When I was young, I was a bookish soul
who hung out in the chafed leather chairs
at the Barnes and Noble
wearing an itchy, chafing sweater,
listening to Weezer,
waiting for something good to finally happen
in my rotten teenage life.

It didn’t.
It never did.

The "Sweater Song" would always come on Q101
as my family visited Michigan City,
stopped by the beach, the outlet mall, the zoo,
hitting up pretty much almost all the attractions before 4:30 p.m.

Weezer roared on the stereo and
later at the Tinley Park Amphitheater,
where it was easy to park but impossible to escape.
The band tore into the much-requested cover of Toto’s "Africa,"
knowing everyone just wanted the hits and to get home
and cocoon themselves unthinkingly in Netflix,
that everyone swaddled themselves in a sweater
somewhere
in some cozy and familiar domicile.