This is the memory palace of Nate de Mayo.

In 1994, maybe it was 95, I was in a band, and it wasn't very good, and that was largely

my fault.

And we were playing a show in a living room in Santa Cruz, California, it was all very

punk rock, and the first band was playing while I paced around in the hallway, nervous,

because I knew my mediocre drumming was what kept us from being a good band.

In the opening act playing in the living room, we're two women, and a guitar, and a snare,

and it was all very punk rock.

And while I was out there in the hallway, they played a song that just killed me.

It was simple and confessional, and their voices were lovely, about a tape from them

afterward.

And a few days later, the tape deck in my car ate it, the way that tape decks and your

car used to do.

And I lost the song, and I looked for it for years, in every record store, and I never

found it.

And then I forgot about it.

The other day, I was the tool around on my computer, and I googled it, and there it was,

the same exact version, uploaded from the cassette.

It took all of a minute and a half.

And then I was, for a moment, in the living room on Galt Street, and I could see the punk

rock kids sitting on the floor like it was story time at the library.

I could see the friends I had wish-type kept in touch with, and the ones I was better off

...