Ironic Jukebox

I was a weird kid. There is evidence to suggest that I am becoming a weird adult, certainly. But I often look back on my childhood and wonder if the friends I had were actual or if I dreamt them up, because a kid that strange probably had a hard time in the lunch room and on the playground. Truth is, I was at my best and my happiest on my own, with my bedroom door shut, keeping my family and any other meddling eyes far away from the mysterious workings of my imagination. But then again most kids are weird and imaginative, I know — and I shouldn’t think myself too special. It’s just where music is concerned I don’t think “special” really begins to accurately describe the tastes of my youth.

My intense emotional predilection for movie scores (instrumental I’m talking here; not soundtracks — that would be normal) is a major exhibit of my adolescent quirkiness. A favorite Christmas stocking stuffer of mine was the score to Jurassic Park, which I played on my private CD player, on repeat ’til I wore the poor thing out. What would I do whilst listening to the regal trumpets and soaring string sections of the miraculous John Williams? Why, sit cross legged on my bedroom floor and dream of the great feats I would accomplish in the future, naturally! But it didn’t stop there. In time, I would place a mirror in front of my bureau and literally look up at the ceiling, face filled with hope, occasionally glancing back at my reflection to make sure the hope and anticipation I had in my future self was appropriate and convincing. I cannot remember a career I imagined having in these moments or a feat I actually imagined accomplishing, yet there I sat, hour after hour, listening to the heavy bass lines that represented the T Rex and embodying fear and bravery in the face of adversity. My eyes welled with tears (in my dreams they became blue eyes…). I gave myself goose bumps. Yes. I was really weird.

Some math and research has indicated to me that I was about 11 or 12 when I was doing this — which is not that bad, really. My peers may have been experimenting with booze or cigarettes or minor sexual practices, while I was miming to tracks such as “The Incident at Isla Nublar” or “My Friend, The Brachiosaurus,” but at least I held onto my childhood good and hard. Perhaps what is more perplexing is what followed…

In college, I was obviously growing up, but I was still an emotional, high-strung, sentimental young lady. I kept my penchant for musical scores secret in the dorm because by that point I was at least self aware and hip to the fact that discussing the finer crescendos of The Rocketeer might not be the best way to make cool new friends. But I was homesick and heartsick, and in my suitcase of personal effects, I had been sure to pack a very important and inspirational security blanket — that of the score to Little Women.

Night after night, that first month away, I silently cried myself to sleep, headphones on, while pairing my own emotional trials with those of Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth –which were depicted by the touching musical genius of Thomas Newman (cousin of that wacky Randy). I would continue to dream of the great things I would do (these great things were now upon me, knocking, scratching away at my door in Buist Hall), but my dreams were now tinged with sorrow. I missed my mom, my dad, New Jersey, everything.

While listening to Little Women in the tear-stained moments before sleep I found that my homesickness morphed into something more romantic — longing — and I was stronger for it. In the morning I would wake up and vow to write a fan letter to Thomas Newman, to let him know his work truly mattered, and that it was a sin, a literal, cardinal sin that he had been nominated eight times for an Academy Award and had not won once. He was “The Winner” to me. People needed to tell other people when they loved something the other people/person had created. They needed to shout it from the rooftops!

In short, I needed to be more interested in boys.

The year plodded on and I became more at home in the dorm. In addition to downloading endless John Mayer and Indigo Girls tracks on my Limewire account (indeed, I was a very lost soul), I clicked and clicked and clicked and clicked some more until I had amassed a superior collection of scores that I could listen to every night and lull myself into a more exciting, impassioned sleep. I was done with the catharsis that Little Women had brought me. Now I was downloading Forrest Gump! I had The English Patient! I had Empire of the Sun! Legends of the Fall! How to Make An American Quilt! The Mission and Last of The Mohicans! Glory, too…and the all-powerful, awe-inspiring Apollo 13! In all, my quest for inspiration amounted to a 25 track compilation of greatest hits from movie scores which I burned to a CD and labeled “Beautiful Music,” listening to it at study and at rest and at my less and less frequent moments of sorrow.

What I have not mentioned is that I was housed in the all girls Honors dorm. My roommate at the time had decorated every square inch of her half of the room with Winnie the Pooh memorabilia. A girl down the hall spend 95% of her conversational time talking about her dressage horse, Prancer. In truth, there were way stranger agents than me circulating those halls. And in time, I found a friend with whom I felt comfortable enough to share my secret. I burnt her a copy of “Beautiful Music.” We watched Circle of Friends and the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice together ad nauseum. But by the second semester we were drinking Boone’s Farm and listening to Sisqo in the common room while plotting ways to actively admire members of the basketball team from a distance. And that, dear reader, was the beginning of the end…

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