Kal’s Gift Shop

I kinda just stopped wanting to broadcast everything I was thinking.

There’s this explicit conceit to blogging that whatever the hell is on your mind is worth making available to the Wonderful Wide Web.

I needed to just shut up for a while.

I have a new job in politics. I like being less dramatic. I’m housesitting for the friend of a friend in a cute little suburban bungalow. I have a checking account, which is really quite amazing. I don’t drink and smoke anymore, which is also quite amazing. Things have really changed. You should see me these days.

I’d like to be as hard-hitting and informative as ever, but frankly, that takes a lot of work. These links don’t type themselves.

I’m going to be disjointed and less lucid, which happens when you become as old as I am. But then I’m not so obsessed with my own perfection anymore, which also sometimes happens when you become as old I am.

We’ll just have to see what happens from now on. I can tell … you’re just tingling with anticipation.

I sit here typing on the laptop as my Windows Media Player 11 (Beta 2!) plays the Pussycat Dolls’ “Buttons,” which frankly, became my summer anthem. Right up there with Kellis’ “Bossy.” These are the sort of songs we played at full blast and danced to in the Honorable’s office.

My fun with mp3s reminds me of the flight I took last year to California to attend my best friend’s wedding. I was nestled in between two friendly people in the middle seat, because I had arrived at the Southwest counter seconds before the pilot pushed off from the gate.

As the flight progressed across the country, I noticed my seatmate with the window view had one of those Apple iPod thingys. I suddenly felt conversational.

“You know,” I said as I leaned over ever so slightly, “all my friends are buying those, and I wonder: Should I get one, too? Is it worth it?”

My new friend looked back at me and said in all sincerity, without pause for an ironic grin, “It will change your life.” Well, damn. Sign me up.

I mean. That’s what I thought, but I didn’t want to seem easy. “Wow,” I replied.

I already knew the convenience and wonder of this 20th century device - the electronic compression of nearly-perfect stereo sound - but had never personalized it. Not until just earlier that year when I started ripping my CD collection to my computer and listening to my own brand of music at work. No more pre-packaged AOL-brand “Easy Listening” Internet radio for me anymore. Now I could rock out to Sheena Easton and Enrique Inglesias whenever I wanted.

It began hitting me more and more, as I rode the rails and buses to and from work that there were these thin, good-looking prosperous people intently staring off into space with little white bud things in thier ears. I soon understood the association of these people with iPods. “Look at me, look at me, la, la, la, la, la, la!” their earbuds told me joyfully. “I am listening to music in its latest, most hippest form!” This person is clearly more deserving than you, the ear buds seemed to also say.

“DUDE, TRUST ME ... THERE AREN’T 4,720 GOOD SONGS OUT
THERE.”

I admit. I had class envy. But those things are expensive, like, 300 dollars or something for the good one. I think. I hear. Okay, I don’t know, but 300 DOLLARS is mighty big money to me.

And if I have revealed my annual salary to you in that paragraph, I apologize.

So, one day - one fine day - I will sprout my own white earbuds and groove to the beat of my own digital drummer. Day-old stubble, square-toe Italian shoes, Banana Republic-tie, optional. Of course.

There’s this cartoon in my apartment on the ’fridge. No seriously, I’m not just winding up the story. It’s been here since before I moved in, which means it has had a life span of between, oh, 10 years and at least 8 months.

Let me describe it to you:

Headline - ANNOYING HUMAN BEHAVIOR #3: BRAGGING ABOUT HOW MANY MP3S YOU HAVE ON YOUR HARD DRIVE/IPOD.

Scene - Two hip, young Lincoln Park-looking fellas at a bar. One is looking down at his iPod, while the other stares off in impatience.

Impatient one: DUDE, TRUST ME ... THERE AREN’T 4,720 GOOD SONGS OUT THERE.

I’ll be getting one of those life-changing event things sooner than I’m ready for it. Damn, I hate to say it, but here it comes. 1,000 songs at my fingertips. Thank you, Steven Jobs, may I have another?