I sorted my music by Mojo-defined genre for a change and noticed a very strange juxtaposition in the category of “’80s Pop”:

“Centerfold” by the J. Geils Band directly followed by

“Black Velvet” by Alannah Myles (don’t hate me ’cause I’m cheesy).

and I’m like, why? Why do I have these together in the same sort because they represent two vastly different phases of my life.

The remembery I associate with “Centerfold” is a roller rink. I was 13.

The remembery I associate with “Black Velvet” is my room in the apartment I shared with 3 other girls in Provo, Utah. I was 21.

That’s not to mention all the flashes of rememberies in between the Centerfold part of my life and the Black Velvet part of my life, all rich in music, rich in experience, all helping to define my personality and philosophy, riding with me through alternating giddy and painful adolescence to adulthood. (Although to be fair, I don’t remember much between giddy and painful ’cause I tend toward the melodramatic. Betcha hadn’t noticed that yet.)

I have self-defined genres that fit a certain aspect of my life. I remember nearly every song on the radio the day I sat in my aunt’s house in Salt Lake, waiting for my parents to say it was time to take me to Provo and leave me there for the next 4 years of my life, 1200 miles from home. Shit, I couldn’t wait. (Never mind I didn’t make it 4 years and ended up with a home-grown degree from UMKC.)

I also have one that chronicles the summer I was 20, feeling my oats, not a care in the world and delivering pizza on a lunch rush for fun money. I went to Europe that summer for a month with my family and I couldn’t turn around in Holland and Germany without hearing Belinda Carlisle’s “Circle in the Sand.”

I did a lot that summer. I wish I’d done more.