I think that I’m a good listener, that I’m not judgmental. I’ve been in pain before, so I have a pretty good idea of what heartbreak feels like. Or so I thought. There’s a huge difference between remembering pain and experiencing pain.

I can’t say that I’ve been enjoying this experience. But it’s been … useful … to remember — to experience heartbreak again. To become reacquainted with the insecurities and fears coiled at the center of my heart. To come face to face with the sense of helplessness. To come to the place where knowledge and reason have no purchase. To wonder that such a tawdry thing could hurt so much.

I’d like to think that I’ll be a better listener when this is over.

As William Congreve wrote: Music has charms to soothe a savage breast. I would not say that my breast was savage, but it was in some amount of pain. So for this evenings soiree, I put together a collection of love songs; specifically about the other side of love.

It felt good (Mr James pronounced it “edgy!”) to play these songs. For let us not forget that Mr Congreve also wrote:

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned

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I don’t know quite how to feel about that.

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Years ago, it was Covey’s Seven Habits. My manager at the time was into it, so I bought the book. There was too much philosophy there. I didn’t want to sharpen the saw or set down my life goals. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t drop the ball on my work projects.

This time around it’s David Allen’s Getting Things Done that has charmed the pants off the bloggeratti. But it still has too many charts.

I also have a little bit of a Moleskine fetish. And there are other people with the same fetish who use the GTD system with it.

All of this is just to say that I’ve had “post old playlists” on my list of things to do, and now it’s done.

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