Damek.

Some things you just have no control over. I have to wake up. I have to go to work. To do get from the former to the latter I have to walk to the subway and then spend about half an hour or more standing in tight, dubious company in an inconsistently moving train car. This could be bad, unless you take steps to modify your personal environment to counterbalance the unfavorable vibes.

Sometimes the steps you take don’t work, but when they do, ahh, your day just gets the right groove on from the start. Here’s what worked for me this morning.

First, I chose to listen to Mr. Projectile’s excellent album Sinking. A soothing quicksand retreat, you’ll find yourself equally picked up, dusted off and given a kick in the pants. If you’re at all familiar with Bola, you’ll find that some similar themes and aesthetics apply with Mr. Projectile, but given a murkier, less funky direction. It’s like being enveloped in a cleansing mudbath. It’s a good album with which to shut out the world. Here’s a sample track - unfortunately, being a bit of a journey, no one track can really do it justice, I feel, so go check out the samples available at Merck’s site, too.

So, sufficiently cocooned by the music, I further wrapped myself in another world by reading the ultimate novel of other worlds, Stephen King’s The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower. I have been waiting for the end of this tale for over a decade. I read my first Stephen King novel when I was just entering my teens. It was The Tommyknockers, it was my first “adult” book (read: not from the Scholastic book catalog), and I was hooked. I encountered his Dark Tower epic not long after that, and have awaited each continuing volume ever since. Now the end is finally here, and from page one I’ve been sucked in. Of course, soon I’ll finish it, and feel a bittersweet satisfaction, and move on to other things. But it’s not about the end, it’s about the journey, and making the most of it. This morning I chose to take a different journey than the one offered by the train, and my day will be better for it.

At least until the Presidential debate tonight. Man, am I gonna get drunk from that!