Life Is a Mix CD, Part Three

Having and taking care of another person is hard and time-consuming work. That being said, we are finally starting to settle into a routine, and I should be able to get a lot more writing done. So without further ado, here is the long awaited part three of my Life is a Mix CD series:

I'm Through With Love (Summer 2001)

1. Natalie Portman “I'm Through With Love” (clip from Everyone Says I Love You)
2. MxPx “Lonesome Town”
3. Value Pac “Loner”
4. A New Found Glory “Eyesore”
5. Ozma “If I Only Had a Heart”
6. The Police “So Lonely”
7. U2 “With Or Without You”
8. The Ataris “Your Boyfriend Sucks”
9. The Cure “A Letter to Elise”
10. Jimmy Eat World “Just Watch the Fireworks”
11. The Get Up Kids “Don't Hate Me”
12. MxPx “GSF”
13. The Cars “Drive”
14. Weezer “I Do”

The Spring semester of 2001 had been a rough one. I had labored long not only to recover from my knee injury, but also a teenage-boy, hormone-ridden broken heart. I had become one of those downtrodden “emo” boys. I related to music about being alone and being rejected, because, well, I was alone and had been rejected. The said girl who had rejected me, who shall remain cliche-ly nameless, certainly wasn't rejecting me because I was me but because she was not dating anyone, having just gotten out of a long-term relationship, or so she said. I wasn't sleeping well. I couldn't eat. For those who know me, I didn't have weight to lose. Instead of gaining my freshman fifteen, I lost it. Bringing me down to a meager 130 pounds. I was going through an identity crisis on top of everything else. I didn't know who I was or what I wanted to do with my life, and I had, of course, underperformed in my engineering classes and decided to take another route. All of these events led to this mix CD. Honestly, the lovesick thing makes me laugh now. Of course, it's the 30 year old, married me laughing, but it was the end of the world then. I would never love again. Jaded one time too many. How I could get so upset and involved in a relationship that didn't really ever exist just makes me cringe. Were we all really ever this illogical? I blame it on the hormones.

The first thing you might notice on the mix is a little homage to Natalie Portman, her being the most important woman in my life at the time, but she too, was unattainable, which was rejection in its own way. The song selection on my mixes continued to improve and diversify. The pop punk boy that had come to college was continuing to slowly fade away. You still see the pop punk on there and the double-dose of the band I was having the hardest time letting go, MxPx. How “Lonesome Town” ever got on there, I'll never know. It's just not a good song. I think it only made it because it was new, and I didn't know how to do anything but wait with bated breath for something new from MxPx to come out. I had already had a few years of training before I got to college, and I guess it had just become almost habitual. Though I was a mopey kid who was growing his hair out and spending nights sitting up watching movies by myself or staying on AOL IM until all hours and posting to the Decapolis posting board and then crying myself to sleep (not really, but that's the persona I was trying to present), I can now see I started embracing part of my past through music. Notice how much 80s music found its way on to the mix: The Police, The Cars, U2, The Cure. These are the bands I had heard on the radio growing up, but it hadn't been cool to like them in high school. Why listen to anything but punk rock, right? It didn't hurt that these bands were somewhat accepted in the underground music scene I was finding myself a part of. I still wasn't bold enough to throw something like Cyndi Lauper on there, which I would be completely open to today. You also notice some great Jimmy Eat World and Get Up Kids. “Just Watch the Fireworks” is still one of my absolute favorite tracks to this day.

While this mix reflects the woes of the Fall semester which I had finally begun to emotionally process, I remember a happy, fun summer of 2001. I opted to stay in College Station and move into a house with six other guys and work at McDonald's (which would remain my job through college) instead of moving home. I didn't take summer school. I didn't even pretend to want to go to summer school. My parents just made it clear—I had to support myself, so support myself I did. Moving home, I just knew I would miss out on something big or something too fun to miss. It was a mysterious and anomalous something. I just knew I didn't want to miss it. Looking back, I would have missed something. I remember the fun of staying up late and watching satellite TV. The fun I had chatting with people all over the country online. I remember watching my roommates sliding down the stairs on boxes, and nearly blowing themselves up, and starting a nudist colony in the front yard (no, I was not part of said colony). I remember playing music out in our “Tack Room” with Clifton and the rest of my roommates. That Tack Room is one of my fondest memories of college. It was sweltering in the tack room. Even with the window AC unit on, we couldn't get that room under 95 degrees (plus south Texas humidity), but we would stay out there for hours, writing music, recording music, playing cover songs.

At least once every few weeks and probably more often, I would find myself in Austin with my friends eating at Chuy's, seeing shows, and getting back home at 4 AM. I remember one ill-fated trip where Clifton, who would be my roommate for the rest of college, and I were on our way to Austin, but we didn't make it more than a few miles before his hood flew up into the windshield. Clifton carefully slowed and veered onto the shoulder. Later when recounting this story, it would start, “We almost died . . .,” which now seems like a bit of an exaggeration. To make matters worse, when trying to close the hood, the hood bowed completely up like a mountain sitting on the front of the car. We couldn't very well go to Austin, so we bungeed the hood closed and drove back to the house very slowly. Sure we were disappointed about it, but we still made the best of the night and sat around watching movies upstairs. I don't even remember what band we were on our way to see. They all seem to blend into one another. Unless I am mistaken, this is also the night we watched from the safety of an upstairs window as our other roommates almost blew themselves up by throwing gasoline from a gas container onto a campfire (we lived kind of out in the country). That story has been a favorite wild college story of mine even though I was a secondary participant. That story is also soon to become a cautionary tale I tell to my son about the dangers of playing with fire. Without the scary car problems (we almost died), I wouldn't have this story or the memory of my roommates faces as they walked back inside with their eyes popping out of their sockets. I believe those of us who had been inside may have laughed and derided the others. I can't imagine why they didn't think it was funny.

The summer was filled with great music, great friends, great movies, and great times. This mopey mix doesn't reflect what has in my mind become the most fun I ever remember having during any summer. I had few responsibilities and few obligations. I was learning the utmost lesson in independence.