I think I'm ready to become a rock 'n roll star, seeing how awful I feel right now thanks to the excesses of my daring lifestyle. The day started off on a strange note when I got up unusually early. I was happy to get the extra hours in th eday, of course, but at the same time the first few hours were, well, surreal. Cup of coffee, staring at this blasted screen with some strange music in the background, I don't know, it seems like an eternity away. Is it a good or bad thing when you can't remember what the morning was like? I suppose it would normally mean that your day has been so packed with exciting things that you're focussed solely on the moment. If only 'twere true in my case; no, sadly I've had nothing of the sort, 'twas another ho-hum day in my ho-hum life. At times like these, I wonder what I'm doing with myself, and why, if I'm able to realize that I'm not going anywhere, I don't do anything about it. Tragically hilarious, that.

My allusion to a rock star at the start of this post was a result, I'm sure, of me having MSN radio for a good 10 hours or so. Music can do strange things to your mind, man. It's good in a way, because now I'm less likely to go on any obsessive marathon music-listening sessions like I normally do. Although, I have discovered some nice little numbers in my trip to this woozy mess - Supertramp's "Goodbye Stranger" (it's all in the chorus, man), The Doors' "Waiting For The Sun", James Gang's "Life's Been Good", Iggy Pop's "Passenger", and of course, The Zombies' "Time Of The Season" ("What's your name? / Who's your daddy? / Is he rich like me?"), and so on. Although I dunno if it's worth the blinding pain I'm having right now.

On the subject of music, I am a little disheartened with CDs. For me, once I buy one, if I hear it more than a couple of times in the span of a few weeks, I feel as though the magic is lost on me. I have no idea where I came up with this way of thinking. I'm a strange beast then in that my favourite albums ever are probably the ones I've listened to the least - to preserve the freshness, don't ya know? Whereas it's the rough gems that I try to listen to more than a few times to try and see the value in them. I do think that it is possible for something to lose its freshness, but I think I have taken the idea too far. It's merely another extreme. I used to listen to my entire collection every weekend a few years ago (when I was just starting out in the weird and wonderful world of rock and roll, and I had only a few hundred songs) - now there's a recipe for disaster. Chances are I blew a fuse back then, and decided that I had totally drained everything that was good about the songs by listening to them over and over and over again every single week for God knows how long. So now, I suppose to compensate, I have gone in the opposite direction, listening to an album a couple of times (maybe three on the odd occasion), and then leaving it to collect dust for a few years.

What's particularly bad is that it means I can never be satisfied. Any new addition to my collection is deemed used up in a few weeks (for the next few years or so, anyway), and therefore I always need more, more..quite sad, really. I wonder if I can get over this sometime soon?

Let me give you an example of something whose freshness I'm preserving for later years - The Moody Blues' Days Of Future Passed. In particular, I was struck with the idea of listening to the song "Tuesday Afternoon" when I become 30. Why? Inexplicable associations, that's why. Well, perhaps not all that inexplicable, actually. The whole album progresses as though the listener is aging, from the merry childhood of "Another Morning" to the deadly dying-man (? or so I've read) ballad "Nights In White Satin". But anyway, "Tuesday Afternoon" to me is associated with middle age. The mellotron (is it? I'm terrible with telling what instruments are being played) introduction in particular, there's something about it. Heavenly, for sure, and as a result it's something I want to look backon. Silly, perhaps, but still at least it's something to look forward to, right?