Animal House

Friday night I got to have dinner with one of my dear friends from college and her little family. It doesn't matter how many of my friends get married and have babies, it still amazes me every single time I meet husbands and kidlets that girls I used to giggle about boys with in college are now someone's mommy. I am turning 32 in three weeks and continue to believe that I'm way too young for this to be my life. It was really fun to see Jennie and meet her cute husband Rick and ADORABLE baby Max.


So I was maybe feeling a bit nostalgic anyway as I headed into my weekend and off to run our sponsorship booth at this year's Farm Aid Show. I don't typically get super star struck but sitting at the Press Conference and seeing these guys all together on stage was pretty heady for anyone who loves American Music.

(that's Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews for anyone who has lived in a cave for the last 40 years)
Once upon a time I used a person's feelings about the Dave Matthews Band as a barometer for my feelings for that person. I bought his CD's at midnight release parties, my sister and I drove hundreds of miles to see them perform, I crossed my own professional boundaries and begged a boss to use his connections to get me good seats at a show one time-I really, really loved this band. Over the years though I wasn't loving the new releases so much and there was so much other great music out there that I kind of lost interest in DMB. It didn't hurt that they become the artist of choice for a lot of real tools and were no longer a very good personality gauge. I quit listening around the same time I moved to California the first time and a lot of things in my life were changing. My friend Derick had told me about a hundred times that one of the great things about moving to a new city all alone was that you really got a chance to know yourself. When you don't have many friends and you are still settling into a job you have a lot of free time and you get to know what you like to do/think/feel/watch/read/listen to when no one is watching. That's when I got serious about running, discovered Radiohead and starting liking artsy boys. I felt like a new person and in a lot of ways, I distanced myself from many things I had cared about before. I'm still not sure why I felt like I had to roll my eyes at things I had once liked in order to prove I was growing.

I've gotten a wee bit more mature since then I think. I hope. Last night I stepped away from the booth for a few minutes to catch Dave's part of the show. Hearing his voice live for the first time in probably seven years actually got me a little choked up. It felt so familiar and comforting. So today I've been basking in old DMB memories. Here's a favorite.
Grey Street