Description: This started out at another Mix for my friend Drew (see my "When We Laugh Indoors" mix) because he's moving back from California, is newly single, and we haven't been talking a lot lately. But, it turned into something else. I've been dealing with a lot of disappointment/stress/financial issues... blah, and I haven't made a mix in months. So this is just what came out.

Oh yeah, and I have a drug problem... again.

Description: OK, so I made the mistake of letting my ex-boyfriend stay at my apartment. It was only supposed to be for a couple weeks. He was supposed to sleep on the couch. He was supposed to pay rent. Life doesn't always work out the way you plan it. His stay ended two months after he moved in at a party at my apartment during which he threw his cat at me, hit me, and stole my external hard drive. I wish I were joking. When I got the hard drive back he had managed to fuck it up so that all of the mixes I've made in the past three years were gone. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

Also... I recently met a boy. A really incredible, funny, smart, charming, NORMAL boy. Who happens to be hot as hell and I'm pretty sure, not over his ex-girlfriend.

These things make me sad, but it is about to be summer. I can only be sad for so long and then I have to try to feel better. This mix makes me feel better, so here it is: Mix #1 in my itunes library.

Description: My roommate is my favorite person. She is fun and clean and doesn't annoy me. Last night we both got really drunk and puked. Consequently I've spent today in bed making a mix for her. She's a film student, so this mix is a compilation of great songs that always without fail will remind you of the great movies they were in. I also included sound clips from old movies throughout the mix and I really like the way it sounds.

Description: Tallon and I have been trying to get it together long enough to make a joint mix for quite a while now. Kids, it was worth the wait. Here is Tallon and Nicole's: How to: seduce a hipster... read and learn my friends.

Description: Its been a while, I know. So first, here's a brief update in regards to the state of Nicole. Spent the summer being completely out of my mind and basically fucking up royally. At the end of August I quit my job, moved to Brooklyn, went back to the loving arms of my long time mistress (the restaurant industry), and haven't looked back since. Being single in New York City is a beautiful thing. Even if its only because you get the opportunity to date EVERYONE. My most recent affair was with a very sweet somewhat brooding valet named Alan. Alan is fun, and handsome, and great in bed, and I'm sure lots of other things that I'm not really interested in. He is also heading back to his home state on the other coast in a couple weeks. News which he conveyed to me in a text message containing the following lyrics:

"And I miss you
I'm going back home to the West Coast
I wish you
Coulda put yourself in my suitcase"

I believe the song is called "West Coast" by Coconut Records who happen to be Jason Schwartzman's new band. Its a cute song if you're at all interested. ANYWAYS... you can't send me a lyric text message and not get a mix. Its just the way things work. So, here is my mix for my dear friend Alan to listen to on the flight home so that he might be happy to be heading west again and so that he might at the same time feel a little pang of regret to be leaving me and the big apple behind.

Cover Art: This is the neighborhood in Brooklyn where I work. There is much debate as to weather we are in DUMBO or Brooklyn Heights, but I'm on team DUMBO. Its pretty much the coolest neighborhood on the planet.

Description: Remember the summer you turned 16 and gas prices were low? All day you'd just drive around with your friends and listen to music. You'd laugh and complain about how boring your little town was and wait for the sun to go down so you could sneak into the woods or onto the golf course with a 12 pack and a dime bag. We wanted to get out so bad, but I would give anything to be back in that little piece of shit car (we called it "the bucket") with no worries about getting older and having nothing to show for it. What I wanted to capture in this mix was that feeling you get when you and your three best friends are ambling down some mountain road and the trees are blocking out the sun and there is a cool breeze and a really really great song comes on and everyone gets quiet and just listens.

The summer is coming. Its almost here. It was 82 degrees today. This is for slow driving down all those winding country roads of my youth, with the windows down and my best friend in the passenger seat.

Description: My boyfriend and I kind of broke up last night. Not really, but I guess you could say we're taking a couple steps back. We aren't going to be able to spend a lot of time together this summer and the thought of it has been creating a lot of stress/anxiety for the both of us. It is easier if we cool off a bit. The thing is, though, I love him so much. I don't want to lose him.

I made this mix for him last weekend. He had actually asked me to make him a new one. Well, you can probably tell that I sorta knew what was going to happen.

We're having lunch on Thursday. Should I still give it to him? He wants it, but, I dunno.

Description: Alright, I wasn't going to do this, but I can't help myself. I threw so many dance parties last year it is sickening. Especially since all I do now is sit in my room, drink wine, and fuck around on MTC. Despite all of that I love my life post dirty hipster drug induced all night dance marathons. I love it so much that I've decided to take a fond little looksee back via mixtape. After I finished it though I realized that this little look back is far less than fond. I wouldn't go back to that way of life for anything. Making this mix has made me see how really great my life is now.

So, this mix will follow the natural progression of an average party thrown by me last year. Because I obviously can't include everything I would play the entire night/day that these parties would last, a lot is getting cut out. But this is pretty much the skeleton of every party playlist I made last year.

I'm going to warn you, you may find yourself totally disgusted with me while reading this mix. I don't blame you. it was a disgusting lifestyle. The music was good, but I was so bad. Hah. Thank god I'm so much cooler now. So even though I regret the way I lived for so long thinking about it makes me appreciate what I have now. I'm sane, healthy, in love, and the music is still good. Does it get much better than that? Psh, I don't think so.

Oh, and the picture up there is of my old roommate. Sexy right??

Description: OK, so I've finished the second part of the mix for my Tiny MIx Tapes swap, but now I don't know which is which. This was supposed to be side B of a mix comprised of songs, new and old, that have been haunting me lately. The A side was "Some Nights I Thirst For Real Blood," but now that I listen to it, I kinda think this one should be considered the A side. I dunno, what do you think?

Description: Sometimes I contribute to an E-Zine called Tiny Mix Tapes. They have what's called an "Automated Mixtape Generator." Basically people can submit requests for mixes about anything that suit their fancy and "robots" will make the mixes for them. I'm a robot. Once in a while my fellow robots and I will swap mixes and this is "side A" of the mix I made. Since I reserve actual cassette tape mixes for people I really care about I just made two mix CDs and called them side A and side B. So sue me. There was no theme for this swap so I just made a mix of the songs that have been haunting me as of late.

Description: I made this mix for my friend Drew who is one of my most favorite people. The last time he was home from LA I made him a mix for the drive back. Unfortunately at the time I had an imense crush on him and was deathly afraid of him finding out due mainly to the fact that it was pretty obvious that he had similar feelings for me, but also had a girlfriend, and honeslty it would have been bad news. The kind of situation that would have totally ruined our friendship which means worlds to me. He was a really positive infulence on me at a time when I desperately needed one. I honestly can say that he had a big hand in putting me on the road to...well, I'm not sure where it goes yet, but its lead me away from a really bad place and that's all that really matters. I am way off track in my story now...crap. OK, so I made him this mix, but because I was so afraid of him finding out how I really felt it ended up being this really impersonal pile of crap that I am embarassed I ever made. Now that I've got some distance from the whole situation, and I've completely fallen head over heels for another rather wonderfully amazing boy, I've decided to make him another mix. This one is mostly made of my favorite songs with a few that remind me of him tossed in.

Description: since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

-E.E. Cummings

Description: Since I'm so new to the Mixtape Collective it would have been pretty hard for me to dedicate this mix to a fellow user. So, I'm posting one of the mixes I made for my boyfriend this Valentine's day. We exchange mixes quite often (constantly) but the problem is that, well... they all end up sounding sorta depressing. Soo, in honor of Valentine's day we decided to make upbeat, lighthearted, HAPPY mixes. I made him a serious one too, but I'll keep that one for myself.

Description: Made this a couple weeks ago when I was feeling a little down. Started out as sad songs, a winter blues kind of mix. But, when I listened to it all the way through I realized how prevailent the suicide theme was. Kinda freaked me out, but this is why I say that music has saved my life.