The Avalanches

I bought my partner a Sonos speaker for her apartment, partly because it was on sale, partly because the disposable income I used to spend on drinks and dinner I’m now using to fill rooms with noise. She appreciated the gift, though it was really for me as much as her. I’ve been spending more time at hers, and selfishly, I think I wanted it to feel a little bit more like mine.

Our Sonos habits are a little different. She puts together playlists with a wide breadth of sounds: Lauryn Hill, Haruomi Hosono, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Modern Lovers, always at least one Dixie Chicks song. Her playlists are a range of tones that live outside time and space, but feel cohesive and deliberate. I think we used to praise these things as “eclectic” before that word became horseshit. They’re good playlists, is what I’m trying to say.

I tend to put on full albums in polite company. When I’m alone (which I guess is impolite company?), I’ll just put three songs and have them play over and over. Right now: “Essentially” by Japanese Breakfast, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham, and… hmm, I guess it’s just two songs at the moment. Sometimes, it’ll even just be one. (Months ago, when I was working on book revisions, I listened to “Baby One More Time” on repeat for six hours straight, until Britney became a trance, and then a drone, and then noise.)

We don’t live together, so quarantine for us is broken up by the hour-long, socially-distanced walk between our places. So we’re usually in two discrete places, together, but always doing the same things. Working, which means some unholy yo-yoing between Zoom and phone calls in between staring at various Google Docs, our headphones in; and cooking, which is nice, because we’re doing something that doesn’t even involve looking at a screen, except for the occasional glimpse at the NYT Cooking app.

On the days we’re apart, I’ll just re-listen to her playlist in the living room. I know, rationally, that the Sonos just has queued up whatever was last played. But I like to think she left something behind for me.

Earlier today, this song came on in the living room. I couldn’t remember the name of it, but you’d know it if you heard it. It sounded like an old song, but it wasn’t that old. Well, it was big when we were in high school, in the early aughts, when maximalist sampling rewired classics into smoothly polished Frankenpop, each limb so slickly stitched together that you’d have no idea where the body parts came from. Nostalgia by way of novelty, really. God, it's so good. What was that song called again? I had to check the Sonos app, because she wasn’t there to tell me.