/reader

Today’s song is “Why We Cry at Movies” by As Tall As Lions.

I know we sometimes get a little silly and hyperbolic around here, but I hope you'll allow me a moment of absolute, complete, undeniable sincerity so I may opine about one of my closest held convictions: the dissolution of the band, As Tall As Lions, is one of humanity's great tragedies. Yes, I am aware of the other ones.

Never in my life have I ever experienced emotional distress about the news of a band breaking up like I did with them. In fact, growing up I distinctly recall watching Apollo 13 repeatedly, and I always thought it seemed ridiculous that Tom Hanks's daughter was so upset about The Beatles breaking up. I didn't understand how anyone could love a band so much. Like, I understood loving music, but the music lasts forever! But the band? Some people that I never knew? Frankly, it felt like none of my business! Why should I care?

But in 2010, I finally understood.

Okay, wait a sec—quick aside! I would normally put this in a footnote, but I think this warrants greater attention. As Tall As Lions broke up in 2010. 2010. 14 years ago (13 and almost a half years ago if you wanna be really pedantic about it). It is 2024. 2024 minus 2010 is 14. 14 years. They broke up 14 years ago. I was 24 years-old. Twenty-four! I wasn't even married the first time yet. 24 years old and this band went away, poof. 14 years ago. This is impossible! Is it trite to be nearly 40 and lamenting the unyielding march of time? Is it cliché—passé, even?—to highlight how the older we get, the more that time compresses, until it is flattened into an impermeable disc with no beginning, middle, or end? That something that feels like it just happened yesterday, is in actuality, something that occurred nearly a decade and a half ago? DO NOT ANSWER RHETORICAL QUESTIONS, IT IS OBNOXIOUS. Just let me process.

Between 2003 and 2009, As Tall As Lions released three LPs. The first two are perfect albums.¹ Back-to-back winners. 21 unskippable tracks between the two of them. Early 2000s kinda-indie-rock-kinda-emo anthemic audial bliss. Ethereal, meandering guitar riffs. Reverberant drums like firecrackers. Slow, epic builds that layer and layer until they explode in climactic, triumphant emotional surges. And Dan Nigro's voice! Christ. A falsetto that cuts through me in the best possible way. One of the truly great voices of his generation. I have a hard time comparing him. The evocative quality of his singing feels unlike any other. Dan singing is experiencing every sadness you've ever felt. Dan singing is being cheated on and break-ups and apologizing and make-ups. Dan singing is lamenting all the love you ever lost and all the love you wished you had.

Feeling sad at music feels so good. I love feeling sad at As Tall As Lions. I love the sorrow "Why We Cry at Movies" makes me feel, and I love how when I share it with other people, it helps them see just a small glimpse of all the feeling I have inside me.

I love this line:

I guess there's no way to make love, not break our hearts

I love that a line so cheesy, when sung earnestly, feels so perfect.

I love their debut album, Lafcadio, so much that I bought it on vinyl when they pressed a limited release back in 2018. I don't own a record player! I don't even know how to use one! I know you put the thing on the thing, and then you put the other thing on the thing and it should work, but that's something I gotta figure out! I bought the record to encourage myself to by a record player and learn how to use it. I can't wait to someday have one in my office so I can listen to Lafcadio in all its analog glory.

I love As Tall As Lions so much I saw them live! Twice!² That's a record for me. I don't like concerts very much. Too loud. Too many people. So many germs! And also I'm kind of a weird purist. I get attached to studio recordings, and, as a result, live versions often feel like a great betrayal. But I saw As Tall As Lions twice, and I fucking loved every second.

I was at Bottom Lounge on April 6, 2010, to see them play with A Lull and Bad Veins. I can still feel A Lull's percussion vibrating in my chest. I can still hear Benjamin Davis of Bad Veins singing through this weird telephone-looking thing to create the tinny, distorted vocals on "Gold & Warm." I can still feel my heart in my throat as I held back tears while Dan Nigro's falsetto cut through me during "Stab City." I wish I could go back there, now that I've learned it's okay to cry.

I was there on December 19, 2010 to see their farewell show at Lincoln Hall. There was no way I was going to let them fade away, never to be heard from again, without having one last memory of seeing them on stage. It was up there with the one time I saw Girl Talk live. An incredible show that (I hope) will live with me forever.

I actually hadn't ever watched that video before I started writing this. Until today, that performance was mere memory. It's funny reliving it. I recall them sounding better in person. There is something to be said for getting swept up in the moment.

Regardless, I was there. You can't see me in that video. I was in the balcony, but I was there. That pervasive melancholy that fills the air? That was me. That was the love I left there.

FOURTEEN FUCKING YEARS AGO.

¹ The third, You Can't Take it With You, is... fine. It's the album a band makes before they break up.⬏

² It was supposed to be three, but I broke up with my girlfriend days before the first concert, and we decided it might be best to give my ticket to someone else. Good call!⬏

Today’s song is “Everywhere” by Michelle Branch.

I never made any sourdough.

No, my early Pandemic coping mechanism¹ was clowning on doofuses in Warzone, rolling with my posse through the city of Verdansk, spamming the horn on our jeep as we careened over cliffs and attempted to run down other players as they sprinted from building to building. It was four of us, Charles, Dom, Katy, and Keenan.² Bloodthirsty, ruthless, competitive. Real capital G gamers, pwning n00bs and being 1337 and...

Ah, fuck it. Whatever.

Yeah, Warzone was a fast and frenetic action-packed, explosive first-person romp. It's easy to get caught up in the weirdly masculine fervor that twitchy military shooters exude. But I'm not gonna try and pretend that, for us, Warzone was ever anything more than a charming distraction. With the days blending into each other, spraying Lysol on our mail and buying hand sanitizer from distilleries and stocking up on any masks we could find and trying to understand why the fuck we needed to be on camera for the seventh fucking Zoom call that day... It was, frankly, just nice to have an activity to look forward to where we could distract our eyes and brains from the uncertainty of the world around us.

For months, we would meet up most days for our shooty pew pew boom bang video game for the opportunity to be social and feel somewhat normal. We'd talk about work. We'd talk about anxiety. We'd lament the seemingly boundless stupidity of Donald Trump and the fucking jabronis he surrounded himself with.

And then there was Dom, armed with puns and an affinity for early-2000s music, ready to pop off at a moment's notice to make us laugh as hard as we rolled our eyes.

One of us gets shot and needed a revive. Dom: "Just call me Vanessa Carlton, because I'm making my way over to you."

Someone throws a molotov cocktail. Dom: "Just call me Nelly, because it's getting hot in here."

The rest of our team gets murdered and Dom manages to evade them in a daring escape and somehow survive: "Just call me Destiny's Child, because—"

You get it. I get it. We all get it. The structure: predictable. Some may even dare to call it corny.³ And this was incessant. Dom's comedic brand hinged on quick interjections from the vast Encyclopedia of Pop Culture that was his brain. Any opening you gave him to make a passing reference to a song or show and he would take it. Unapologetic. Merciless. Completely devoid of shame.

And it was perfect. Chef's kiss. No notes. Like, come on! What more could you want? It was exactly what we needed—an endless stream of silly goofs and gentle reminders of a time when we were all rocking out to Avril Lavigne. As light and fluffy as so much of the pop music we listened to, paired with the comforting allure of nostalgia. And I say that as a person who is actually quite averse to nostalgia in general. But when it hits, it hits. And when your days were inundated by bad news, there was no greater palate cleanser than dicking around in a video game, cracking jokes with your friends, and remembering that, hey, at some point things didn't suck so much.

And then it ended. At a certain point, our interest in Warzone waned, and there wasn't any other game that grabbed our attention in quite the same way. The days we'd meet up drifted further and further apart. We'd text and try and makes plans, or at the very least wax poetic about the next game to bring us together. But nothing stuck.

Then the vaccines came, and with them a gradual return to normalcy. Our world's had become so small during the height of the pandemic, but the reality was, it was me and Katy in Chicago, Charles in New York or North Carolina or Virginia, and Dom out in San Francisco. As fun as our online excursions were, it became harder and harder to coordinate four adult's schedules across three timezones when the world was springing to life around us again.

Ironically, I don't remember Dom's line that thrust "Everywhere" back into our collective knowledge, considering it's the song I associate most with that period. Years after most of the Pandemic dust had settled, I remember hearing it playing on the speakers when I was in the grocery store. I recorded a snippet as a voice memo and sent it over to him. We had a good laugh and it gave us a reason to catch up briefly.

Whenever I hear it, I no longer think of how much I loved it back when it came out in 2001.⁴ I think about how a global crisis made us rethink how we socialized as adults, and managed to bring us together so we could help each other through in whatever ways we could.

I truly, madly, deeply do not want to relive the days of the Pandemic, but I would be a liar if I said I didn't miss spending time with some of my favorite people, playing a silly game, and taking any opportunity we could to make ourselves laugh when laughter otherwise felt hard to come by.

¹ Aside from browsing WebMD for hours, obviously.⬏

² Hi, that's me! You're reading my blog!⬏

³ I wouldn't, but I'm also not a bastard.⬏

⁴ Though, to be clear, it was a banger of a track then and I'm not going to bother litigating that fact. It just simply rules.⬏

Today’s song is “Fell Off the Face of the Earth” by Firewater.

The one and only time I ever submitted my writing to a contest, I won. It was a story about two elves. Tolkien-style. High fantasy. Pointy ears. Flowy cloaks. Keenly tuned senses. Desperately aware of their own immortality. There was, naturally, a prophecy to fulfill. Their love would result in a transcendental shift and they would live out eternity as twin moons to be mythologized by future generations who looked to the sky for meaning and hope.

One of my classmates asked me where I came up for the idea, and I told them that it was the song "Fell Off the Face of the Earth" by Firewater. From the first verse:

And the trees have been weeping
Their tears are still upon the grass

That seedling sprouted a grove, and the grove is where I discovered them; two elves embraced in a clearing surrounded by willow trees. They'd always been there, waiting for me to find them.

The twin moons came from... somewhere else. I made the conscious decision to omit the details for my classmate.

For so much of my childhood-to-early-adulthood, I felt alien. I don't know what exactly it was about me, in particular, that seemed so different. I don't know why I was incapable of fitting in. I don't know why it felt as though all the kids around me had some shared aversion to my presence.¹ To this day, I do not recall any particular event that warranted my shunning, but at some point early on in my life there was a unanimous decision amongst my peers to keep me on the periphery. I eventually learned that things were just easier when I stopped trying to blend in, and I put my effort into minimizing my presence instead.

With real-life friendships a scare resource, I explored other opportunities for human connection. I found solace in The World Wide Web! Message boards. Pen pals. AOL chat rooms. AOL RP chat rooms!²

And then I discovered a fantastical realm where I could shed all of my insecurity and be whoever I wanted to be, be whoever anyone wanted me to be. None of the pesky baggage of my corporeal existence. A place where I could be a hero. A villain. A god.

A horny anthropomorphic cat looking for a lusty tryst with a mouse.³

Sorry, what—

Furcadia became a refuge for me in the transitionary period of high school-to-college when my desperation for connection peaked. The promise of a world where the only limits were my imagination!!! ...And a rudimentary UI, serviceable isometric graphics, and very basic programming language called DragonSpeak. All of the packaging of an aggressively mediocre video game with the boundless possibility of freeform, text-based roleplay. I was obsessed.

I spent hours and hours creating new "Fursonas," building entire worlds around me, and engaging with other people who shared a similar passion for storytelling. I got to participate in a community, with none of the insecurity that plagued me in the real world. In Furcadia, I wasn't Keenan, social pariah and high commander of the überdork brigade. I was... whatsherbucket, dog thief and rogue adventurer looking for... I dunno, like, gold... or an amulet, or... something. I don't remember. Leave me alone, it was a long time ago! All I remember is that for a not insignificant chunk of my late teens I spent a lot of time staring at a screen with little humanoid animal things sitting on cushions and just fuckin' vibing out.

But, more importantly, I remember my time playing Furcadia as being one of acceptance. A celebration of the creative and weird. A place where people could shed their skin and become versions of themselves they weren't brave enough to be otherwise. A place for people to play and share and discover free from the fear of judgment.

Oh and I also remember the moons! Duh! The whole reason we're here.

So one time I was sitting in a jail cell next to a rabbit, and we told each other about the harrowing journeys that resulted in us being imprisoned in the same dungeon. She told me about her home, a planet orbited by twin moons. It was told that one day, the moons would eventually connect and become one, and her people worshiped them as a symbol of eternal love.

The image of those two love moons stuck with me, so much so that when I discovered the elves in the song, I realized they would one day die and be reincarnated as the moons. Serendipity.

It's wild to me, how our brains associate things. Like, I can't listen to "Fell Off the Face of the Earth" without thinking about my one literary triumph: winning a stupid contest whose sole prize was the recognition of, like, 30 of my classmates.

Which naturally leads me to thinking about how sad and lonely I was for so long that I found myself looking for friendship and love in a video game.

I could see how someone might read that and feel pity, but I think of it as an incredible lesson of self-discovery. So often, our paths seem uncertain. Tumultuous. Counterintuitive. It can be hard to see beyond our immediate vicinity, especially when mired in despair. We all have expectations for how things should turn out, who we'll meet, how they'll treat us. We all experience the disappointment when those expectations don't match reality.

We tell ourselves myths to make sense of the world around us.

We find beauty in the moment the moons align and we connect with people who embrace our weirdness.

¹ I showered every day!⬏

² If you ever saw a vampire with glowing red eyes hanging out the in the rafters of Rhy'din Tavern... Just sayin'. ::waves::⬏

³ Also anthropomorphic, so it wasn't weird.⬏

Today’s song is “The Commander Thinks Aloud” by The Long Winters.

Confession: As a general rule, I don't listen to song lyrics.

To be clear, this is not a conscious decision, and I apologize to any and all musicians who put so much work into writing their lyrics. It's not that I don't want to listen to lyrics. It's moreso that my brain doesn't process them. I have asked it to try, but up until this point it has politely refused.

When I listen to music, I can hear the individual words. I can sing along to the song (or at the very least reproduce close approximations to the sounds I hear). I can latch on to refrains. But interpreting meaning from any of this is, at best, a futile endeavor. I do find this strange, considering how deeply I feel music at an emotional level. But I form attachments to vibes, not linguistics. It's an intrinsic experience that has always been a core part of experiencing music. Something clicks or it doesn't. I can't explain it. I just feel.

I didn't even feel self-conscious about this until it got me in trouble with my first girlfriend! I put together a lil mix CD for her,¹ and after she listened to it, she sent me a long email questioning my intent behind my inclusion of the song "Attitude" by Alien Ant Farm.

As a refresher, here's the first verse:

Maybe I act on confused behavior
Maybe waves crash like semi-trailer
Maybe I'll spend my off-time without you
It seems like we need our own space

"'It seems like we need our own space'?" she wrote. "Are you trying to tell me something??"

My defense of "No! I just like the song!" did not do much to sway her. Why did I like the song? Why did I put it on the CD? What does it mean? I don't know! I just liked it. It sounded good and I liked singing along to it and it made me feel things and I like feeling things!²

Look, high school relationships are hard and I do not recommend them.

Anyway, I bring all of this up so I can say: There are exceptions to this rule! And one of those exceptions is "The Commander Thinks Aloud" by The Long Winters. [Pause for gasps.]

Years ago, I woke up to a text message from a friend of mine who asked, "Hey, have you ever listened to the podcast, Song Exploder?"

"No."

"You should. I think you'd like it. Do you know the song, 'The Commander Thinks Aloud'?"

"No."

"Okay, listen to that episode and then the song. They're incredible."

"I will." And I did, because I trust this person.

30 minutes later, I was crying in bed. Trust maintained.³

If you're not familiar, Song Exploder is a show where the host, Hrishikesh Hirway, talks to musicians and asks them to break down the creation of one of their songs. You should listen to the episode about "The Commander Thinks Aloud," and then listen to the song. They're incredible. It's worth it. I promise.

Hearing John Roderick give the touching, thoughtful interview about the impetus of the song, the collaboration and creativity that went into crafting the instrumental tracks, the emotional resonance of the finished work and how it impacts him when performing it. The added context, straight from Bean Dad⁴ himself, made listening to the complete track for the first time so meaningful that I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by emotion.

Judging it purely from a literalist perspective, it's a heartwrenching interpretation of the final moments of the crew of Space Shuttle Columbia. An effective, empathetic work that manages to strike a balance of hope and fear. The tragic beauty of the human experience illustrated by its abrupt end.

I feel such profound loss every time I listen to it. The joy, the excitement, the anticipation of the crew. The forbidden knowledge of the engineers who couldn't do anything but wait and watch as their worst fears became reality. The horrifying realization that your dreams and aspirations are dissolving around you, that the things you want more than anything else in the world are impossible to grasp, and there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.

The crew compartment’s breaking up
The crew compartment’s breaking up
The crew compartment’s breaking up
The crew compartment’s breaking up

Hopes and expectations. Experiences and dreams. We have so much life to lead, but at a certain point we come to terms with the fact that things don't always go to plan. Do you hide from the inevitable, or do you try and experience as much as you can so you live with the beauty while you can?

I do wonder how deep my emotional attachment to this song would be had I not listened to that episode. Would I have intrinsically understood the gravity of the work and what it was trying to say? Would I have heard and internalized the wonder and awe and fear that Roderick so effectively captures in his voice? Or is it only effective because I know the intent? Would I revere the song like I do, having all of that context?

I don't know. That's not how things worked out for me here. I can't possess the answer. Also we're quickly approaching Death of the Author territory here—a philosophy I tend to agree with—so perhaps, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. I either connect with a piece of art, or I don't. In this case, the additional knowledge adds a layer of understanding and empathy I might not have otherwise. But I can't possibly know everything, and sometimes I need to form my own narrative interpretations, creating beauty and understanding that may or my not have been there the whole time.

Maybe it's enough I get to experience. I get to feel. I get to share. Today, I'm here. Tomorrow, I might not be.

¹ And when I say "lil" I mean lil. It was one of these! Mini CDs! I loved them so much. They had room for like six or seven songs, but they were so cute and colorful. I had a very strange fascination with CDs that didn't have the typical silvery rainbow bottoms (especially black, like the bottoms of PSX discs), and these all had bottoms that matched their tops and jewel cases.⬏

² Still does! Great song. Go ahead and treat yourself to a listen.⬏

³ Thanks, Chad!⬏

⁴ I refer to this facetiously, of course. Fun fact: I watched the Bean Dad debacle play out in real time on Twitter, and it was actually the glass-shattering moment where I realized that site (and by extension A LOT OF THE INTERNET) actually sucks so much shit. I have John Roderick to thank for me deleting my fucking account, and I've never looked back. Site sucks, and it's not Elon's fault.<sup>5

5</sup> It is Elon's fault that it is EVEN WORSE than it was. Fuck Elon, fuck Twitter, and actually fuck Elon again just for good measure. Garbage person.⬏

Today’s song is “Girl!” by Terror Pigeon.

We finally stopped to rest once we could touch the clouds. Stretched out around us in every direction, reaching into the atmosphere, an endless range of jagged peaks, mottled white, covered in pine tree peach fuzz. Dark splotches of diffused sunlight blanketed the crags, filled the valleys. Surrounded by the consequences of millions of years of tectonic friction, we basked in our accomplishment. The Earth was at once endlessly vast and impossibly small. We were thousands of miles from everything we knew. We were home.

I can still feel the cool air as it slowed my racing heart. I can still smell the scent of grass and trees and dirt and flowers dancing around us. I can still feel the smooth rocks in my hands as I grounded myself.

By the time we reached Hamilton Lake, my legs hurt, my lungs hurt, my back hurt. We climbed higher than the tallest building in the world! We hiked harder than all of civil engineering. There were so many times where I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. My body screamed. How did I do it?

We pushed. We climbed. We persevered. We persevered. We persevered.

And then we sat. We gazed around, dumbstruck. Our awe impossible to contain. We laughed.

I will never forget your smile that day.

I will never forget your smile. My favorite thing in the world.

Please allow me
To speak this clearly:
There is not will nor force or power on this earth
To keep you from me

Betraying every philosophical and spiritual belief I possess, the connection we share feels as though it was inevitable. The Universe merely bided its time while we grew into who we needed to become. Nudged us together when we needed to grow further. With such power guiding us, what else do we do but overcome the insurmountable?

And where I'm going
Will you come too then?
Cause all I want to do and see
Would be infinitely better with you beside me!

Of all the anthems we share, "Girl!" feels the most accurate encapsulation of us. Righteous, electric, optimistic. A propulsive, frenetic, emphatic ode to finding your person. The inexplicable bond that forms when you meet someone who gets you. The commitment you make over and over and over as you work to be better for each other. The adoration for the one you love. Who they are. How they help you see you more clearly.

And you know what I know
and you feel what I feel

One of my favorite memories: the first time I heard "Girl!" and I knew I had to share it with you. The way we shook our hips, our butts, as the song built and built and built. Until it exploded! And we were just a chaotic mess of limbs flailing around the apartment. Not dancing, per sé. Conduits of energy.

I love how this song compels you to shout the lyrics. To stomp with the beat. To fill any space big or small with as much joy for its entire runtime, and then do it all over again because it never feels like one time is enough.

I want to be there when you wake
I want to be there when you need
I want to be there when you laugh
I want to be there when you speed
I want to be there when you're hurt
I want to be there 'til you're fine
I want to be there for tonight
I want to be there all the time

One of my favorite memories: when we held each other and said "I love you" for the first time, changing everything forever.

There is nothing about you I won't love

One of my favorite memories: both of us sobbing at Kitbull.

There is nothing about you I won't love

One of my favorite memories: showing up so, so early in the morning to be one of the first of three couples married in Cook County in 2020, only to be fourth in line.

There is nothing about you I won't love

One of my favorite memories: how your compassion came through in the height of the pandemic when you had to sit with me and tell me how my anxiety and depression was affecting you. How I wouldn't have gotten the help I needed if it wasn't for you.

There is nothing about you I won't love

Your laugh.

There is nothing about you I won't love

Your voice.

There is nothing about you I won't love

Your wit.

There is nothing about you I won't love

How you make me laugh.

There is nothing about you I won't love

The silly faces you make.

There is nothing about you I won't love

The way you solve problems.

There is nothing about you I won't love

Your endless pursuit of self-improvement.

There is nothing about you I won't love

Your relentless optimism about people.

There is nothing about you I won't love

The way you see me like no one else has.

There is nothing about you I won't love

The way you make me feel safe.

There is nothing about you I won't love

How I am so excited to see where we're going.

There is nothing about you I won't love

How frequently we turn to one another and exclaim, "Oh my god, we're married!" Or "Oh my god, we have a house!" Or "Oh my god, we have a dog!" That for every bit that feels inevitable, feels equal parts improbable. I love rediscovering how exciting it is that we are here together.

There is nothing about you I won't love

I love how "Girl!" so effectively uses repetition to reinforce the joy and invigoration and awe and adoration and admiration and optimism of feeling seen and understood. It's a raucous, riotous celebration of finding the ones that accept you for who you are. An ode to the people in our lives that help shape us, who make life worth living, who help you see which mountains are worth climbing, and motivate you to persevere.

Today’s song is “Float On” by Modest Mouse.

I failed Driver's Ed. the first time.

This, of course, was not a reflection of my actual driving ability¹ or my thorough understanding of the Rules of the Road.² By the time the final semester of my sophomore year was over, I had not only earned top marks on my actual driving assessments, I also passed the written exam with flying colors. By the admission of my teachers alone, I should've passed. But I had missed too many days of school that year. The administration had no choice but to fail me on a technicality.

The diagnosis from my therapist was Chronic Depression, and, yeah, I mean, that tracks. I was not a particularly happy teen,³ and as my unhappiness grew, I became more and more adept at faking sick to convince my codependent mother to let me stay home from school. Anything that kept me away from the oppressive, cavernous halls of GHS felt like a win. Every day I had a "fever" was a day I didn't have to worry about some dickhead who was going to dump his bottle of water on me, or wrench my textbooks from my hands, or hit me in the nuts while I walked by. Every day I was home sick was one more day I didn't have to bashfully tell my teachers that I hadn't completed the homework assignment. My life at that time was defined by finding short-term relief with no comprehension of long-term consequences.

So: failed. No drivey for Keen Bean. The only thing I was actually looking forward to that year wrenched away from me. No one's fault but my own.

Coincidentally, it was around that time that the incessant arguing between my mother and father culminated in us moving away from the distant Chicago suburbs⁴ to a more affordable house out in the much more distant country. We traded Starbucks for soybeans. The 300-kid high school class I despised was replaced by an entire school of just 270 kids brought in from five different towns—not exaggerating. The closest stop light was a 30 minute drive away.

Life changed a bit.

Because I still had a job in my hometown, my mom was on a mission to get me my driver's license ASAP so she and my dad wouldn't be responsible for getting me to and from work back in the 'burbs. I spent the summer between Sophomore and Junior year attending a private Driver Education school, relearning the things I already knew. Miraculously, this one actually stuck, and at the end of the however-many weeks I spent attending those classes, I was cleared to take the real exam at the DMV.

I passed on the first try. I was now free to drive the minivan (mom's car) or the seafoam green 1995 Toyota Tercel (dad's car) whenever either was available. I was usually stuck with the Tercel.

To call it a "car" in the first place feels generous. It was a soap box with wheels, retrofitted with an engine. It all felt very illegal to be driving on the same roads with actual cars. 120,000 miles on the odometer. A clutch that needed to be bested in physical combat to actually change gears. And when you drove it above 60 miles per hour, it shook so violently that it's a miracle the thing didn't dissolve and send the passengers sitting inside spilling out onto the roadway to be ground into a fine paste.

My little cheapo portable CD player came with me everywhere when I drove that car. It played the CD through the car speakers via that weird little cassette tape that had a cable that plugged into the headphone jack. Remember?⁵

It was a gigantic piece of shit. I loved that car. It gave me freedom. Freedom to explore. Freedom to be alone with my thoughts. Freedom to scream.

I would crank up my music as loud as the speakers could handle, and I tried to scream the songs louder than that. I screamed Slipknot. Screamed Korn. Screamed Kittie. Screamed Snake River Conspiracy. Screamed Limp Bizkit. Screamed Staind. Screamed Papa Roach. Screamed Linkin Park. I burned a spindleful of mix CDs specifically to ravage my vocal cords and leave my body raw and broken. Barreling down long country roads, all that could be heard for miles was the whipping of the air through open windows, the rattling of a vehicle held together by chicken wire, and the impotent rage of a teenager.

All of the cruelty I absorbed in school, all of the chaos and anger I absorbed at home, erupted when I was the only person for miles. For so long, music had been my refuge. When I was alone on the road, it was my release. Just me and my feelings and the soybeans.

Somewhere west of Paw Paw, Illinois, a real town with a real population of (at the time) just 900 people, there's a wind farm. I discovered it by happenstance on one of my drives. Rows and rows of white titans towering into the air. Three lanky arms reaching out, slowly turning in the breeze. They are strange, alien structures. Unsettling in a way that's difficult to describe. Few things are creepier to me than seeing the silhouettes of windmills beset against a darkening sky. I always felt as though if I turned my back to them, they would reach down and pluck me from the Earth, remove my brain, and replace me with someone new and no one would ever know the difference.

For two years, I aimlessly drove through the country whenever I could. Roads winding between trees, up and over the tiniest little bullshit Illinois hills, through miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of flat, nothing, fields of soybeans, corn and soybeans and corn.

And the windmills. No matter how many times I returned to them, they never got less creepy, but I kept going back.

When I graduated in 2004, my uncle gave me $500. Mom implored I save as much as I could—which I did! But not before going to Best Buy and treating myself to two albums: Franz Ferdinand by Franz Ferdinand and Good News for People Who Love Bad News by Modest Mouse. These two albums became the de facto soundtrack of my solo excursions on the road. With time, my drives became less about screaming, more about grooving. More about singing. About softening. Appreciating. Resting. Soaking. Soaking it all in, shaking it all out, becoming more in tune with me.

Franz Ferdinand got me moving my body. It got me to sing. It was fun!

Modest Mouse got me to heal. Good News for People Who Love Bad News is a quirky, beautiful album that, 20 years later, still feels as relevant and important to me today. It is timeless. My adoration for Franz Ferdinand has long waned. My adoration for Modest Mouse has only grown. I return to it often, and when I do I can't help but be transported back to who I was as at 18 years old with the clarity of who I am nearing my 40s. Bright blue skies. Open windows. My arm snaking up and down in the air. The heavy scent of nature filling my body. Learning to appreciate the flat, boring, nothing fields.

Highway 30 runs straight through the heart of a town called Shabbona, Illinois, where I lived for those two years. At the time, it was just 950 people. As of the 2020 census, just 862. It's a town that has seen its best days, and now slowly dwindles. I miss its quiet. I miss the long stretch of University Road, where it ended at Highway 30. You turn right to make your way toward town, and the road curves up and over the railroad tracks. At the precipice of the hill, you see fields stretching off in all directions into the horizon. A small nothing town enveloped by agricultural sprawl.

Have you ever stopped to watch a field of soybeans in Summer? The leaves wave delicately in the breeze, like tissue paper, and as they do so, they catch the sunlight in a way that makes the field shimmer and flow. An undulating ocean of green slowly surging over the land. Corn rises and rustles. Soybeans beckon. Set sail and go wherever the wind takes you.

The simple beauty of the chorus for "Float On" reminds me of soybeans.

And we'll all float on, okay
And we'll all float on, okay
And we'll all float on, okay
And we'll all float on, alright

It's a mantra of reprieve.

It's not enough to say it. You have to repeat it. You have to internalize it. You have to embody it. Life marching on is inevitable, but you have a choice of accepting it. Let the road lead you where it may. Enjoy the drive.

God, I miss that fucking piece of shit car.

¹ I had played a ton of Gran Turismo after all!⬏

² I was a nerd who was desperate to please people in authority after all!⬏

³ Do those even exist?⬏

⁴ Close enough to Chicago to just say "Chicago," when people ask you where you're from, but far enough away that when someone from Chicago asks and you say "Chicago," and they say, "Which part?" and you say "Geneva," they get very defensive about it.⬏

⁵ To this day, I still don't know how those things fucking worked, and I'd really prefer to never learn. I will always believe it was some strange Eldritch magic powering them. Please let me have this.⬏