Smile.

Don’t take this personally, but I totally don’t feel like writing this paragraph you’re reading. As grateful as I am to have a slot on the illustrious Amoeblog, and even though I have a great big crush on you, dear reader, there are times (they’re rare, but there) when I feel like I have nothing to give, and this is one of those times.

 

A week ago I was sick, and this week I had a brief but intense emotional breakdown; I cried so hard I dry-heaved, and gave voice to deeply personal and vulnerable psychological wounds in a tone not unlike Mary Tyler Moore when she got very upset with Rob Petrie or Lou Grant.

As if all this wasn’t enough to render me limp, I discovered today that our young cat, Maybe, has a taste for new, unused garbage bags…

Directions: Imagine Mr. Brother living another day, as always, with music playing. Whether it’s one of his trusty iPods, or his home stereo, or working the soundtracks section of Amoeba Music Hollywood, Mr. Brother is eating, sonically, with the mouths of his ears.

To simulate this experience, as you read the below story of a day lived, you will be given certain music clips to play. These are inserted to provide you with the same tunes Job was hearing as he was doing what you’ll be reading.

For example, while he was writing the above directions, he was listening to this:

I’m moving. My boyfriend and I are finally shacking up together. We had to pick between our two homes: my tiny bachelor, located in the heart of Hollywood, with decaying floors, rotted walls, and endless episodes of water and power failures – you know, what real estate agents refer to as a building “with real character and Old World charm,” or his two-floor townhouse on the Miracle Mile, a building so nice that even the landlord keeps a room in it, and the only creatures that crawl around are the snails in the pretty gardens out front.

I said, “How about I move in with you.”

So, I’ve been packing up my collections of antique religious paintings, record albums, spooky bad-luck charms, record albums, various flavors of vinegar, record albums, biographies on various dead people I have crushes on, record albums, and plants.