outdated aspiration

underneath the piles of mysteriously unlabeled VHS tapes is a scattering of old cassette tapes: musicals, moody blues, elton john... my parents' music. we have a slotted set of sliding drawers to hold these antiquities, each slot the exact shape of a cassette tape case.
i was haphazardly returning loose tapes first to their cases and then to the slotted drawers, musing as i did so on annoying design flaws. the following things bug me about cassette tape holders:

• the awkwardness of having to fit them in fat side first.
  
• the asymmetrical placement of the spiky bits; if you slide tapes in thin side first, the case just will not close.
• the random cases that happen to accept tapes thin side first. why can't people be consistent?

now, i'm sure there are good reasons for all these design choices. and surely it is irrational of me to complain about cases that take tapes fat side first and the cases that take tapes thin side first. since nobody uses this sort of technology any more, my thoughts here are meaningless anyway. please forgive me my nostalgic little rant.

i wonder if the old 8-tracks we used to have are still lying around. my sister and i, when we were small, would dance mad, jumping dances in our bedroom to 8-tracks of Saturday's Warrior and Peer Gynt. reminds me of all the things i used to want. childhood dreams like ballet and dragonhunting, adolescent inclinations toward becoming a brilliant violinist or a fashion designer.

some things i still want. to be taller. to learn italian. to get married. to write a batch of well-loved novels. i have also already done a few things since my wild, innocent dancing-to-Peer-Gynt days. checked off a few boxes.

but there is so much more.