The songs that saved your life …

I must be getting old. Rather than continuing to be fascinated by new music, I'm starting seek out albums I loved in my adolescence.

Somehow, the music I listened to in my high school years has achieved a sort of nigh infallibility.

The Smiths. Morrissey. Pearl Jam. Squeeze. Nirvana. Nine Inch Nails.

Even Son Volt, though I didn't discover them until my second year in college. But "Trace" remains one of the last albums I loved in whole.

Whole albums. I liked whole albums, once. Not just 10 out of 14 songs on Cat Power's You Are Free, but whole albums.

Now, it'll be a verse from a song otherwise long-forgotten that gets stuck in my head and eventually leads to buying The Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait" on iTunes just to scratch the itch.

I had friends over for dinner on Friday. One of them was recounting his recent iTunes Music Store purchases. I'd heard of one of the four or five bands he mentioned.

As the sheer amount of music available has ballooned, my skepticism about finding bands I'll love has also increased. I've quit my music magazine subscriptions.

Is there something about our tumultuous teenage years that triggers our brains to love the songs that saved our lives, then?

Now that I'm (fairly) settled in a routine and happy with my life, have I lost my capacity to swoon over soul-tugging lyrics?

Eat my dust, James Bond

While driving to work Thursday morning, I was listening to Morning Edition on NPR (as usual).

The story that occupied most of my drive-time was this: Although more and more Americans are concerned about getting better gas mileage, fewer and fewer are choosing to drive manual transmission vehicles.

I've always driven stick. It's what I learned on. I find second gear particularly useful in the winter. And you can't beat the $800 sticker-price savings. Or the fact that a manual transmission car is less likely to get stolen, because there's a very small market of potential buyers.

But here's the clincher. Daniel Craig, who's the most recent incarnation of the legendary 007, doesn't know how to drive stick. He's had to take lessons to learn how to peal out in his Aston Martin for the forthcoming Casino Royale.

So, nyah, nyah, Mr. James Bond. I don't care if your car does have a big chrome start button. I'm still a better driver than you.

Lost and found

(Echoing footsteps.)

Ligature readers? Still there?

(One lonely voice pipes up.)

It's okay. I'm sorry. I haven't forgotten you.

First there was the wedding (not mine, hers); a freelance project on fast-forward; a trip out of town for Memorial Day; another freelance project on fast-forward.

Whew! I haven't even unpacked some of my stuff from the wedding yet. Tonight was the first night of real relaxation in the past month or so. I'm 95 pages into Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex and utterly tranfixed by the story.