Stephen Mejias

I woke up this morning with a couple of sweet lines playing themselves over and over in my mind. The doctors and scientists call this phenomenon an earworm, which is an entirely unpleasant term. Isn't it? I mean, I would never want an earworm, but I don't at all mind the sound of pretty words running through my head.

Waiting for our food to arrive, the four of us sat at the wooden table, two to a side: Boy, girl, boy, boy.

Music editor, Robert Baird, comes over and asks: "How’s it going, chief?"

The "chief" part I take as a compliment. This is a magazine publishing company we’re working for, after all.

"Not bad," I say, while handing him the new Silver">http://www.silverjews.net/">Silver Jews album I purchased last night: "Have you heard this yet? It’s pretty good."

"Oh yeah," he responds, "It’s great. Did you buy this?"

Dusting is boring and makes me sneeze, so I had been putting it off. I don't know how many months and months had passed. It had been awhile. In fact, to an outside observer, it might have appeared as though I was trying to determine just how much dust I could collect on my bookcases. It was even starting to bother me. My bookcases no longer boasted their cheap cherry shine, but had taken on a soft, sickly grey. This weekend, I figured it was time.

Belle and Sebastian’s new album, Write About Love, is due in stores on October 12. I spied an advance copy in the office of our music editor, Robert Baird. He’s hogging it up for himself, though. Something about having to “write a review.” Whatever. Fortunately, from now until the 12th, NPR will be streaming">http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130212728">streami… the entire album, so we can get a cheap fix until we buy the real thing.

The AZ9345 is on right now. And it sounds pretty damn good to me. I’m listening to Smog’s latest album, A River Ain’t Too Much to Love, and god, I love it. I love it. I don’t even know exactly what it is. I keep wondering, “What is it? What’s so great about this album?”

I don’t think much about resolutions. One way or another, people do what they want to do, and all too often our desire conflicts with our resolve. But yesterday morning, as I was walking around downtown, waiting for everyone else to wake up, I stopped at Van Vorst Park to eat a banana and watch a father build a snowman for his son.