As I’ve said to several people this week, starting around Tuesday afternoon, this week has felt longer than the whole month of August when I was stuck in Aberdeen (not too far from yesterday’s unpleasantness, incidentally) away from pretty much everything I love and care about.

It’s largely had to do with work stuff, which I’ve belabored more than enough in this space over the last year in various vagueblogging sessions. Conversations I’ve had with others around here this week indicate it’s not just me who’s feeling this way – it’s a culture issue that I don’t expect is going to get solved anytime soon, and if it does get solved, it’s going to involve significant realignment within the larger public sector entity within which I work. Suffice to say, we’re all keeping an eye on the headlines, and on the job boards. We’ll see. I don’t feel like talking much about it. It’s also one of those times of year where, given the schedule according to which I get compensated for my suffering, my salary deposits don’t line up in the most ideal way with the schedule against which my bills get paid, so I’m stuck in alternate cycles of feast and famine, and the latter condition is currently in effect, so there’s that extra little bit of stress happening, however manageable, predictable, and adaptable for it actually is.

So yeah, I’ve not been my best self this week.

I do have a potential bright side this weekend, being RavenCon 13.5, which, in spite of being, behind the scenes, something of a trash fire, will involve me making music with some friends, those friends being the ‘Riffs, as well as folks like Metricula and The Misbehavin’ Maidens, who always put on a great show, and, surely in the interest of kindness, say nice things about me. I’ll likely be in and out of this event, given that it’s local (I won’t be staying at the venue, which is only fifteen minutes or so from home), previously described economic conditions, and I have other bits of life to address as well.

That said, here’s where I know I’ll be, though other appearances are always possible, since schedules are completely notional until a given event is actually happening:

• Friday, 9pm: Metricula (and her “Friends with Benefits”) – I’ll be sitting in on a couple of tunes, along with bits of the Maidens
• Friday, 11pm: Dimensional Riffs
• Saturday, 5pm: Dimensional Riffs
• Sunday, 10am : Dimensional Riffs -though given the hour, I expect we’ll make this a jam session; bring your musical talent

Otherwise, I’m going to try and catch up with friends and see a couple of shows. I expect it’s gonna be low-key and a pretty small event overall. I won’t elaborate on how the sausage is made here, but grab me for a beer sometime if you want the whole story.

That’s all I got, really. I’m not going to belabor the headlines; y’all can read. It’s just more trash fires all the way down.

Since this is Friday, I’ll continue my tradition (I’m probably the last blog on the interwebs that keeps this up) of tossing up a playlist, because I like music. This week’s shuffle isn’t bad – starts out with a surprising amount of modern indie, though soon devolves, as all Pandor a algorithms eventually do for me, into the Donnas and Bowie. Closes out nicely with some ’80s deep cuts, though that total dud at eleven is keeping with my week basically shitting the bed, so whatever:

1. “Bird Song” – Florence + The Machine
2. “Little Talks” – Of Monsters and Men
3. “Summertime Sadness” – Lana Del Rey
4. “Bring on the Dancing Horses” – Echo & The Bunnymen
5. “Love You Till It Hurts” – The Donnas
6. “Mystify” – INXS
7. “Paradise City” – Guns N’ Roses
8. “Rebel, Rebel” – David Bowie
9. “Electric Avenue” – Eddy Grant
10. “Nina Cried Power” – Hozier
11. “Juke Box Hero” – Foreigner
12. “Jessie’s Girl” – Rick Springfield
13. “Your Love” – The Outfield
14. “Dangerous” – Big Data