It's time to go, at least for a while. I call it "an extended leave." Dean prefers "hiatus," so I'll let him call it that for now. Whichever it turns out to be, it was a gas.

I'm sad to go, but the reason I'm going is anything but sad: my wife Jennifer is pregnant. She's only two months and change as I write this, and the doctors tell you to wait until after the first trimester to tell friends and family, but that's too long to contain great news. Besides, secrets are rotten karma. Put it out there, we figured, and let the light make everything right.

Pending parenthood means lots of things, among them the need to rein in certain indulgences. Which is really what this has been all along. I was flattered when Dean offered me this space two and a half years ago (for reasons that have yet to make themselves apparent) and I remain grateful. I've met people through Jambands who will always be friends; people from all over the country and from all walks of life.

In thinking about what I'd say this month, I indulged myself with a look back at everything I've written in "Stuck In Normal," and realized that I'd been thinking out loud, which is really indulgent. And it showed. Much of what I wrote for Jambands has been nicely gilded bullshit, shot through with rhetorical holes gaping enough to accommodate a smoke-belching microbus. The strangest thing is that I believed it all when I wrote it. These barometers of change are all around me.

What I really want to say is how lucky I feel that I was led to the music that we celebrate at Jambands. At its best, it seeds entire communities, and tells us how to live if we're willing to listen. If I've been critical of some of the product, it's only because I know it can be so much more than that.

Thank you Dean, and everyone else on the Jambands staff. It's been a pleasure and an honor sharing your company.

See you down the road.