Just a little item today - another Valentine. Another one of the kiddie ones. A little smiling vacuum cleaner (in a vacuum cleaner shape) saying "You fill the vacuum in my heart." Toot sweet. On the back..."From Dennis I miss your voice."

Now that's strange. Dennis, my little brother - 10 years younger, so maybe about 8 or 9 at this point? Wait - if it's 1963, then he's 10. His birthday is just before mine. And mine is Valentine's Day. Which explains all the family Valentines.

But - "miss my voice"? See, I have no voice to speak of. I can't sing. Three-note range, when the cords (vocal, that is) work at all. The choir director once had me sing the solo for church choir - I don't remember the song. I remember my mother being kind afterwards. I don't know what got into him - the choir director, I mean.

I love to sing. So I do it around the house, when no one is around. I have "The Best of the Three Tenors" on the CD changer in my car, and I sing along with that. When those CD's are over, I sing along with the Grateful Dead. Nothing if not eclectic, me. I have decided that if I were to have been born a boy, the man I would choose to grow up to be would be Placido Domingo. Jerry Garcia - too much karma, too much responsibility. Much as people love Domingo's voice, no one confuses him with god. So it's Placido Domingo for me. He's sexier than Pavarotti (to me), more substantial than Carreras (to me), and the sound of that voice rising up and over those high notes in the arias makes me feel almost as happy as LSD at a Dead show. I don't think he can sing them without smiling. I think he must feel as joyful singing them as I do hearing them. And air-singing along in the car.

Dennis can't miss my dulcet tones - I didn't have any. I had a midwestern twang. Maybe he misses me yelling at him. People miss the weirdest things.