How To Change The World
If, as my former bandmate, once sang “World’s change in the belly of an insect,” then universes transform in a matter of years.
Little wonder, then, that I should comment to Abbi this weekend that I can’t remember a period of transformation as radical as the last five years.
Five years ago, I was an Executive Producer. I lived on the Upper West Side. I played rock shows on the regular, smoked, drank, caroused, and regularly hailed cabs as dawn broke. Five years ago, I was single. Don’t take my word for it, though; the archives are just a click away.
Five years ago, I started my Saturday night with a performance by Dough, a band long-since broken up (in fact, Chris Abad, my dear friend and musical partner-in-crime, released his second solo record, “No Glory,” tonight; you should pick up a copy). The evening went on to include four more three more drinking establishments, a handful of potential paramours and many, many more drinks.
The low point came at once-hot dance scene, Misshapes, where a woman I’d been pursuing who was in from San Francisco and had met up with a mutual acquaintance who was friends with one of my exes began making out with another woman on the dance floor. I remember losing them in the crowd, realizing I was alone in a sea of strange, young people throbbing to Madonna’s “Material Girl,” and stumbling out the door. I woke up fully-clothed on my living room floor as the brutal, morning light streaked across the shag carpet, walked upstairs, and wrote “Dark Blue.”
Wake up to discover you’re everything that you abhor
You failed to see yourself before the artificial skin
Wake up to a masquerade, the night has fallen
The city makes you dizzy from the height that break you
Depths that make you prayAnd you’ve fallen into something dark blue
And it’s getting so much darker every day
You’re awake and you don’t know what it means
Wide awake, you just want to go to sleep
A few weeks later, I played a collection of new songs, including “Dark Blue,” for Nadas front man Jason Walsmith. “I like that ‘Blue’ one,” he said. “Sounds like you’re onto something different there.”
Today, I am a Senior Vice President. I live on the Upper East Side. I am married, and expecting a son or daughter any day.
By way of illustration, this weekend began with a Vegan double-date with Chris and his wife, Meg. Saturday morning, I jogged to and from yoga, then spent three hours in a Real Birth infant care class at the 14th Street Y. Afterwards, Abbi and I picked up (I swear to God) five pounds of trail mix and a bottle of wine a Trader Joe’s, before repairing to Babies R Us and then Buy Buy Baby. We ended the evening early with a frozen pizza and “Invictus” on-demand.
I’ve never been happier.
Today, I am wide awake. And I think I know what it means.
