And one day we will die, and our ashes will fly...

I once asked one of my very best friends, and my stalwart source for new music, what one album he would take with him if he were stuck on a desert island and could only listen to that album for the rest of his life. (Mine is Abbey Road, for the record)

He said "Well, I have a hard time going through a day without listening to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea," which doesn't quite answer the question, but mostly does.

At the time I had given the album only the most cursory of listenings. I liked the title track, but every time I sat down to listen to the full album all I really heard was noise. Given Aaron's response though, I pulled In the Aeroplane Over the Sea from the depths of my ipod during one of many drives from Denver to Greeley to visit a boy (of course) during the fall of 2005 when I had just moved back to Colorado from college.

It was late one evening, just before Halloween, and I had decided to be tricky, and take a different route into town than the one I normally used. And I got lost of course. My sense of direction tends to fail me in the dark. For those of you out there who might wonder, people who don't drive are pretty useless for getting directions when you're lost.

So there I was, in the dark driving, with Jeff Mangum in the background. And suddenly all of the pieces came together. The album made sense to me in a way I'd never heard before. It was like learning to read.

I've talked to a couple of people about their love of the album, and among almost all of them they think I am a freak. They loved it from the very beginning.

I love the album now. I understand what Aaron was saying when he said that he has a hard time getting through a day without listening to it. When I start In the Aeroplane Over the Sea I close my eyes and fall back in my seat like a junkie to her high (or at least the way it looks in the movies). It washes over me in waves, and I let it carry me.

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was recorded in Denver during the summer I was between middle school and high school. I was busy listening to the Cranberries, Presidents of the United States of America, No Doubt and Smashing Pumpkins while Jeff Mangum and company were creating an album it would take me seven years to discover, within five miles of where I sat. There are things that make me sad in the world, and this is not really one of them, but there is something there. If I had been a different person ten years ago, would I have known how to find Neutral Milk Hotel? But if I had been a different person ten years ago I certainly wouldn't be the person I am today...