Big Things have been happening! Big happy things! And a new URL and name for this oft-forgotten slice of the web is the least of them! 

New writing initiatives are always one of my favorite things, even if it is not far from the truth to say I have yet to ever truly stick to a single one of them in this life. However, this one is in full swing, so I’m going to be an optimist, as I am wont to do, and say this time, my friends, I will stick to it. Every once and a while someone I haven’t talked to in the longest time will tell me that they enjoy reading my little piece of the internet whenever I take the time to sit down and write. So it is with that energy I sit down and write this, my first contribution (of many, I tell you!) to the internet of God’s year 2023. (That’s my attempt at channeling medieval chroniclers, whose taste for high drama, gossip, and shameless shade in the guise of “chronicling” I always aspire to. You will find no religious re-awakenings here).  

So Big Thing One.  

Has anyone here seen Robin Hood: Men in Tights? When Robin and Marian get married at the end, the ceremony is performed by Rabbi Tuckman (played by Mel Brooks), and it goes roughly like this:  

“Robin, do you?”  

“I do.” 

“Marian, do you?” 

“I do.”  

This always used to seem like an insane way to get married to me. But now, I think it’s kind of great. Like, if all you care about is being married to the person you’re getting married to, it’s really all you need. I say all of this to share that, at some point in the next month or so, county clerk schedules depending, Aaron and I will be doing our own version of this scene. (Except that in the movie, they are interrupted by Patrick Stuart playing King Richard. I would not object to Patrick Stuart showing up but the prospect is doubtful.)

So that is the wonderful and exciting and lovely Big Thing 1.  

Big Thing 2?

We will then promptly be moving to Seattle, Washington, where Aaron has snagged an amazing job working on rocket engines, as he is wont to do. This relocation will include buying our first home (Big Thing 3??), and me finding a new job (Big Thing 4??). It’s a lot of Big Things, I know. But I could not be more excited because I know that as stressful as it will be at times, all of these big things combine to make a pretty fantastic adventure that I get to go on with a pretty fantastic person.  

When I was in between flat viewings in London in late March of 2018, I sat in a pub and re-discovered the Fratellis. I haven’t followed them very seriously over the years, but the summer of my senior year of high school is when their Costello Music album was charting, so it accompanied some of my best windows-down driving moments. And let’s be honest: in a suburban teenage existence, windows-down driving moments are really the only Big Things you’ve got.  

The 2018 album In Your Own Sweet Time is no Costello Music. But it had two songs that I immediately added to the on-the-go playlist I had for that time in my life, and now they transport me as instantly to Portobello Road (because of course that’s where I was sitting in a pub in between flat viewings as an American that had just moved to London) as Flathead takes me to a one-hundred-degree Sacramento summer. And that will always be my favorite thing about music, that time-machine quality it has.  

When I’m experiencing Big Things, like this one/dozen, I always wonder which songs will develop that bizarre power. A song called Feeling Ok by Best Coast was the soundtrack to several London lockdown walks while I was deciding to move back home. When I first moved in with Aaron, it was the song Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart) by Ricky Nelson.  

This moment’s song? The jury is still out. Based on my recent listening, there are a few different contenders. But there’s also a lot to come in the next few weeks and months, so I’m not making any guesses just yet. I can tell you though, that I am already excited to think about how they’ll make me feel for the rest of my life.  

So stay tuned, dudes, for the next few contributions. Because this time around, for whatever reason (read: the song I’m listening to right now), I have a little extra faith.