Holy crap, we are well into August.

I'd better get cracking on the magic book goal... Idea #44 is about collections.

In my younger days I was horribly sentimental. Someone in my family (either my grandma or my dad) started a bell collection for me, so everywhere I went I had to get a bell to commemorate the occasion. I had three shoe boxes of high school notes passed between me and my friends, complete with code names for all the boys we liked. I had 15 photo albums. I had crusty stuffed animals I'd loved as a kid. And the cat stuff. Good lord, the cat stuff.

I got rid of the bell collection somewhere around the start of my emo phase in 11th grade, but in college I really cleaned up. I threw away almost all of the old notes. I put all my photos in those three shoe boxes instead and got rid of the photo albums. I tossed or gave away the stuffed animals (except Snoopy of course). I finally convinced everyone to STOP. WITH. THE. CAT. STUFF. ALREADY.

I changed a lot in college, and I think that's where the purging instinct came from - I just didn't want to be reminded of that person anymore. (I think it also had to do with space. I go home now and my room is so tiny. I can't imagine where I kept all that stuff.)

There is one item I've kept over the years: concert tickets. I probably have a hundred in my possession, there are probably another 20-30 that I've lost over time, and another 20-30 shows I've seen that didn't require tickets. I turned this into an art project a few years ago but kept all the original stubs intact. It's interesting to look back every now and then and remember who I was with and where my head was at the time (and hopefully, how far I've come since then).

Like, I can't find my Primus ticket stub, but I know I saw them at The Citadel right around the time I saw these guys:
I went with two high school friends and was just exiting my pop music phase in favor of "alternative rock." The concepts of pogo and mosh were new to me, so this was a really fun show. One of my friends lent me his cool ear clip. It fell off somewhere between the pogo-ing and the moshing and we stayed for an hour after the show trying to find it (I think it had sentimental value to him). I still feel bad about that.

(This is also the earliest ticket stub I have. Sadly, I did not keep the New Kids on the Block stub from 1990. That probably would've been worth something today. Parents - hold on to that Hannah Montana crap! You just never know.)

This show took place around the middle stages of my college grunge phase, on the evening of the day Kurt Cobain was found dead:
Ten thousand angsty kids, candles and lighters all over the place, band members feeling the need to say something significant without even having time to process this news themselves - good times! Seriously though, I will never forget how I felt that night. A different kind of intense that I will probably never feel again.

And then there was the early-20s moody phase which lingers to this day. I've weaseled my way up to the front of the crowd many a time, but I've only lined up outside about 90 minutes in advance of the show once, and that was for this show:We were front and center, leaning on the stage, ten feet from the band. Probably not coincidentally, this is also where I fell in love with Grant Lee Phillips. So did the two straight guys I went with.

My first show at the legendary Fillmore:
I've probably seen these guys 15 times over the years. The crowd gets older, but the music never gets old.

And the list goes on and on.

I've gotta start seeing more live music. Granny tendencies be damned.