Albums

Spent over an hour tonight alphabetizing records, 99% of them 33s. I have wanted to alphabetize them since we bought our record player back in december. Seems whenever I wanted to find something I had to go through so many records and in the end listen to something completely unexpected, which is a sense is a good thing. I counted over 150 records, some with covers/sleeves that are in really good condition, other still in plastic and other so dirty my hands felt awful after touching them (wonder where those were stashed). For the first few years of marriage the records were in our attic space and we always figured we would create a listening station in the spare room, we never did.

Maybe that was a good thing because here in this house, it is perfect. So enjoyable to have our main living space be not a TV watching room but rather an easy relaxed listening room. Somedays we work around here listening to the likes of Johnny Cash, Rush, Creedence Clearwater, Neil Diamond, Journey, and Chicago to only name a few. Just realized we have no Kenny Rogers, guess we are going to have to find some. KISS seems to have the greatest number of albums in the collection followed by John Denver.

It is so great to listen to the crackling of the records and knowing that I have to sit through the songs I don't like to get to the songs I do, I can't just hit skip, and frankly it is too dangerous for me to move the needle. I am way to shaky. Everytime I tried to do something small and careful my hand starts shaking like I am making my first surgery cut. In any case, it is kind of cool to just let things be as they are for once. We are so used to just changing something if we don't like with this digital age. Mind you I don't completely understand electricity and radio waves, I know I have had these explained to me a million times but it still perplexes me. Well frankly so do records, how on earth do you get music out of little lines on a piece of vinyl?

Don't get me wrong I love listening to Pandora on the computer, I can put in any genre or singer and have music instantly. But there is something about the historical significance to records and the relaxed attitude that comes with listening to it. Or when listening to Journey the need to belt out at the top of my lungs each song I know (or shall we say, think I know) the words too.

So now that I have practiced my alphabet and saw records that I would love to listen to, but after 150 records I kind of forgot which ones those were. But the nice thing is I can start at A (Al Martino) and walk my fingers to W(Walt Disney) and find something in there that will suit my mood...or desire to sing.

In honor of Journey - Don't stop believing....