I've been listening to Vance Gilbert's disc Sommerville Live disc.

Sommerville Live is a great disc, a live recording of a Vance Gilbert concert, it shows just some of the energy Vance puts into one of his shows.

One of the songs in particular is especially poignant right now. "Taking It All To Tennessee"... It's Vance's story about how his friend and fellow folk singer Ellis Paul paked everything up and went to Nashville to continue his music career... The intoroduction to the song on this disc got its own track where Vance talks about mens brains and how men don't ever seem to close that gap that happens when a friend leaves. Women do. "Girlfriend, i'm leaving town. Ohmygaaaawdd!", and *boom*, it's closed, that pathway in the brain, it's closed.

Guys... "Hey man.... I'm leaving town". . . . . . "Okay. . . . . . . Are you taking your VCR?" Vance continues... noting that it takes a while for a guy to feel that pain of a friend leaving... maybe it's over a lone hubcap, maybe a PDP-10 computer, and they see it and break down crying... "My buddy left me!..... in 1994!"

Now, I'm a graduated college student... friends leaving is going to be the way of life for the next few years, because one by one, my friends will be graduating and going off into this big world, and leaving me behind.

And that's a really depressive thought... because when i want to call up a friend and go out and do something, I'll realize the number I'm dialing is for Nashville, Tennessee... or Buffalo, NY or Boston, Mass, or Lavallette, NJ.

Which means there's only one thing to do. Find closure. Buck up, because it's a long road to the end.