Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Mama was a rocker I think I could devote an entire blog to the humiliations of life in my minivan. Setting aside the obvious, identity mutilating implications of driving the soccer-momobile, I still have a long list of vaguely, and specifically, embarrassing items to report. Item: it's electric blue. Not beautiful metallic midnight blue--electric, royal, glaring blue. Subtle--no. Item: it's usually filled with debris, and not just from my children. Crumbs of the Stacy's Soy Chips I often eat (solo) for lunch. Wrappers from the Halloween candy (Snickers) I occasionally sneak, with the excuse that I've brought them as an after school treat for Dido. (He's already informed me that he doesn't like them, they're not the good kind of chocolate, and he'd really prefer a Tootsie Roll pop.) The steering wheel has blue ink stains from the pen that exploded in my purse, and until recently, the floor carpets were stinky and spotted from a latte I spilled the first week--yes, the first week, back in March--that I owned the car. Item: it's huge, and yet the back cargo area is so crammed with baby equipment and random toiletries purchased for but never sent to Katrina victims that I now have to put my groceries into the front seat, or on the floor under the kids' seats. But one of the greatest conundrums posed by life in the van is what to do about music. The H, trying to sweeten the deal of getting me the damn thing in the first place (I never wanted it, he did, 'nother story) did me one big solid: he had an iPod dock hardwired into the stereo system. So I can plug in the 'pod and listen to anything at all. But how in God's name do you crank tunes in a Sienna without feeling like a sham, a ridiculous freak, a nearly forty year old overweight housewife desperately trying to relive her 80's hey day--pathetically like the protagonist in the (kind of brilliant) Bowling for Soup song, 1985. This morning, I placed Faces "Stay with Me", which Dido loves, and by the time we got to the preschool parking lot, we had moved onto pure Rod, "Maggie May". I'm not ashamed to admit that I sing along, even though the boy always, ALWAYS, tells me not to. I didn't think my voice was that bad, but apparently, it obscures the original artists'...artistry. On the way home, I switched over to my Desert Island 2005 playlist--a compendium of songs put together for a barbecue this summer; our guests were asked to let us know in advance the ONE song they'd want to hear over and over again, if suddenly trapped a la Tom Hanks in "Castaway." The choices were inspired (ranging from Benny Goodman to Meatloaf to 10,000 Maniacs to Nine Inch Nails), and it's a great driving mix. I put the windows down, and I remembered how important music used to be to me. I was always the girl with the great stereo system (it's what I saved for from my summer jobs, and oh, it impressed the boys in boarding school--really, it did!), always buying music, always cranking tunes on my Walkman in those ancient pre iPod days. My life had a soundtrack, which in the 80s ranged from Traffic to (hold your nose) REO Speedwagon to Joni to the Clash to Tom Petty to Berlin to Prince--always something, always rocking. My first concert, at Alpine Village in Wisconsin, was Tom Petty. My dad drove me and my friend Julie, still really innocent in the summer after our 9th grade year at Exeter. He waited in the car for us to return wide eyed (the joints! the lighters in the air! the overpriced jerseys!) and drove us back home to Chicago, nearly running out of gas on the way. Chicago summers were always about concerts after that--the Police, the Clash, the Dead, now forgotten new wave bands like the Fixx, and Flock of Seagulls, and Tom Petty again, and again. I haven't been to a rock concert now in probably over ten years--I think the last show I saw was the Rolling Stones at the Rose Bowl. And damn, it was good. But now-- the H doesn't like live concerts (though his musical taste is now wide reaching, in high school, he only listened to--get ready--classical music, and I think not getting into the rock concert mentality then, he's unlikely to have an epiphany about its worth any time soon)... and I've got two kids, and now loud noise really hurts my ears, and so, I don't go. But I rock out in my minivan. And truly, I think it's less humiliating that I do, than if I didn't. After all, mama was, once upon a time, a rocker. 10:10:44 AM     comment [] trackback []