Let’s start the weekend off with a literary reference, huh?

The past week was, to paraphrase Dickens, the best and worst of times. On the good side, I made a whole lot of progress on projects at work, and after more than a year in, the way my work group is organized is finally starting to gel, and I’m maybe kinda-sorta becoming more comfortable in my position of so-called ‘leadership’, whatever that means. I’m not the boss, but I’m the guy the boss trusts to get stuff done, and I guess that counts.

Oh well.

I also got more than sixty trail miles under me this week, thanks to some nice weather and work meetings not running too long in the evening, though occasionally they did, and was racing the sunset to get my bike back to the trailhead.

On the worse end, I’ve been sleeping terribly for some reason, the nice weather is playing havok on my sinuses, more than half the meetings I’ve been sitting (and I’ve been sitting a lot of meetings) have been tedious, trying affairs featuring old-school grognard developers throwing up all kinds of pointless roadblocks and gaslighting leading into this major system update we’re three weeks out from deploying. This isn’t to mention the whole “war of conquest in Eastern Europe” thing we’re watching play out, which is just one more awful thing happening in this whole f**ked up world we’re dealing with in this generally awful era.

Oh, and I’m looking ahead to spending all day tomorrow behind my mixing board running sound for an Irish Dance competition. I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad – I’m getting paid, it’s not that hard, and the dancing itself is cool and all that. I just know there are going to be some personality conflicts given the folks running things, and it’s just going to remind me of the studio politics I’m hearing way too much about from the girls this last year. Oh well…I’m getting paid.

This week also brought an end to my fifth year of FAWM. The final tally was fourteen original songs (which makes it a win), as well as two collaborations where someone ran with my lyrics and threw music behind them before I could manage, because…um…see all those meetings two paragraphs back. I don’t think it was my best output year, all told, but there might be four or five winners with some life in ’em. We’ll see. In any case, it’s a good creative exercise, and it’s an opportunity to practice my ‘art’ with some sort of accountability built in, which, I’ve learned, is the kind of thing that works for me.

I’ve already alluded to the weekend a bit; Saturday’s going to be largely spoken for – depending on how on schedule things stay, I might have some evening free, and I really want to get over to Three Leg Run, since their grand opening last weekend got kinda scuttled by some utilities issues on the property before we could get over there. We’ll see. Given that the weather’s going to be flirting with 80° on Sunday, I’m really thinking that I’m going to push toward that century ride in May and see if I can’t knock out another sixty miles on the VCT in the morning…then, assuming my legs still work, we’ll see what’s next.

Music-wise, this week’s “Discover Weekly” is all over the place, getting pretty heavy on the late-stage boomer stuff, what with Yoko and Nesmith, and I honestly can’t really come up with any real sort of logic to the rest of it, though things close out with one truly excellent pop tune from Soul Coughing’s Mike Doughty, with some serious GenX vibes; it’s honestly one of my favorites:

1. “Dizzy” – Tchotchke
2. “Underwater Moonlight” – The Soft Boys
3. “I’ve Been Waiting for Tomorrow (All of My Life) – The The
4. “It’s Alright Baby” – Komeda
5. “(Do Not Feed The) Oyster” – Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
6. “Who Has Seen The Wind” – Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band
7. “Do You Dream In Color” -Bill Nelson
8. “Calico Girlfriend” – Mike Nesmith and the First National Band
9. “I Have the Touch” – Peter Gabriel
10. “Eagle Sails The Blue Diamond Waters” – Robbie Basho
11. “Out There” – Blake Babies
12. “Watch Your Step” – Bobby Parker
13. “27 Jennifers” – Mike Doughty