Mix CDs

I love Mix CDs (yes, mix with a capital M). This grew from my love of Mix Tapes. In middle school I got a stereo with. . . wait for it. . . 2 TAPE DECKS. My life was forever changed.

Now, at the age of 27, I am like one of those women you see churning her own butter at Living History Farms. I perform a task that is essential to my welfare, yet the middle schoolers of today find the toil of this task oddly fascinating. Why would one churn butter when there's iTunes Genius?? 

I even have an iPhone. I can make playlists, put them on my iPhone, hit shuffle, and plug the darn thing directly into my speaker dock, home or car stereo in a user-friendly and efficient manner. And I do sometimes. But other times, I put hours of mental and emotional effort into crafting a stupendous Mix CD. And I tackle weighty issues such as-- Should this mix end with a bang? Or drift out softly? Or should I end it with Made For You by OneRepublic because I like the song but hate the boys' choir at the end and then I could turn the CD off before I had to listen to creepy prepubescent voices? (Note that this is all time spent not learning how to be better at my job. Ce la vie.) PS. On my latest mix, that last option won.
**New feature: When possible, I'm going to make the songs I mention in my blog available for playing on Yahoo Media Player. Please see the "Play Something!" list to your left.


I also feel the need to exhaustively label every Mix CD I make with the track list and artist. 
Reason 1: This way, just in case, when someone who's not me picks up my CD and inevitably loves every song, he or she can identify each song, be able to look up the artists, and find more music they love! 
Reason 2: I have anal retentive tendencies.

Then I take my Mix CD, and I play it in my car stereo. It gets sucked into the little slot with that satisfying sound. There is nothing, I say nothing, better than putting on my sunglasses (that I wish made me look cool but probably don't), driving somewhere across the Midwest, and hearing song after song picked out by me for me. It's a new slice of happiness every 3 to 5 minutes.