Okay, when I was a lot younger, I thought that it might be a cool thing to be President of the United States. Wouldn't that make ma' and pa' proud? However, as I got a little older, I realized that that was highly unlikely and would require a lifestyle inconsistent with the lifestyle I *actually* wanted. At that point, I resigned to just aspiring to becoming such an expert in my profession (and, perhaps, in all things?) that I would be the guy the President calls on for the really big problems. I would be the wise man on the top of the hill.
Of course, I still had room to grow there. I began to shoot holes in that idea too. First of all, it was overly wishful thinking to believe that any president would be in contact with an expert of any sort. He would stay informed and govern by way of the people around him. (for a while, this made me think "Chief of Staff" would be a fun thing to be, but, again, I think there would be a lifestyle clash) On top of all of this, it's very unlikely that I'll ever come to know a president or even be propelled into enough fame for a president or his staff to even consider calling on. But ya' never know? The point is, it wasn't anything to count on.
Then lately a new idea shot into my mind (while watching The American President, I think). What if I married a woman who would someday become president? You have to imagine someday soon we'll have our first female president, and after that there will be lots and lots of them. There might even be a sort of de facto Affirmative Action put in place that shuffles women more quickly to the top. I could marry into someone else who already had that lifestyle, and I could have the best of both worlds. I could be "the first man." I could teach engineering at Georgetown with secret service agents at either side of me as I lectured (they'd learn something too). And I'd have the president's ear to nibble on whenever I wanted it.
But yes, I realize this is also very impractical. But apparently other people are just as ludicrous as me, so I have a little hope.
You see, my Uncle lives in Brazil. He's lived in Europe as well. He speaks something like eighteen different languages and currently works for the Ecumenical Council of Churches and teaches small developing villages how to build churches or something. It's kinda spooky, but I think he's worked as a translator, so I usually tell people he does translating sort of stuff, and I think that's pretty cool, and it's not so spooky.
Anyway, I guess he's had a European mindset towards e-mail and has only recently got a personal e-mail account to keep in touch. You see, my grandmother has been in and out of the hospital a few times lately, and I think he wants people to have an easier way to deliver news to him than by phone. Anyway, one of the first things he did was e-mail my dad. (my dad currently is being treated for a strange condition recently diagnosed as CIDP, so my uncle wanted to see how things were going there too) I haven't read the e-mail, but my mom tells me that in it he brings up a subject which he came up with a while ago and FOR SOME REASON HASN'T KILLED IT YET.
So my uncle has found a girl my age in Brazil who he wants to hook me up with. Ever since I broke up with my last girlfriend in November (this was around the same time my uncle visited, so he found out about this), he's been interested in this. Now, I've never been that close to my uncle. I like the guy, but he's always been on another continent, so he was always my Ambiguous Expatriate Uncle (AEU). Thus, I'm not sure I understand how he could be called on as a matchmaker in this particular case. You see, this girl not only lives in Brazil and has no plans to leave Brazil, but she doesn't speak ENGLISH and I do not speak PORTUGUESE and WE HAVE NEVER MET nor KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT EACH OTHER, yet (my favorite conjunction) my uncle is convinced there's SOMETHING THERE.
Now, understand that my uncle just married a Brazilian woman down there, and she only speaks Portuguese, and he at that time only knew a few Portuguese words. He's approaching conversational Portuguese now. (after learning a few languages, apparently you learn tricks; you see, instinctively all human language, regardless of roots, shares certain characteristics... apparently if you learn enough of them, you can count on these characteristics, and it's easy to pick up new language -- because children are hard-wired into these instincts, this is why they learn so quickly; adults lose that ability after the age 15 or so) Plus, he moved to Brazil to marry her and live with her. He's retired there now.
So apparently my uncle thinks it's all possible, and maybe he has reason to.
So this whole event made me think... maybe I could marry the leader of Brazil (I have no clue what form of government they have)... maybe THAT'S more probable than marrying into the first family here.
So that's what led me to the title. Maybe I should shoot for being the "first man" of Brazil...
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