Diablo Cody loves to garb her characters in band t-shirts. I get the impulse. Sometimes you love a big band or a little band or a weird band so much, you want to plaster them all over everything you do. Which is great if you are a music critic, but less so if you are anybody else.

I love my band t-shirts. I don’t even mind how ridiculously over-priced they are or how the better ones always run in men’s sizes. The only problem? I’ve started to dislike what they say about me. I’m successful, damnit. I’m smart and I’m attractive and with a lot of hard work, I’ve gotten good with people. But when I wear a band t-shirt, I’m either snubbed, invisible, or perceived as not very grown up. I don’t know when this changed, or well, when I began to understand this change. I do have one idea.

Last year, I read an article by Ian Cohen over at Pitchfork. He was talking about this song I’d never paid enough attention to off an album I did pay attention to, The Meadowlands by The Wrens. The gist was something about venerating your inner child or growing the fuck up. I think he was hoping to speak to someone who was venerating his or her inner child. Instead, he got me. I don’t think anyone’s ever really too old for their band t-shirts. I think the issue is: I’d like to be.

So I’ve decided to give up my band t-shirts in 2012 and see where it goes. This isn’t about me losing my idealism and it isn’t about me hating everything or everyone that ever stood for music. I did wake up one morning without the time to listen to two or three albums, without the energy to re hook my laptop up to my kick-ass set of speakers because I realized how far I’d gotten out of music mode, and it was becoming a pain in the ass to leave the computer plugged in.

I used to spend around five hours every day with albums. I bailed on cable. I bailed on hanging out in my friends. I listened. Now, I’ve filled my life with comedy, and TV news, with film viewings, and fucking exercise. I've found I am far happier than when I filled it with evenings waiting tables in chain restaurants and then standing hard on my feet and drinking beers at shitty clubs while I watched some slightly-better-than-local gig that was going nowhere fast.

In 2012, I’ve decided to ditch my band tees. I’m still working on my slouchy knit hats. I’m gonna kick back in my brand new Banana Republic clothing. I might even straighten my goddamn hair. You’re gonna love it. What you’re not gonna know is that there is always going to be a little part of me that wishes I could have the best of both worlds. I’m no businesswoman, though.

So goodbye new Pavement tee, ridiculous striped Placebo. tee, Bowerbirds, Tune-yards, Drive-By Truckers, vintage Pearl Jam tee, and all the others, including that Replacements shirt I’ve been coveting on Skreened for like eight months.

Maybe, I’ll see you around in 2013.