Straddling The Edge

People talk a lot about emotional baggage – issues we have from being picked on at school or from a messed up home life. But recently i’ve been having serious trouble with some real life baggage.

Even if you move every year, you probably have that one box of stuff you move from place to place without opening. It usually has books you’ve been meaning to read like Little Women, War and Peace or Altas Shrugged. Or maybe a few birthday cards and a year book. The only time this box is opened is when you are about to move again. You get all nostelgic and ambitious about your plans for said box. And then you duct tape it until the next move.

For me this magical box contains CD jewel cases. They are all empty. The CDs are in one of those CD binder things and have been downloaded onto my itunes. The box is heavy and has been sitting in the living room for well over a year. Before that it was in my aunt’s basement for 4 years.

hey. How’d Ashlee Simpson get in there?

The reason it is still there is because i’m having trouble accepting they are garbage. I spent a few thousand dollars creating an amazing CD collection which totally defined me as a human teenager. I spent hours in Tramps Used CD store trading in shitty CD’s like The Lemonheads that sucked for cooler ones like Green Days Kerplunk (love you Billy Joe) and let us not forget about Columbia House!

My original plan was to put all the CD’s back in their cases and sell them. Apparently this is an extremely comical idea. While i paid a large chunck of change for them, i guess they have not gone up in value the way beanie babies have. Plus some of the CD’s are scratched so i’d have to do that whole windex/toothpaste trick.

So tonight is the night. I’m dismantling them and having major flashbacks to my youth. Because it’s Easter and why not?

Highlights include:

~ Singing along to Hole at the top of my lungs whilst recording myself on the dual cassette/3 CD changer in my parent’s basement.

~ My awkward country phase featuring John Berry and Alan Jackson before that nauseating september 11th song. Worst song ever.

~ Happier music like Hanson that i had to listen to after realizing every band i loved had a member kill themselves or overdose on heroin.

~ The girl power of Ani Difranco and Jann Arden and apparently Janet. Actually i have no idea how i ended up with the janet album. I swear.

~ Any thing i personally recorded.

I really hope all the plastic is recyclable.  I will miss the good old days of the CD case but i am excited to see what becomes of the new open space in the living room

And before we all get too sentimental it should be clear that i am definitely not throwing out the liner notes. That would just be plain crazy.