Hey Mike,
You know, I used to send so many letters. Remember all the pen pals I had when we met in college? Maybe you didn't notice - but I'm pretty sure you knew about a few of them, and there were a couple, like d. who I probably didn't mention much.
I was thinking about you this weekend, in a way I hadn't in a long time, or maybe, conciously, ever.
Oddly, I was watching a clip of Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran playing acoustically together in London on the weekend. They have been friends for a long time - I'm not an expert on the fandom, but from what I can gleen it seems like they go back a bit. Certainly, they are the same age and seem to both be products of the same giant ass viral bubble that made rockstars about a decade ago.
Anyway, watching them play, doing acoustic versions of songs they'd both written, watching them interact - it made me nostalgic for being onstage with you.
I assume, whereever you are now, you may already know that while I think about you often, it isn't always about us as a couple. It is usually, about the intensity of life in general, or places we traveled, or people we knew together.
This was different, in a way that I haven't felt in a really long time. My brain was immediately filled with memories of you writing songs in our apartments or rooms. The way you sat, cross-legged, but not lotus; it was a weird thing you did specifically on the floor. Your SG tucked against your tummy, your head bent so it was parallel to the floor - your hair (when it was long enough) flopping in your face (I have one photo from Serbia when your hair had gotten crazy long and you were also smoking and coughing that is burned into my memory, but so many more, like when we were stuck at the garage in the field in France, or in our apartment in DC, or the room in Silver Spring, or jeez - even the bedroom in Eugene!) and you'd strum, then be reaching over to write the notation down with the lyrics.
I loved you so much in such specific moments, you literally created a formative way of looking at a partner - for good and for not so good, obviously.
What's weird for me is how warm the memory felt, how comforting and the longing I had to just have that feeling again. While it was sort of expanding, I remembered how it felt to sing backing vocals with you, and the occasional times we would be looking at each other onstage (it didn't happen much, you were the focal point and me and whatever drummer didn't have much to offer the crowds) or the occasions when you would tell me it was a good gig.
Remember that show in Belguim when the kids sang with us completely out of the blue?
Oh, it also happened the other day when a clip of Neil Young doing Keep On Rockin' on SNL in '89 showed up in my feed - goddamn that song was fun to play. You had such a good sense for so long about music and punk rock. It's sad it kind of morphed into a weird paranoia and desperation. You would have been stoked that you got a mention in the LV music rag though after you died. People were really kind on your FB too - until the new whip got into a fistfight with the baby momma.
Ah well.
Anyway, thanks for being part of my life Mike, I wish I had tried harder to be me, instead of being so fucking scared all the time about how ugly I was.
