The Mixed Tapes

10:08 AM Edit This 0 Comments »

Back in high school (the day as it is oft’ referred) my friend’s uncle used to make her mixed tapes.

Now this was not your “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll” lovin’, Molson drinkin’ uncle. This was the only slightly older uncle, the one who was away at university, and lived with his girlfriend, and drank Heineken. This was a cool uncle.

Anyway the tapes… He used to send her collections of songs from time to time in an attempt to wean her off the sugary pop tunes that made her, and all her friends, waste our meager allowances and fill our brains with lyrics like: “I spend my money on lottery, My favourite number is 1 2 3”. (Thank you Calloway)

His tapes were full of songs by Joy Division and the Smiths and the HouseMartins.

I loved these tapes.

Now I can’t tell you I loved them because of the music. At the time, I knew very little about music and had, at 15, only just concluded (thanks my brother’s constant derision and numerous forced listening sessions of Led Zeplin IV) that the New Kids on the Block really did SUCK no matter what all my friends and Much Music seemed to think.

Instead, I loved them for their cases full of cramped male handwriting, because they came by post from the big(er) city, because listening to the music of grown-ups made me feel grown up (because at 15 I thought 21 was grown up.)

Listening to these tapes made me feel like a little kid staying up at the end of a dinner party when the adults start talking about politics, or neighbourhood gossip or other topics they wouldn’t usually speak of in front of the kids. I was mesmerized by the dark lyrics, the angry guitars, and melancholy. I felt myself getting wise listening to those tapes. I felt myself getting older.

There was one tape in particular I remember. I think it was the first one I liked for the music, not the idea of the music. Some of the songs I heard for the first time on that tape are still my favourites today. I can’t remember all of them. (These weren’t the cheezy 60 minute tapes you know. These were the 90 minute Memorex tapes. These were hardcore) but I do remember a few. Go give ‘em a listen won’t you? You’ll be glad you did.

  • Annie Get Your Gun – Squeeze
  • Sing Your Life – Morrisey
  • Birdhouse in your Soul – They Might Be Giants
  • Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division
  • The One I Love – REM
  • Something That You Said – The Beautiful South

Numbers

10:03 AM Edit This 0 Comments »
9-- The number of dollars I paid for new tights

7-- The hour of the evening when I bought the new tights

10-- The hour of the NEXT MORNING when they ripped after being harshly brushed up against by ... air

9-- The number on the 1-10 scale of intense irritation where I am currently situated

9475(x infinity) -- The number of times in my life that I will go through this process again

grrrrr

I Got No Beef With Love

10:14 AM Edit This 0 Comments »
Tomorrow is St. Valentine's Day. I am a single woman.

These two facts may indicate to some people that it's time to stop reading lest they become blinded by the white hot rage emanating from the anti-love diatribe that's sure to follow.

But rest assured your eyes are safe. I love love. And I love Valentine's Day.

I love it in all its shiny, ruby, candy-hearted, sappy torch-song glory. I love the grandness of it. The cherubs. The sparkle. I always have.

I love the idea of little tiny cards and wee presents. The thoughtfulness of it. The carnations from your father, the candy hearts left on your desk.

I love the sumptuousness of it. The rich, dark chocolate, the silk and oysters and wine and roses.

Those who feel it unworthy due to its commercial nature be damned. No it's not necessary to do something for the people you love just because it's February 14th. But it's nice. It's nice to tell the people you love that you love them. And it's nice to hear it. Any day, even that day.

Whenever I hear people bemoan the tawdriness and tackiness of V-day I am reminded that the single most romantic gesture of I have ever witnessed happened on a Valentine's Day.

When we were 19, a friend of mine fell for someone. He had a girlfriend and there was no indication that that was going to change. But she fell anyway, the way you sometimes do. She decided she wanted to let him know, and Valentine’s Day seemed the right day to do it.

Many of her friends tried to dissuade her. It wasn't going to end well. It would be embarrassing. She wouldn’t get anything out of it. But she didn’t want anything out of it, except to let him know she thought he was funny and perfect and wonderful because she thought he might like to know.

So she found the perfect card (simple, beautiful and blank) and hand picked and arranged a dozen white flowers. And she wrote a message sweet and simple and signed her name and brought the flowers over to his house herself.

And when she knocked and found he wasn’t there, she left them on the porch. Left them there for him to laugh at, or groan at, or throw away or brag to all his friends about. But he did none of those things. What he did was tell her that it was the sweetest thing any one had ever done for him.

And he stayed with his girlfriend and her life didn't change, but she had spoken truthfully about love. At 30 I can't say I've ever done that. Not so earnestly or with so little to gain. But every time I think about it I'm inspired to. There's nothing tawdry about that.

Somewhere Back in Her Long Ago

8:09 AM Edit This 1 Comment »

So I was listening to Michael MacDonald this morning (there is NO shame in it) and all of a sudden I could see in my mind's eye my 3rd grade K-Way jacket.

(Navy blue, with the white and orange stripe, and a Participaction patch sewn on the front.)

I could actually hear the swish it made when I swung my arms. I could SMELL the nylon.

More importantly I felt the ripple of pleasure I used to get when I flipped it out of its pouch and slipped it over my head. I LOVED that jacket. I thought it was cool. I thought I was cool in it.

I feel cool now just thinking about it.

It's not a terrible way to feel at 11 o'clock on a Tuesday morning.

I Believe Peter Said It Best

7:10 AM Edit This 0 Comments »

So a problem arises in your life. Not a major long-term problem, but problem enough cause you to worry over it, then and worry some more and figure and plot and fret.

And you come up with a variety of rash solutions, more drastic than necessary. But immediate action seems the only option. (Operate, operate, that limbs gotta go!)

But you hear this tiny little voice in your head, the one that refuses to shout saying “Just relax a minute. Take ten minutes to just sit on in it. Everything will work itself out.”

And it seems like the worst possible response to this mini-crisis. But for whatever reason you don’t just hear it, you listen.

And shortly thereafter things work out. Easily, perfectly, almost as if by magic.

And in the words of DodgeBall’s Peter La Fleur: “It feels phenomenal”

William, I Beg to Differ

8:33 AM Edit This 0 Comments »

The intellect is forced to choose: Perfection of the life, or of the work. -- W. B. Yeats

To be happy is to be content is to be satisfied is to desire nothing more.

But if you don’t desire more than that, you cannot hope to achieve it.

But to desire more than that: more than a happy life, good friends, nice surroundings and a true appreciation of all these things and what they mean to you, seems vain and ugly and greedy.

Is it better to accomplish something great at the expense of being unable to savour it; Or to leave no mark at all except the small happy dent of a tiny little life?

It's not really a question for the mind Willam, it's a question of the heart.