whenever it's real, whenever it's right

dear friends,

thank you very much for this gift. it will certainly keep on giving as it will go out in many mixes to come &/or be played to all those that wind up in my living room watching tv & drinking classy broads. apparently, there are some late (but worthy) additions to this mix, which I will add here as I receive them.

I'm not the most subtle of people. I usually come out & ask for stuff. which is why whenever I'd tell j that for my birthday I wanted my friends to cover my favorite songs, it was half dare & half demand. after all, I've spent a bit of time getting people to cover music, it wasn't such an out there request. j being j, he would only look at me & go "oh yeah...? (magazine page flip)" which in jeremy-speak means "slow statement consideration commencing. (hourglass icon)"

eventually, I forgot about this until about a month & a half or so ago when I started picking up on some unusually suspicious behavior from my mate. namely, crazily frequent surreptitious email checking, odd lyric quoting*, & an extremely distracted & frazzled air. there were red flags from other folks as well; strangely worded remarks, random birthday texting & a blog post by tavie, one of j's friends & co-workers, pretty much detailing what was up. so the cat was definitely, if not quite OUT of the bag, pretty darn visible. a week ago I told j that he was full of shady & when he expressed "who, me?" I elaborated by saying that if I was a lioness & he, a grazing gazelle, then I just caught the gazelle looking suspiciously casual as he chewed on leaves. hunter gets captured by the game? uzi hidden in the plains? something was up. jeremy laughed. unbelievable.

come monday, september 25, my actual birthday, I looked him right in the eye & asked him for my present. he gave me a book I'd already read & wearily went back to checking his email. I was flabbergasted. I sulked. I might've even gone out in the street & kicked a can or two. luckily, there was a party to look forward to on the next day. I went to sleep at 4am & dreamt of natural disasters.

of course, he gave it to me at the party.

j, you are very sneaky. & a bad kid. thank you for resisting my laser beam stares even if it was excruciating for both of us & thank you for even attempting the herculean task of exec producing this lovely cd.

thank you friends! I am impressed (with the exception of marts & tina, who don't realize they're some of the worst liars I have ever encountered & that is a good thing really) with all of you for not letting it slip, not even for a second. all of your songs are fantastic & this is a dream birthday gift for this sweaty little fangirl. if you guys are gluttons for punishment & want to do something like this again, do me favor, & let a sister know what's up. she can't handle the suspense.

love, d

PS to all my friends who were not contacted because j isn't shameless like me (eh, searching for contacts through his cell phone & email address books when he wasn't looking while organizing guitarmy? yeah. did that.) please add stuff to this mix. after all no one took on pj harvey, vu, new order, the beatles, aaliyah, nina simone, the zombies, helium, bjork, yo la tengo, slick rick, wire, the pixies, the b-52s, etc, etc, etc.

* jeremy. saying "gigolo, huh? sucka." in the shower.