Along with this blog, I got a Napster account. Accidentally, of course, and just so that I could listen to the song Becca had linked to on her blog, which was a perfectly nice song, something maple, or the band was something maple.

Yes, it was the first time I ever went to Napster. No, I am not over 80. I'm just not very good at being into music. And when I signed into Napster and tried to browse genres and the only thing that appealed to me was "Vocal/Nostalgia" I realized that Napster was going to know that I wasn't their kind of people. Sure enough, it crashed before I could select anything. I tried again. And it crashed. Napster and I went through this little charade about five times before I withdrew with what small amount of grace I could muster.

So, Napster, you win this round. I'll let the hip music people pick out the good music people and set links on their blogs and I'll have my Napster account so I can listen to what I'm told to listen to.

(Do we still say "hip"? I'll bet we don't. There's undoubtedly some other word; I'll ask my 12 year old. She's the cool one. Or whatever -- you know what I mean.)

I like music with intelligent lyrics and strong melodies. I like songs I can sing along to. Broadway scores, older rock & roll, big band vocals. I don't run into many people whose musical tastes align with my own. Wait, I take that back. Sometimes I'll meet a man who shares my taste in music, but then he will invariably turn out to also share my taste in men.

I used to I loved going dancing in gay bars and I had lots of harmless flirtations with guys I met. Good times.

The ones that stick in my craw are the ones who were not openly gay but would come out later, usually with a speech that went "I feel so close to you; I've never felt this close to anyone in my life as I feel to you. That's why I feel like I can say this -- I've never been able to say this to anyone before, ever. (Big pause) I'm gay." After the first few times I stopped expecting the end of that speech to be "I love you" and recognized for what it was, but the first couple of times it was a killer. And then, later, I realized that I should have known it was coming when whatever the guy in question owned more albums of Broadway shows than I did. You live, you learn.