High Fedelity

I've been making compilation tapes for people since the first cassette tape player I ever had. I remember doing it at six. I might have been doing it before then.I also remember recording movie clips and mixing the two together, back before MTV made that kind of thing cool. I didn't know what MTV was until I was twelve. We didn't watch television and never had cable while I was living at home. The hands-down best compilation tape I ever received was from a man named Joshua Bell. I contacted Josh on accident the first time. I was intending to send a message to someone else. I was doing one of those "Oh, his first name is this and his last name is this, which would make his email address blahblahfirstinitallastname@indstate.edu. That's the problem with blonde logic. It's stupid. 

Anyways, Josh emailed me to tell me I got the wrong dude. I made some pithy remark back and so on. Next thing you know, we were sending snippets of each other's writing. But we had both already been burned pretty badly. We weren't willing to take any leaps into the romantic void. Instead, we had the coolest non-relationship I ever had. We left shit for each other at the reference desk in the library. The first time, he left me a compilation tape and a book named "Kinky", which was a book of short poems all about a deflated, depressed, washed out Barbie doll in various situations. Very feminist. On that first compilation tape, he introduced me to greats like Afghan Whigs and Spot 1019. They would lead me into other artists that would rock my world more than MTV would later let me down. 

I only ever met Josh in person once. I went to one of his readings on campus. We shook hands. We never saw each other again. 

I know now that he was only a slice of the person I would later strive to become. I can think of a handful of men that have passed in and out of my life in that way, showing me a glimpse of what I could be if I just tried harder. Josh went on to publish a book of poetry and get his doctorate. I should be surprised how much he pops up in my head, but I'm not. He was the first to show me the hidden door - - proof that I wasn't as dense as everyone else thought I was. I couldn't be pushed through that door by someone else. I had to walk through tall, on my own. But Josh showed me where the door was...and that it was within my reach. 

His book, No Planets Strike, is my favorite collection of poetry. Particularly "Milk Division."