Keeping the mood up

This brought me some happiness in January. Getting the record player out of the basement. Cleaning out the horribly cluttered shelves in the dining room and filling it with speakers and records and cookbooks. Getting these prints on the walls and setting up the little calendar a friend bought me at Renegade Chicago in December. 

There was the moment I finally figured out how to put the new needle on correctly and spin the record at the right speed  (33, btw). Marvin Gaye's voice shot through the crackle of the speakers and filled up our downstairs. I squealed. And danced. And sang. Matt came back in from a walk the moment Side A finished, so he missed the magic of that first record playing in our home. But, we had a ton of fun later listening to his Zappa album while we thoroughly cleaned the downstairs.

I told Matt, this is how I was raised to clean up. Saturday morning, put a record on and everyone gets to work. In the summer, throw the windows open and let the breeze blow in. Sing "know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em" with your mom and get the dusting done.

A couple years ago someone posted a link to this video of Jason Schwartzman in a record shop. It's kind of silly and very hipsterlicious* as he sits on the floors and describes all the records he's going to buy but (spoiler alert) at the end he says, "For some reason I want the house to have a positive, fun, loving feeling [...] you're trying to keep it up, trying to keep the mood up." 

That last line always stuck with me. 

And now I have a record player to keep the mood up.

*The spell check suggests 'oversuspicious'. Fits, I think.