This is the kind of memoir I'd like to have written (albeit without the deceased wife).

I've had a few conversations with friends in the last year or so about the long-lost art of the mix tape, which has been delivered a death-blow by the digital age. Burning a CD mix just isn't the same; for one, it doesn't take nearly as long to make a CD mix, which cheapens the sentiment attached to giving one to someone, especially when the hope is that the gesture and the songs themselves with make the recipient fall instantly in love with you. And you no longer have to worry about the time remaining at the end of a cassette's side: will one last song fit? Maybe, but only if it's a short one. So what song is both a. short enough to fit, and b. the perfect statement of my feelings?

And then there was the planning for the sequence of the mix's sides. You couldn't just randomly throw a bunch of songs together; you had to carefully balance both the tempo and the lyrical content of the songs. When all was said and done, the whole process took the better part of a Saturday...

(re-read, April 2013)