Agnus Dei

You'd think any given spin on your iPod would be the perfect request-list that's all you.

But sometimes the shuffle of songs just catches you unreceptive. Tune after tune arrives, and you find yourself endlessly skipping to the next surprise selection, hoping it will better suit your mood than what the randomized ether has coughed up so far.

Then there are the magic moments.

Times when the little plastic ditty-dealer seems to know exactly what you're listening for, and delivers it song by song - each connecting to its forebears and followers in a flow of personalized programming that couldn't be better if you were the DJ yourself.

Last night, for example.

I've taken to employing the 'Pod at bedding hour, the better to soothe my nerves and distract ye olde roving brain from its involuntary need to process everything occurring in the day past (and all days previous) while still conscious, never agreeing without a fight to roam the infinitely preferable (and far more effective) thought-sorting rhythms of REM sleep.

Usually I keep an ear or two cocked until the music starts to bore me, then doff headphones, turn cheek to pillow, and nod off to the precious land of la-la.

Not so when the 'Pod doles out what it did last night.

I'm creating an honorary playlist (mixtape, if you will) for fate's nocturnal serenade, but I'm naming it for the plush creature who has watched over my frustrated attempts at slumber the last few nights. Not from a prized position in my clutching arms, mind you, but from her spot at the piano across the room, where she's clearly learned a thing or two about what makes me bop my head and tap my feet - even from a horizontal, blanketed position.

Without further ado, I give you

Lamb Chop's Choice

1) Black Dove (January) - Tori Amos
2) Turn This Car Around - Tom Petty
3) Drama! - Erasure
4) Gone Daddy Gone - Gnarls Barkley
5) W.Y.H.I.W.Y.G. - Front 242
6) Geography - Front 242
7) Everybody's Got A Family - Massive Attack
8) Five Years - Bjork
9) Save Me - Aimee Mann
10) Sleep - Imogen Heap
11) The Walk - Imogen Heap
12) God Morgon - AP3S
13) Abuse - Propaganda
14) Push Upstairs - Underworld
15) Matrix OpenStatic - Front 242
16) Description Of A Fool - A Tribe Called Quest
17) Turn This Car Around - Tom Petty
18) Remind (Live @ Maida Vale) - Orbital

P.S. So far, TB's been all about visitin', bikin', runnin' (!!), weight-liftin' (!!!) and new-TV-show-watchin'.