I'm A Loner Dottie, A Rebel

If you can imagine how surreal it would be to be at the last show the Get Up Kids will ever play, you will not be doing justice to how strange it was. Your imagination needs crutches, must be lead by the hand into this story. I will help you.

Imagine you will drive to Kansas City in 7 hours (A new world record!) and then, with nothing to do, you will feel thoroughly awful for several hours inside of a coffee shop. You cannot receive energy from the coffee, the brownie, or the stammering phone calls you are making to friends and family.

Imagine that you are in this theater, watching the most significant band of your youth make it's final stand, trying desperately to go out in a blaze of glory. You recognize this, and as you watch them you realize that not only are you saying goodbye to this band, but to your youth itself. You will be 20 in a week, and as this band dies so do all of the moments in cars with friends in which you sang these very songs, the nights you stayed up listening to "Valentine" and thinking of how many girls you would like to put it on a mixtape for. These moments will be taking their final bow at the end of the night aswell, so you must hastily say goodbye to them. Now, add to this image the fact that you are standing next to your ex-girlfriend, that you had run away from only three weeks before, and now it is your job to regulate these things. You must give ample attention to the stage, to honor the band and inturn honor yourself and the moments this band represents. You must also do your best to hold in your sadness/anger towards the ex-girlfriend, and make sure she doesn't see you cry when they play "I'll Catch You" during the second encore.

Imagine that after the show, she will give you your mail and you will drive to Columbia (You must never stop moving!) where you will pull a key out of a mailbox and enter a house and fall asleep in the backroom as though you live in this house, as though you built this house with your bare hands.

Imagine that this was the longest day of your life, and imagine your confusion at the fact that, even though there were several portions that were nearly unbearable, you loved it and mourned its loss when you woke in the morning.