It’s Friday. As usual, it’s been a long week. Spent most of the work week on the phone; Wednesday involved the same meeting twice (which was a nice break over the usual three times); I got volun-told I’m managing a big procurement action that’s not mine because of my “program management experience.” Yay.

Also, I knocked out over 25 miles on the bike (nice weather the last couple of days) and came to the conclusion that I’m out of conditioning after the nasty weather of the last couple of months (Thursday was the first day I didn’t seriously hurt afterward; Tues/Wed I felt every one of the extra twelve pounds I’ve put on since Thanksgiving), and knocked out seven songs so far for February Album Writing Month, and got some nice comments on my work from fellow Fawmers, including a couple of folks coughcoughmikeymasoncoughcough whose work and opinions I really respect. I think I’ve got one or two real winners so far, which feels like a pretty good success rate (and the others don’t really suck).

That’s really been the week. Work, bike, songwriting. Kind of overwhelming (ask my lovely spouse about how distracted I’ve been), though mostly in a good way.

Not sure what’s up for the weekend; aforementioned lovely spouse has designs on hitting Blue Bee on Saturday to catch the new release and Mean Bird, who has this “Veggie Bird” dish she’s been itching to try. I expect we’ll probably do that, though I’d also kind of like to get the taxes done, especially before the 15th, when bits of the federal government, including the IRS, just might shut down again, and I wouldn’t mind having my stuff in the queue prior.

Otherwise? who knows. I’ll just be happy to have a couple of days’ break.

Anyway, here’s some tunes; yanked off of my hard drive for a change, rather than a streaming service, which seems to have side-stepped the Bowie/Zappa/Donnas tendencies, at least for this week:

1. “Rain” – Patty Griffin
2. “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” – Def Leppard
3. “You Don’t Remember, I’ll Never Forget” – Yngwie Malmsteen
4. “A Gentleman! What Gentleman?” – Valentine Wolfe
5. “The Tale of Tom Riddle” – Witherwings
6. “Heart of Gold” – Tori Amos
7. “Hell Hole” – Spinal Tap
8. “End Love (Subtractive Remix)” – OK Go
9. “When You’re Dead” – Voltaire
10. “Travelling” – Hikaru Utada
11. “Wretched and Divine” – Black Veil Brides
12. “Over It Over Again” – She & Him
13. “Lost” – Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra