15 points
Renew An Old Correspondence by Robyn Calara
June 27th, 2006 7:08 PM
I signed up for this task and woudn't you know it, someone from long ago (over ten years) sent an email to a long-unused web-based address that I so rarely check that it is usually wiped clean - so it was very very very lucky for that person that I checked that email today.
It was a short email and I gave it a short reply
A year or so ago I was sick at home - too sick for work, too sick to leave the house, but not so sick I couldn't move. So I was bored. So I pulled out a crate of music cassette tapes - all my fave bands and all the mixtapes from high school and college. I decided to sort through, take one last listen, and then DIVEST and have a clean closet.
There was a mixtape from this guy, all pixies and breeders live and bootleg - basically anything kim-deal-related.
SO I'm listening to it. Reliving our completely platonic pixies loving relationship so long ago when the tape suddenly changes.
There, in the late middle of side B I can hear the recording button click on, a short conversation between his roommate and him, a guitar tune and then: "This is the only way for me to tell you how much you mean to me. You are the star.*" and then he starts to play guitar. And sing. In soprano. Softly. Badly. A song of his own creation. With lots of abababab end rhyming.
I thought of all those times we had hung around together, road tripping, drinking coffee- all those months AFTER he had given me this tape, which apparently I'd NEVER listened to in its entirety, distracted as I was by the three different live recordings of Into the White.
He must have been heartbroken, embarrassed, upset that I had never ONCE mentioned his heartfelt serenade to me.
But he should have known me well enough to know that I would have absolutely SCREAMED and completely CUT OFF our friendship if I had heard this horrific, embarrassingly terrible display of pathetic emotion while we still knew each other. Even now, when I think of it, I cringe. I would have thrown the tape away post haste upon the discovery of this lost track if it weren't for those KICK ASS live recordings of Into the White.
*This isn't true, what he said on the tape. But I can't remember what it was, but it made me grimace. I am so happy I hadn't heard this tape back then. I would have absolutely DIED.
It was a short email and I gave it a short reply
A year or so ago I was sick at home - too sick for work, too sick to leave the house, but not so sick I couldn't move. So I was bored. So I pulled out a crate of music cassette tapes - all my fave bands and all the mixtapes from high school and college. I decided to sort through, take one last listen, and then DIVEST and have a clean closet.
There was a mixtape from this guy, all pixies and breeders live and bootleg - basically anything kim-deal-related.
SO I'm listening to it. Reliving our completely platonic pixies loving relationship so long ago when the tape suddenly changes.
There, in the late middle of side B I can hear the recording button click on, a short conversation between his roommate and him, a guitar tune and then: "This is the only way for me to tell you how much you mean to me. You are the star.*" and then he starts to play guitar. And sing. In soprano. Softly. Badly. A song of his own creation. With lots of abababab end rhyming.
I thought of all those times we had hung around together, road tripping, drinking coffee- all those months AFTER he had given me this tape, which apparently I'd NEVER listened to in its entirety, distracted as I was by the three different live recordings of Into the White.
He must have been heartbroken, embarrassed, upset that I had never ONCE mentioned his heartfelt serenade to me.
But he should have known me well enough to know that I would have absolutely SCREAMED and completely CUT OFF our friendship if I had heard this horrific, embarrassingly terrible display of pathetic emotion while we still knew each other. Even now, when I think of it, I cringe. I would have thrown the tape away post haste upon the discovery of this lost track if it weren't for those KICK ASS live recordings of Into the White.
*This isn't true, what he said on the tape. But I can't remember what it was, but it made me grimace. I am so happy I hadn't heard this tape back then. I would have absolutely DIED.
its funny how i have the impulse to expect a happy ending here.
yeah that does sound horrific.
makes me feel like i should do this task and try to apologize for some of the similarly horrific shit ive done.
although wwhen i did it i at least avoided dr seussy horrizontal rhytm in my rhyme.