Nostalgia Double Whammy

Ten years ago, I was 26 years old and living on Winton Street in a house I shared with my good friends Ken and Bryce, and our iguana, Chili. I was just starting grad school, and I had various jobs: one at the map store in the mall, and one at a neighborhood elementary school teaching small Mexican children to read (this was my absolute favorite of all the jobs I've ever had, by the way). Bryce was working for a big department store, in charge of "visual." And Ken was in a band called the Old 97's, whose first CD was just coming out. These were intersting times.
I remember going to watch "'Ken's band" at places that aren't there anymore, like Chumley's, when there were about 8 people in the crowd, and 6 of them were playing pool. Then at Naomi's where the audience started to grow. It was exciting when the CD came out, and there was lots of action at our house. There were always people coming over late at night. There were after-the-gig parties at our house with Ken making breakfast tacos at 3 in the morning. One time, I even threw somebody out (which is a shocking thing if you know me). I think it was because it was 4am and this dude was rooting around our fridge yelling at me because we didn't have any onions or something. It wasn't always an easy tension-free living situation, but I can definitely say I learned from the experience.
So, last night I went to the Granada to see the Old 97s play a special 10th-anniversary-of-the-first-CD show. They played Hitchike to Rhome in its entirety, and it was GREAT. I haven't heard them do many of those songs live in a very long time, but it almost felt like no time had passed since the Chumley's days. A lot of time HAS passed though, and a lot has changed. The big difference is that now most of us from the early days are married, a lot of us have kids, and we have a harder time staying up so late these days; and now there are hundreds of screaming fans singing all the words to all the songs. I can't tell you how weird it is to hear people sqeal at the mention of Ken's name. To me, Ken is just a dude who cleans the lizard cage with the soup ladle and plays video games all day and is a good friend that I could probably count on to bail me out of jail if I happened to ever end up there.
Anyway, Congratulations to the Old 97's on their anniversary and for all their success. The show was lots of fun last night, and it made me very sad-happy.
On top of all that, the Granada is also where I spent a great deal of my very most favorite day ever, as Kev and I had our wedding reception there. Last night was the first time I'd been in there since the wedding, and it brought back many memories of the day I felt like the big rock star, with all the attention and cameras and action. We didn't quite pack 'em in like the Old 97's, but everyone seemed to have a pretty good time. And I got to start being married to Kev that day.
So, last night I had double sad-happy nostalgia. It was nice.