The little iPod auto kit I have for my car busted last week (the plastic casing on the end of the cable split open and the wires started fraying, thus leaving the iPod unable to connect with the auxiliary audio input in my car - the aux input being a nice feature on the Mazda3). I ordered another auto kit - the exact same thing - from J&R Music World via Amazon. It arrived today, but what was in the package was NOT what I received last time. It lacks the second cable that leads into the AUX jack, so someone somewhere screwed up. Either at Belkin or at J&R.

So that sucks. I’ve already spent over a week without good music in my car, and I’m not about to spend hours burning CDs. I sent a detailed email to the folks at J&R and asked them how to resolve this, going so far as to provide them with the order information from the last time I ordered this exact item… a mere four months ago in May. We shall see. It was packaged in one of those impossible to open blister packs and I had to essentially destroy the package to get inside and find out the cable wasn’t there. Ugh.

What also sucks is how busy I was today and how busy I’ll be tomorrow. I don’t want to dwell on it. I ate lunch at my desk in under 5 minutes. It was that kind of day. That’s something I can normally handle, but my emotional immune system is down already from feeling stressed over the upset in my home life, over finances and thinking about impending apartment-hunting, impending responsibility for being at my friends’ side during the birth of their child (which is not bad stress, but I feel the pressure now - she could go at any moment!), and feeling generally lost in terms of some large scale changes that have been taking place lately and how those have affected my life. Sigh.

When I get on this roll, the negative thoughts just start going and building on each other to almost laughable proportions. I’m unable to laugh at them for a long time, but for the present I have to take myself aside and say, “All right. STOP IT. Just STOP IT. RIGHT NOW. Today was a good Flickr day. 54 views, bitch!”

I do that. Except for the last part about Flickr. I was just throwing that in for lame comic effect. The rest of it - the “STOP IT” part? I do that.

Today’s negative thoughts included one particularly lengthy and insane meditation (I have to note that it’s insane before I start typing it) on how/why it is that so many of my acquaintances and friends are attractive, wondering if it’s possible that they’re my friends and keep me around because having me around heightens their attractiveness even more… for the contrast I provide. I proceeded to decide (here’s where I get really horrible and insane) that liking me or enjoying my company has nothing to do with it because I tend to be a miserable wretch about 56% of the time (down from 78% this time last year and 100% the year before) so it must be because I serve some purpose or provide some purely utilitarian function, whether it’s my plainness and non-threatening nature, my random knowledge, my general reliability or the fact that I’m not pure evil.

Ah, well. Re-hashing this is fruitless and quite silly. But the good thing is that it’s out of my head. I can read it and recognize just how redonkulous it is, then pick up a book and let it all go… with a big old sigh and an “ADIOS!”

This week seems interminably long, even in light of a half-day at work tomorrow and a day off on Monday. It’s just been chock-full of activity - possibly because one of my co-workers is on maternity leave and the other is on vacation. This might just be me catching the overflow, but I’m thinking it’s something more. This doesn’t feel temporary.

But I’m feeling good in a small-scale philanthropic way because I just donated some moneys (not a lot, but apparently their most popular pledge amount) to my local public radio station during their pledge drive. I was going to forgo the thank you gift (another tote bag?) but then I saw that I had the option to get an iPod cover. I’ve been looking for a new iPod cover. So I’ll have this (mildly pretentious) cover in a few weeks:

I might have to start putting some of their podcasts on my iPod just so the inside matches the outside. Right now, my radio listening is NPR (WNYC, more appropriately), the oldies station (rarely now because DJs really annoy the crap out of me these days), or my iPod. That’s it.

I don’t think I’m alone in these listening habits - it’s a bit of the DVR/TiVo mentality:

a) I don’t want commercials
b) I want to hear/see what I want when I want it
c) I’m willing to pay a little more for this privilege (which is a little f’ed up if you think about, but it’s modern life - we pay a lot to maintain our respective levels of peace and quiet in life)

And now, I think I’m going to go by my local bagel shop and get a bagel before I catch my train. It’s a rainy morning and I’m feeling tired, but OK.

Once more into the fray!

As you’ll see evidenced below, I’m apparently in the mood to photograph trees. There were lots of other things I could’ve “shot” today (during a day trip to Princeton, NJ with my friends Theresa and Sara) but I liked these trees. And, honestly, we were having a splendid time and it didn’t occur to me to get the camera out and interrupt the flow. And Mihály Csíkszentmihályi will tell you how important flow is.

But really, the sky this morning was amazing and it set off the greenish-yellow of this tree to stunning effect, I think. The image hasn’t been altered in any way, other than sized down to fit this column.

Then there was this tree in a courtyard across from Princeton University itself. I liked the thickness and rope-yness of the center.

We stopped at Princeton Record Exchange and I bought a bunch of used CDs and a couple of new ones, so now I’m feeding iTunes and syncing my iPod with glorious new music. Yummy.

I also got some chocolate-covered toffee pistachios at the Thomas Sweet chocolate shop. Honestly, eating two of those packs a wallop of chocolatey sweetness, so they are going to last me a while.

While driving back from doing some shopping with my friend Theresa (Nordstrom’s and Sephora - a girl’s gotta treat herself sometimes. I behaved myself and got some Sephora brand eyeshadow as well as my free birthday gift since I am part of their “insider’s” club thingie) we were listening to the oldies station.

Radio these days plays nothing I want to hear, so I’m all about NPR, the oldies station and my iPod. With those three, I’m guaranteed to have something interesting to listen to ALL the time.

The song that was just beginning to play was Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” We both let out a sort of squeak which apparently meant (in our personal friend language) that we were going to be singing along, ‘Wayne’s World’ style.

And we did. Boy, did we. I know it’s nothing new, but it’s been quite a while since that was the hotness (if ever it really was) and we still know all the words - like, really. We were not approximating sounds. I was impressed with us - all girlie shopping and then all spazzy like that. These are the moments that make life worth living.

Now, I must away to bed. I have to be in the office early tomorrow morning and I need to go running before that, so the only way to accomplish that is to get up at least 45 minutes earlier than usual. It’s not going to be fun.

Then again, I’m going to have plenty of fun later this month when I go out to California for Coachella and spend some time “up north” in San Francisco. More on that later…