THE MIX(ed) TAPE: Now there's a walk down Romance Lane... yes, the boys I was dating would give me mixed tapes and, by 2000, mix-CDs. I'd even get these from boys I had only met through ads but hadn't actually met. These tapes were great!!

The mix tape sent by mail (late 1980s, early 1990s) served as an introduction to the boy's inner landscape and deepest feelings in a way that words and letters could never do. The tapes said, "I'm tongue-tied around you - but this music shows you that I have deep feelings." Then there was that one guy who wasn't on my dance card so he stayed up late making mix tapes and dropping them off in my mailbox. I heard the longing in songs like this that one boyfriend put on his tape - this song says, I love you, but I want to be alone. Or maybe it says, I wish I had a boat. I wish you were a pony.

The mix tape is about musical tastes but it is also a kind of autobiography of love and pain.

tng: I will not play - but I would like to receive the mix tape you make for someone else. I'll send you something appropriate in return. Note: you posted two shout-outs to me in the list above. I feel so special!