Garden Variety "knocking the skill level"

In the '90s I had been doing illustrations and writing reviews for fanzines.  I didn't get paid for it, but I did receive CDs which I would have inevitably spent the money on anyhow.  This period of my life opened me up to a ton of stuff,  a great deal of it I didn't like and would often wrestle with writing non-dismissive reviews because I appreciated someone spent a lot of time and effort on these shiny plastic discs.  There were a few real game changing gems that I received though too and this #gardenvariety disc was one of them.  It's a D.C./post-hardcore vibe with personal lyrics.  Getting an album this good in the mail just affirmed the time I spent on the art and writing.  I mean I have been obsessed over music since I discovered it as an amassable entity.  At this time of my life though nothing else really mattered to me.  I had started playing bass guitar in a band, I was neck deep 'zine culture, I was working with a punk rock television show, I attending any show I could and drank coffee (which was not musical in nature but was social and I would yammer on about music to anyone who was within earshot).  I was singular in purpose.  That singularity of purpose has happened a few times in my life: tattooing and fatherhood being the others.  That trinity of obsessions really does define me.  There is nothing I do that doesn't fall under those three catagories.  While writing this the song "soft on the name" is playing and the lyrical refrain is repeating: "you're always the last one left to find out" and maybe there are people who find their "centers" in life sooner than I did. It turns out to navigate there I had to triangulate.
This disc came out in 1995.  If I really think about the 22 years since I got it on its release alot of heavy shit has transpired, but this disc still sounds great and still resonates with me.  It makes me want to play music.  It makes me want to drink the rest of this pot of coffee and research what these band members have been up to.  It makes me want to listen to it again while I tattoo tomorrow.  It reminds me of walking around buffalo with headphones so I'm going to get the boys together and go for a walk today. Centered.