I thought about writing here that I wish I still had a cassette player and tapes for it so I could make a mix tape, but that’s not true. To be honest, that was a real pain — ending the tape at just the right spot, making sure there was enough room, the occasional fail when the tape player eats the only copy of your favorite mix. But please, don’t take away my CDs. Not yet. I’m in the process of computer shopping, and was horrified to learn that it’s not really acceptable anymore to have a CD drive on your laptop.

“Don’t you have a device to listen to music on?” the IT guy asked, looking puzzled. Of course I do. And I also have a CD player in the car and one at home because I can’t figure out how to put the music on the device(s).

“Hey, don’t rush me,” I muttered.

Even my high-tech husband agrees that it’s too early to completely abandon CDs. Plus, how would you present your friends with a mix? I’m still holding on to the greeting card, and I’m going to hang on to the mix CD, too. (Though I did get a book in the mail the other day that was published in 1931 and when I opened it I was reminded of the scene in the book Super Sad True Love Story where the protagonist gets yelled at on a plane for opening a stinky, musty book.)

This weekend I sat down at the (still somewhat functional) laptop and made a mix. Nothing fancy, it’s just songs I heard and liked. Some are really cheesy, and not even ironic Hall & Oates cheesy, but, rather, rock-out-in-traffic-with-no-one-else-in-the-car cheesy. Someone asked me for the list, so I tried cutting and pasting it from iTunes to WordPress, but even that eluded me. I think this is pretty close, though. If you want a copy, let me know and I’ll burn you one.

But you have to promise to make a mix, too.