Saturday, January 14, 2012

Even MORE Five Things

Five more things? 'kay. Sure.

1. My musical firsts are kind of embarrassing. First concert? Swollen Members. First CD purchase? The Clueless soundtrack. The Clueless soundtrack actually had a bunch of decent bands on it - Beastie Boys, Radiohead, and Supergrass, what? - but the main reason I bought it was so that I could listen to Jill Sobule's "Supermodel" on repeat. I'm not proud of that.

I bought it at Victoria's A&B Sound, a slightly seedy three-story CD store that was totally amazing to a pre-teen. It was stuffed to the rafters with bands I had never heard of, and just flipping through the racks while my parents made serious faces at the Springsteen section gave me a thrilled, liberated feeling: there were so many different people I could be! I was young enough to buy whole-heartedly into the notion that I could define myself by the music I listened to, and pop-culturally savvy enough to start understanding that there were definitely bands that liking - or even being aware of - had cachet. And so, that knowledge in hand, I plunked down $17.99 and made my first formal venture into music fandom. Thanks, Jill Sobule. You were there.

2. I once quit a job after 20 minutes because my boss told me I couldn't drink water on the job. Because, as she explained, "if you're thinking about your thirst, you're not thinking about my business." Shocked, I left.

3. Even though I have an English degree, I struggle mightily with novels. Magazine articles, essays, and short stories are totally my bag, though. It's shameful to admit that I've stopped keeping up with new books, and that even if I know that something noteworthy's been published lately, I likely won't read it. But I feel bad about that! To make up for it, I tell anyone who will listen about that article I read this morning, which endears me to my friends and alienates receptionists.

4. I put The Commodores' "Brick House" on every single mix tape I made in high school. I'm not even sure why I loved that song, but I'm pretty sure it stems from That '70s Show, starring my boy Topher Grace, who, as Eric, told a date-ready Donna (Laura Prepon) that she was "really...brick house" when he meant she was really hot. I liked that show so much, and was definitely charmed by Eric and his skinny portrayer. I've always wanted someone to tell me I was really brick house.

5. My fears include deep water, deep space, fainting in public (especially on the subway), that my eye is twitching when I talk to strangers, that I'll die alone, that I'll die in a fire, drowning, electron-microscope photographs, being too hot, spiders, tarantulas, spiders in my hair, spiders in the bathroom, giant spiders as surprise plot points in movies (what? It happens - have you seen Lord of the Rings?), and gaining weight. Feel free to use any of those to make fun of me, except for the spider thing - I will cut you for real if you tease me with a rubber spider.

1 comment:

  1. I still have the first cassette tape I ever owned: Dance Mix '92. And I still put it on from time to time. I mean, Naughty By Nature, Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch, EMF, Right Said Fred and Jesus Jones? Who could ever say no to a lineup like that?

    My first CD isn't so much of a guilty pleasure: the first Foo Fighters album.

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