All These Squawking Birds Won't Quit

July 2001: My sister comes to town for what will later be known as The Best Trip Ever after I get laid off. Every day we are tourists, but cool tourists, eating dim sum in Chinatown; having a City Bakery picnic at the Cloisters; playing bingo at Max Fish and making many pilgrimages to Other Music, where Erica buys The Shins' Oh Inverted World and I won't let her play anything else until we go back for my own copy.

That album's exquisitely spooky pop had me...at hello. I missed The Rapture opening for them last Saturday at The Granada, but The Shins kicked out the jams and, hey, kept me awake past 1am. So of course this left me feeling a little cocky and like I could totally manage Ted Leo Sunday night. And I did, until Monday evening at about 8:30pm I felt all woozy and fell asleep immediately and the next morning (that's two days after the show, people) I was still out of it.

So no more rock shows for me. Ever.