It all goes by so quickly. Just last year I was sitting in my room at SJC Annapolis, probably listening to White Blood Cells and putting off my seminar reading. Now the only thing I can put off is going to sleep, or reading back issues of The New York Times so I can finally recycle them. I've gone through so many "prospective girlfriends" that I have trouble remembering them all. Hell, I even had a girlfriend. I've lived in three cities and visited many more. I quit two jobs. If I had been able to look into the future one year ago, my current musical tastes wouldn't be unrecognizible, but I would definitely be surprised. Very surprised. "What's all this Indie rock doing in my collection?" I would say. "The Magnetic Fields? They're, like, lo-fi British techno, right? What does Polewach think about all this?" One year ago, the only Belle and Sebastian I had listened to was The Boy with the Arab Strap.

Anyway, Mulder shit on my floor sometime before 11:30 am this morning. He was locked in my room, so I can't really blame him, but still, he should know better. I thought I had this all worked out. I told him just last weekend that if he had to go really bad, he should just tell me. "I don't care if it's 5 in the morning, you tell me you have to shit and I'll let you out of my room." He just looked rather nonplussed and started licking himself. "Mulder?"

"Yesh?"

"Do you remember what I just said?"

Licking.

"Mulder?"

"Yesh, you said, wake you if I have to let a load out. Now be quiet, I'm dirty." Oh, my cats can talk, in case you didn't know. Mulder in particular talks a lot of shit about me behind my back. I would stop letting him sleep on me, but he's so cute. He really talks crazy sometimes. Especially when no one has fed him in a while. He just gets delirious, shaking his little gray tail and muttering about meat and mean-spirited women, and wondering who took his balls, and when they're going to give them back. I guess it was kind of mean of us, promising him that we were only borrowing his balls; he wouldnt' let us take him to the vet unless we explicitly promised him that it was just a loan. Maybe he won't be "fixed" in Heaven.

Mulder recently finished his latest novel. It's titled "Moon in the Gutter," and will be available next month from Penguin Classics. It's a new direction for him. It's his first English-language novel, because he finally feels confident in his adopted tongue. He wrote his first and second novels in Russian and Sanskrit, respectively.

Over the next several days, I plan to listen to as much Mountain Goats as I can, in preparation for Saturday. I'll try to listen without playing Spider Solitaire, for a change. Expect my impressions of albums and songs. Also, I'll have to add some concept to my content. I told Scott (who will likely be my only reader) that this would be unlike other blogs, and so far, it definitely isn't.

Let no one have any illusions, this is just a modern rock blog.