My source for some definitive

So this past week I went to go see some old friends. Truth be told, we hadn’t visited face-to-face in about eight years. But there was a time, ages ago, when we spent almost every day together. I’d listen intently, absorbing each word and meditating on its meaning. And the car trips, oh heavens, they were fun. Still, somehow we drifted apart. Sure, we’d run into each other from time to time – often on accident. Yet each meeting was like slipping on a favorite sweater for the first time of the season: warm, comfortable, soothingly familiar.

[Crap quality, I know. iPhone cameras suck at concerts.]

Gosh, it was nice seeing the Indigo Girls again. At times they might seem like a cliché, the lesbian band we all at least flirted with at some point in our lives. Knowing all the words to “Closer to Fine” is pretty much a requisite to earning your toaster oven. But there is a reason they’ve endured. Their voices, those harmonies, that music. Granted, over the years my tastes have changed. But as they played I could still sing along to almost every song. The whole crowd could. Some songs brought me back immediately to a certain time and place: alone in my bedroom, together in my dorm room. Some music, you never outgrow. You might not listen that much anymore, but it will always be part of your soundtrack. So when you hear it again, even years later, you have to listen.

“Closer to Fine,” circa 1989

ZOMG, basically everything – hair, jeans, Dave, VINYL RECORDS!

“Power of Two,” 20 years later

Considerably less hairspray, thankfully.

Two other interesting tidbits about my show: 1) I was surprised by the number of husbands (no, not really butch lesbians, I double checked) that came with their wives. Guess even L.U.G.s like to get nostalgic. And 2) I realized during the show that while my younger self preferred Emily’s sweet soprano, the older me now gravitates towards Amy’s darker alto. Who knows, maybe in another 20 years I’ll flip flop again.

My Weekend Crush

In honor of Pride (theme, people, I’ve got a theme!), I thought I’d pick an out Crush for this weekend. I mentally clicked through the usual suspects: Ellen, Rosie, Melissa, k.d., Martina. But I kept coming back to the girls, the Indigo Girls. Yes, I know, listening to the Indigo Girls is as cliché as flannel and Birkenstocks. But, you know what, I used to wear a lot of flannel. And Birkenstocks. Clichés are clichés for a reason. Amy Ray and Emily Saliers were some of the first artists I adored who I consciously knew were lesbians. Still it wasn’t their sexuality that spoke to my high school heart, but their harmonies. So pure, so simple, so true. I think I wore “Rites of Passage” down to a nub. Their songs about love, loss and longing articulated emotions I had yet to really feel. But thanks to them, I at least had a glimpse of what laid ahead.

While their albums don’t get the same play they used to in my regular rotation, every now and then I put one on let the music waft over me like honeysuckle-scented nostalgia. And then suddenly I’m alone again in my old bedroom on a humid Midwestern night with firelies putting on a light show outside my window, listening to Amy and Emily tell me about that place in Minnesota where you can walk across the Mississippi with only five steps down. Damn, where did I put all those flannel shirts anyway? They were comfy. Happy Pride and weekend, all.