11 Mile & Little Mack

My current favorite playlist - a celebration of those dreary high school years (which, looking back, were pretty horrible, but also pretty good. My friends rocked - in all of their bookish, nerdy, dyed black hair, aerosol-hairspray-using, Honors European History-taking, white socks and Doc Martens-wearing glory).


-Charlotte Sometimes The Cure
-John, I’m Only Dancing David Bowie
-Punk Rock Girl The Dead Milkmen
-Hold Back the Rain Duran Duran
-I Do Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians
-Hey Jealousy The Gin Blossoms
-It’ a Shame About Ray The Lemonheads
-Don’t Dream It’s Over Crowded House
-Down By the Water PJ Harvey
-Roxanne The Police
-Pride (In the Name of Love) U2


These songs remind me of the following: hanging out in the Greenwood Elementary School playground and/or the Jefferson Middle School tennis courts after dark, looking up at the stars; driving around in MK's Blazer, and later in his rehabbed squad car; talking on the phone while sitting on the edge of the bathtub in my grandmother's house, the curly white phone cord smushed in the door frame and pulled to its longest possible length; sitting in the dark on the marching band bus next to CG, listening to the Cure and talking about getting out of there; ratting out JMcD's hair, the ruckus we caused in our high school by merely becoming good friends, and JC and I taking JMcD and SS to the Shelter to dance (oh, that rush of going to "downtown Detroit" and running across the parking lot to get through the door in time to get the lower cover price); sneaking some of the boys in to the drive in by hiding them in the "way back" of JMcK's parents' station wagon, then all of us lined up across the car's massive hood, arms 'round each other so we wouldn't fall off, torn between watching the movie and watching the stars...


My memory of much of high school is hazy, at best. It's a wonder that this iPod thing has the power to take me back.