tape girl

I was having a clear up (again) in my bedroom & found a bag of cassettes (I was going to write stumbled across but that made it sound like I'd fallen over them - "I'm not surprised" I can hear my mum saying "the state of your bedroom")

Now for any young drama queens out there cassettes are an audio format (a bit like a CD but older) & if you wanted to record anything to you to press record & play at the same time on your tape recorder.  You could record tape to tape at high speed on fancy stereos (think old school ipod) & the music sounded like Pinky & Perky (...oh never mind).

This treasure trove of nostalgia included:


The original Now That's What I Call Music - which reminded that side B of cassette 2 was always the dodgy side

A tape of some friends from university's band - which I still love & I wish I had the kit & know how to digitize it as I would share it as they are great.

A cassette of Mick Brown dedicating 'Rush Hour' to me & my sister number 10 in my last claim to fame list

A load of compilation tapes that I made years ago & although it's a dead format I cannot bear to throw them away.

It reminded me that I used to cut out photos from magazines for covers for my tapes

but I also used to name my compilations

this one is called Jason Donovan's Chest because that's what's on the cover (going for the Ronseal approach)

Lurking at the bottom of the pile were two tapes which I knew even before looking at the track list were heart break tapes.  

The first one 'Emotions' is your standard fare of weepy mix tape; some early Beatles tracks, Everything But the Girl (before they  went all dance on us), Crowded House & Simply Red.  I barely remember what heartbreak it was over (but think I can guess because of the inclusion of the Simply Red track).  But if it was that guy I'm wondering, why was I tormenting myself over him?  He was a dick.  I didn't love him, I liked him, he made me laugh (sometimes), but he was definitely not worthy of my tears.

The other one is just labelled Summer 95 and this one is properly sad.  I know by the date (as well as the contents) what this one is all about). 
I can just picture that poor sad little drama queen listening to her tape weeping into her pillow, nursing a broken heart.  A good cry can be so cathartic to get it (them) out of your system, but there is a fine line & I'm sure on occasion I crossed over to wallowing in it. 

Being that I probably unkindly dissected a mix tape an old girlfriend made for Mr D I thought I would share the track list:


Side A
Return to Innocence - Enigma (I know but that would fall into one of the songs HE liked)
Cross My Heart - Everything But The Girl
Love is Here Where I Live - EBTG
Apron Strings - EBTG (obviously working my way through the Everything But The Girl back catalogue)
Everybody Hurts - REM (guaranteed weepy.  I want this song at my funeral.  I want EVERYONE to cry)
No Need to Argue - The Cranberries
Jealous Guy - John Lennon
You've Got Me Thinking - The Beloved (classic of the time)
Favourite T - The Lemonheads
Bell Bottomed Tear - The Beautiful South
Linger - The Cranberries
Caroline - Misty Oldland (yeah, me neither)


Side B
I Need Your Loving - Baby D (original is better)
Badhead - Blur
Take a Bow - Madonna
No More I Love Yous - Annie Lennox
Back For Good - Take That
Sour Times - Portishead (got to love a bit of Portishead)
Driving With The Brakes On - Del Ametri
Across The Universe - The Beatles (another on the list for my funeral - love love this song)
Heaven Help Me - EBTG (again!)
The World Is Stone - Cyndi Lauper
They Dance Alone - Sting

I did say I have eclectic taste in music (Mr D insists that means it's a mix of good & shit). An unusual mix I'll admit but the odd gem in there.


Just in case you need a good cry. 

 Hopefully it falls under the 'good' music in my collection x

Sunday Girl

When I was 17 I fell in love for the first time. 

The object of my affection was someone I worked with in a garden centre at the weekend and he was gorgeous.  He had blue blue eyes and they twinkled with mirth.  He wasn't like any other boy I had met, he was articulate and creative, we liked the same things.  His acerbic wit had me in stitches and we made a very real connection.  He didn't know I loved him, oh no, I was too unsure of myself to tell him, but he made my heart skip whenever I trudged into work in my green tabard.  I remember copying out the words to Blondie's 'Sunday Girl' into an anonymous Valentine's Card for him, for indeed Sundays were the days we worked together. 

We were very close friends and maybe that's why, one night at gig, whilst dancing with him he leaned forward and bend down to whisper in my ear, I held my breath and he said those fateful words. 'I'm gay'. 
I can't really remember my reaction to his revelation, I think I just about held it together whilst trying to assure him that everything was OK.  I was the first person he came out to, probably because we were so close, and I guess in hindsight I should be flattered, but I was devastated.
 
I remember choking out tears to my best friend by the lockers at school the next day telling her the events of the night before.  And then despite being heart broken I decided 'Friends is good, friends is something' (I think that's a quote from a film or something) and that this would all be fine.  But in my usual dramatic fashion I also HAD to tell him how I felt, even if it wasn't going anywhere.  And so I did.  I wrote an umpteened page tome about how I loved him but it was all alright and I didn't expect him to do anything about it yadda yadda yadda.  I don't remember what I expected him to do with all this emotional outpouring, possibly have a change of heart / sexuality, but I just knew I had to tell him.  And so after that I just put my feelings in a box and put them away, desperate to be content with my new 'fag hag' role.

And things were fine and we had lots of fun.  I remember a hilarious trip to Margate with him and some other friends of his where we sang along to music at the top of our voices on the way down to Bembom Brothers.  On the way back I chatted animatedly with a friend of his whilst he was asleep with another friend in the back of the car, talking so much we missed our junction on the motorway and added about 30 miles to the journey and the others were oblivious.  Singing Abba at the tops of our voices, trips to the cinema to watch scary films and Pride Marches in London.  Before he came out to everyone else several people assumed I was his girlfriend.  Oh how we laughed when one night his dad 'put his foot down' and forbade me from staying over in his room but allowed another male friend to do so! 

Some things were harder to deal with.  When he got his first proper boyfriend (who was lovely by the way) my heart ached a little and I remember one particular New Years Eve where I went out with him and his boyfriend and then we crashed at someones house.  They thought I was asleep but I wasn't.  I lay on the floor, scarcely daring to breath listening to them together and my heart broke in two.  Whilst on the train home the next day I overheard some other people talking about 'the state of that girl over there'.  They were talking about me and my tattered heart worn very much on my sleeve.

But I guess life goes on, you move on and grow up. 

Over the years our lives have moved in different directions with Uni and jobs, marriage and children, we have drifted in and out of each others lives.  That is why I love Facebook so much because we are in touch again.  I haven't seen him in such a long time (geographically it isn't so easy) but there will always be a little corner in my heart for him.  I heard Abba on the radio the other day and it made me smile.

the art of a heartbreak mix tape

I heard Christina Perri's 'Jar of Hearts' the other night on my way home from Tescos and was taken by the line 'you're going to catch a cold from the ice inside your soul' which sprang out from the dirge...

So I google it & I watched the video

so marvellously melodramtic with a heart broken Christina watching a dementor of an ex boyf sucking the hearts out of various generic girls with a kiss, which is pretty awful in itself and then they start doing the expressive dance section of the promo - I nearly wet myself.


It reminded me of teenage angst and lost loves.  Many a times I've compiled a mix tape to convey my sorrow & then played it over and over to torture myself further.  Mr DOAMADQ had no idea what I was talking about when I said 'you know, when you listen to music to make youself cry...' No?  Just me then...

Top of my last tear stained tape was the Cranberries take your pick from No Need to Argue or Linger, Sinaead O'Connor's Nothing Compares , what ever was 'our' song would definately have featured too...

If I had to compile a weapy 'playlist' (how modern) today what would I put on it? Hmmn, am not sure if Christina Perri would make it.  However, Adele's  'Someone Like You' would would have to be there.  Such a beautifuly haunting song it makes me cry with empathy almost every time I listen to it. 

Now pass me some tissues & where are my jazz shoes? I feel some expressive dance moves coming on...

a reunion

Me, Mr DOMADQ & our 2 small girls have been invited to a mini reunion with some university friends of mine.  A weekend by the sea, how marvellous I hear you cry.  Yes, I cannot wait to meet up with the old crowd it will be lots of fun.  The only fly in the ointment being that this crowd are all friends of my ex boyfriend, and yes, he will be going too.  I now feel out of place, do I really belong there?  Am I an imposter in their group? I wasn't even in their year...


I have not seen this man for about 14 years.  This relationship did not end well, I had my heart well and truely broken & did not really recover until I met Mr DOMADQ.  He is the ghost of boyfriends past.


I have no doubt that it will be cordial but I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach at the thought of it now I know he is going.


I have 2 months to lose 6 stone - that is never going to happen.  I so want him to see me happy & sorted (when he last saw me I was a bit of a mess).  I want to look fabulous and I want him to feel sorry.  I don't want him to want me, I want him to be sorry.  I want him to say sorry.  Sorry for the way he dumped me, sorry that he then spent a summer picking me up & dropping me over and over and over because he knew I wouldn't say no.  Sorry for being such a shit that when I called to tell him that my Dad had died that he then tried to get me to go out for a drink with him (despite he being married to his 1st wife then and my having a boyfriend)...


I think I feel so uneasy because despite being married for 9 years, the scars of a stupid 6 month relationship are still in there somewhere. He will never be my friend because friends don't hurt each other like that.  So maybe he is the imposter among my friends.