In retrospect, I should have just said: no, I don’t really feel like going to see a band tonight. But like a jackass I asked what they sound like, and who she would compare them to. That sent her off on a huge lecture about how I’m fixated on determining the precedents for everything, and if I was going to be like that, I’d never appreciate anything that was truly new.

Then somehow—somehow—this turned into a broad castigation of my various organizational schemes, with her saying she could tell I had some kind of developmental disorder because of my need to sort comic books and LPs by name and then date.

“How many hours have you spent standardizing the genre tags on your mp3s?” she asked, and it didn’t seem like the kind of question that a person actually wants you to answer, but she glared at me like she was waiting for one.

“It doesn’t take long at all. I usually do it just right when I import the CD…”

“Look, man,” she interrupted. “When you let yourself fall into these obsessive, hyper-male-brained, borderline diagnosable sorting frenzies, you cheat yourself of any real opportunity to simply enjoy the very thing you’re classifying. Can’t you just listen to a band without running down a mental list of their apparent influences? Is your enjoyment contingent on your weird internal filing system? At Thanksgiving dinner, do you freak out if some stuffing touches the mashed potatoes? Do you carry that stupid labelmaker around with you ALL THE TIME?”

“Oh, come on,” I said. “The PT-1900 is super light and portable. I can label stuff on-the-spot, on-the-go so quickly and discreetly that it’s not going to bother anyone.”

“It bothers me! It’s sick! Everything needs a label! It’s like some kind of Rain Man thing! What’s more, it’s utterly futile! No system of classification and taxonomy can match the complexity of the real world, with all its endless variety! You’ve got two Modern Lovers records, another one attributed to “Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers” and several Jonathan Richman releases. Do you file these apart from one another, alphabetically? Or in the same group? Where do compilations and tribute albums go? How does Linnaeus cope with the platypus?”

“I have to admit,” I said, “when I can make labels with up to four lines of type, two built-in fonts, eight type sizes, vertical and mirror printing on four sizes of laminated tape—I haven’t yet met the item I can’t label.”

“Nonsense!” She barked. “Your most robust organizational hierarchies can only hope to roughly correspond to reality. Any attempt to force the fit, why, that’s fascism.”

“I don’t think I’d say I’m a fascist just because I like keeping my stuff organized.”

“Well of course you wouldn’t!” Here she was getting really hysterical. “No one calls himself a fascist!”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess you’re right.” And I printed out an 18mm label that said IDIOT BLOWHARD and stuck it on the back of her jean jacket when she wasn’t looking.

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