Thursday, April 29, 2010

Musical taste, or lack thereof

I have an ancient IPod at work—it’s probably one of the second or third generation originals, which I bought secondhand from a friend. It still works, and if someone did want to swipe it I wouldn’t mind much at this point... which is why it’s the one I leave at the office.

There’s a mix of songs on this that are inherited from my friend, and many that I put on there. I don’t tend to buy a lot of music online, so it’s largely rips of CDs I already own or borrow from the library. A while ago, though, I got it into my head to look for a song that I used to listen to back in college, and through the joys of ITunes I found and purchased it.

I’m not even going to tell you what it is; it’s a terrible 80s song that probably no one but me even remembers. But what I do remember is that, freshman year, that song would come on the cassette player (yes! Cassette player! Perhaps you’ve heard of them?) and my roommate and I would bounce around the room like jumping beans. On the beds, off the beds, spinning around, laughing so hard we probably scared our neighbors.

We were randomly assigned roommates, and didn’t get along all that well. I take complete responsibility for that. I’d never had a roommate, and was a horrible person to live with. Also, in hindsight, she was struggling with her own sexuality and what was most likely her first relationship, and because I’m completely oblivious (and was even more oblivious back then), I was probably the worst roommate she could possibly have gotten.

But that song, for some reason, flipped a switch in both of us. And all I remember when I hear it is unbridled silliness, and laughing until we couldn't catch our breath.

That’s a good memory to have.

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