Five Unique Items

I'm purloining this meme topic from Dr. Andy, who inspired me to browse through my neglected CD collection and wind down memory lane in the process.

Name a CD you own that no other friend does.


Since the majority of my CDs are school-related items, and I run the risk of everyone who also took a jazz class or a Stravinsky class or who spent weekends listening and evaluating to horn audition excerpts and idly wondering why they didn't have a social life also having these recordings, I have to eliminate 90% of my collection out of hand. My mind first turned to a CD I got when I was 13 by a band named Gretchen (self-described as "Pearl Jam meets Gin Blossoms meets Carly Simon") because I KNOW no one has it because the band never got signed and I might've seen their farewell performance in a coffee house in Rolla, Missouri when I was 14, but that might be cheating. I've ended up with a CD called NBC Celebrity Christmas, because I'm pretty sure no one else in the world felt it was necessary to spend ten dollars to hear the cast of "Just Shoot Me" sing "Sleigh Ride", but I got it because Stockard Channing was on it and so was a version of the Coventry Carol and that's my favorite. Plus, it's been on rotation on my stereo at some of my more memorable Christmases, including the one where my roommates topped our tree with a cut out Victoria's Secret angel and we posed, in our pajamas, for a house Christmas card with our holiday message written on Sharpie marker across my white wife beater t-shirt.

Name a book you own that no one else on your friends list does.

I'm going to go with Elizabeth I: Collected Works which not only was a pretty fascinating read, but also is useful as it marks the divider between my Books I am Not Embarrassed to Admit I Own and my Paperbacks That Are Either Hot Pink Or Have a High Heel or a Cocktail On The Cover.

Name a movie you own on DVD/VHS/whatever that no one else on your friends list does.

Hm. This might be the hardest one, because my DVD collection is pretty small. I'm going to say "Waiting for Guffman" because it just makes me beyond happy to watch and quote, and anyone else who understands...who really GETS why this movie is so exactly dead on and perfect in every way is my BF-4F4.

Name a place that you have visited that no one else on your friends list has.

Backstage at the Verizon Wireless (then just Sandstone) Ampitheatre. In 1996, for my
mom's 40th birthday, her friends took her to see a Monkees concert and they made me tag along. Since I was a fifteen year old girl with little or no vested interest in the Monkees I spent a lot of time sulking and pacing between the general admission seats and the little vendor area at the top. During one of my laps, I found a VIP pass on the ground and decided to be adventurous. I put it on, and walked backstage with such little attention or questioning it was as if Jesus himself had ordained me to be there. I lied to a roadie and told them I won a radio contest to be a "Roadie for the Day" and spent the rest of the evening moving instruments in and out of a bus, sitting on amplifiers with groupies and eating M&Ms from a small candy dish in the green room. Also passed out water bottles and sweat rags to the Monkees, which finally sort of made me lose my sense of bershon about the evening.


Name a piece of technology or any sort of tool you own that you think no one else on your friends list has.

Wow...I got nuthin'. I'm not much of a technophile, and my "tools" consist of a hammer, a screwdriver, and a set of ratchets for which I have absolutely no use. I do have an antique mixer my grandma passed down on me that I absolutely love. It's cumbersome and hard to clean and weighs like 60 lbs. but it also has 10 speeds and it works better than any three hundred dollar KitchenAid mixer I've seen. Cooking and baking is an extremely important ritual for me, because it's not only an act of love for the people I'm serving, but it's also basic..therapeutic in its simple logic and procedures. Anyway, I wax rhapsodic about this mixer because when I take the time to get it out and actually use it, it unfailingly gives me the perfect building blocks to put together something really wonderful.