Security Blanket CD

Tonight, although I should be packing for a whirlwind weekend in Miami, I am procrastinating. So here I am writing and not packing. I keep thinking about how proud I am that I cooked the other night and I didn't even have to play my comfort, security blanket CD! Anytime I feel sad or anxious or I can't sleep, I play this particular CD. I think that it is my all-time favorite. It is not titled Security Blanket CD. It is actually nameless which is unusual for me since I usually give titles to all my mixes. I know this mix of songs like the back of my hand. I know each segue. I know that the Tift Merritt track is way louder than the rest of the songs. I have played this mix probably a hundred times or more. And, I definitely I remember making it. It was December 2001 and I was really really sad: it was Christmastime, I was sad over a boy, my house was really cold and a pipe burst, and I just come home from eye surgery. I was depressed. This is what I felt:

Beatles - I Will
Percy Sledge - Come Softly to Me
Blossom Dearie - Tea for Two
Azure Ray - Displaced
Velvet Underground - Sunday Morning
Rufus Wainwright - Rebel Prince
Aretha Franklin - Skylark
Nick Drake - Northern Sky
Magnetic Fields - Book of Love
Red House Painters - Song for Blue Guitar
Tift Merritt - Trouble Over Me
Elliott Smith - Between the Bars
Al Green - How Can You Mend a Broken Heart
Radiohead - No Surprises
Big Star - Thirteen
East River Pipe - My Little Rainbow
Ryan Adams - La Cienega Just Smiled
Dump - some prince cover
Rose Melberg - My Heaven, My Sky
Hope Sandoval - Suzanne

A couple friends have told me that it is their favorite mix CD. (Wow. What a compliment!) My friend, Lightnin', liked it so much that he sent me a copy of his own security blanket mix CD. I still have my mix CD somewhere, but I haven't needed it lately. I have been sleeping better than I have in probably 10 years and I don't know why. Maybe it's the blogging. Maybe it is the cooking. Or maybe it is my rekindled obsession with music. Or maybe it my steering away from depressing mix CDs from December 2001. It's time to pack away the security blanket and be a big kid.