Memorial Day weekend means the beginning of summer. But far more importantly, it means the debut of my official Summer Mix CD.

Summer is by far the most difficult of the seasonal mixes to put together. For one thing, it comes relatively quickly after completing the Spring Mix, and therefore I have less time to find a lot of good new songs to add. The other big factor is that summer was never traditionally my favorite time of the year, so finding older songs that really give me a great nostalgic feeling are hard to find. In fact, most of my memories of summer throughout the 1990’s are of utter boredom and frustration. I was much happier in the fall, winter and spring when I was off at school, and not working a crappy job or sweating to death in 90% humidity. For me, summer was just one long hiatus until I could get back to the interesting part of my life. Then the interesting part of my life ended completely, so now I see summer as just any other three month stretch. But I digress.

With all of that said, I feel pretty confident about Summer Mix 2007. This year’s spring mix was one of my best ever, so there was bound to be a bit of a letdown anyway, but I actually think this one picks up where Spring ’07 left off. It’s very chipper. It draws heavily from the ‘80s, which is strange because I generally hate ‘80s music. But most importantly, I think I did pretty well with scrounging up new songs, which is the true litmus test of how good or bad the mix really is. Here are the songs:

Grace Kelly by Mika (For the first mix in a long time, I started off the proceedings with a bang. A big, loud, fun, energetic song. My only reservation about this song is that I heard it on Star 98.7 last week, which means that by this time next month, it might be super popular and I’ll hate it.)

Open Your Heart by Lavender Diamond (So happy it hurts.)

White Heat by Madness (Technically an ‘80s song, but it reminds me of Summer 1990 because I found the tape for 99 cents in a record store and listened to it all summer in my car. Reminds me of a girl.)

One Kiss Don’t Make a Summer by Lucky Soul (This song was made to be included on a Summer Mix. I like the strings.)

Hannah by Erik Voeks (I cheated; this should really have been a spring song. Still, great memories of 1994 are welcome any time, any season. Was I really ever so happy?)

Fake Do-Gooders by Eames Era (I might have to eventually buy the full CD by this band.)

Plant Me by Suddenly, Tammy! (1993. Simply reminds me of everything that was good and beautiful in the world, one time, long ago.)

Give Up? by Hot Hot Heat (I’m betting this will grow on me. Their songs always do.)

When Smokey Sings by ABC (I have no idea why I put this on here. It’s just a good song. My friend Dan and I used to think the women in the beginning sounded like choking chickens.)

In Competition for the Worst Time by Idlewild (I feel bad for Idlewild because I went crazy over their second album then got tired of them fast. So I’m throwing them a bone. Something about the title just grabs me…)

Bury Me Closer by Palomar (Very pleasant.)

The Strong and the Silent by A House (Summer of 1995, right after I graduated from college, and I didn’t know what was in store. So I imagined the summer was like any other and that I’d be going back to school at the end of it, just like normal. So I delayed my complete breakdown for a few months.)

Manchester by The Beautiful South (The first single from the last album, the one I didn’t bother getting. One of my all-time favorite bands.)

The Goonies R Good Enough by Cyndi Lauper (I spent the summer of 1985 running through the woods, looking for caves to explore or danger to get into. God, my hometown was so boring.)

Everybody’s Got Their Own Part to Play by Shannon Wright (I’m predicting that this will be the song that I’ll still want to hear more of after August.)

Stars by Au Revoir Simone (You make me want to measure stars in the backyard with a calculator and a ruler, baby. Somewhere in my memory banks I remember feeling that way.)

Mandinka by Sinead O’Conner (From the best summer of my life, 1988. I was still just young enough to enjoy being young but suddenly just old enough to sense there was something coming up.)

Light of the Moon by Riverman (They’re a total rip-off of Nick Drake, even naming themselves after one of his songs. But they do it well, so fuck it.)

I have to admit, I make these mixes wondering what memories the songs will hold after the season is over. I’m already feeling a little wary of the Summer of 2007, I have to say. But at least I’ll have a nice collection of songs to document it.

One day you wake up and it’s better. Not a faint grasping at a hope that it’s better, it just is. Maybe it’ll be back to the old guard by noon, but this morning you sense an invisible shift in the layout of everything around you, as if everything in the world was taken away and replaced with slightly brighter replicas overnight. You hardly want to accept it, but your heart can’t help it in its bursting, and the feeling manages to hang on through your morning shower, and yes, a look in the mirror afterwards reveals that there’s a shine in your eye.

Will your friends notice? They do. The concerned telephone calls to each other to which you weren’t privy, the stilted, well-meaning but empty words of encouragement, the frustration of seeing you not at your best for so long: As if by wave of a magic wand these are replaced with the recognition that this particular sickness has run its course. And they know, because they’ve been down and gotten back up too.

Life becomes a fun game again. You’re the car, the thimble, the iron moving around the game board that is the whole wide world. In due time, before you know it, you’ll even be the smooth metal ball rolling under the glass, flying up the alley, going almost too fast, bouncing into and off of bumpers that either fling you off or pull you in for a moment, all the time hurdling toward the lowest point until some flipper knocks you up into the air again. There’s a risk of hurt in this human pin-ball, but you’re up for it, because you conveniently just remembered that you’ve missed it so much.

The feeling sticks around, despite all odds and your own worst fears, and after days of feeling this refreshment, you actually begin to look back fondly on the darkness. It was your own special kind of pain, unique to you, and now that it’s gone, you actually find yourself wondering if you’ve become less exceptional without it. Except for the way that it changed you forever, made you a little older, a little stronger, you might be tempted to go back to its comfort, smothering as it was. But no. You’ve become attached to how much easier it is to do everything, how nice it is to not constantly see the worst in yourself, how much better it is to go through life wanting to live it.

And then one day you run into him or her again, by accident, and it feels a lot like someone climbs inside you and slices you from your neck to your intestines with a dagger that’s been sitting in a freezer for a couple hours. But it only lasts for a little while, and after it fades you can at least be happy in the knowledge that your heart will long carry a memory of something that your mind has managed to make all better.

I have about as much chance of ever accepting people who attempt to initiate small talk on an elevator at 8 o'clock in the morning as I do of understanding what goes on the heads of suicide bombers.

Goodbye, Jerry Falwell.

Try to stay cool down there.