Assorted

1. I remember when I got my first iPod rabbiting on incessantly about the brilliant kooky juxtapositions of the shuffle setting - like this was a really original observation. But still, it's true!

2. I cannot imagine... not only my affection for, but how I know DC, without an iPod in my pocket. Walking has always been my favourite way to get around this city and I associate particular blocks or routes with particular songs, albums, moods, life events. There was one late winter period when I walked every evening from Foggy Bottom back to civilization (i.e. U street environs) accompanied by, of all things, Confessions on a Dance Floor. I was being a coward about a boy (shocking, I know) and looking for a new job and thinking about grad school and was suffused with a sense of possibility and opportunity and cruxes - I made the wrong decision about him, but the right choices elsewhere. And that album will always mean passing the Watergate and sidestepping GW students in my red winter coat while meditating on the tides of my life.

3. Leaving aside the shuffle question entirely, having digitally organized music makes me aware of my collection in a different way. In no universe would I have ever been capable of alphabetizing tapes or CDs, but scrolling through my iPod, I can see 'Robyn' and 'The Roots' on the same screen, and realize that they make PERFECT listening companions.

4. Also, I love/hate sorting my music by play count. I wish I was strong enough to love Enrique Iglesias unironically.