Walking the Wall

iPod 30gig PhotoI
love music almost as much as I love books…almost, they have a similar
power, but while books take me into the  experiences of other
people and places–music takes me and reminds me of experiences of my
own that seem indelibly imprinted onto songs. So, you can imagine the
screaming and jumping up and down that took place in my backyard when
my husband brought me home an early birthday present from a trip he
went on. My 13 year old daughter, also a music addict, also dying for
an iPod, just looked at me, laughed and said with utter venom, “I.
Loathe. You.” Understand my level of commitment to the English language
when the first thing I thought was, wow, I’m impressed she used
“loathe” and not hate or some other more common 13 year old word for
being really really annoyed with your mother–it gave it much more
power, I commended her for it.

Five days later, I have finished putting my last CD into this lovely
little piece of technology and the bottom of my iTunes library reads,
“632 songs, 2.2 days, 2.44GB”. I understand (and am impressed with) the
632 songs, but the 2.2 days confused me until I realized that what it
meant was I could play my iPod for 2.2 days straight and not repeat a
song–not that I intend to give it a try! I blogged about what my
bookshelf told about me, and I wonder what my song list would tell
about me–I don’t know that it is as telling as my bookshelf because I
only keep books important to me in one way or another. My music taste
changes a lot, but I keep all my CDs because you never know when you
absolutely must listen to The Bangles Eternal Flame!

My first two memories of really getting into music must have been in
fifth grade or so, in one I was in my bedroom with a friend of mine and
we were singing the “Do Run Run” with Shawn Cassidy gazing in rapture
at his poster on my wall. The other was standing on a chair at the same
friend’s house, hand extended and moving side to side while belting out
“Grease Lightening”. The next year my family took a more religious bent
and books took over my life until highschool when my then boyfriend
(now husband) smuggled me in tapes of his idol, Phil Collins. I
remember more than one occasion of sitting on my flat tape recorder and
having a conversation with my mother promising God extra devotions if
he just not let me accidently set off the play button while she was
there.

I put my first scratch on my iPod’s screen on Sunday! I am embarrassed to remember the level of panic and nausea that 
ensued from two light scratches–until I talked myself into believing
that it was a good thing, that if it stayed in pristine condition it
would be from lack of use, everyone gets nicks and scratches in the
process of living and music does no good sitting on a shelf! Then I
promptly ordered iCleaner to fix the scratches and went out and got a
cover for it–its a wonder someone hasn’t marketed full body suits for
parents to encase their children in!