I've obviously gotten out of practice of this blogging business, but I suddenly feel the urge to write...I'm homesick beyond belief. Perhaps that's not even the right word. I know that, were I to go home, it would still not be right. Things with my parents aren't particularly good and nearly all of my friends are scattered elsewhere in the country (or world) at this point. But I have an ache for Washington that I haven't had for a long while. Much of it, I believe, is due to the fact that I desperately need a break from New York. From working, from summer, from a lack of friends in town... from day-to-day realities in general. And so, even knowing full well what I would find in Washington, visions of the lush grass of the waterfront in Tacoma and the easy calm of downtown Olympia enter my daydreams throughout the days. And, in contrast to the unending noise that surrounds me here, the quiet that accompanies these visions of home swells into the most seductive siren song...Until I can get back, Modest Mouse is likely to be a constant fixture on my playlist. A month ago, I might've attempted to explain the connection between the band and my dreams of home by describing how I began listening to them in high school, went to a concert with friends, etc. Now, however, that explanation seems lacking. I've listened to them enough in NY for new associations to form, thereby altering if not destroying the old ones, were that the case. And yet there remains something in the music itself that continues to inspire visions of Washington. A echo of the melancholy experienced by those strangely seduced by the overcast skies and light rains, perhaps? A mood more in keeping with long drives than hurried crosstown travels? I'm not sure. Whatever it is, I've been feeding on it for weeks and it only fuels my hunger for a journey west...