January/February of 2013. The Allen Stone Electric Ensemble’s playing a show at the Red Mountain Ski resort in Western Canada. As you might guess from the photo below, I don’t remember much about our performance and, to my shame, don’t remember much about quite a few things during this time. I was entering a chapter of “forced change” as it was put to me recently, and processing via the time honored traditions of drinking too much and carousing just enough to be gossip worthy. As much as I’ve ever been a dickhead in my life, it was then. And I still own that shirt.

I’m lucky - the part of my brain that endorses face drug benders in Reno never got switched on, and being raised in a fastidious household meant anything other than perfect grammar and balancing peas on the backs of forks was unthinkable (Never scoop! What are we? Barbarians?!). Going off the rails, such as it was, was more tame than most Sadie Hawkins dances.

But it’s a time I’m grateful for. At the proverbial fork in the road, I wobbled down the bedimmed path just far enough to realize what lurked around the next bend, course correcting, as any self-respecting man who folds his underpants would, toward the part of myself that wonders if she, you know, REALLY likes me, with a single rose trembling in hand.