http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19246307

This was a magazine I loved. It covered the type of music I play and listen to. Then like everything in my life I took it for granted and sort of ended up ignoring it. I guess I’m part of the reason it’s discontinuing it’s printed version. But I will probably always hang on to the copies I have because my bands are featured or blurbed in a few of them. And that bolstered my ego and made me feel good. That attention sort of validated what I was trying to do as a musician even though I wasn’t making any money at it.

http://gizmodo.com/349509/lego-brick-timeline-50-years-of-building-frenzy-and-curiosities
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1707379,00.html

Playing with Legos as a kid taught me how to be creative. Without knowing it at the time, I was learning to be resourceful (I never had all the pieces I wanted so I made work-arounds to get what I wanted.) And I learned how to be in “the zone” of creativity and build for hours by myself. (Years later as a graphic designer I discovered I was doing essentially the same thing only with different tools.) It was always the process of building and not so much the acting out of scenarios that I liked – which is still true today for what I do as a graphic designer and musician.

We know it’s easy to find people from our past on the Internet. I’ve looked up childhood friends out of sheer curiosity and likewise people have found me too. But the recent myspace messages below really stopped and gave me a deeper realization of what I’m doing with my life and how much different it could have been had I decided to do things another way.

The following is part of a short correspondence with a girl I may have talked to five times or less in the time we went to school together from 4th grade all the way through high school in a town of five thousand people. It boggles my mind that our brief messaging likely added up to more than all of our conversations back in those days.

I’ve changed her and her family members names.

From her:
Hey I am not sure if are the Nate I went to school with. My name is Christina Smith but Christina Jackson back in the days at Eudora High School. If you are him send me a friend request so we can stay in touch and get to know one and another again. Thanks for your time. Chris

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From me:
Yeah, hi Christina. God, it’s been forever. I think you were class of 93 right? How’s it going?

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From her:
Yea 93 is right!! Everything is going fine. Married and with three kids!! I am a mom of a teenager now!! Taylor turned 13 on the 3rd of May!! Wow!! I still can not believe it. He is in 7th grade now. Janna my daughter is 11 now and in the 5th grade. And the baby gal of the family is 6 soon to be 7 and in the 1st grade. I am a school bus driver 3 years now. My husband is a mechanic and an spray tech. He works alot sun to sun down most days. We live in Tecumseh Kansas now. When my husband’s dad died he left us the house. It is small and needs a lot of work but it is ours. It is in the country and on an dead end road. We have almost 3 acers with it. I am at home or work most the time I am a home body!! I am excited because when school is out this year I hope to finish painting the house and get the yard looking a lot better!! I have a lot to do this summer alone with going to the ballfields a lot for Janna. She plays softball. And then taking the kids to the pool. Well glad to find some eles I know to talk to. There is a couple of classmates I have found on myspace page. I do not have many on there I only talk to people I know on here. To many freaks to just talk to anyone!! Well I will send you a friend request and hope to talk more latter. Take care and hope you are enjoying your life!! Chris

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So why did she find me and why am I unexpectedly interested to hear from this 32-year-old mom? Simple: At this age, we’re all more aware of getting older and we can now for the first time look back at 10 years (give or take a few) or so of living independently and see what we have to show for it and to compare that with others that grew up in the same small town.