Grown Up

So I have done various grown up things in life. I am married, I'm 31, I take care of two cats, I buy my own insurance, I have various bank accounts, I teach college students, I almost have a PhD, etc. But today I did something that I felt truly marked my passage into adulthood. I got rid of nearly all my cassette tapes. It was really sad and hard, but in the end I needed the case for my dissertation tapes (how sad is that?) and I faced up to the cold, hard fact I no longer owned any sort of tape player, and that I had not listened to any of the tapes since probably 2000. In fact, the last time I remember listening to any of them was when I lived in DC with Melinda and we popped Into the Woods on and proceeding to sing along with the whole thing. I believe a friend of ours who I was dating was with us at the time, and may have been mildly alarmed.

The tapes were mostly soundtracks from musicals, which I spent a lot of time checking out of the library and dubbing. I also had all of They Might Be Giants' stuff until about 1994 (John Henry was the last album I had on tape). More than anything, these tapes represented high school to me. Me listening over and over to musicals, hearing non top-40 bands like TMBG and realizing there was so much more out there than what I had experienced so far. Anyway, I'm thinking that when I am moved I need to spend some serious time getting musicals from the library again and burning them, to recreate a little of that old vibe in a 21st century kind of way.

I did keep a few tapes. And I know you are dying to know what they are. I kept: Newsies (look at Christian Bale sing and dance!), Oliver and Company (no one remembers this one! Songs by Billy Joel!), a tape of a Collegium Musicum concert from college in which I dressed in medieval garb and played the crumhorn and finally a mix-tape from my high school friend Valerie.