Marshalling Waltzes

Lately, affinities for albums have completely consumed me. I have become unable to listen to single tracks from discs, instead indulging my senses in a thorough drenching of some artist and producer's vision. It's become a compulsion, actually. This can get annoying when I have shit to do. And it also has other pitfalls, not the least of which is that most artists are incapable of an excellent front-to-back album. Many have throwaway songs strewn throughout the whole thing and those flakes of crappy pepper seem to sometimes ruin the dish. Call me an elitist, but "Blond Over Blue" is a steaming pile in the middle of what otherwise is a decently solid album, Mr. Joel. This predilection narrows my available list of listenable albums to about 20. Hopefully my fixations and compulsions will undergo a sea-change in the near future and I can, once again, listen to my iPod on shuffle.

The Hypocrisy of Now.

Each hour of the day brings with it another completion of a cycle that began fifty-nine minutes earlier and with it comes new perspective. Time to stand up from the computer and stretch, see things differently than the hours past; fewer minutes until quitting time; fewer days until the weekend; fewer weeks until vacation. We pour our hearts into the moments that come next like our jobs were to be ewers for the soul-collectors and our time immortal. Our atoms will leave us as quickly as they came and without remorse. We should follow the flood plains of ions and dam our mouths to thwart time. And while we're out we should, perhaps, see the world.

Propheteering.

While at first blush it may seem like a good idea to predict what will happen in one's future, I am finding more and more that accuracy in such adumbration is god-damned near impossible. That said, I have been dreading the reception of an acceptance or denial letter from UC Berkeley that is to arrive in the next several weeks. These feelings are supposed to be over and done with by the time one is 19. I have the lucky exception to be experiencing this at the tender age of 28. So, the prognosticating part of my psyche is up to his old tricks and is raking my inner child across the proverbial coals; telling him that his proposed failure to gain acceptance to the University is not only inevitable but a further example of his inability to succeed at anything he tries. My psyche is a bastard. How could it possibly know what the outcome of this event will be? Psyche not psychic. This is the same part of my brain that said I would never own a house or quit smoking. It also predicated that John Kerry would somehow overcome his insatiable thirst for boring people into comas to get elected. Obviously I shouldn't listen, but the voices can get loud.

The Default Position

The mornings lately all seem melded, actually somehow regenerating nightly into the same amalgamated mess of bran muffins, bananas and a race for the shower, train and priority seating. Gather strength for the battle of brain-robbery. The suck-out of all will to press on wrapped up in the too-tightly bound pants I swore fit last week. Fluctuations of weight, ego and facial hair. Where is the supposition come from that I'm to do fine? What message does it send to the rest of the mind when the cortex can't keep us standing... Medulla Oblongata makes a stand in the evening hours before dreams end; wake to muffin-tipped tongue.