Thursday October 5th

Day 105, Session 34:
Location: I'm grumpy heading home. It's dark before I'm on the train. I'm home but have missed The Simpsons.
First song: Born Again by Badly Drawn Boy
Last full song: Bouncing Around the Room by Phish
Progress: 476-479 of 4424
Total Songs Heard: 406

Only managed to hear 4 songs today. Nothing particularly memorable either. I ended up being away for a few days after this. Went to Western Maryland for a friend's bachelor party. My friend Jon was introduced to his soon to be wife by their shared dry cleaner. That's pretty much the strangest, "how we met" story I've ever heard. (Seriously, beat that! Why hasn't someone developed that match-making dry cleaner into a TV series yet?)

While in Maryland we went clay shooting. You'd probably be surprised to find out I'm not much of a gun guy. We made it through 4 stations before I finally hit my first target. It was a tremendous feeling of relief when I finally hit a target. My brain had locked in on the idea that I was never going to be able to succeed. As the afternoon went on, I never got close to being good, but I did eventually get to the point of being semi-competent. Semi-competent felt really good when compared to the fear of complete failure.

What does this have to do with the songs of today? The first time I heard Bouncing Around the Room was on a mix tape made for my housemates and I back in college after we entertained a few girls that were visiting one of our friends for a weekend. Even though the tape wasn't specifically for me, I had spent a lot of time that weekend with the girl who made the tape. At the time, I hadn't had anything even resembling a date for going on 18 months. Getting that tape made me feel semi-competent again and ended a long period of brain failure-lock. Semi-competent was so much better than complete failure.

In the end, I guess this story disconnects though... I don't have any plans to go shooting again any time soon. Too many bruises.