2:01 p.m. // 22 March 2007

I can't stop listening to BARR's "The Song Is the Single," a spare, meandering rumination on music. I'm not sure what it all means.

BARR played Mable Peabody's several years ago. He's just one guy with a mic but his music was so loud it brought on a noise citation, which was one of the last straws for rock bands playing at Mable's, that summer. The show had to be shut down even though there were two bands left.

We led a couple dozen kids over to our practice space upstairs at Rubber Gloves, where Wives and the Sneeze played. Dustin put his flailing fist through a fluorescent bulb, then rolled on some of the shards.

Mable's burned early yesterday morning. The exterior is still there, the interior is destroyed. Even after the redecorating it was still kind of a dive of a place -- Eames chairs or reasonable fascimiles thereof notwithstanding. But it had a hell of a name and a crew of regulars who raised their eyebrows only a little at the rock bands that used to take over the bar on off-nights.

Dwayne and I hadn't been there for several years -- but during the several years of shows there (some of them run by Dwayne), we met a lot of friends.

And the first time I ever planted eyes on the man who would become my husband, it was at a gay bar.

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