Jigsaw Pieces

Work is deader than a doornail. The queue hasn’t changed since about 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon. But I’ve got some music and a couple episodes of The Next Life here along with some magazines.

I just sent an email to Ralston telling him that I’d received his CD. I gave it a couple cursory spins yesterday while I was here at work and found “What Kind of Friend” to be an especially moving song. I definitely like what I hear so far and it will be a pleasure to actually be able to tell a musician directly, albeit via e-mail, how much I enjoyed his work and how much it means to me. When a song really moves me, when it gets under my skin, and becomes part of me, I often get this desire to thank the musician for having created the song. A lot of these musicians are, unfortunately, dead. For instance, I’ll never be able to thank Blind Willie Johnson for “Dark Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground)” or “Praise God I’m Satisfied”. And I’ll probably never meet the guys in Genesis to thank (or curse, as the case may be) for having given me an obsession that’s lasted about 22 years and who knows how much money – so far. “What Kind of Friend” is just one of those great songs. Even if I were to find the rest of the album to be for shite, I’d still keep the CD for just that one song and it’ll be fulfilling to be able to tell that song’s creator just what a fantastic job he did.

Last night I hit the sack early so I could settle underneath the covers and listen to the last two parts of The Next Life. That Rassilon guy is a real bastard! I made it through the penultimate episode and found myself getting excited about hearing the super finale whopper hoolie. So I go and fall asleep in the middle of it but I swear that I woke up and heard the end before falling asleep again. And I’d swear that the Daleks were involved. But that doesn’t make sense so I’ve got this theory that it was a dream. But I can’t be sure. Well, until I listen to it here shortly, that is. When I pulled it out of the CD player this morning, I looked at the big pile of CDs sitting atop it. All these Doctor Who episodes that I’ve listened to at night over the past several months have just been left there to gather dust. I can’t just throw them away. I suppose I’ll have to find a good home for the precious shiny dics.

Tonight Stevie, Becca, and I are going to eat dinner together and open gifts. Unsurprisingly I haven’t gotten Stevie anything yet. Maybe when I run out to East Towne tonight I’ll grab his something. He’s gonna paint the kitchen today – chianti or some such metrosexual color. Becca remarked to him that the kitchen should be painted brown and apparently he took the comment to heart. I whipped up a glaze for a ham last night. Stevie has a hardon for one and neither he nor Becca have to work today so it was my responsibility to throw together a glaze and give explicit cooking instructions. I basically told him, “Get some cloves and stick them in the ham then spread the jizz in the Pyrex measuring cup on top. From there, follow the directions on the ham’s label.”

Miss Pamela e-mailed me asking for some Latin to be translated for her next tattoo. I ended up giving her a little Latin lesson. But hey, I wanted to give her options so she could have the freshest tattoo around.

I listened to a mix CD that The Dulcinea gave me. Holy Christ is there a lot from Wilco’s AM on here! I’m glad I never gave her a copy of Anodyne, otherwise I’d be in deep shite. I’d been meaning to give her a copy of March 16-20 1992 but can’t remember if I ever did. Now I’ve put on another one and there’s more Wilco! Now I find myself wanting to hear that demo of “No Depression” with Jeff Tweedy doing backing vocals when he was all of 18 or 19.

I’m going to try to finish a letter to my dad that I started a couple of days ago. I began writing it while listening to, ironically enough, “Goldfish & Clowns” and will hopefully finish it listening to…”That’s Not the Issue”?

”There are vampires in the park, Mawgojzeta”