The other day we had a meeting up on the 55th floor. The one redeeming aspect of meetings at my job is that all the conference rooms have panoramic views, and I’m low enough on the totem pole that I’m not missing much if the drone emitting from the heads of my immediate superiors submits, in the battle for my attention, to the spectacular view just over their shoulders. This particular meeting—during which I found myself sitting at the head of the table, though I do not occupy anything remotely resembling a leadership capacity—was held in a room with a northwest view, and I found myself surveying that corner of the city with which I’m most familiar, following a visual trajectory cut by Milwaukee Avenue out past the West Loop, my neighborhood and Logan Square, the western suburbs and beyond. I was able to identify easy landmarks, like Cabrini Green and the Tribune building. After that, things got fuzzy. The largest thing on the distant skyline was St Mary’s Hospital at Leavitt and Division; next to it was the squat truncated Borg cube that is Roberto Clemente High School. Then I reached the limits of my 20/20 vision; perspective and proportion yielded to a homogeneity of indisctinct grey, brown, and white buidling-shapes. There was no way I was going to be able to pinpoint my street, or even the Coyote Building at the six-way. Having spotted all the landmarks I could, I reluctantly turned my attention back to the meeting and the free buffet lunch we’d ravaged, which consisted mostly of cold cuts.

Nolan auditioned a new bassist last night. We’re moving Chris over from bass to guitar because it’s a smaller instrument and he’s not strong enough to hold such a heavy object. All the bands we’ve ever been in consisted of old friends who wandered into Iowa City living rooms in various groupings that seemed natural and even pre-destined; the very notion of auditioning new members cold is completely foreign to us. I’m not sure we know exactly what we’re looking for, but we’ll know it when we see it. We’ll especially know what we’re not looking for when we see it. I find myself playing the role of anxious host, making sure the newcomer’s needs are met, his or her questions answered. And I feel sorry for anyone exposed for the first time to our particular array of quirks, foibles, and vices. It’s daunting to bring a stranger into the midst of a trio of people who’ve been playing in this configuration for three years, played about a hundred shows together, driven all over the country in a stuffy old van together, slept in that van at a truck stop just outside Columbus together, supped at the tables of each others’ crazy families, laid waste to the Iowa City bar scene and laid wasted on each others’ floors, and have a shared heritage of psychotic ex-girlfriends, geographic displacement, and shitty day jobs. You can’t just draft someone into this mess willy-nilly. They have to earn their place at the table.