I’ve spent the past few hours deciding which project to work on this morning, working on it, listening to music, watching the last half hour of Belle de Jour and most of Moby Dick (still playing in the background) with the sound turned all the way down, filling in holes in my music collection, and drinking decaf. Think I’ve got enough going on? I’m wondering what the chicken/egg relationship is between my chronic insomnia and the stuff I tend to do in the late night and early morning. At least I’m drinking decaf, right?

I finally decided to work on a “crappy science fiction” project with the pompous working title “The Ark in Ice.” It’s about a long-haul interstellar colony ship that suffers some sort of accident, which cripples a lot of its automatic systems, destroys most of its library, and kills about 90% of its population, both “waking” and those in whatever cliché for suspended animation I end up using. Lot of room there for all kinds of alienation and “search for a purpose in life” themes, which I appear to be harping on quite a bit these days anyway. If I can avoid writing shitty science fiction, it might be readable. I’ll post an excerpt later today (or I won’t, but will soon).

I’ve been listening to a real schizophrenic mix tonight. Some Elliot Smith (stuff off of From a Basement on the Hill) a bit of the Hedwig and the Angry Inch soundtrack, a bit of the Wig in a Box tribute album, Zero 7 (some Simple Things), My Bloody Valentine (a bunch of stuff), Laverne Baker (ditto), Massive Attack (Mezzanine, I think I’m trying to decide if I actually like them or just don’t dislike them), The New Pornographers (Electric Version), TV on the Radio (the Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes album, which is reminding me of The Doves’s Lost Souls a lot right now), Brian Eno (always a staple, Music for Films tonight), and right now The Polyphonic Spree (I forget which album this is, I think it’s Together We’re Heavy, which, considering there are a hundred thousand people in this band …). All of this music is connected by pretty clear lines in my mind. If you can guess what they are, I’ll burn my entire music collection to a series of DVDs for you.

Last but not least, the decaf isn’t bad, for decaf. I think I’m going to switch to tea, push on to a thousand words, and try to get to sleep. If I were ambitious and bold, I’d provide links for all of the bands I just mentioned. I’m sure there’s some way to select the text and have Google milk the internet’s honeyed teat for you. Be bold, be ambitious.