My  friend IPOD,

We’ve been friends for quite a while now, and I listen to you for countless hours every day- so I think  it’s about time for you to hear me out.

For the most part, I love you. I really do. You’ve  been there for me through the good times and the bad. You’ve helped me study for exams. You’ve allowed me the excuse not to talk to certain people when I’m not in the mood. I also have to give you some of the credit for my losing so much weight the last 2 years because there is no way I would have ever gone to the gym without you.

You keep me company anytime that I’m in my car and all day through work, and I thank you for that. I’ve all but quit talking to my old friend radio and I haven’t even looked at another cd since I met you, and I don’t even miss them. I’ve come to rely on you to ” keep me in the know ” about a variety of different subjects via podcasts.  More nights than not, I even ignore my newly purchased flat screen tv to watch my downloaded tv shows and rented movies on your tiny screen.

I’ve already given you  10, 224 songs, and last time I checked my itunes account history I had spent over $4,500 dollars on you over the last three years. So by now you should know how much you mean to me.

A few months ago I have to admit that I thought it was kind of funny when your shuffle function kept playing Barry Mannilow’s Copa Cabana. I even chuckled a little when you tried to be funny and  play 3 Marylin Manson songs in a row, just when I settled into a relaxing soak in the tub. It seems lately though, you have lost all sense of irony, and now your just being a jerk. What did I do to you to make you hurt me so? Why do you insist on playing with my heart?

Don’t play stupid and act as if you weren’t there in the beginning of the relationship when I would manually play those certain songs over and over again.  I even made a certain secret play list that I would put on repeat. You never shuffle played them for me then, so why are you playing them so often now-when you know those are the last songs that I want to hear? I would just erase them from you completely, but I know one day I will want to hear those songs, it’s just too soon. Plus I don’t like to not have a complete album. For the next few months would you please refrain from torturing my ears and my heart with your choice of shuffle songs. If you can do this for me, I’ll even try to not skip over all the rap songs that you love to play when I’m trying to meditate.

Thank you for your cooperation,

me

It pains me to think about the fact that- somewhere in my parent’s house there are cassette tapes that (assuming someone could actually find a working tape player) would reveal countless hours of me singing a capella versions of Lisa Loeb and Salt and Peppa. And believe you me, they would be enough to drive you to cut your eardrums out with a paperclip.

Naturally I have spent hours, if not days, obsessing over the possibility of suffering a tragic accidental death. As sad as that is, I have probably spent twice that amount of time thinking about what will happen after the fact. After choking to death, I will probably be found in my kitchen in my underwear after yet another attempt at swallowing a spoonful of cinnamon without water. My naked flab will be shown on CNN and I will become the poster child warning folks about the dangers of mixing ambien with alcohol.

People will gather for my funeral and laugh and cry, remembering all the ridiculous things I have done. They will read my journals and wonder why, at the age of twenty six, I still listed out my favorite actors in the order that I would want to “do” them. At this point, I would like for each attendee will get to pick out a dvd from my collection to remember me by.

Then my mother will remember the tapes.

I imagine my memorial scene will turn into something like the barfarama scene in “Stand By Me.” Except instead of puking in disgust, everyone will laugh so hard that they are spitting red wine and chicken salad sandwiches out of their noses.

The only positive situation I can see that could possibly happen with those tapes-is that if I do happen to die in one of the tragic scenarios I have imagined, and it is covered by enough of the media, there is a slight chance I could become the post-mortem William Hung.

Now my real question is, if my parents can keep a cassette tape from the 80’s (that no one could possibly ever want to hear again,) how in hell does NASA lose  footage of their greatest accomplishment ever? I bet that since the late seventies nearly half of the human population’s parents have videotaped THEIR first steps on EARTH. Get it together NASA.

Regardless I’m not buying into the conspiracies. I’ve watched enough of the early episodes of Star Trek to know that that space special effects in 1969 weren’t that good.

Also, here is a good article debunking some of the conspiracies, in case you’re interested.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/photogalleries/apollo-moon-landing-hoax-pictures/index.html

What I find to be much more important than the original moon walk video, is  the fact that the original Space Oddity video is still in great condition and is available for your viewing any time you want on youtube.

David Bowie\’s Space Oddity

And if I have peaked your curiosity enough to where you want to hear me sing before I’m dead, there is a very good possibility that I will be singing this very song, tonight, at a karaoke bar near you.