Sound Track

Have you ever found yourself in (what I'm going to call) one of those stock moments of life? The kind of moment where you suddenly come to yourself and realize that you are living the kind of thing that ends up as part of a Vic Borge act.

Stephen and I were talking at lunch a few Fridays ago about how certain songs are meant for certain activities. Some are written for general things like play or entertaining a dinner party. Other songs have very specific purposes. Some songs are meant for morning tea and the newspaper when the weather is very damp. Stephen says that the song “Two of Us” is for folding laundry. He says that it is part of an entire play list on his iPod that he specifically compiled for doing laundry. I had never thought of making a soundtrack for everything in life (especially the behind the scenes stuff like laundry).

I started a play list for doing laundry a few Friday nights ago. It starts with “Two of Us”. So far its only other companion is “L'Appuntamento”. I spent that Friday evening house and dog sitting and doing my laundry. When the play list ran out of songs for the folding I starting watching a romantic sort of movie that I had heard was good (it was) to keep the ears and eyes occupied while the hands busied themselves with warm fresh fabric. The work agitated the dog. I was slowly unraveling the nest he had made of my dryer-fresh clothes. The work made it hard for him to pay attention to the movie (yes, this dog will sit and watch television if you turn the machine on).

And then I laughed at myself. I spoke to the dog. He listened patiently. “Do you realize how pathetic we are? It's Friday night. We should be living life to the fullest in a coffee shop somewhere. But here we are in old denim and not very white cotton watching a chick flick and folding laundry and listening to love songs. Alone. I miss my girlfriend.” Duncan only cocked his head and raised his ears in ignorance, but I chose to read into it as mild sympathy. “You need to go out, don’t you?” He knew what those words meant and jumped through my towers of permanent press toward the door.

Since then I've started a few other incidental play lists. I now have the 'Swankified' list for big dinner parties as well as the 'Jacky' play list for dessert. I find now that I cannot mop the kitchen without blaring bagpipes.

I'm deliberately not making any play lists for those awkward and mundane moments of life (though it would be nice if stuck in a lull in conversations to whip out your iPod and say, "I have a song just for this!"). And I am even more deliberately avoiding those stock moments. I can't play piano as well as Vic could, anyway.