"And in the end it's not just you, with your memories and your scars..."

My first real outing in Philadelphia was to the TLA. We were two or three weeks into my first semester at La Salle, and four of us way too white suburbanites traveled down to the TLA to see Dynamite Hack (remember them?) and Goldfinger. The subway ride was tense, the walk down south street disconcerting, and TLA was smokey and thumping from the base guitar of the opening acts.

So it seems fitting that tonight, up in the balcony of the TLA, with Lish (since she was there on that first tense outing), that Matt Nathanson played the soundtrack to my college career.

Call his music whiny. Even he tonight called it "sissy music." Say that I'm too old to go out and listen to his music with all of the drunk college kids. But, in the end, his music is attached to so many people and moments of my life that I don't think I could ever not go see him when given the opportunity.

"I stuffed myself sick on your memory, on the beautiful mess that we'd made."
Tonight he played "First time", a song forever associated with the summer of 2003. The summer of baltimore and the attic bedroom. The summer I'd left La Salle without saying goodbye to graham, and spent most of the summer livid at him. This song was what I played that summer when I looked back on all of the failed attempts at romance I had dealt with up until that point.

"Because I've gone long enough waiting for wonderful."
He played "sing me sweet." A song that when I hear it, I will always remember a chilly november morning when septa was on strike. Laying on a futon in the middle of a spruce street apartment, wondering what the next few weeks would bring. The months that followed, this song just reminded me of him, and even now when I know that everything happens for a reason, I can't help but think of him as Matt Nathanson declares that he's "gone long enough waiting for wonderful."

"Oh Princess, you're ready for greatness, all edited and weightless, never more alive."
Although in concerts MN declares that this song is about a girl that he thought was terrible. This song, even now, is me. It is how I would describe myself. I keep my hands in my pockets and my eyes innocent... with all of my thoughts close to my chest. I am always "bold for the boys who keep [me] guessing." I could always use a win...

"And in the end it's not just you with your memories and your scars, fall on me if you ever forget how beautiful you are..."
This song is harder to explain. It's college graduation. It's Dave moving to Chicago. It's a perfect love song to someone who will never understand. It's a time it's a place.

On this night, after a great concert (GREAT CONCERT), after looking at wedding pictures on facebook of a group of people I was never really connected to, and yet played such a huge role in my life, I tired and thoughtful. Thinking of all the places I have been in my life, and all of the places I have still yet to go....

(I am aware of how disjointed this post is... my apologies.)