THBBM - Midi-life

Midi-life
Catch the witness, catch the wit, catch the spirit, catch the spit...
6-20

Where the hell did I put that Cibo Matto disc?

I'm a stacker. If I have a compact disc that doesn't have a normal case, or if I just don't want to carry that much stuff around with me at one time, I'm the guy who will put 2 discs in the same jewel case.

And that wouldn't be a bad thing, except I'm also the guy who eventually forgets that the two discs are in there, and then can't find his own stuff later on.

It's not that uncommon to see me open the jewel case for one of my favorite groups only to find nothing inside. I'll stand there for a moment with a dumbfuck look in my eyes, and then the light bulb goes on and I remember that I probably just put it back in the wrong case...

And that's usually when I turn around to look at the shelf where I keep my CD's and remember that I have over 500 cases to choose from, and I don't remember which one it was that I stacked the other disc with.

Sometimes it actually works out in my favor - I'll open one CD only to find two discs inside, and the surprise one is actually something I want to listen to instead.

I don't know - just one of those lazy habits you pick up along the way. I was also horrible at labeling any blank cassettes I ever recorded something on, which almost always ended up in me taping over something important to me because I thought the tape with no label was the empty one.

I know I do it. I do it over and over.

...eh.

The Cibo Matto in question is Stereo Type A; part of a mp3 mix Gristina made for me a while back. I haven't heard it in a while, but every time I hear the remix of that one Gorillas track (which now is almost every time I turn on a television set) I find myself wanting to hear "Sci-fi Wasabi" instead.

The mp3 disc in question is plain white, with a couple of words in Andrew's signature scrawl written on there in blue ink. It didn't come with a regular jewel case, so it tends to float around my collection fairly freely.

I spent some time this morning digging through my collection looking for stacked packages - trying to pick them up to see if they're too heavy for just one CD, or shaking them a bit to see if something inside was looser than it should be. Neither of these methods did me much good, so eventually I found myself taking each case out, opening it, checking, and moving on.

I came across an Eryka Badu disc I thought I'd lost. A Duke Ellington I thought had been borrowed/stolen by someone Three copies of the same Korn disc in three different places Beastie Boys in the B-52's box Yousson N'Dour in with the Peter Gabriel.. (a good mix, I left that one there.)

After a while I started to wonder if I had maybe put it somewhere else. I used to keep that mp3 mix with me at work, where I would listen to it occasionally.

Seems like such a long time ago.

It was my first solo cubicle. As much as it could be, it was my first "office." My first space to fill with decorations, personalizations.. the first desk I really tried to make "mine."

For better or for worse, it was largely my home for almost two years.

I listened to music there, I wrote there; I met people there.

Once in a while I worked there... but that's another story.

When I was fired they made me pack all the things in my cubicle into cardboard boxes and then they escorted me out of the building like a criminal.

My former day life.

2 boxes.

I haven't opened or even looked into those 2 boxes since it happened.

Part of me actually believed that I shouldn't unpack them because soon enough I would be moving into another cubicle somewhere else and I could just set everything back up as if nothing had changed but the carpet color of the walls.

Part of me just couldn't bear to see it.

Standing there in front of the closet, the boxes staring back at me. Hastily taped closed, bearing the name of someone else who had moved their stuff into the office, not knowing the boxes would be used again later to move someone out.

Inside one of them is a bunch of photographs; the wife, the kid.. friends, the fam. A beer stein filled with pens I rarely used, certificates of appreciation and achievement given to me by coworkers and bosses once upon a time, computer disks, coffee mugs...

Inside the other box... books. Novels I read on my breaks, that sort of thing. A hand made flower pot that held some other pens, a bunch of action figures and doo-dads I used to spruce up and personalize my space... an Underdog lunchbox... more coffee mugs. A 1-year anniversary paperweight. A letter opener with the company's name on it...

Deeper down in the second box are a handful of worn issues of TapeOp magazine, an issue of Vanity Fair containing a great profile of Charlie Parker as well as a story about the unfortunate friendship between the then-unknown Beach Boys and a young drifter named Charles Manson. An old Surfer magazine with the Kookemeyer comic torn out…

Strewn in the box corners are a handful of small plastic monkeys... an inside joke from my former team.

No CD's. No Cibo Matto.

Nothing but the past… stacked on top of itself in an unlabeled case.