In Which Music Soothes the Savage Beast

Bitterblue is eating me alive. Sometimes, when you're being eaten alive, the most basic life questions become difficult to answer. What should I wear today? What do I feel like eating? If I threw my phone into the path of this steamroller, would that be such a terrible thing? Is it possible my upstairs neighbor is rehearsing for Stomp ? Seriously? Please shut up? Isn't there something I'm meant to be mailing to someone? Where did I put that damn cactus? What kind of music would help me feel less strung out? Sometimes, when I can't figure out what kind of music I feel like listening to, I like to set all the files on my iPod -- all 1289 files -- on shuffle, and see what happens. Of course, what happens is that I get a peculiar mix of songs occasionally interrupted by things like the voice of Ira Glass, a random chapter of All Creatures Great and Small , and a middle movement of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring . But I also get these lovely, refreshin