Ink Tea Stone Leaf

I’d like to have a blog post up on Saturday morning, but it’s Friday evening and I’m simply not prepared for that. Mentally, I am just not there; my hamster wheels are slowing to a standstill, the hamsters themselves having reached their limits of exercise. You can see it in my metaphors, I’m simply out of commission.

There are things I could write about. Thursday was Christmas, and everybody loves a good Christmas blog post. My two younger brothers came to visit us for the holiday, and I could write about how much I love them and how happy I am to be able to host them. I could, that is, if my brain were not so sluggish on account of my belly being full to bursting of Mexican food. I can’t do justice to the feelings I have for my family with this much chicken and mole sauce in me.

I could write about the novel, which I am determined to have finished revising by January First, one week precisely from this evening. But I don’t even want to think about the novel tonight, because meeting that goal will require me to bear down and finish these last few chapters, and that is hard work unfit for the hours after dark. Even if I were not stuffed with mole, it would be a heavy lift.

I could write about politics, but nobody gives a darn what I think about politics anyway. I can put in the effort to advocate just causes to an audience of nobody when my mind and body are more up to the task.

So instead, I’m going to make a list. Just a happy little list of songs, the first twenty five songs that come up on my Walkman when I shuffle the whole library. This gets me off the hook, as I don’t really have to write anything, but merely transcribe the results of a process which I’m going to pretend is truly random. Then for next week’s post I’ll do, I don’t know, New Year’s resolutions or something. I’ll figure that out after I finish digesting all this sauce. In the meantime, please enjoy:

The first twenty five songs that come up on my Walkman when I shuffle the whole library:

1. “Your Lips Are Red” / St. Vincent / Marry Me
2. “He Was Too Good To Me” / Natalie Cole / Stardust
3. “We’ll Meet Again” / Kathryn Stott and Yo-Yo Ma / Songs of Comfort and Hope
4. “The Black Rider” / Howard Shore / The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
5. “Care of Cell 44 (Alternate Mix)” / The Zombies / Odessey And Oracle
6. “Forgiveness” / Trombone Shorty / Lifted
7. “Good Lookin’ Woman” / Muddy Waters / Rollin’ Stone
8. “And Your Bird Can Sing” / The Beatles / Revolver
9. “Contusion” / Stevie Wonder / Songs In The Key of Life
10. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” / James Howard / For The Love Of Song
11. “Where It’s At” / Beck / Odelay
12. “Bullet the Blue Sky” / U2 / Rattle and Hum
13. “Remain the Sea” / Anoushka Shankar / Reflections
14. “Crossing to Jerusalem” / Rosanne Cash / She Remembers Everything
15. “Ripple” / Grateful Dead / American Beauty
16. “Lookin’ Out the Window” / Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble / Soul to Soul
17. “If I Had a Boat” / Lyle Lovett / Live in Texas
18. “These Peoples Try to Fade Me” / Coach Z / Strong Bad Sings: And Other Type Hits
19. “Aftermath” / Gillian Whitehead / Mahi
20. “Some Of These Days” / Anna Nalick / The Blackest Crow
21. “Cry For Me” / Jersey Boys Original Broadway Cast / Jersey Boys
22. “Eclipse” / João Gilberto / João voz e violão
23. “Only A Northern Song” / The Beatles / Anthology 2
24. “The Tears” / The Supremes / The Motown Anthology
25. “That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine” / Simon & Garfunkel / Live 1969

What does any of this mean? Nothing at all. These are just some tracks among the thousands of others to be found on my Walkman. Now you too can listen to them in this particular order, if you care to do the rest of the necessary work. I’m certainly not doing any more work tonight, as I have enough of that to do when I start up again with the novel tomorrow.

Happy Holidays, amigos.