Wednesday, January 25, 2006

reminisce...

a digital conversation i had a little earlier today got me thinking about firsts. excerpts from my email...



my first tape


dookie by green day

i was enthralled by the video for basketcase. the colors! the angst! billie joe's plaintive, seeking, green eyes! the creepy Brazil-esque baby masks! it was all too much for my 10 year old heart to behold. so i saved up 7 bucks or so, and walked down to the cd and tape emporium in old town after dinner on a balmy weeknight in september. rushed home, ripped off the cellophane and thus my secret love affair with pop-punk was born.


my first cd

the blue weezer album

much like ben, i was also late in the game when it came to purchasing cds. i was 12; it was early summer. again, the video struck me first. that buddy holly video was tremendous - i only had a vague inkling of who the fonz was, but i liked the cut of his jib. so i got my mom to drop me off at springfield mall, where i met up with my semi-slacker, private school friends. we scuffed our heels over to kemp mill music, i signed up for a frequent buyer program, and purchased my very first cd. ripped off the cellophane outside of the store so i could check out the liner notes and enjoy the glossy picture of the patron saints of nerdcore without the harsh glare of the mall's overhead lighting bouncing off the plastic case. got home later that night, put on headphones and felt that rivers was singing directly to me. only in dreams gave me goosebumps.




my first memory

it's a tie between two.. in my head, these two semi-events occurred on the same day, but they really could have been any day.

1. it was in my parents' first house together as a married couple. it's actually within walking distance of their current house (and i've walked by on many occasions because i like the feeling it gives me). i was prolly not more than a year old. i occasionally slept in my parents' bed for the first year or so of my life. i remember waking up one morning. my mom had her arms around me and my face was semi-nuzzled in her neck. she smelled warm. i looked over into the slightly gauzy, half-light of my parents' bedroom and watched my dad tie his tie in the mirror. he smelled like old spice.

2. perhaps later in the day, i remember sitting in the sunken living room playing with toys on the beige carpet. rainbow brite was on tv. the doorbell rang and my mom walked through the living room from the kitchen. it was UPS. he gave my mom a big box and he left. she struggled to carry it back into the kitchen and i went back to playing.

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