Confessions of a Grooveshark Junky…

I though “Crimson and Clover”was the most beautiful song alive.  I would lay on the floor with a speaker on each side of my head, and listen in awe as the music shifted from one side to the other.  It was one of my first experiences with STEREO sound!  Most of my records were passed down by my parents and all mono till then.  I had a “stereo”, but you couldn’t experience that sound without a stereo record!

I have one real addiction in my old age, Grooveshark.  All my music is on cassettes.  I discovered that not everything is replaceable  when I went out looking for a new one to replace the stereo from my grandfather.   It had begun to eat my tapes.  You know you can’t buy a decent cassette player anymore!

Somewhere in a plastic grocery sack, in a box, in a storage unit, in California, is my cassette collection, complete with about 20 personal recordings of my own family, that will never be played again.  Oh well.  Such is life.  It was more heartbreaking then when I discovered I could no longer buy 126 film for my camera that was literally glued to my right hand till then.

Anyway I found myself alone for the first time in my life only about 5 years ago.  I left my husband.  I had my clothes and my computer, and a tiny apartment on the second floor of a converted building that was once a flour mill.

I borrowed camping gear from my kids till I could get some furniture.  I bought two bath towels and 2 knives, forks, and spoons from the open stock at Walmart.  I cooked in the same pot that I ate out of and slept in a sleeping bag on the floor.

I had 2 camp chairs so I could have company and that was it.  My apartment echoed for the whole first month because I had to save every last penny I earned to pay off the deposit that my landlord graciously let me move in without paying.

It was then that I discovered Grooveshark.  There were several versions of it but it took me no time at all to realize that laying on my stomach on the bare wood floor for hours picking out music wasn’t working for me, so Grooveshark was it.  I am up to 10 playlists to fit my every mood now, and this is what has made me the junky that I am.

I have all my favorites from when I first discovered music in my teens on one.  I have all the country that my mother loved and those old fifty’s tunes of my fathers that I grew up with on others.  I have my workout music, and my suicidal music, dish washing music some clasical, some jazz, 80’s hits, and a whole list of odd ball stuff I have collected that I can’t put a heading on.  Pat Metheny, Alanis Morissette, Dan Hicks, and Nils Molvaer couldn’t have less in common but their all on that list!

My best friend lived right next door and often brought me coffee in the mornings.  She would sit with me and listen and talk for hours some days and we made her up a list so we could play her favorites when she was there.

Tommie was just a few years older than I, and we didn’t listen to a lot of the same stuff, but she knew music.  You could say a few lines and she could tell you what the song was, what year it came out and who did it.  When she wasn’t around I would remember a few words and have to type them into Google, so that I could add it to one of my lists.  We spent a lot of our hours together just remembering all the music we ever loved and sharing it with each other.

When I wasn’t at work, back in that empty apartment it was all I had; just me and the music.  I would lay on that sleeping bag and crank it up.  In just a few seconds I would be whisked away.  With one song I would be 11 again, laying on the diving board enjoying the sun and the calm of my Aunts pool just getting a tan.  With another I would be crying out all the pain my heart was hanging on to with long choking sobs.  With others I would be heart to heart right next to my parents, both gone for years now.

For three years I lived in that apartment and I never got used to living alone.  I hated every minute when someone else wasn’t there, and it seemed like it would never end.  The music often went all night long.  One of my first acquisitions when I started buying things were a set of headphones so that I could crank it up without disturbing Alice downstairs.

One day I just decided I couldn’t do it anymore.  Living alone wasn’t for me and I went about changing my life, yet again.  Now here I am living in Florida, over 2000 miles away from my kids, my friend and everything I knew then.

Funny thing that playlist of my best friends picks has become my favorite list now; and it always takes me right back there to the two of us having coffee and Groovesharking music together.

This one is for you Tommie!  “It’s My Life”  Heart to Heart again.

very old gal reviving old dream

When I was a kid we would get the Sears Catalog.  They used to call it the wish book and that’s what I used it for… dreaming and wishing.  I used to dream of biking across the US and would spend countless hours planning that trip and figuring out where I would go and what I would need to take with me.   It seemed like everything I would ever need was right in that catalog and it made the idea of the trip real for me.

Then I started having kids and my Aunt told me to kiss that dream goodbye…”Honey if you haven’t done it by the time your 20 you never will.”  For years I never thought of it again.

I was divorced and most of my kids grown when the dream started building up in me again.  The boys had left home and I was wondering how I would transition my life to not having them to raise anymore.  My Daughter was 17 when her and I started talking about taking that trip together.  I was only 42 and the dream still felt like a possibility then.  We would leave in the early fall after she graduated high school.

Sass died and for a while I was afraid that the grief would kill my Mother.  I changed that plan and July 1st of 2001 I headed back to Oregon to be with her.  In October my Daughter had joined us and by the following spring was pregnant with her first child.  I remarried and just that and being a grandma was enough that I had no other dreams for a while.

Life constantly throws change and challenges at us.  Divorcing again has opened up a new world of possibilities.  I moved here with no notice at all and brought little of consequence with me, but the reason I came is coming to a close and again I am faced with the question of what I want to do with the time I have been blessed with.

Out of no-where I find myself talking with someone who as done this over 20 times and is planning a 6,000 mile sponsored bicycle ride, Jacksonville to Long Beach, CA and up the west coast to Coos Bay, OR and then retracing the entire route back to Jacksonville.  He is 65 years old!

I saw the movie “School of life” last night, and now it’s on my to do list.  In case you haven’t seen it (you should); the Teacher asked his students, “How much time do we have left?”, and they all look at the clock.  He says, “Not enough.  That’s how much time we have–not enough.”  

Every time I wanted to change I have.  That’s the thing, when your ready, you just do it.   I’m ready, so that’s my ‘what’s next’.  My family thinks I’m crazy…so glad that they aren’t wrong.   Gubette we’re off  on another adventure!  Any one know of a way to take a cat on a cross country bike ride.

You should listen to your Mother.

Years ago, my mother started me walking with her so that I could lose weight, and I did, but that’s really not what stuck with me.  It was this one thing she said as we were walking that still sticks with me 25 years later.

Up until that day I was a barefoot girl.  Mom said, “put some shoes on” and I said “I have really tough soles on my feet, I can walk without them”, and she let me.  I didn’t know that us walking 5 miles was any different from when I just doddled around town, but she did.

“You should take a coat”…”I never need one”.  I never spent days on the Oregon coast, but she did.

“You shouldn’t marry that man”…”He is more wonderful than you know”…and more trouble than I knew, but she did.

Each time I  hear the words she said as we were ending that walk; although she never again repeated,  “You should listen to your Mother.”

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“You should take your fiber.”  For years I have resisted…I mean have you tasted that stuff? blek!

I am also over 50 and realizing that the confounded woman is always right, have invested in a daily fiber beverage.  I swear for all time now I will write down every word she says and live it like my bible.  She may have been right before…but this has forced my total conversion.

If you don’t care for bathroom talk…don’t read any further.  I can’t hold myself back from my exclamation that this one thing alone I should have at least adhered to!

Just want to dance when I think of all the savings in toilet paper alone!

For years I have resented having to go.  I will avoid it for days because I just don’t want to spend all that time.  Sheet after sheet of toilet paper and no matter how much I wiped I never felt clean enough.

This stuff is a miracle!  It’s almost as good as if she had invented it herself! Fiber doesn’t just clean you out … It leaves you clean!

Oh Mamma,  I love ya!