So Chuck is sitting in front of the living room window, the only place in the apartment not covered by a box or a huge nugget of dust, and that perma-worry wrinkle on his forehead has grown the size of the continental divide, and he’s like, what the fuck are you people doing? And I’ve tried to explain things to him, that things change and that the fact that things change is what makes life interesting. And he just looks at me like he doesn’t understand English.
The movers will be here in about an hour, and the only thing left to pack are the computers, the cds and everything in the storage unit downstairs, which just so happens to be the same storage unit to which we can’t find the key, which at first seemed like a total disaster, because in a situation like this, when you need to get into that storage unit more than any other time you’ve needed to get into that storage unit, it could be a total disaster. But when you think about the larger scheme of life, like getting to drive up the coast to Seattle to spend Thanksgiving with your brother and his 5-yr old daughter who likes to take Mr. Potato Head and put the body parts into all the wrong places because “that’s what Picasso would do,” and then drive to Utah, arriving triumphantly with liquor cabinet in tow and the funniest dog in the world who will unsuspectingly get to experience cold weather for the first time, who cares about the damn key to the storage unit.
So, I’ve made a mix cd for the road full of songs that played a huge part of my Los Angeles experience, a soundtrack of sorts. These are all the songs that I have put on repeat in the past four years, and not just a couple repeats, but days and days of repeats, so many agonizing repeats that I’ve had coworkers threaten me with baseball bats, only to hear me plead, I’m sorry, I promise this is the last time, one more time, I need to hear it one more time, but I played it two more times.
Charlatans UK, Forever
Death Cab for Cutie, 405
Elliot Smith, Everything Reminds Me of Her
Modest Mouse, All Night Diner
Destiny’s Child, Bootylicious
Clem Snide, I Love the Unknown
Ryan Adams, Come Pick Me Up
Mason Jennings, Darkness Between the Fireflies
Jai Agnish, How You Dream
New Pornographers, Mass Romantic
Folk Implosion, Mechanical Man
REM, I’ve Been High
Kingsbury Manx, Pageant Square
David Holmes, 69 Police
Bauer, Western Trail
Third Eye Foundation, What is it with You?