Music

I only have about 800 songs on my iPod.

Over 600 of them are great songs.

The other 200 are pretty decent.

There's a lot of Lyle Lovett, not enough Cake, quite a dose of Bob Seger and a healthy ration of Clapton. The Refreshments, from Austin, TX, are well represented and might actually be my favorite band, but I also love The Self Righteous Brothers from Lincoln, NE. Sadly, I recently learned that they are no longer performing. The Rainmakers, who played the college circuit out of Kansas City back in the early 80's show up on my iPod about a half dozen times. Surprising how much Green Day and Toby Keith, too. (There are two artists seldom mentioned in the same sentence, huh?)

Quirky stuff like Leon Redbone and Frank Zappa pops up pretty regularly. There's vintage Hank Williams, and literally dozens of blues standards from B. B. King, John Lee Hooker and all the expected blues greats.

My wife is one of the greatest gift-givers of all time. She hates golf, but she gives great gifts. She doesn't like it that I am gone so much, but she gives great travel gifts. Example: One of the greatest gifts she ever got me was a set of those Bose Noise Cancelling headphones. Even with them, and they rock, with the exception of European or cross-country flights, I'd still get only a couple hours of non-stop music, though. And half the time, I'm working, and the music is just sort of "there."

Not today. Today, with the exception of an hour or so, I've had the iPod playing non-stop. And, with the exception of sorting 12 years of recipes that we've thought "hey, we should make that someday," I've just had the music. Jodi and her mom, and The Youngest of The Three are off to the mall, and it's just me, my neck brace, 2000 loose pieces of paper and about 12% of these 800 songs.

Man, I miss music.

Somewhere along the way, the TV got way too prevalent. The phone rings all the damned time. The BlackBerry pings with a bunch of e-mail that I can't do anything about while I'm on leave. It seems the sheer noise of life is pretty oppressive, and I never realize it until I get a day away from it. And that is simply not often enough.

Aerosmith just followed Patsy Cline, with Stevie Ray, Clapton and The University of Iowa Marching Band after that. I snuck a quick peak and Cake is up next.

Gotta go.