I keep forgetting it's my birthday. I think that officially makes me a grownup.

The Dismemberment Plan, Change

For me, nostalgia works in two-year increments. One year ago is too recent; I can still remember the bad things. But because memory ablates the unpleasantness, I can be nostalgic about things that happened more than two years ago. So five years ago, seven years ago, is damn near perfect by now.

I heard a funny sound, then everything seemed to shift

Two and half years ago, Change was released. What could have been a terribly mundane and uninspired album title was instead a mighty epithet, a one-word manifesto for a band which, we'd all eventually learn, was in its autumn years, its final golden age.

I know if we could forget all the sorrow, it may as well be ours

No matter what time of year it is, listening to this album makes me wish it was autumn. Even Autumn 2001, that terribly uncertain time. It was either Magnet or Pitchfork who called this album a "Remain In Light for darker times." It came out in late October, when everyone was still reeling and afraid, but also still being nice to each other, and the foliage was burnt brown and we all had to find warmer coats.

With no one to call, summer turned to fall

And I had Neil all to myself, and we would walk down the hill and across the bridge to go get drunk for free at the gay bar where the owner had a crush on us, and we slogged across the Burlington Street bridge by the water plant, bracing ourselves against the wet wind.

Under low grey skies, and a razored wind that tears at the walls

Listening to the album on the way to meet my parents for a terrible brunch at the Iowa River & Power Co., my father wearing transitional lenses, another step in his slow capitulation to old age.

I've felt the snaps of lines that bind us all to this world

Those shimmering guitars, the unsteady tremolo of the mellotron parts. The moment at the end of "Superpowers" where the jam with the detuned guitar breaks into the song's final anthemic ride-out.

Called in sick to work today, I couldn't have gotten a damn thing done anyhow

Dozing off on the couch in front of bad movies, waiting to go to work later in the grey afternoon.

Made myself some coffee and I listened to the rain rattle the leaves

Going into work on a Sunday morning�mere hours after some ridiculous afterhours party involving endless cases of free beer and lines of coke in the back rooms�arriving for the bookstore's dreaded Sunday opening shift hungover but warm, sneaking sips of coffee in the corner by the Poetry section. Wondering what was going to happen in the latter half of my twenties, not terribly knocked out by the first half.

I so don't need those dreams that I used to have

Sad because I was no longer in a band and wasn't sure when I ever would be. Realizing if anything was going to change, it wasn't going to fall in my lap. I'd have to work for it.

Not a promise or a threat or an ultimatum (though I can do those too)

Walking back from a tame gathering one night on the east side of town, listening to "Secret Curse" on the headphones. During a visit to Chicago, going to Reckless with Aden to get his copy, then listening to it at least five times in a row that night.

I dishonor the past, being so loose with my time

The only compliment I've ever gotten from a pseudo-celebrity was the first time I talked with Joe, the Plan's drummer, and he told me Speed Of Sauce was his favorite band name, and he'd never much cared for his own band's name, and did we want to trade? He'd just seen our set and told me I "ruled the school."

Then my band broke up, and I felt like I had no ground to stand on.

It could've been off the hook now, if we ever had what it took now, I haven't a clue

Going to a thrift store with Neil so he could buy a typewriter which we would use late at night to bang out bizarre short skits and obscene mad libs. Writing feverishly but unable to finish anything.

I think it's as well

Going to NYC in November to visit Win, taking the E train as far south as it would go and emerging from the underground to a silent city, no lights on in the windows, no one on the sidewalks, drawn down towards a dusty cluster of kleig lights and construction equipment. Standing behind police barricades and only crying then, for the first time, about the whole mess.

Even as this wavelength pulses dread

Huddled with Neil and Selena in her apartment, in the coziest living room of all time, drinking cheap wine and making up ridiculous songs on the guitar. Standing on her balcony, at eye level with the courthouse clock tower across the river, watching the moving lights of fickle college students' cars.

And you wonder why you never split this beat scene

I was unable to listen to the album for a long time after the breakup was announced, but gradually let myself fall back into it. Because we all need something to hold onto, with which to anchor ourselves.

So call me when you can now, you know I would love a surprise

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