All next week I will be away, with consciously chosen limited access to the churning storms of the interweb. That creates a dilemma as I have the dueling, incompatible compulsions of insisting on something new in this space every day (even if that means occasionally resorting to nothing more than a piece of ecumenical, rubberized art) and a self-defeating love of procrastination. Luckily, there is a precedent.

The last time I was absent from this space for a similar amount of time, I looked to my old friends from the college radio station that is so commonly a factor in my regular One for Friday posts, asking them to contribute their own versions of that weekly feature. Instead of just settling on the last day of the workweek, they ran in each and every block of the calendar, allowing the feature to bear the almost idyllic name “A Week of Fridays.” It is time to do that once again, this time drawing participants from a different era of my life. Since there was a second college radio station that figured prominently in my life, occurring around a decade past my own experience as a student broadcaster, that seemed like a good place to begin. However, there’s another wrinkle that was taken into consideration in selecting the guest writers I invited.

The One for Friday entries don’t bear that somewhat awkward name for no reason. They’re an offshoot of a feature I used to post at my former online home. That feature was called Five for Friday, offering a list of five songs that met the criteria of some topic, and others were actively invited to compose their own lists in the comments section. The cohorts from my Florida days that I asked to pitch in next week were all people who were especially consistent and spirited contributors to the Five for Friday feature, making the possibility of once again seeing their words in one of my corners of the interweb all the more enticing. Thankfully, they all readily agreed and I’m thrilled to report that there’s an amazing, absolutely delightful diversity to the songs they selected.

Saturdays and Sundays will proceed as usual, but until I get back, my five friends will be the temporary caretakers of this space. Believe me, it’s going to be fun.