You can never look back... can you?

Just when I thought I was out...

So for the past four years, I've managed to lose contact with and/or cut off interaction with a good number of folks from my past. Now, like an itch in my back nostalgia has come and hit me hard for the past few months. I honestly don't know why I am looking, but I am finding people from my past again. At Harry Potter, I saw an old classmate. Sometimes I'll run into others on the train. Just yesterday, an old acquaintance from my dorm. It's amazing how if you stay in the same areas that no matter how much seems to change things always stay the same (to use a cliche). There's not a lot to it, though. I don't even know where to begin, much less what I'll say when it happens.

In High school, it was what college I was going to, or what neighborhood I was from. In College, the questions were what my major was, what my ACT/SAT scores were, and now that I'm graduated it's what I'm doing now and what I studied and/or where I came from. These are the questions I answer most, but it seems like the same people just at different times in our lives. One gigantic circle, having spent so much time away but now rooted back in.

And I am totally buying into it. I'm trying to maintain my current associations, reforging ones I feel I missed out on, and I don't even know why I'm contacting people again in some cases. In some ways I feel I have unfinished business. Other times, it's just curiosity or boredom. Usually the latter. Such is the way that things seem to go for me though, that no matter how far along I think I've come there's always some moment to bring me back, to shake me loose from whatever perch I've managed to hang onto. It's disturbing, comforting, and confusing as shit all at the same time. One of these days soon maybe I'll get it right and figure out where to go before I hold myself back in everything I feel I didn't do, in the days I can no longer change.

Ok Go - the concert

OK AWESOME!

This past Friday I had the unmitigated pleasure of watching an awesome band: Ok Go (www.okgo.net). The last single I had heard from them was "A Million Ways" and the first "Get over it." They rocked me crazy with both. (And not just because they danced their asses off in the former's music video.) I don't even know what songs they played, but each was awesome and got me moving. They covered the Violent Femmes, mixed the old and the new, culminating into the encore. The lead singer (Damian, so my girlfriend tells me) uses the stage well and even snuck into the crowd. It was great to see him perform so energetically, considering he had prefaced the entire performance by announcing he had had too much caffeine and not enough sleep.

Oh yeah. The encore. They dance. They danced HARD. Following a rant from Damian about the deteriorating values of an encore, the crowd was treated to a live performance of their "A Million Ways" interpretation, much appreciated by the crowd and this writer particularly for all the screaming that went on. They're real, yo. Straight up.

It was a good time at the Metro again, and the only thing that kept the night from being perfect was getting my bag checked... only to see some people hadn't been asked to do the same. Thankfully the staff was really respectful about addressing my concerns and spoke to me in a courteous manner. Cookie points to them.

Alas, the time did feel too brief, and I have no recollection about the opening bands but I did think they were pretty cool too. Ahh.... good times in Chicago.

THANKS OK GO!