One thing irritates me like no other:  the Music Snob.  You know the type – they only like the coolest bands that no one else has heard of, or claim to only like music done by “true artists” or “good musicians” (read:  no pop, no Top 40).  I am not a Music Snob.  I like a lot of different music, and I won’t disparage you for what you like. 

Behold:  today’s post is about Salt ‘n Pepa.  You Music Snobs know who they are, so don’t pretend otherwise.

In 1990, Salt ‘n Pepa’s “Expression” was a mainstay on my Walkman.  I was in college and worked part-time at the prosecutor’s office, and rode the Metro bus to and from campus and work, every day.  A Walkman was essential in order to avoid having to talk to any weird older men who might sit next to you on the bus.  I really loved that song; I must have listened to it a million times.  (Favorite line?  “Yes I’m blessed and I know/who I am/I express myself on every jam/I’m not a man but I’m in command/hot damn, I got an all-girl band”).                                 

Soon thereafter, with the onslaught of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, et. al., my flirtation with rap and hip-hop ended.  My DJ/rapper nickname was cast aside (email me and I’ll tell you what it was), and my Salt n’ Pepa cassette was relegated to a box.  I decided I wanted to become a lawyer….went to law school,  got married, had kids, blah blah blah……20 years passed.  Cut to present day Seattle, on a path around Greenlake:

I honestly forgot that I ever loaded the song onto iTunes or put it on my workout mix.  I don’t think I’ve heard it in years.  But today, on my run, for the first time ever – the Shuffle Gods went to work, and there it was – Salt ‘n Pepa, speaking to me in scratches and beats:

“Hey, you used to be that girl on the bus…..you carried a leather bookbag and had big dreams and a five year plan.  How’d that all work out for you?  Are you where you want to be?  Have you done what you set out to do?  How realistic were the plans of a 20 year-old anyway?   You can laugh at the 20 year-old You and how she didn’t know anything, but she’s still out there on a bus somewhere, and you need to settle up with her”.

Enough already, Salt! (and Pepa.  And Spinderella)  As if I wasn’t already introspective enough, as a result of the new year and an unexpected event in my family, now here you go, poking me with your catchy grooves.  OK, I will play along.  January is always a time for cleaning out and purging.  Why else would all the stores have organizational items on sale, and all the diet centers run specials?   More importantly, though, it’s also a time for mental housecleaning – to satisfy that list-maker in all of us.  

Much like a Metro bus route, our lives will always be filled with delays, detours, and some dead ends.  But the end result is that I don’t need any do-overs.  I’m ecstatically happy with the past 20 years, potholes and all.  I am looking forward to 2012 in a way that I haven’t done in a long time.  It is full of promise, full of new beginnings, and chock-full of big plans, both personally and professionally.

It might have taken me 20 years to realize that, in the end, you really are only accountable to yourself.  Or, as it were, to your 20-year old self on a bus.  I’d still like to buy that girl a cup of coffee and talk to her, but otherwise, I think we’ve settled up.