same pattern on the table

with great reluctance and supreme effort, i've started the necessary packing for my move home.

i'm spoiled, in general. i mean, you can't argue with me when i tell you that there isn't much wanting in my life. i have a beautiful home, a wonderful mother, a generally kick-ass stepfather, three siblings who are utterly indescribable, cats that growl and a computer on which i store three-thousand plus bits of happiness.

that's right- i derive physical happiness from mp3s.

music in any form actually. it's always on in my room. i try and turn it off, but i even sleep with music playing. twenty four hours a day seven days a week. a day with no music is for me the saddest and longest day ever.

so obviously, tonight when i started packing, i went with what made me happy. i started with my cds. i found some that made me laugh [um, where did busta rhymes come from and why haven't i cracked him out recently?], some that made me sad [ilistenedtogowan wheniwasyounger ok?], some that i'd entirely forgotten about [like jimi hendrix. how could i forget about jimi hendrix?]

i also have in front of me a stack of cases.

voodoo child's baby monkey. last year i was walking through baker's lounge and there was a used and new cd trader seller spalshed across a big batch of free area. i didn't exactly have a lot of money at this point in time, but i decided to stop and look anyways. voodoo child is really moby, so when i found this i was over joyed because it was relatively new but impossible to find. it cost me ten bucks and i loved every second of it.

californication by red hot chili peppers. i was in grade eight or nine, i don't really know for sure, when this cd came out. and i remember that it was probably the first thing my older brother brought home that my entire family immediately liked. it marked a shift in sound for the pepeers. it marked a shift in music for me.

interpol's antics. my sister's friend ayshia is sort of like sister number two- the older sister i never had, but there just the same. she came to our house for thanksgiving and was humming all weekend and constantly raved about how i needed to download some interpol, especially a song called slow hands. i did. and then i went out and uncharacteristically spent a lot of money on their album as a present in the middle of paper season of first semester.

the way we walk- live by genesis. when we first moved to wiarton, mom thought it best that we all have a little space so instead of living in the same house as my parents, i lived across the yard in the other house owned by tom. we called it the little house. it needed some love, so i spent a good many hours painting and nailing and crowbar-ing and being generally happy in this new and foreign place while blasting this cd on repeat through my own space, my first grown-up style 'own' space.

peter gabriel's sixteen golden greats. the second copy of this cd i have had, which kate bought for me because i forgot my debit card at home. it was the end of year one and i just needed that sound, that impeccable thing that is the opening of this album, that is solsbury hill.

the soundtrack to the lord of the rings: the fellowship of the ring. kate was gone for the weekend. i was walking through walmart with liz and saw this and it become one of the most over-played impulse buys of my life ever, as it's listened to at least once a day, usually while i am going to sleep. also- i am a huge dork.

U2's the best of nineteen eighty to nineteen ninety with b-sides. again, another second copy, but this time, i remember thinking as i rushed to the front of the music store in owen sound, this time it had the b-sides. it was coveted. and i could finally understand the joy of the three sunrises and endless deep, while re-living those memories of homework at our kitchen table in the market.

coldplay's parachutes. the first time i played it, my mom asked me to put it on again, so i did and she and melissa and i sat around my kitchen table in wiarton talking about nothing and everything all at once.

U2's all that you can't leave behind. the start of something grand and beautiful and over-riding and powerful contained in a circular piece of plastic given to me for my first christmas in wiarton. thousands of miles, and this cd went everywhere.

U2's achtung baby. this isn't even really my cd, it's the one my mom bought in nineteen ninety two when the album first came out. she hated it the first time she listened to it and lamented the loss of good money on a crap cd. but of course, being the sleeper that it is, it became one of her favourite albums. and then i came along and appropriated it and it went everywhere with me. everywhere. to new york. on camping trips. to much music. to concerts. to school. to dentists appointments. to people's homes. on road trips. i don’t think the number of spins that album received could be counted, because it was [and is] always playing in my head.

so, i've this pile of cases in front of me- empty because these are the cds that were pillaged at the toronto bus station- but i'm really not entirely bothered because they still make me happy. i haven't the physical cds but the music will never really disappear, so it's just a matter of tracking it down.

i'm just worried about the irresponsible shopping spree that i know i'm going to undertake at HMV or music world or some other store in the near future...

my visa simply can't handle it.