Ruined

I have a horrible memory. Most of my childhood, high school, college... all just a blur, really. I wish that I had some really great drug use stories to account for the memory loss, but unfortunately I don't. Unless I don't remember them.

The memories I do have are generally of things that annoyed me. I can remember the chlorine-like smell of the trees on west second street on the way to my grandmother's old house. I have a very distinct memory of my last game at old Busch Stadium in St. Louis - of a man sitting in front of me making a "three up, three down" hand signal at the end of innings, and the way the crowd around him slowly took up his cheer. Now everytime I watch baseball and the announcer says "three up, three down" I think of him. I'd like to murder him.

And I just forgot what this post was going to be about.

Oh wait.

If you look at the way the title of this blog is labeled in your web browser, you'll see the words "this is salsa music". Why? It's because of another strange thing that I can't forget.

Last New Year's Gina and I attended a party. Like most parties, we knew some of the people, and others we didn't. As the night wore on, there was a slight argument over the music - but eventually the mix came up to a track of Latin music. This sent one of the guests into a state of what I can only call amazed-disbelief.

"Is this SALSA music!?!?" she said. No one answered. It wasn't as if she didn't approve; It was more like she couldn't believe someone had the ability to produce this music through a pair of speakers. Her level of amazement would be only matched by someone who was seeing flight for the first time.

As the song played on, she began to dance. She complimented the other dancers, but kept saying aloud "THIS IS SALSA MUSIC!"

"This is SALLLLLSAAAAA MUSIC!"

It is.