Black Curse – photo by Brendan Macleod

A few times a year my spouse leaves town without me, jetting away to have fun with one of her sisters or a friend. I could join if I wanted to, but have figured out that giving her some breaks from me is a good idea. I give her some other breaks when I go off to metal fests without her (she’d rather be punched in the kidneys than go to a metal show).

These times when I’m home alone are clouds with silver linings. It doesn’t take long before I start really missing her. The sudden and prolonged silence around the house starts weighing on me. One of the silver linings is that I fill up the silence with music whenever I want to (my kind of music), and fill it up some more by spilling out thoughts about what I’m hearing.

You could guess that my spouse has been gone on one of those trips since early last week, given that I’ve now managed to pull together three roundups of new music and videos in the space of the last four days. She’ll be back home this afternoon, so I’ll most likely be back to doing these once a week on Saturdays until she plans another jaunt. Continue reading »