CASSETTE FROM MY EX

It was 1998 in Olympia, and I was a little Oly girl with dyed black bubble bob and mod gear head-to-toe. We were an odd pair for sure, but we loved each other. He followed me from Washington to New York.

These songs tell a leap-without-looking love story. This tape is phenomenal because the boy who made the tape was a goofy drummer guy who stocked shelves at my community college bookstore. He wasn’t emo at all- he was buff, he smoked weed, drank beer and had lots of bad homemade tattoos on his arms.

He made the tape right before I moved to NY to solidify our relationship, which is why he included the Velvet Underground’s “Coney Island Steeplechase.” If there’s one lyric on the whole tape that represented our relationship it’s from this song: “Like sister and brother who cling to each other when they find out their parents are mad.”

In other words, we were terribly codependent. We spent a hellish year together in NY being each other’s baby blankets. Eventually it all caught up with us and culminating with me getting committed to the loony bin.

Falling in love is never the same after the first time- you don’t know what it’s like to lose someone you love. You don’t know how bad the first heartbreak hurts, so you don’t hold anything back. Your heart is completely vulnerable and ready to be smashed into a thousand pieces.

This mix-tape sounds like not knowing what heartbreak feels like. This tape sounds like falling in love for the first time.

All the songs on the tape are soft (except LL Cool J’s “I Need a Beat” - I have no idea where that came from) and sound womb-like with bongos, chorus voices, minor chords, delay, acoustic strums, and tender synthesizers. I love how the eighties era stuff like Billy Idol’s “Catch my Fall” and Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” transform the hollow pop genre into soulful tear-jerking love songs. Follow those gems up with the Carpenters “Close to You” and you have a panty-dropping combo.

We both moved back to Washington in 2000 and stayed together on-and-off prolonging our inevitable breakup. Our epic relationship ended horribly two years later. In 2003, he ran off to Georgia with an 18-year-old VW bus-drivin’ hippie college student. I never saw him again.

I hope he sees this and remembers what it felt like to be young and in love. I hope he remembers all the good times and all the rad music we shared- and what it meant to us.

Bob Dylan: Lay Lady Lay John Lennon: Look at Me John Lennon: My Mummy’s Dead The Association: Never My Love Fleetwood Mac: Never Going Back Again Billy Idol: Catch My Fall Michael Jackson: Human Nature Michael Jackson: Pretty Young Thing The Carpenters: Close to You Led Zeppelin: Over the Hills and Far Away Psychedelic Furs: Heaven David Bowie: Ashes to Ashes

Blondie: Union City Blondie: Accidents Never Happen Rolling Stones: Fingerprint File Rolling Stones: Till the Next Goodbye Paul Mccartney: Oo You Paul Mccartney: Mommy Miss America LL Cool J: I Need a Beat A Flock of Seagulls: Space Age Love Song Velvet Underground: Coney Island Steeplechase Rolling Stones: Paint It Black Cheap Trick: Come On Brian Eno: Spider And I

“I’m 31 years old & live in Portland, OR. For $$ I work at home on the computer as an Instructional Designer. I also have a vintage store space called Tiger Shop. I love writing personal narrative & memoir. I’m a feminist and I love zombie movies.”
[heart] Kristin