I became a pop culture sponge towards the end of my high school career, markedly later than my peers who had been carrying around magazines with the glossy images of prepubescent heart throb Jonathan Taylor Thomas when I was otherwise occupied with The Beatles Anthology.

Multimedia was my poison, and I built an impressive collection by the day I moved into my dorm. To this day, I attest, my friend-making ability existed solely on my highly borrowable amassment of both VHS and CD entertainment...of course, regular care packages from Aunt Debbie filled with homemade cookies or muffins that smelled so good one was forced to cry didn't hurt, either. You have to share food in the dorms—mandatory...or they kill you. There is nothing scarier, mark my words, than a craving deprived, under-rested, over-studied female who smells chocolate. Oh, I took plenty of hits for the team.

College was my first exposure to broadband internet. I had a laptop that I loved so much I almost dressed it up and held conversations with the device...ok, maybe I still held conversations, but I left the doll bonnet in the drawer. I remember buying what seemed like a 1,000 foot ethernet cable just so that I could walk around the perimeter of the shoebox we called home for nine months and remain online. Woo. I was big into that daredevil excitement stuff.

Needless to say, early aughts, high speed internet...what follows can only be Shawn Fanning and the glory of Napster. God I loved Napster. I loved free downloading. I loved absorbing new music without liability—I purchased a staggering amount of music during my foray with Napster, just staggering. Oh, Larsy-boy...I'm so disappointed in you. You were dissing Metallica fans when you criticized those that downloaded your music...tsk tsk. Bad for business. Besides, aren't you rich enough anyway? Because of you, I wanted to denounce my Danish heritage...luckily Hans Christen Andersen trumped you, drummer boy.

Shawn Fanning was my age. A guy my age did this, brought music to the world in a free context. Take a hike, JTT...my heart is taken.

I so clearly remember Sarah and I embracing our love of rock, head-banging to Disturbed...then swaying with fake lighters to the Fred Durst/Staind Family Values Tour of "I'm on the Outside". New CD mixes were created weekly-plus, and Sarah expressed disdain often that I never created a CD without a Creed song somewhere in the line up. We spent a lot of time together in a car, Sarah and myself, and she had this kick-butt stereo. We carpooled every weekend, the hour-plus ride home every Friday night...and the two-hour plus ride back to school every Sunday. Her foot always seemed to lose the lead during our time at home.

Then I moved away, RIAA got all pissy with the free downloads and put this major kibosh on things. I became a cultural hermit and watched Golden Girls marathons on Lifetime.

But this year, my former self has reemerged...partly due to Nick's own love of music, partly because of my puppy dog love for James Blunt. It is fitting, then, isn't it, that Nick gave me an iPod for my birthday...and that I discovered iTunes. And, darn that Amazon.com free shipping on purchases of $25 or more! That's like three CD's at Amazon prices! Oh well...one does what they must.

But this has created a new quirk in my relationship with Nick, a one-upmanship as I complain that my CD case no longer fits all of my CD's. I tell him I must have well over 200 discs, and he, with his dander visibly up and at attention, proclaims he has that and then some. It feels a bit like Yours, Mine & Ours...two large collections living on different floors and unwilling to so much as look at one another. I'm not too bothered...he bought me the new Five for Fighting album a few nights ago...and while one might say that should be grouped in a "ours" collection, I'm adding it to mine and getting a leg up on 'im.