So I’m sitting in my little gray cube at work tapping away at the plastic keys, focused on electrical design type stuff.  I’m securely insulated at a safe distance from any natural-light-admitting windows with nothing to hold my attention but the blinky little symbols on the screen.  Once I get the doohickeys arranged in the proper sequence the thingamajig should work.  Yay.

Eyes and hands are on autopilot but the ears aren’t even in the building.  They’re encased in life-preserving headphones filled with the elixir of Bryan Ferry singing “Song to the Siren.” I’m in two places at once.  Guess which one is more real?

I’m not kidding.  I’m listening to this thing and my heart is pounding.  I’m seeing things.  I smell the ocean.  I see mermaids and I hear them sing.  The tragedy of obsessive human passion embracing its own destruction brings actual tears to my eyes. …