The prompt, to paraphrase, was Songs to Play if I Owned a Diner. I'm sure you can picture it: I'm wearing the paper hat, the white apron, I'm serving well and wiping down tables, singing to customers in my rich baritone like the clerk at the candy shop from Willy Wonka.

Frequent readers will know that Western Africa is one of my favorite parts of the world, so my expectations were already high when I secured a lift to Bamako.

Picture this: It's too late to go out. It's one of those Friday nights where you had nothing, so you just rewatched Clueless. You're a little disappointed. Then, you hear a sputtering engine from the street, the waves of the past lapping our postmodern shores.

I built a train-car playlist to capture something that only gets worse as I get older: envy. Or, more specifically, the significant effort it takes to recognize envy and supplant it with love.

Shaky Knees is a music festival with lots of guitars in Atlanta, Georgia. The music is not cool anymore, but I'm going to it this weekend, so I made a playlist full of the bands that will be there.

I've been looking at my roles, and hating what I’ve done with them. I just wanted to choose one that exercises my humanity, by sending you playlists made from my organic experience, even if I'll ultimately lose the battle to the machines.

In honor of my body and my choices, here are eleven songs I put on to calm me down.  Because maybe you want to partake today, even if you're prone to freak-outs. Let's help each other!