Bleary Eyes

So six weeks ago I sat at the office with my eyes glued to the world clock window on my screen. In a separate window my tickets.com profile stood at the ready, waiting for my finger to give the order to dial up Bright Eyes tickets. Scoring these would be my coup du jour. If I nailed them, I could call it a morning and start thinking about important things, like lunch. When the clock struck 10am I went through the motions and dialed them up without a snag. Okay, there was a minor snag -- my inability to initially decipher the gibberish code -- but I still managed in the end and later had lunch at a sushi spot down the street.

I came clean about launching this blog to some friends while we huddled together and smoked outside a bar at happy hour last week. My maiden blog, I sheepishly announced between shivering puffs, would be a review of the Bright Eyes show. A couple of heads nodded and grunted their approval of this.

The show was 2 nights ago at 9:30 Club. I didn't make it. My reason? I was tired. So completely lame, I know. At the same time, I can't deny the larger picture, much as I try. Certain emblems of youth are slipping from my grasp. The concert circuit may be passing me by. I should add that this was a Monday night show with 2 openers. (Why venues have 2 openers, let alone one, on weeknight shows will always puzzle me.) I'd like to think that prospect would pose some level of intimidation to someone even in their late 20s, assuming that person has a day job and and general scope of responsibility. I've gutted it out for shows like this and found myself ruined for a day or two. The fact that I can't be in the vicinity of a bar without saturating myself should be admitted as evidence here. Okay, I should also admit that the weekend prior to this lazy Monday entailed consecutive nights of gluttony (I'll leave it at that).

At the end of the day, there are undercurrents sloshing beneath me here, and I haven't made the call yet on how to react: splash and fight them or let them toss and turn me inside out?

What to do about this coming of age in the meantime? Embrace a piece of it but run like hell from the rest of it. That's what I felt like after work today when my 2-year-old son Jack and I danced our asses off in the living room to the new Arcade Fire that blared from the ipod dock. He replayed the new and improved "No Cars Go" over and over, and I encouraged him every time. I believe Neal Pollack would smile at this picture.

Between the click of the light and the start of the dream maybe something will come to me...