Love is a Mix Tape

by Rob Sheffield

I would lie awake and give thanks for this alien creature beside whom I rested.

We can have real fun, we can fuck and run.”

Whitney Houston, “I’m Every Woman.” Mmmmm. Whitney was so rad back then. What the hell happened?

SHADE!

I count on the music to bring me back—or, more precisely, to bring her forward.

“Hey, I like this one,” my mom said. “We will, we will rock you! That’s a catchy song!” I erased “We Will Rock You.”

Some of us are born Gladys Knights, and some of us are born Pips.

Personics seemed incredibly high-tech at the time, but really, it was just another temporary technological mutation designed to do the same thing music always does, which is allow emotionally warped people to communicate by bombarding each other with pitiful cultural artifacts that in a saner world would be forgotten before they even happened.

What if we just decide not to fall apart? What if we decide not to wait to see what happens, but instead decide what we want to happen and then decide how to make it happen?

Dog love is blind.

“But Renée, explain this to me. Why is the waistline so high? Is that like a fitted boudoir?”

“I believe you mean a fitted bodice.”

I suddenly realized how much being a husband was about fear: fear of not being able to keep somebody safe, of not being able to protect somebody from all the bad stuff you want to protect them from. Knowing they have more tears in them than you will be able to keep them from crying.

It’s not human to let go of love, even when it’s dead.

What doesn’t kill you maims you, cripples you, leaves you weak, makes you whiny and full of yourself at the same time. The more pain, the more pompous you get. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you incredibly annoying.

Sometimes great tunes happen to bad times, and when the bad time is over, not all the tunes get to move on with you.

When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other.