Greetings from the Frehsee abode in West Bloomfield, Michigan, where I came to celebrate Passover (i.e. argue about politics around the Sedar plate) with my beloved family.

One of my favorite things to do at home is rummage through my closet and uncover long-hidden, often groan-worthy relics from my past: a diary entry detailing my first kiss ("ewww!"); three Marlboro Reds I stashed back in '94; and my seventh-grade notebook, which holds the transcribed lyrics to LL Cool J's "Doin' It." (I wanted to impress my eighth-grade crush, who, despite his suburban whiteness, recited the line, "I represent Queens, she was raised out in Brooklyn" quite convincingly.)

As this is my first trip home since Thanksgiving, a scavenging mission was way overdue. But this time, I didn't cringe upon uncovering the goodies: a box of mixtapes that my high school boyfriend and I had exchanged.

(I know, this all sounds very Sheffield-ian. Sorry, Rob.) Our romance was almost exclusively based on a mutual love of classic rock, and I think we kept the spark alive by trying to one-up each other with mixtapes we'd created. (I use the word "spark" loosely — these were the pre-driver's license days, when house rules dictated a wide-open-bedroom-door policy.) The mixes weren't made for any grand purpose — we were just trying to convey a simple sentiment: This is what I'm listening to. You should check it out. Oh, and my mix kicks your mix's ass.

My claims of ass-kicking were unfounded at first. While Boyfriend's mixes weren't exactly wells of deep cuts, they jumped from Dusty Springfield's Memphis soul years to Desire-era Dylan to late-Sixties Bowie. My inaugural tape, well-researched as it was (I spent hours of scouring my dad's gigantic record collection), was filled with cliches — it opened with "Stairway" and "Sweet Home Alabama"! Far from a rock aficionado's one-two punch. In my defense, I was young (fifteen) and misguided (my favorite Cat Stevens song was "Wild World"). By Volume II, I'd cultivated a more sophisticated palette — the Mamas' and Papas' "Creeque Alley" into Tommy James and the Shondells' "Crimson and Clover"? Pro.

Looking back now, I don't think the relationship was doomed because we filled our tapes with songs that Jack Black's character in School of Rock might've taught his third-graders as part of Classic Rock 101. Maybe our mistake was titling the tapes with Roman numerals in homage to Led Zeppelin: Like Zep, we never got to V.