Already Falling Down on the Job . . .
In my defense, I was totally watching a really bad movie with my dad last night, so there's that.
Instead, you get a twofer.
The Gambler -- fun. This is the live version, from their Live at Fingerprints EP.
As anyone who has ever attended a fun. show with me can attest, I have cried Every. Single. Time. they have played this song live. It is actually lovely, and quite hopeful, but it reminds me so very much of my parents -- who have known each other since they were thirteen and fourteen and have been married for over 40 years -- that, especially in the last few years, as their health has been declining -- it gets me every time.
Life Is A Highway -- Tom Chocrane.
If I actually put down all the songs that reminded me of my friend Janine in a list, we would be here until next Tuesday, so why did I pick the dudebro-est song outside of a Dave Matthews concert?
We met as freshmen in high school, and clicked immediately. Our bookshelves were mirrors of each other -- and what books we didn't have in common, we soon swapped -- and so were our music collections. We did everything together in high school -- we took every single class together for four years (although that was not of our design), we dated boys who were friends, we went to concerts together, we went on vacation together.
She used to make the best mixes -- a new cassette for every birthday (she still makes them, for old times' sake, for birthdays that end with a zero), and she has truly outstanding musical taste, even today. We spent a lot of time in study halls passing mixtapes back and forth. She introduced me to Guns'n'Roses, Shakespear's Sister and Squeeze. I brought Elvis Costello, U2, and The Smiths to the table in turn. She believes in marking every big moment in life with exactly the right mix of music. (miss_begonia does this, too, and I love that about her.)
She was (and still is) my most exuberant friend. She loves life deeply and passionately, and even though she's leading what is basically a conventional life -- a stay at home mom to three boys, a house in the suburbs, a husband (her senior prom date!) who's a lawyer -- she still marches to her own weird and wonderful beat.
And when we were 21, and about to be seniors in college, and we were still great friends, but maybe not the soul sisters we once were (we went to different colleges, dated different boys, made new friends, tried different things), she decided to spend the summer -- to the absolute horror of her very Catholic, very traditional, very Italian family -- driving across the country in a giant old Chevy convertible (it took leaded gas! They had to travel with lead additive!) with her boyfriend at the time.
Her parents forbade her to go, and when she said she was going anyway, she ended up on my doorstep the night before, with all her luggage and a roadtrip mixtape. We stayed up all night, and her boyfriend came to pick her up at dawn -- much to my mother's horror -- in his boat of a car.
She didn't speak to her parents for three months, but she sent me a postcard from every town where they stopped across the country -- alternatively hilarious, emotional, deep, sad and silly -- updating me on her progress and all the things that they were seeing. Once a week, her mother would call me (This story is so implausible today! But this was before cell phones were a thing! And the Internet was still mostly imaginary!) and demand, "Is she dead yet?", wait for an answer, and then hang up the phone. (I am still convinced that this summer resulted in a longstanding grudge against me by her mother, which in turn is the reason that I ended up wearing a red velvet bridesmaid's gown years later. But that's a different story entirely.)
I think that she might tell you that was the best summer of her life, and I would tell you that I learned so much from her that summer -- how to be brave, how to be defiant, how to tell a story with flair, how to make an exit in style, how to reconnect with a friend across the miles, before a dear friendship fell away.
And no matter how old we get, my image of her will always be in that Chevy in the predawn light, her white Keds up on the dashboard, driving away from my parents' house with the top down and her fist in the air.
This was the song that was playing that morning, the first song on that roadtrip mixtape.
Instead, you get a twofer.
The Gambler -- fun. This is the live version, from their Live at Fingerprints EP.
As anyone who has ever attended a fun. show with me can attest, I have cried Every. Single. Time. they have played this song live. It is actually lovely, and quite hopeful, but it reminds me so very much of my parents -- who have known each other since they were thirteen and fourteen and have been married for over 40 years -- that, especially in the last few years, as their health has been declining -- it gets me every time.
Life Is A Highway -- Tom Chocrane.
If I actually put down all the songs that reminded me of my friend Janine in a list, we would be here until next Tuesday, so why did I pick the dudebro-est song outside of a Dave Matthews concert?
We met as freshmen in high school, and clicked immediately. Our bookshelves were mirrors of each other -- and what books we didn't have in common, we soon swapped -- and so were our music collections. We did everything together in high school -- we took every single class together for four years (although that was not of our design), we dated boys who were friends, we went to concerts together, we went on vacation together.
She used to make the best mixes -- a new cassette for every birthday (she still makes them, for old times' sake, for birthdays that end with a zero), and she has truly outstanding musical taste, even today. We spent a lot of time in study halls passing mixtapes back and forth. She introduced me to Guns'n'Roses, Shakespear's Sister and Squeeze. I brought Elvis Costello, U2, and The Smiths to the table in turn. She believes in marking every big moment in life with exactly the right mix of music. (miss_begonia does this, too, and I love that about her.)
She was (and still is) my most exuberant friend. She loves life deeply and passionately, and even though she's leading what is basically a conventional life -- a stay at home mom to three boys, a house in the suburbs, a husband (her senior prom date!) who's a lawyer -- she still marches to her own weird and wonderful beat.
And when we were 21, and about to be seniors in college, and we were still great friends, but maybe not the soul sisters we once were (we went to different colleges, dated different boys, made new friends, tried different things), she decided to spend the summer -- to the absolute horror of her very Catholic, very traditional, very Italian family -- driving across the country in a giant old Chevy convertible (it took leaded gas! They had to travel with lead additive!) with her boyfriend at the time.
Her parents forbade her to go, and when she said she was going anyway, she ended up on my doorstep the night before, with all her luggage and a roadtrip mixtape. We stayed up all night, and her boyfriend came to pick her up at dawn -- much to my mother's horror -- in his boat of a car.
She didn't speak to her parents for three months, but she sent me a postcard from every town where they stopped across the country -- alternatively hilarious, emotional, deep, sad and silly -- updating me on her progress and all the things that they were seeing. Once a week, her mother would call me (This story is so implausible today! But this was before cell phones were a thing! And the Internet was still mostly imaginary!) and demand, "Is she dead yet?", wait for an answer, and then hang up the phone. (I am still convinced that this summer resulted in a longstanding grudge against me by her mother, which in turn is the reason that I ended up wearing a red velvet bridesmaid's gown years later. But that's a different story entirely.)
I think that she might tell you that was the best summer of her life, and I would tell you that I learned so much from her that summer -- how to be brave, how to be defiant, how to tell a story with flair, how to make an exit in style, how to reconnect with a friend across the miles, before a dear friendship fell away.
And no matter how old we get, my image of her will always be in that Chevy in the predawn light, her white Keds up on the dashboard, driving away from my parents' house with the top down and her fist in the air.
This was the song that was playing that morning, the first song on that roadtrip mixtape.