The title of this post was at the end of an email from Turntable Lab, and it nicely encapsulates this posting. Most obviously, I'm not posting on a Sunday, which is a good sign. I feel like I need to leverage this blog more for my own sanity and write on days other than Sundays. Technically, tomorrow isn't Monday. Having not gone to sleep yet, tomorrow, to me, will be Tuesday and even if you look at a clock, tomorrow still won't be Monday.

But all of that jibber jabber aside, "tomorrow isn't Monday" accurately sums up my current outlook on life. If Monday is truly the worst part of the week, and I believe that to be true, then I know that tomorrow is going to have to be better than the worst possible day. I know this, because I experienced the worst seven days of 2007 last week.

What I had been hinting at in other blog posts, fell miserably short. To come out with it, I had applied for a job as publicist for the Department of Music at Stanford. Even though the timing with my recently re-signed lease would have been terrible, there's no way I could sit back and not try to land a dream job like this. I currently write about music every day for free. When I wrote about it for the buzz as Music Editor, it led to some of my best writing. The thought of getting paid a great salary, at one of the top universities in the world, to write about music, in my favorite city in the United States, had my head spinning.

The largest let down was that I actually advanced in the interview process, and I was feeling quite optimistic. For reasons that I cannot understand and wholeheartedly disagree with, but will not go into on a publicly viewable blog, I was turned down. My hopes for being in San Francisco (you need to click on that link, btw), were put on hold for at least a year.

Instantly thoughts of yet another painfully cold winter here in the Midwest flooded into my brain. Another year of dealing with a populace here in Champaign that is musically shortsighted. Another year of not getting to meet that many more creative people here (you can basically meet most of the creative class in Champaign in under five years). Another year of my current job, which I do like a lot, but between writing about identity theft and antivirus solutions and writing about music, I think you can guess which would have had me jumping out of bed every morning. Another year that sees my friends scattered across the country, and my brother across an ocean at Oxford. It is going to be a tough year.

The same day that the Stanford news came down, I was told that a weekly residency that I was going to start that night on campus was ending before it even started in an effort to draw more greeks to the bar. Soon after that I had some major family issues to deal with, that I won't go into here. I was asked to play at one of the best house parties in town, and my set was abhorrent. Parking tickets piled up. Basically, if you can think of something to go wrong, it did. Easily the roughest seven days I've had all year.

But tomorrow is not Monday, and nor is it one of those awful days. I'm moving on, still trying to figure out how I'm getting out of this town and to the west coast where I belong.

What pulled me up
Obviously what got me through all of this was music and my close friends. That has been my formula for getting through the lowest points in my life for over 10 years now. The thing that really turned the corner for me was spinning a great downtempo set on Chilled Beats (my Sunday night downtempo radio show). I wish I had recorded the set to post it here. Instead, I am just going to post some music, all songs that made me smile, made me forget what had just happened, and made me realize that this is just a bad setback that I can get through. Without further ado, what pulled me up: