Today hasn't blown chunks, which I am taking time to appreciate. I've done a reasonable amount of work -- that is, several hours' worth today, and that doesn't happen that often.

One factor contibuting to my joyfulness is the Buddy Holly station I created yesterday on Pandora. I enjoy old-school rock and roll of many types, but my "Roots of Rock & Roll" station has been unsatisfying listening -- because what I really wanted was Rockabilly. I found that out this weekend, when I met the trivia boys at the Quarry House in Silver Spring. It was a farewell gathering for Seth, who will be travelling about Europe until he starts law school in the fall (somewhere - we don't know where yet!). Entering the bar on Saturday evening, I followed a man carrying a guitar. "Great," I groaned, "Live music tonight." (I tend not to like live music at bars. It's complicated.) Eventually the guitar man comes onto the stage in a suit that must have been willed to him by Bill Haley, and proceeds to announce that it's "Rockabilly Saturday Night." Which is when I understand why every table in the bar save ours is made up of 50-year-olds. And the band starts playing Buddy Holly and the Crickets, and I realized what had been missing from my life -- or at least, from my Pandora life: two guitars, a drum kit, and -- most essentially -- a stand-up bass.

So I've been listening to not only Buddy Holly but also to his brothers in the country-Western/ rhythm-and-blues melting pot of hard-strumming greathenness: pre-jumpsuit Presley, Carl "Blue Suede Shoes" Perkins, Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry, Ritchie Valens, and ol' cousin-marryin' Jerry Lee Lewis.

The drawback to Rockabilly at work is that it requires rocking out. I feel self-conscious when I'm hit by the need to rock out in my cube, because nobody else ever does. I mean, we all listen to music during the day, and I haven't seen as much as a head-nod on a co-worker since I started this job. But I've just had to get over it today -- I can no longer be concerned about the judgment of people who clearly don't appreciate the value of the connection between the drum beat and the heart beat. So up their noses with rubber hoses, because I'm waltzing to my own tune over here. Or head-bobbing to my own guitar licks -- whatev.

When I run my own office, we're gonna have dance breaks.