For starters, just know that I'm not proud to admit to any of this. But the guilt has been crushing. It really has. I just have to come clean about this and get it off my chest already.

I am a cheater. And I have been cheating for a while now. Cheating on my blog, that is. On the blog that I claim to 'heart'. You see, for weeks now, I have been consumed by a new passion. Something fresh and exciting and frankly, it's all I can think about. I can't deny it any longer. It just wouldn't be fair to my blog, to you my readers, or to myself.

My new love is Last•FM.

Seriously.

I can't help it. It's a social music revolution!

I have set it as my homepage. I have installed i•scrobbler on my mac and enabled iPod scrobbling. It's the first thing I do when I get home from work and it's often the last thing I do before I go to bed at night. Sometimes I lay in bed Saturday evenings or bright and early Sunday mornings, and I pour over my charts of recently played tracks, marvel at the growing numbers beside each artists name, and search for upcoming events in my hometown. I peep into my neighbours profiles and I watch what they listen to, and then I sample some tracks. I read the artist bios, and look at their photos, and then before I know it, I am tracking down their music and downloading it into my iTunes with utter abandon (20 gb and counting!). Just last night, I discovered The Pipettes and The Long Blondes. It was an instant attraction. Oh, Last•FM!

I have scrobbled nearly 1000 tracks since April, and to borrow a Depeche Mode-ian phrase, I just can't get enough!

Thanks to this new love of mine, I not only discovered the delicate, exotic strains of Beirut, but I found out they had announced a show in my city. I purchased tickets as soon as they became available and am going to their show in the Fall. Last•FM also told me that Stereo Total are coming too, and so I snapped up tickets for that as well. Last•FM just keeps on giving, and giving, and I love it for that.

And while I'm being open about all this, I may as well confess that occasionally I have in fact copied posts from my blog (gasp!) and have pasted them into my journal on Last•FM. (oh god, I can only imagine what you must think of me).

My blog has been there for me through thick and thin for more than a year now, and I know it's despicable to place my affections elsewhere and to not faithfully post to it like I should. Please understand that it's not that I don't heart my blog anymore because I still heart it very, very much. I never stop thinking about it or caring about it the whole time I'm on Last•FM. Honestly.

Perhaps Last•FM is just a phase and I'll grow tired of it after a while. That's probably the case... right?

In the meantime, sweet, dear blog... Be patient with me and try to understand. I will return to you someday soon; for you are my one true love. You and I have a history and have shared so much.

I heart you, blog. Wait for me.