Apologies to everyone who wrote this week asking after me, and were met with either stony silence or fever-induced hysteria. (Okay, okay, I know you were only asking because you wanted something new to read, but at the heart of it, I know you cared, you big creampuffs, you.) To answer your questions, I am basically okay, but sicker than I thought I was. That’ll learn me to be all macha-like. While things are not bad here in PTMYB, they are not particularly good, either. You would think that having resolved the central question of my job security would have made life sweet and calm again, but there is something bad in the air, not evil but mean, taking the hearts and minds of those I love best and just pummelling them senseless, like the Kanker sisters on Ed, Edd & Eddy. Since I don’t want to strike dirge-like notes on a regular basis—if I wanted to inflict that on us, I’d buy us all tickets to Phillip Glass—I will probably lie fallow for a bit until things pick up. Of course, if I find myself infected with irrational exuberance tomorrow, ready to write 5,000-word missives on Why Buttermilk Is Really, Really Neat, that’s my prerogative. Take it to your own blog if you have a problem with it. 
Since my lunch hour has been atypically quiet, I decided to shake the torpor by trying a variant form of the 20 Songs meme. (To everyone who has been posting their 20 songs, I promise to link you all properly so that you can get your pings.) I spent the morning playing shuffle with 20 of the cds I brought into work today—believe me, once you see the size of our music collection, you will understand why shuffling through the whole collection would be a misguided act of folly. Because this job gives me the attention span of a gnat, I jotted down the titles of the songs that shuffled up. Then I took a line from each song and put together the paragraphs below, which can be considered either free verse or Dadaist prose. It’s not a story, exactly, but it makes its own little shaggy-dog music-geek sense.
For anyone who would like to figure out where the lyrics come from, yes, I have an answer key. There are 20 songs represented in these two paragraphs. See how many of them you recognize. Bonus points if you know the album from which the song came—and yes, compilations/greatest hits collections count, so there are multiple correct answers on a few of these. Of course, some smartypants out there will try to Google all of these lines, and lord knows I don’t have the energy to stop you, but, uh, please try to refrain. This is a game, not a contest. No one will point and laugh at you. (They’ll wait until you’re out of earshot first. *rimshot*)
Prizes? There could be prizes. There could be baked goods. There could be bread, or cookies, or a pot of jam or curd. Those of you who want bienenstich or croquembouche, you receive extra points for knowing what bienenstich or croquembouche are, but you also lose points for being a smartass.
Without further ado…
Watch out, the world’s behind you, there’s always someone around you who will call, it’s nothing at all. I am calling, yes, I’m calling, just to speak to you, for I know this night will kill me if I can’t be with you. And of course you can’t become if you only say what you would have done, so I missed a million miles of fun. Your emotions are frayed and your nerves are starting to creep; just remember the days, as hard as the time that you keep. You can take all the tea in China, put it in a big brown bag for me. Here is a sunrise; ain’t that enough? True as a clear sky; ain’t that enough? And here are the words for those who dare to speak of this open noisy big brilliant love, which is all I have to give. I can’t write songs about girls anymore: I have to write songs about women, no more “boy meets girl, boy loses girl,” more like “man tries to understand what the hell went wrong!” One minute one, one minute two, one minute up and one minute down, what goes on in your mind, I think that I am upside down. Who broke my heart? You did, you did…
I could lead you, if you’d show me the way; I could always eat you if you get hungry. I packed my bags, went down the hill, left my dependents a-lying still. So this is where he came to hide when he ran from you, in a private detective overcoat and dirty dead man’s shoes? The good life was so elusive;handouts, they got me down; I had to regain my self-respect, so I got into camouflage. I heard you laughing when I left, but don’t you know, you only hurt yourself? I have walked down train tracks, walked down train tracks drunk at 3 a.m.; it’s no big trick, it’s not magic when the trains don’t run till 6. Early to bed so you can wait for three buses, a trolley and a train; I think it’s worth it for you to stay awake, maybe tomorrow you’ll be a little late. What walks on two legs, and looks like a goat? When you’re following an angel, does it mean you have to throw your body off a building? But remember this city is a funny place, something like a circus or a sewer, but the glory of love might see you through.