Why I’m not ‘in’ to music.

Have you ever typed out a blog post, reread it, read it again, and then just trashed it because you have the feeling no one will understand WTF you were trying to say? Just me? Moving on then …

Random Post by Tottums Day it is then!

And when I say ‘random’, I mean random things you didn’t know about me (unless this is my mom reading, HI MOM!) post day. I know, I know … lame. Feel free to click the X in the upper right hand corner if you’re bored to tears by now. I promise I won’t cry … a lot.

Random thing about me you did not know – I’m not really ‘in’ to music. I blame my parents.

When I was 9 (right about that age when pop culture starts becoming important in your life) my parents up and moved me to England. Land of exactly 4 TV channels, an on-base bookstore the size of my living room (which we all know is pretty cozy), and since it was 1991, no internet. While I know that since then, the UK has made leaps and bounds in joining the rest of the world in clothing/music/television trends, in 1991? Not so much. We even got movies 4-6 months after they came out in the states. The only music listening I did was to my dad’s collection of Garth Brooks cassette tapes and the soundtracks to a bunch of Andrew Lloyd Weber musicals my mom had.

Needless to say, when I moved back to the states 3 years later I was the BIGGEST NERD EVER. The day we moved into our house in Virgina, two girls my age came over to say hi. They of course, wanted to know all about me. ‘Where are you from? How old are you? What kind of music do you like?’

I had been dreading this question. I remember telling myself, ‘Just be vague … don’t let on that you have NO CLUE as to what you ‘should’ be listening to.’

‘Um, you know, I like a lot of different things. Country and soft rock mostly.’

::crickets::

They looked at me like I had 3 heads and then started tossing around words like ‘Green Day’ and ‘Pearl Jam’ and ‘Coolio’ and I felt like I wanted to throw up. ‘SOFT ROCK’??? WTF were you thinking Tottums?? You might have well just told them you preferred to mellow out to Michael-freaking-Bolton.

I don’t know if my parents actually ever realized how awful that first year back in the states was for me (8th grade no less, OUCH) … how freaking awkward I was. I mean, really, I had spent the last 3 years SQUEEEEEING! over getting to shop out of the JC Penny catalog when it showed up twice a year (which should tell you right there how pitiful I was). My dad tried to help and took me to the music store and bought me a tape of the Bangles greatest hits (he meant well, lol). It took me about a year to get back into the groove of what was cool (Garth = not cool, TLC = cool) … but I’m pretty sure the damage was already done … to this day, I am just not that ‘in’ to music.

My husband, however, is WAY into music. He has about 4 million songs on his iPod, he goes to a concert usually every other month or so, he is an encyclopedia on all things music related … so hopefully, our boys will have a fighting chance. Not that there is anything wrong with being a nerd, but I don’t want them showing up to middle school and making asses of themselves because they think ‘soft rock’ will cover all their bases when asked what genre of music they like best.

Just so we’re clear though, I would rock the eff out at a Garth reunion tour. Him and Eminem. Yup. Sure would.