Mi Sueño Loco. Min Gale Drømmen. My Crazy Dream.

I find myself in California, flown out by the giant, known-around-the-world tech company I work for and they provide a really nice hotel suite for me and a former colleague named Mini (who actually exists in real life - Hi Mini.) We decide to retire to our respective beds when the door opens and in walk three young, hot IT groupies (oh c'mon, we have groupies too.) They make it very clear what they're after as they go about their mysterious female preparatory rituals before they join us. And I start to get nervous. Because I am engaged and in love and I just can't do that. So as one of them slinks over to me I tell her I can't do that. I swear I heard a needle scratch a vinyl record just like in a movie, her face falls and she backs off. One of her cohort says that my disappointed potential paramour would now have to leave as I've crossed some line with her, and the others would be leaving as well. Now I feel bad. Because my buddy Mini isn't attached or engaged and was really looking forward to this. SO, I say no, don't go, I'll leave and find something to do, even though it's like 3 a.m. Now it takes FOREVER to get dressed and the three young lovelies are looking bored and filing their nails or something. After looking for one shoe for what seems like hours I finally make my way to the door, pausing to throw a wink and a nod at Mini, who seems very appreciative.

On the way out I run into a hallway party. I am introduced to a tall, blond, oddly handsome and very self-assured guy who manages to come off as hipster, rock star, and wealthy suburban youth at the same time. He seems pleased to meet me at first but has to pronounce his name to me four times because it's something weird like Isme or Otma. He's miffed that he has to repeat himself. I take offense and snark how sorry I am that I needed to hear it over and over before I could, you know, actually understand the pretentious name his Norwegian-American parents gave him. Jerk.

I FINALLY run into someone I recognize (cannot now recall who) and we make our way to a designated smoking area (a picnic table and nasty outdoor cigarette disposal thingy's in the middle of a hallway) and I allow myself a cigarette for all I've been through and the fact that I now have to wander for several hours, missing sleep so my colleague can party with three IT groupies (oh c'mon, it could happen.) So I light up a cigarette that magically appears (they are magic...yum...I clearly miss them.) I realize I am also chewing nicotine gum and, fearing a heart attack, I try to spit it out but can't. Great. Then I wake up. Does that mean I died in my dream? That, my friends, figures.

R.E.M. calls it quits

I've spent the last two days home sick. It's the same nasty cold that I've been fighting with since early July. It likes to bring out the big gun of pneumonia so I'm not pushing my luck this time. I'm trying to coddle it, wheedle it into a lull in the hope of getting it to move on.

Bottom line is it makes me feel old. I know I'm not but I've started lately to FEEL old when I'm sick. Now I hear that R.E.M. is calling it quits, which kind of makes me feel old too. You see, I was finishing high school when I first heard of these four men from Georgia, just a few years older than me. What I love about music is while there's the sense that it's already been mined for the good ideas, there are still creative souls out there who have a sound that is theirs alone. R.E.M. was one of those discoveries. They were a revelation. In the small seaside northern California town where I lived, it was hard to find the gems in music at that time. Somehow I discovered and loved punk and these guys were the pivot between punk and alternative rock, just like Devo served that purpose between punk and New Wave. That got my attention. They springboarded me to the next music I'd love, and the next, and the next.

These guys, singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry, accompanied me during the many many years I spent on my own. They were a constant in my music library, a band I could always turn to when I couldn't stand listening to anything, when all the other tracks left me indifferent. And as I grew and learned, they did too, releasing tracks that resonated so hard and tapped into whatever personal zeitgeist I was living with at the time. So yeah, this band figures large in my history.

R.E.M. appeared to avoid the many of the traps and misfires of the rock and roll lifestyle. They continued to create music that was theirs alone, then released it to the world. For 31 years. It's inexplicable how they continued, let alone stayed interesting and meaningful. Of course critics haven't liked it all, but this band captured MY attention and interest, at least one cut an album, often many, sometimes all. Of course there will be people who are indifferent, who will comment on their lack of hits and cynically feign surprise that they were still around. Don't care. These guys didn't always have hits or great songs but they were a great band. Because they kept doing it. Until now. Which is okay. People are allowed to retire, even musicians.

My only regret is never seeing them live, especially around the time of the release of Document which, while arguably not their creative peak, certainly primed them for mainstream attention. Among Document's great tracks is "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." And so, as I started to write this, I played that song, setting iTunes to shuffle my entire library after it. I like starting off with such a fine song and following it with who-knows-what. Good beginnings are so important. As are good endings.

I feel fine.