A Mix CD and a Lonely Halloween

I'm sitting here listening to the best mix CD I've ever heard in my life. A friend from Starkville planned to make me a "Going to California" album before I left, but things happen and priorities get shifted and I'm just now getting the thing. Doesn't matter. When I put it in and started listening, I was overcome with all the same feelings I had the day I drove out of that place. Those same mixed emotions of elation and sadness, eagerness and feeling like something was over. The CD is almost a narrative, with songs about small towns, getting away, finding dreams, riding shotgun and saying goodbye. I'll get emotional every time I listen to it, I have no doubts. And I can remember a point when I would never openly admit that, but I'm not afraid to say it now.

Here's the track listing, for those of you who care:
1. Smallsville - Gladhands
2. Free to Go - The Folk Implosion
3. I Ran (So Far Away) - Flock of Seagulls
4. Rental Car - Beck
5. Quality of Armor - Guided By Voices
6. Destination Unknown - Missing Persons
7. Rockin' Down the Highway - The Doobie Brothers
8. Freeways - Bachman-Turner Overdrive
9. In A Big Country - Big Country
10. Red Carpet Ride - Tiara
11. Moving - Supergrass
12. Passenger Side - Wilco
13. Ride With Me - The Lemonheads
14. Under the Milky Way - The Church
15. Across the Universe - The Beatles
16. Going to California - Led Zeppelin
17. Ventura Highway - America
18. Lemme Take You to the Beach - Frank Zappa
19. Losing California - Sloan
20. Bye Bye Goodbye - Brak

Good stuff, I tell ya. Kudos to Mike Yeager. He wins the award for best mix CD craftsmanship. It really is quite genius.

In other news, it's a strange night on South Bentley. Halloween will pass me by this year, and I won't have pretended to be anyone else. This is new for me. I love transforming. Becoming, if only for a night, something I'm not. It's exhilarating. And it gives me an excuse to wear fishnets and too much eyeliner...which now that I think about it, I don't really need an excuse for in California. I guess that frame of mind harkens back to life in Mississippi.

Oh, and I finally got a job! I say that as such an afterthought, when in reality, unemployment has become the bane of my existence these last few months. It's a huge deal that I finally have something. It's only a part-time gig for now, but it's in my field and will look great on my resume. I am quite thrilled about the situation. I'll finally start feeling like I'm planting my feet firmly here. It's a good thing.

So I'm gonna keep listening to this wonderful CD. A tear might fall. Because it's nights like these when I long desperately for a roomful of familiar faces. And who am I kidding? Music affects me like little else. The saddest movie in the world won't make me flinch, but put on a good song and you just might need a flotation device.