We’ve been back in school for a month now. We’ve absorbed a month’s worth of knowledge and for that we are both smarter and more numb. Our list of bars with outdoor patios has been replaced by one of free lunch opportunities on campus. Our faces are no longer illuminated by the burning sun or lambent porch lights but by flickering second-floor library fluorescents. We ride our bikes four blocks to campus with toothbrushes in our mouths, instead of four miles to the lake with towel-stuffed backpacks.

A couple weeks ago after a party, a stranger left a fuchsia rhinestone-bedazzled flask on my dining room table. I don’t know who to return it to, so it remains in the center of the table like a vase of flowers. I like to look at it at in the morning while I eat my two eggs and toast. “Someone loves this flask,” I think to myself, sometimes out loud, in a groggy, whooping cough-addled voice.

“Someone loves something. Someone is happy.” I grunt, and a fleck of egg white falls out of my mouth. The following playlist is for you, Fuchsia Rhinestone-Bedazzled Flask. May you sit always on my dining room table, a memorial to the fun that can be had even as the temperature falls and my to-do list grows. May you remain half-full of whatever fruity liquor is inside you.

1. The Wire – HAIM

A slinky, sexy track that wears its Fleetwood Mac influence unabashedly on its witchy Stevie Nicks sleeve.

2. Then We Kiss – Icona Pop

Bored of yelling the lyrics to “I Love It” in your best friend’s face at parties but don’t want to stop yelling in your best friend’s face at parties? Try Icona Pop’s newest single!

3. Fri-End – Kate Nash

Jump out of bed and grab your air guitar.

4. Nightwater Girlfriend – Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

Let a single tear fall as you bop around the dance floor and recall your summer fling.

5. Elevate – St. Lucia

Takes cues from M83 with its 80s-synth intro, but doesn’t get stuck trying to be too heavy.

1. Youth – Foxes Turn this on when you need to work on your more dramatic dance moves.

7. Odd Look – Kavinsky feat. The Weeknd

And then turn this on when you want things to get weird.

These tracks are available at http://wmcn.tumblr.com. Stay half-full, friends.