Carry On Up the Wayward Son

I have a relationship with portable music players that dates back to my first Sony Walkman and 1987 when I took it, Bon Jovi’s “Slippery When Wet” and my surliest teenage face to Italy for the summer. From then until the day it became too much trouble to hold the earphone plug *just so* on my vintage, yellow Sports Walkman (held shut with an elastic band) I was rarely far from music. On the bus, walking a long way when the bus was too expensive, sitting on airplanes, sitting on ferries, sitting on a bench at UBC waiting for something to happen; music was my constant companion.

When did it become too much trouble to hold the earphone plug *just so* and so the yellow walkman went in a box for later? When I first lived and worked downtown at the same time – then I was only 2 blocks from home to work and I didn’t have time for a music player. After that, I was unemployed and didn’t need a music player. Then I was employed but drove to work. Then I was unemployed. Then I was employed and commuting from Burnaby to downtown; I remember pulling out the walkman for that. When we moved back downtown and I was walking to work again – half of my walk accompanied by SA – that’s when the Walkman went in the box.

(I also had a Discman for a time, because the Future was CDs, but man, what a pain in the ass that was. It skipped, it hopped, it had to be held like a newborn and given a binkie just to play three tracks in a row.)

Then pregnant, then moving again, then commuting but it wouldn’t be for much longer, then on maternity leave, then back at work, then pregnant again and so tired and impatient on public transit that I have come closer than a hare’s whiskers to braining some idiot with my tupperware container full of chocolate.

The transit, it angries up the blood, as Saint Aardvark likes to say.

He also said, “What do you want for Christmas?”
and I said, “AN MP3 PLAYER.”
and he said, “Cool.”
and I knew I was getting one because he likes to buy gadgets and also he doesn’t want me to have this second baby in prison.

Today, I commuted with my tiny music player. It’s a 2 GB ogg-file-playing plug-&-drop-&-play machine. It’s incredible. I was 15 minutes early (or 5 minutes late?) for the bus this morning but I didn’t care. I stood on the corner of 6th and McBride in the dark, listening to Ted Leo and Victor Scott and The Stampeders and smiling. With music in my ears I feel like I can do anything. It is so powerful I am surprised the babby can’t hear it through my bloodstream. I have to remind myself not to dance or sing or drum on the bald head of the man standing in front of me on the skytrain.

Never again will I be without tunes. Never will I only have the song I last heard stuck in my head for an hour (and if that song is some Sharon Lois and Bram schlock, oh well, sucks to be me) with no option for a new one till I get to work. Never will I have to hear “..so then I was all ‘dude, you like totally have to like smoke this bong with me!’ and he was all ‘man, but except I am totally high already!’ It was like sooooooooooo funny!” or “…I think immigrants should have to pay an extra tax because they use more services!” While it is necessary, I can be innoculated against the idiots. In the middle of winter, in the middle of pregnancy, in the middle of the suburbs, me and my immunity and my self-preservation powers need a bit of a boost. Some days that’s going to mean listening to “Institutionalized” 8 times in a row. Other days I might be able to get by with just a paperback. Either way, escape is not impossible and I definitely feel I am on the downward run to my last day of work, 3 months and one day from now.

Plus, now I have something to listen to so that I can stay in the room while Saint Aardvark watches all 12 Lord Of The Rings DVDs. (my gift to him and truly a selfless one, as I have absolutely no interest in those damn hobbits) It was like some kind of crazy backwards Gift of the Magi, our Christmas.