to separate what he creates from who he is. This is odd, because I can stand back and enjoy "A Starry Night" despite the fact that the latter was painted by a man who by all accounts was also a severely damaged soul.

Odd. Very odd.

In other, late breaking news, the Christmas tree has now officially disappeared! Yep, last night as he was watching the 49ers and Giants, the spousal unit brought out the ornament boxes and we dismantled the last bit of the holiday together.

We always bicker about some of the goofier ornaments. We have a truly hideous tatty cardboard Santa that the daughter made when she was in kindergarten that I love to bits.

Every time the spousal unit looks at it he sees this 20-year-old hunk of ugliness that he would like gone. Every time I look at that pitiful Santa, in my mind's eye I can see her tumbling off the schoolbus in her little blue snowsuit, waving it proudly.

So each year I agree with him that it is truly ugly and we really should throw it out.

And each year, when he's not looking, I hide it in an ornament box.

I guess I really shouldn't be teasing him about being so sentimental about that ugly, dying tree, eh?

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 12.12 miles - 19.5 kilometers
Goal for 2003: 500 miles - 804.5 kilometers

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Want to delve into my sordid past?
She's mellllllllllllllting - Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 - Back off, Buble - Monday, Dec. 19, 2011 - Dispersed - Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 - Nothing comes for free - Monday, Nov. 21, 2011 - None of her business - Friday, Nov. 04, 2011 -


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