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Date: January 23rd, 2020.

Time of Writing: 7:12 PM.

Weather: Clear. Cold.

Mood: Anxious.

Day Overview: Much shorter post today because I had a generally less eventful day. Writing class was pretty alright, I managed to bring my laptop in and get the homework due at midnight tonight done in class. It feels a little surreal already having an essay due in a week, even if it's only a rough draft. I feel like I contributed to the class discussion pretty well, given that it's a smaller class and I have friends there. Even if I didn't talk nearly as much as some people, and I had my nose in my computer too much of the time, I tried. At least a little bit, I tried. Then I came back to my dorm and sat around for a few hours, did the rest of the reading for my Film Studies class, listened to a couple albums. I ate a cliff bar to tide me over until my late lunch - I decided that since I'm going to be up later, it'd make some sense to shift my meal times later in the day, too. Fortunately, my schedule is decently conductive to that anyway.

The walk from my dorm to the ILC was long, but not bad. A little cold, and the pathways were somewhat crowded, but it was fine. I managed to listen to the first three songs on Kid A, which paired well with the wintery snow-covered landscape. I got to class probably fifteen minutes early, and waited outside with a few people. I almost made small talk, I almost had to make small talk, is more accurate. Thankfully, someone decided to bite the bullet and go inside to check if it was alright to go in. The theater-classroom-thing has this weird airlock door that probably has to do with the soundproofing of the room or whatever that makes it harder than just opening a door and checking to see if anyone was inside. I sat in the back again. Was pretty sure the guy sitting next to me was a part of the radio station, but I didn't feel like saying anything. Class felt somewhat drawn out, but it ended early because the professor did this thing where he shook literally everyone's hands as we left the room - he had the TA's stand in front of the other door so we had to go out the one he was standing in front of and shake his hand. That was pretty funny. If I was a haphephobic, I'd have a panic attack, though.

I went over to the campus center after that, literally ten seconds away, just next door. Had a chicken sandwich for lunch at around four o'clock in the afternoon, really closer to an early dinner. I've yet to have dinner. After I was done eating I went down to the radio station to try and figure out how to lock the door. See, I'm the last show of the night, so it's up to me to lock the studio so that nobody comes in and does anything weird in the middle of the night. I managed to work up the nerve to go over to the office and ask someone how it worked, which was a thing I didn't think I was going to be able to do. I'm even going to take my personal radio with me so that on the walk home I can check and make sure I set it back to the automated feed correctly. After checking all that out, I came back home to my dorm and got to work on some writing stuff, which is what I've been up to for the past long while.

On My Mind: This epidemic, the Coronavirus, that's been spreading across the world in the past few weeks, has been giving me serious flashbacks to the plagues of my youth. Ebola. Swine flu. And now this weird SARS thing, apparently more survivable than Ebola but it spreads easier. I'm worried that I'm going to have to start wearing surgical masks from place to place. If there's a reported case in Massachusetts I'm going to flip the fuck out. First it was in Oregon, and then they had a case in Texas, so it's slowly moving west, which is just FINE AND DANDY. I'll let you guys know if I get infected. People were making memes that 1720, 1820, and 1920 all had plaguelike sicknesses that went around and that we were due for another, are you happy? Are you absolutely satisfied? Because I sure ain't! Maybe I should start wearing sanitary gloves when I touch things. My Mom already does this, it wouldn't be out of line or out of character if it became a habit I picked up as well. Auuuugh.

Consumed:

• Aja by Steely Dan: It's smooth like butter and has about as much substance. A lot of fat to chew on, and I sure love chewing the fat. The lyrics are a little bit terrible most of the time. Donald Fagen sounds like Ed Droste from Grizzly Bear sometimes (or is that Christopher Bear he sounds more like? either way this sounds like Grizzly Bear from a different time), which was surprising and incredibly interesting for the sole reason that he's my less favorite Grizzly Bear vocalist. None of these songs resonated with me on a very personal level but I appreciated what they did on a musical level, and the smooth sounds they filled my ears with were pleasant, at the very least. The title track was actually pretty good though, it has this drum breakdown bit that was nice. Overall I dunno this was kinda boomery. 6/10.
• Breakfast in America by Supertramp: Hodgson is better than Davies and you can fucking fight me to the death about this because you are not changing my mind. His voice is better, his songwriting chops are stronger, and his stuff is just more personally resonant with me. If this was an EP of just his contributions, it'd be a 9/10. That's not to say that Davies is bad because he isn't. Goodbye Stranger is pretty, er, good. But it isn't on the level of Take The Long Way Home or Logical Song or even the title track. It's funny that I listen to this in the same session as Aja, because both are somewhat smooth yacht-rock adjacent albums, but this one is much more successful because the palette it paints from is more varied and filled with pop goodness, and the lyrics here while cheesy are actually pretty alright most of the time. It's about alienation and a disconnect from one's purpose, painted in very American neologisms and shibboleths. Okay, maybe I'm a bit harsh on Davies, Just Another Nervous Wreck is pretty alright. I'm just not a big fan of his voice. I would like this song better if Hodgson was singing it, is my take. Overall solid work here, and I enjoy this album thoroughly. Gonna annoy some radio listeners with it some time. 8/10.
• Honey by Robyn: Album 1,600 is basically the definition of a 6/10 for me. Electronic beats that sound like they could have been made by anyone at any point in time with somewhat overly perfect (lacking nuance) singing and lyrics on top of it. Occasionally there are effects and transitions here and there that elevate it above something disappointing or simply not good. I don't have much to say about this album because this album doesn't really say anything I haven't heard in better forms before. It's just not very imaginative and the ground it walks is well worn by the footprints of those who have traversed it better, more confidently, more adventurously. Heartbreak and reconciliation has rarely sounded so samey. There's a couple alright tracks in the middle though. 6/10.

Produced: I wrote about 2,000 words of fictional material today, as well as an assignment for my writing class. I'm not sure how my fiction stuff is going to be recieved by the community I wrote it for, I've been talking about doing this for a while to a few people and they seemed to be pretty receptive but the people that I didn't tell about it now have to deal with it being sprung on them out of the blue. I feel a little bad, but, not really! I'm honestly just glad to be writing again.

Other Thoughts: Radio show! Tonight is the first one of the semester! The Theme Machine! First theme is album openers! 11:59 PM EST to 2:00 AM EST! On WMUA! Thank you for reading!