she fell in love with another

i met james through tasha when i was only 15. he would be my second boyfriend ever. i had just broken things off with micah over the telephone, whack, i know.
james wasn't really my type but i liked that about him. i loved that he listened to oldies & pop punk. we spent a lot of time in his mother's basement. he would take out his moms old 45s and play tommy james & the shondells , crimson & clover ,
over
& over
& over.
the first time he made me a mixtape, my heart peeled.
songs by the rentals, weezer, the queers, riverdales & groovie ghoulies. i listened to that tape day after day. we were so serious & talked about marriage. he was 3 years older than me and when he left for college, i thought my life would end.
until i met michael. but michael never made me a mixtape. those years were behind us. he burned me full length underground hip hop cds.
cds never took the same heat.

holy moley crapola. buy this fucking book. this just came out october 27th and i preordered it because duh, i am obsessed with mixtapes! the single, most pure form of devotion for the music lover..total goo gaga. i can't say enough good things about this book.
here's an excerpt on the book
Cassette From My Ex (St. Martin's Press, September, 2009)
They were into you, so they made you a tape. Today you don't have a cassette player, but you still can't toss that mix. We share the stories and the soundtrack to your earliest loves.

Cassette From My Ex explores the world of the mixtape and the place it holds in relationships past. The sentiment attached to the selection of music, carefully selected and more often than not fraught with meaning will never quite be lost. Before the days of CDs and iPods, mixtapes offered a way to say all the things that clumsy teenage words never could. A mixtape offers no option to neatly skip a song and so listening to a mixtape meant listening to the entire playlist start to finish. Writers have submitted mixtapes dug up and discovered in shoeboxes and storage spaces and provide stories to accompany them. Sweetly romantic, awkward, funny and/or sentimental, Bitner’s collection will awaken the nostalgia of his readers.

so are you still thinking about it?! you shouldn't be. bUY THIS book. IT WILL take you back.
ah, sweet james. i hope you're well, where ever you are. this book makes me think of you and your countless mixes you made and mailed back to me. thank you.