...and the rest of what's left

thank you, helmut lotti

"...i listened to a helmut lotti CD last week, and i think..."

"oh, he's awful, marc!" isabel remarked candidly, stopping me in mid-sentence as we entered a second-hand shop in antwerp as part of my city tour. bram looked at me and thought maybe i was saying something else and not helmut lotti's name.

"i'm glad you said that," i told isabel, "because i think he is, well in that CD in particular. but i probably need to hear another one, he may not be that bad."

"nah, it's all the same," isabel said quite frankly. "he sings in different languages, in russian, in spanish, in german, and he's big over there like in france..."

"...and he probably doesn't understand what he's saying," continued bram in jest.

there's something about lovers that make them finish each other's sentences.

cute, i thought.

"want me to look for a lotti CD for you, marc?" bram jokingly asked as he disappeared behind an aisle full of second-hand CDs.

why not, i thought.

browsing through the collections under 'L' as i looked for lotti, something very familiar caught my eye. "hey girl, visit my blog some time," i mentioned to isabel while pointing at a sarah mclachlan CD displayed in the stacks of artists under 'M', "i have a web link of the video for the song 'world on fire'. you might like it after watching 'the constant gardener' tonight." at the back of my mind i was still puzzeld why my favorite singer-musician isn't stacked under 'S'.

"do you like that CD, marc?" asked isabel.

"huh?" i said, giving her a poker-face, pretending not to know what will come after i answer that question.

isabel's eyes were now crinkling behind her shellac-rimmed glasses. "i can get that as a gift for you. come on, it will make me happy."

cool, i thought.

bram came back with no CDs that fancied him. "so, did you find lotti?" trying to bring back the fodder joke.

"i'm glad i didn't," i replied as i happily hugged isabel, "because i got this instead," thankfully swishing the afterglow CD in the air.




between my ears: AFTERGLOW by sarah mclachlan

this is marc's version of the truth, sometime at 8:38 PM if you can't live with it, he can.