once met a girl from roanoke virginia her eyes were green her hair was red she was 24 and i was 19 and we d fuck like bunnies all day on her waterbed we listened to hsker d s candy apple grey and warehouse songs stories so many times that my ears bled we listened to lou reed s berlin i loved the sadness and the starkness of caroline says and especially the kids sometimes her and i we d have a lot of fun and sometimes we d fight she had a son he was 4 one time they dropped me off at a greyhound bus station in the middle of the night and i sat there all night waiting for the bus knowing it was finally the end of us it took me years to see where i was wrong i didn t have any money back then and she got tired of carrying me along but we kept in touch and one day in philadelphia she came to a show of mine and we went back to her apartment together her son was taller than me and he was sitting there at his computer and the next morning we met up at a jewish deli with some friends of hers and i don t believe that i ve ever seen her since then but up in vancouver i did meet lou reed i told him how much that i loved berlin and he said and who are you and i also met bob mould from hsker d at an austin airport on my way home and he said my version of celebrated summer was on this phone it s funny where life takes you and all the adventures that we go through and who we meet along the way the things that catch our eyes that make us think of yesterday it s crazy where life takes you and all the music that we hear that reminds us of the friends and lovers we knew and as we get older every corner we turn there s still new things that open our eyes and things to learn there s bittersweet and love and sadness there s uplift in the air and there s insanity and madness gonna read some poems by some street kids in argentina gonna walk through the lower ninth ward and think of hurricane katrina i remember walking around those streets before the houses got washed away it s hard for me to walk around this world and not think about yesterday when i walk through the broadway tunnel i think of a shitty fight that i had with an ex girlfriend before i jumped on a flight and flew like a bat out of hell out to tennessee where a girl in a house in the country took me in and rescued me and we came back late from donuts and a deer s head was laying in the driveway an ex boyfriend of hers was trying to send me a message like stay the fuck out of my way but i have nice memories of that house listening to npr and drinking tea but her puppy sally was shot and killed when she went onto to somebody else s property some memories are happy and some are sad i take the bad with the good and am grateful for what i have and walking from my place to my girlfriend s on russian hill i get overwhelmed with memories of the broadway tunnel this life of beautiful animals and people this life of so much art and poetry i walk down the street and i m still inspired by everything i see this life of many rivers seas and lakes and oceans this life of many landscapes this life of so much warm sunshine this life of so many storms and so much pouring rain i walk past the restaurant i used to go for chinese i knew the twin waitresses there mindy and muriel since they were both 15 i saw them both grow up and have children and i saw them turn 40 now the place is all boarded up with plywood and i miss the wonton soup there like crazy the grocery store where i used to go that played music from the 60 s got taken over by the google kids from silicon valley but i won t let it run me out and i won t let it faze me this city has always been and will always be an inspiration friends come and go the world continues to spin don t know that i ll ever hear from that girl from virginia or that i ll ever see mindy and muriel but i hope someday that when i die it s near that broadway tunnel walking by your side around russian or telegraph hill