When there's nowhere else to run Is there room for one more son? One more son If you can, hold on

Let's go back to the world circa 2005.

And I say 2005, knowing that this album came out in 2004, but not getting a copy of it until 2005.

So, it's 2005 and Borders still exists and you and your friends drive around blasting this song from a burned CD and act out all of the various parts we had choreographed.

The "driving around blasting this to annoy rich people whilst acting out THE part like the Splash Mountain jazz hands gospel chickens" was an ERA.

I thought of something as I listened to this this morning: I miss the era of the driving around and listening to music, but I do not miss the people that I did this with. Who they were no longer matters. I could even lie to myself and say that they were an entirely different group of friends, and that these friends in particular never existed. No one would know the difference. I could completely reinvent this memory if I wanted to. No one would ever know the difference.

I miss stupid shit like that,  even if I don't miss those friends,  but that was an ERA. Is that what growing up is? The day that all of your friends hang out together for the last time and no one knows it? I used to call these folks all of the time, and none of them ever answered. Then, one day, I saw them all hanging out without me. They didn't see me, but I saw them. That was my answer.

I bear them no ill will. I don't even care, if that's believable. They all just faded away, and that was it. I never think about them anymore. They were at one time my entire life, and now they are nothing. They are a fraction of a half memory.

I miss the wandering around aimlessly, hanging out in Borders spending money we didn't have, going to Tsarbucks and camping out there, driving around like feckless layabouts blasting music in rich neighourhoods and bothering the rich people who lived there with our selection of The Killers, Muse, Nine Inch Nails, and My Chemical Romance. I miss doing those things, but I don't miss the people I did them with. Just like Borders no longer exists, and Barnes & Noble does--because it adpated with the times--, the friendships that couldn't adapt no longer exist, but the memories do.

I will probably listen to The Killers or My Chemical Romance on the way home, just to revisit those familiar feelings. Leaving people out of them isn't personal, they chose their own way out, and so in my mind's eye, and in my memories, I will adjust them accordingly.