I honestly don’t know what to make of this week.

Not surprisingly, given last weekend, I kind of started behind, and honestly never quite caught up. So much of it has to do with trying to keep up with everyone else’s needs, tracking the requirements of two completely unrelated job descriptions, attempting to snag a little “me” time on the bike to clear the head and keep the fitness progress going, leading to my generally feeling like I’m not really succeeding at any of it.

I guess I did put a few points on the board, getting my requirements through the office review boards and successfully fixing the bathtub/shower faucet valve insert thing in the downstairs bathroom, but mostly, I feel like I’m constantly playing a step or two behind the beat and can’t catch up.

I’m hoping for something resembling a break the next couple of days, but who knows. We have plans to get together with some local friends on Saturday for the Kickers game, though I’d be lying if I didn’t still have some anxiety about jumping back into crowded social scenes. Good thing the Kickers are not a particularly great club, so there likely won’t be much in the way of crowds.

Otherwise, it’s a lot of nothing; I’ll grab some vegetables at the farmers’ market Saturday morning, and try to get a good long ride in on Sunday, but frankly, I’m rather exhausted with the whole “life” thing at the moment.

For the random playlist, I’m going to take a somewhat different tack this week. During my regularly chiropractic adjustment on Wednesday, a lesser cover by some tv singing competition show also-ran of the tune in there at #1 came through over the office background music service, and this proto-power-ballad/latter-day-yacht-rock tune has been irremovably lodged in my brain ever since, so I’m using the original to seed the playlist in hopes of letting me move on to something else. Let’s see what happens, shall we?

1. “What About Me?” – Moving Pictures
2. “Jack & Diane” – John Cougar
3. “Make Me Lose Control” – Eric Carmen
4. “Lido Shuffle” – Boz Scaggs
5. “Believe It Or Not (Theme from “The Greatest American Hero”) – Joey Scarbury
6. “All I Need is a Miracle” – Mike + The Mechanics
7. “On The Dark Side” – John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band
8. “Reckless” – James Reyne
9. “One Perfect Day” – The Little Heroes
10. “Beds Are Burning” – Midnight Oil
11. “Bat Out of Hell” – Meat Loaf
12. “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You” – Heart

The result? Not particularly surprising: largely late 70s/early 80s “soft rock” with a few harder edges influenced by the Australian pub rock scene (which I wasn’t particularly aware of as a “scene,” but is intriguing). I honestly expected more feathered hair, key parties, and quaaludes. It’s not quite the same thing, but I kinda felt that Jason & The Scorchers’ “Golden Ball and Chain” was missing, but they’re of a piece with the rougher-round-the-edges stuff, which, if I allow myself to go down that rabbit hole is just going to end up a short hop to the early 80s Philly scene, and you really don’t need me taking a ride on the Escalator of Life right now…

Thank you for listening to my minutia-obsessed minor rock movement TED Talk.