Life in Playlist Form

A few weeks ago I was doing my daily blog reading when I read Kristen's life playlist post. It got me thinking, "Hmm.. besides songs like this one, what would be in my life's playlist?" Is it songs that remind you of certain times or ones that encapsulate what you were going through at that age, growth spurt or nervous breakdown?

I like to think my life's playlist is a little bit of both. It is songs that put me into a whirlwind of memories from a certain time (hot sun, blistering sand beneath my feet and the smell of salt and french fries equal summer to me.) or ones that I played over and over again to get through cerain times of my life. If I had to create it, it might look a little something like this-

KC & the Sunshine Band- Shake Your Booty (number one the month I was born)
The Muppet Show intro - Every Saturday night after bathtime.
Material Girl - What 80s child didn't dance in their living room with friends to this?

Tween Years, the time of such bad pop music that is almost cringeworthy now. Except some of it I still get giddy hearing.

Domino Dancing (the decades long obsession with this group begins)
Out of the Blue (think pink cassette players)
Red pompadour, bad dancing, a deceptive voice and hey, that's a white guy?!

The Teen Years- aka- I'm so deep and my horrible taste in music blossoms.

I like boys who wear smeared lipstick.
I can take on the world or not.
Riding in my volvo with the seat back, bass thumping.
Driving angry
In the fringes
I do stupid things

Post-teen, college, growing up.

Years of Therapy but Boom, Bitch! I'm back
Let's hear it for rail drinks!
Humid nights, skinny boys, intense crushes
I might be over boys , living on my own and running
One Heart, One Way
Our unoffical song-meeting H
SD living

Marriage, Kids, Today

Let's make it official
The uncommon cure for colic
Hello 30's-Running again, I love my 30s, Douchebags make a comeback, Still in love with H.


What are some of the songs on your life's playlist?

Shining Star

Nostalgia week comes to an end today with this final and fifth post-

There was nothing safe about him. He wasn't my type in looks or what I thought was his personality. To say that he took a while to grow on me would be an understatement but then again, the feeling was mutual. After three years of dating on and off, H and I were to be married. It seemed like a handful of lifetimes had passed during those three years and especially now with just months to our wedding day we were worlds apart. San Diego for me and Okinawa, Japan for him. Between 3 a.m. phone calls, instant messaging and emails we were putting our wedding together. Sadly, because of this distance I never felt so alone. This man, whose smile promised me that we would 'live a life less ordinary', was so far away. So was my family and my entire slew of bridesmaids.

All the things I had been so excited to do I had to do alone. I picked out my dress solo, I spent hours trudging through department stores sifting through china patterns and glassware picking out what felt like our future and doing it entirely alone. All those invitations? I wrote them out myself. It is ironic that I watched a movie about the Marquis de Sade while making those things out. I had thought planning a wedding would be exciting and fun, but it was beginning to feel more like a chore. To top it off the playlist was due to the DJ and despite knowing all the various items I did not want played at our wedding (the hokey pokey and the electric slide make me twitch) H and I did not have a song. We had songs we liked but nothing spoke to us. Suddenly it seemed that finding our song was of the utmost importance. If I could figure this part out then maybe everything else would come together and we wouldn't feel quite so far apart.

Unfortunately everything I heard or had suggested to me seemed tired and played out. No to Etta James and Sinatra. 'Unforgettable' was entirely forgettable. Many songs just seemed to be dripping in a sugary sap that made me gag. Then one day during my lunch break I got in the car to run some errands and I heard it. Our song. The melody lifted my spirits and put a smile on my face. It brought tears to my eyes and all at once I knew that this song, this 1970's cheeseball of a song, was going to be our song. I put my car in park and just sat there and listened to the whole thing, grinning the entire time. We weren't together when we heard it but somehow it summed it all up for us. Napster enabled H to listen to it and he agreed that it was perfect. After that I played it continuously. Each time I heard it I felt closer to H despite being almost a world away.

It is not just our wedding song, but it is officially our song now. Shining Star, by The Manhattan's.


Read my latest at 23andMe- "Oligohydramnios, also known as low amniotic fluid, presents itself in only eight percent of pregnant women during some point in their pregnancy."

It's More Than Just a Song

The idea of having a theme song has been the subject of a few blog posts out there in the blogosphere and even a frequent topic on such ancient shows of yore like Ally McBeal. I realized today as I was taking what should be my daily walk that my theme song has been the same for years. Hasn't changed since I first laid ears on it back in high school and despite being overplayed many times over the last few decades it still manages to do all those little things that theme songs are supposed to do.

It energizes you. You hear that special little ditty and you instantly feel like dancing. Or shouting and doing all sorts of ridiculous things like you see in Mentos commercials and what not. My theme song makes me take over dance floors at weddings, grocery stores, sidewalks and wherever else I hear it. It is to the point now that people seem to think of me when they hear it. Probably because I made them listen to it (not at gun point, but close) so many freakin' times since they've known me. They cringe a bit too I'm quite sure.

When I found out that my choice of song was also one of my uncle's favorite songs it gave me not just a warm fuzzy feeling and incidentally a partner in bad dancing crime but it made me realize how a good theme song can span generations. Aww, the sap of it I know.

Then today, I heard it again. Out of the blue, OK out of the iPod shuffle if you must know, but I had forgotten it was there and had skipped over it so many times lately deeming it overplayed pap. As I jauntily walked down the street (as jaunty as a six months pregnant woman can be) I listened to the lyrics and realized that on a whole new level this song still applies to me. It not only still makes me feel all peppy and like breaking into Fame-like dance moves, which is really bad and it still reminds me of all the wonderful times I had with friends in high school, college and my twenties, but that we women and mothers have days where we are barely surviving and that we are simply just... Stayin' Alive.

And there you go. My Theme Song.

Do you have one?