All the rusted signs we ignore all our lives...

I remember that I was 22 years old, living with roommates in the city. My room was downstairs while the rest of my housemates were living above me. My brother would lock himself in my room with the lights out, a bottle of bourbon and my copy of Pearl Jam's Ten. He wouldn't resurface until the bottle was nearly all gone, the album had played itself over and over and over again, and we could hardly understand the jibberish falling out of his young, drunken mouth. He was enraptured...and to think, I liked Pearl Jam more.

Some things are ideal markers on whatever timeline your memories keep. Pearl Jam marks the minutia of my years, and as much as the film we watched last night was a documentary about a band, it was equally a photo album of my life. It reminded me about friendship, and youth, and passion and originality. It struck me how very often we all come from the same youthful place and then lose ourselves in adulthood. It can be a tragic transition, and not for the reasons you might assume. Maybe we were all better then, just a little more sincere, a little more desperate and hopeful. The film reminded me about how lucky I am to live and work in a world where the feelings that I felt in 1993 are never very far away from the surface.

I'm excited to see the teenage Zoey. I want to see what she falls in love with, and obsesses over, and finds joy in. I want to watch her find herself. She'll find her own Pearl Jam which will allow me to litter our conversations with indiscriminate Eddie Vedder wisdom without her even knowing it. Makes parenting a teen seem not so bad.