I think I'm about off it

Up at 2 because I went to bed at 6AM. I'd listed 10 ebay things, packed/staged a bunch of stuff, eaten that huge curry dinner and then had a salad I made later, and I had not much cravings for alcohol. Even at  bed time, I had about half what I had the night before, and tonight I might have one small cup of sake at bed time and that will be that. My sleep was not great as it was not very deep, but plenty of interesting dreams.

I'd gotten a good practice in, too. It's a whole different way of breathing than trumpet playing requires and it took me years to develop *that*. This way of breathing is far healthier and just the breathing training is worth it. Come to think of it, it took me quite a while to not sound awful on trumpet, and at least I can say I don't sound awful on the shakuhachi, just very "beginner". And that's OK. Some instructors, in fact, will have their students play nothing but Ro for the first year. But that's been called un-necessary gatekeeping. 

I'm just so happy to have my taxes done and have it "down" how to file my 2020's using the good old 1040 form and schedules. I'll get to bug Ken about getting my 1099 when he comes by tonight and as soon as I get it I'll file those, to show the IRS I'm a good egg after all. And I feel pretty good about my savings rate. Even with drinking and buying stuff, some of which I probably don't need, I managed to save up 6 grand in about a year. I've never done that before except one period early in my own Ebay career, when my income was increasing so fast that I ended up with 5 grand in the bank before I knew it. At the time I felt nervous, like I'd better spend it. And I sure did. But I'm finally more like the person I want to be, who likes to save. 

I went out and delivered my 25 packages, and got chicken wings on the way back. It was in the 80s out there, and I'm really glad today was my last day in "winter uniform" and tomorrow being April 1st, I get to change to "summer uniform" which means shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. Getting the chicken wings was fun because there in Grill-'Em I got talking with a Hispanic guy, first about whether the wings are good, then we got onto discussing politics and we both agreed that people moving from educated places like California to "red" states and turning them "blue" is a very good thing and it's actually happening. How we need more Socialism etc. There was an old white guy sitting nearby not even looking our way but he could hear every word and I bet it really pissed him off. 

I came back here and ate my chicken - I think the Mexicans who do the real work like me because chicken wings are usually evenly divided between the smaller "flats" and the larger "drums". I actually prefer "flats" but I got maybe 2 "flats" and the rest were "drums' so it was almost more than I could eat. 

After a bit of a rest-up gave myself a hair cut, did a full body scrub-down bath, and started the hot soapy water for my towel, which stunk, and my orange jacket which for some reason is not supposed to washed with fabric softener. 

Then Ken came by, bringing a bunch of stuff of course, and I helped him with that, and I got my pay check, and we hung out and talked about stuff, and when he'd left I got to work taking all the goodies out of this big electrical enclosure he'd brought by - he'll probably use the enclosure out at his place in Patterson. It's not really his it's the rocket club's but he keeps being voted in as president and I think he's a majority stock holder or share holder or whatever it is in the rocket club. So he's got this 250-acre place with a stream and some buildings and a handful of people living out there. He even offered to let me live out there in the crash of 08. So he often does electrical work out there. 

That done, I was too tired to list anything so I just sorted out a batch of things to list next, and some more stuff in the batch after that.

Return to sender

 I was awake around noon, lay in bed and half-slept until 2, when the mailman parked right out front and knocked on the door. I jumped out of bed and he handed me the box I'd sent to a Reddit character who calls himself "Huckstah". This "Huckstah" had been interested in brewing his own wine, and I said I just happened to have this stuff and I'd send it to him. About 10 bags of champagne yeast and some air locks. 

And as usual, "Huckstah" being a street bum, albeit a bit more adventurous than the average street bum, having had a school bus and now tootling around on a sailboat he acquired somehow, street bums as a rule are flakey as hell, and most are good at making enemies so the guy whose address he gave me might have been a friend a week ago and a bitter enemy now. I've been reading "Huckstah's" posts long enough to know that like any street bum, he's left a trail of people who feel he's wronged them somehow. Hearing only his side, it sounds like the world is full of mean and ungrateful people but if everyone you meet all day is an asshole, you might just be the asshole. 

The moral is, fuck street bums. Never help them; they'll find someone else to rip off. If you help a street bum there are only a few things that can happen: If assistance is mailed, it never gets there because street bums are unstable with regard to addresses and people who have addresses. Or the street bum will show utterly no thanks because to street bums, there is no sense of the social contract and generosity is only seen as weakness. Or the street bum will demand MORE. In the end, if you engage the street bum for any length of time, the street bum will decide you're their enemy, making their web page unpopular, their milk go sour, their cat piss in their shoes, etc. So again, fuck street bums. 

And I actually hung out with street bums for a bit, those street bums who are buskers, as I felt they had some sort of inside line on busking. They don't. Even the "great" Trumpetman who's been out there for years, knows less about busking than I do, and when I was last playing, was playing far below the level I'd attained. Ron The Recorder Player, when I gave him a cornet, would not even try to play it. That would have been actual work, instead of begging.

I only have time for buskers who are *not* street bums these days. The black guy with an electric guitar and mic and amps etc, a whole stage's worth of equipment, that I watched for him while he went in search of a bathrooom. Gabriel The Violinist. Leroy The Saxophonist. Any of the occasional classically trained violinists I used to see in Mountain View in the Before Times. There was a guy who played classical guitar in front of one of the restaurants in Mt. View too, who sounded quite good. 

I do not include Red The Flute Player here because he's a street bum with a flute, mangling the oldies into unrecognizability. I actually got to know him a bit, how he used to be an electronic technician, knows about bicycles, etc. But he is/was a raging alcoholic who regaled me with stories of himself throwing chairs at people at AA meetings and I think coke/crack were involved too. I believe he eventually got housing due to being a Navy vet, but he's probably dead now. 

All of this was in the Before Times and I don't know if it will come back, ever. I've seen exactly two buskers in this wartime, myself and Leroy. When I last went out, boy did no one care. The only exception being in Japantown where people dug my playing. It wasn't even busking, it was just going out and playing. 

Things may recover after enough years. I've got three before I go back to Hawaii and with the shakuhachi I have the advantage of 1000 years of tradition. Mainland Americans spit on tradition, but among Asians it's hallowed. In Japan it's felt that not enough people play the shakuhachi and good, dedicated playing not just using it to make swoopy sounds, is greatly appreciated. And I only need to make my day-to-day money anyway, $10 or $20. With Social Security paying rent, I'll only have to worry about things like bus fare, food I don't fish for or gather, whatever a flip phone costs, etc. 

So I was motivated to get out of bed by the mailman, had a dose of kava and worked on packing two large things, and by the time I was done packing those two large boxes and I was ready to do it was a quarter to six. 

So I chugged up to the FedEx, even walking the bit under the bridge, and dropped those off. I found packing stuff on the way home including a nice stack of firm foam pieces that just about equaled what I'd just used. I had to hurry, though, as the evil leaf blower guys were advancing on me so it was kind of comical. I even went out of that parking lot by a different exit to avoid them. 

Then I went over to Sam & Curry and got a goat curry which I'd been dreaming of. I got spinach and salsa and yoghurt and even shrimp too, and they just charged me for a basic goat curry. Completely different personnel working there too. 

I was smart this time and carried the bowl, in a bag, in my hand instead of putting it in one of the boxes on the bike trailer, which seems to have the same effect as putting it on a laboratory vibration table for a quarter-hour. My holding the bag in my hand and being careful about bumps resulted in it getting here a lot more intact. 

It was a huge meal. After eating, I looked at the wallet I'd found on the road right on the corner of Brokaw and Rogers Avenue. The guy'd just gotten a Mexican Consulate card in February so the address on it was probably good. So I packed it up with a little note about where I'd found it, and it goes in the mail tomorrow. I hope the guy's not freaking out about losing his debit card, although I'm sure he was more worried about losing the kid pictures and much less about the $3 that was in there. I hated being so snoopy looking at all his cards but I had to figure out whose wallet it was, and if possible, where to mail it to them. It feels like paying the world back for the times I've almost lost mine, once finding it in Fry's' side parking lot and another time a bum telling me, "Hey! You're wallet's falling out!" which he didn't have to do at all - he could have waited for it to drop and grabbed it. 

While out riding, I thought about Reddit. When I was really deep into drinking I used to love those old Roger Ramjet cartoons. I'm sure they were fun to make, and they're pretty funny, but not as hilarious as they seemed to me. Again I realize alcohol is like that "Turbo" button on old computers that would actually cut the clock speed in half. Reddit is fine for checking up what's going on in town, and things going on in Hawaii, but it's just not interesting enough to justify the hours I spent on it. I feel about the same about the Morris Berman blog. It's just the same stuff over and over, albeit the stuff being true. 

2 in the afternoon was just the right time to get out of bed, because after pulling everything out of the warehouse that had sold, which is time-consuming, then listing some stuff, then sitting around reading "Roasting In Hell's Kitchen" by Gordon Ramsey while waiting out a long Windows 10 update, it was around 5AM. I got out the shakuhachi and did my practice, though. So by the time I went to bed it was 6AM.

Kava for breakfast part 2

 Last night, I had about a mug and a half of sake, with plenty of ice. I went to bed around 5, and woke up too early, maybe 8 or 9, so I got up, had a small cup of sake, and went back to sleep until around noon, lay in bed and went back to sleep and had a weird dream, then up at 2.

Again it was kava for "breakfast" and I think it did steady me out. 

I finished my tax paperwork and made out the check and made sure everything was in the proper order in the envelope, weighed it  and put on stamps, etc. So that was ready to go. 

I took off around 5:20, with a bunch of packages I could carry on the bike without the trailer. And that all-important tax return package in a large manila envelope. I dropped everything off just fine, with one package going to FedEx, and after dropping that off, I got an idea. I was going to go to the curry place and get goat curry like I did the first time there. It's filling and the spinach and other sides are good. I could almost taste it ... 

But being right there at H Mart, I figured I'd treat myself to something good from there and be able to ride straight for home rather than take that side-trip over to the curry place ... So I locked the bike and went in and picked out salmon sashimi, some uni, and some little rolls with vegetables etc in the center, and a peach fizzy drink with "no fat, no sugar no calories" that turned out to be really good. All that and some TP cost me a little over $40 but I was spending that or more when I was buying sake all the time.

I didn't even look for any packing materials, just rode straight back alongside Fry's which is selling off their fixtures now, and through the FedEx parking lot where I saw a young (maybe 20s?) guy riding a bike around aimlessly. He didn't look like a bum, and I though, "Hm, just a young guy riding around" but as I rode past the Indian dumpster, I saw a scruffy bike with trailer and an older bum just getting up from, it looked like, taking a dump there. That takes care of my ever visiting the Indian dumpster again... The young guy was the old bum's apprentice, or maybe his son. Time to get out of there, and I sped up and got back here post haste. 

Then I treated myself to a Korean type spread. Salmon sashimi, uni rolls I made by taking the filler out of some of the rolls and putting uni in, kim chee, and some tsukimono pickles with the poked-out filler mixed in, and peach fizzy drink. It was a really good, and large, meal. A nice reward for not drinking at all today and will drink as little as possible tonight. Maybe even none. 

I'm also done with Reddit. I signed out and being as bad with passwords as I am, can't go on again without some effort. It's interesting and even useful to skim the r/sanjose sub, to know what's going on locally, and r/hawaii just to keep up with the old place. But even read-only I was spending too much time on it and I realize now it was contributing to my drinking because if I'm gonna sit for hours on Reddit why not have a sip or three? I've got far better things to do. 

I've had: My cheap whiskey phase, my expensive whiskey phase, my bloody Mary phase, my brandy phase, my gin and tonic phase, my good vodka (Stoli) phase, a sake phase besides this one I'm coming out of, a soju phase, a Chinese white lightning phase, then I think it was cheap vodka again ...

I got my practice done last night, and in spite of all this crazy stuff going on, I *am* making progress. 

I'm coming around to appreciating how long it will take to get good. For instance, when I moved here to San Jose I'd been a bike rider, off and on, for years. But there was still a lot to learn. I used to have trouble transporting food in a bag hanging off of the handlebar, almost got his by left-turning drivers a few times, and I guess my riding wasn't as smooth as it is now. 

From now until I can go back to Hawaii I'll be learning the basics. Then I guess I can consider myself to be really going to school for shakuhachi in Hawaii because I should not have to work a job, other than playing it. And those two playing or practice or whatever they are, sessions a week at the Buddhist Study Center. 

I'm hoping by the time I hit Hawaii, shakuhachi playing will be my "thing". And in my experience, if you have a "thing" people will often help you. Most people don't really have a "thing". They just go through life, turning the crank. They wish they had a "thing" and when they meet someone who has a "thing" it fascinates them, maybe makes them a bit envious too, and often they want to help. It's a form of escapism. Maybe they can't run off and be a banjo player who rides the rails, but if they flip a $20 to the banjo player who rides the rails they meet, there's a feeling like, "Go get 'em for me" and perhaps also, "Maybe this guy is independent and free, but he's able to to it because of guys like me". 

Kinda like the old joke: A wealthy lady who had paid well to attend a violin concert was at the afterward wine and cheese thing and gets to talk to the violinist. "I'd give my life to be able to play like that." she said. He replied, "Actually, I did." 

Kava for breakfast

I was up around 1 or 2. I'd made a dose of kava with some coconut cream last night and it sitting in the fridge, all ready to squeeze out and drink. Which I did. It was OK, I think I'd made a smaller dose than I used to do, and only noticed a little of the numbing sensation kava gives to the mouth. 

With no A-B testing I can't tell if the kava is helping me or not. But I didn't drink anything and was shaky and sweaty and went back to bed to read "The Medusa And The Snail" which I'd found in paperback at one of the free libraries. To think that writing this scientific could be a best seller that ordinary people bought and read. 

After that I got up and put my bedding away and was going to wash my head/hair when Ken pulled up. We've sold this huge tempering oven thing and Ken was here to re-arrange things in the warehouse to get it to the front where it can be picked up using a pallet jack. I told Ken I'm not feeling well, am unsteady and just came off of hurting myself moving stuff so I won't be very useful. "Is it ethanol?" Ken asked. I said that it was, about getting some kava and had last drank last night, so am pretty much going off cold-turkey. 

Ken puttered around moving all kinds of big stuff around, and I washed my head and hair, answered questions on Ebay, and made up another, stronger, dose of kava this time without the coconut cream. I'd see if I felt any difference. It was more bitter, and I got some flushing and again, without A-B testing I don't know if I'd have been twitchier without it, or not. 

I realized I had time to pack this bastard-heavy transformer that's going to the Ukraine or something. So I did that, and when Ken told me to put fiberglass tape reinforcement on too, I did that also, putting more clear tape over the fiberglass tape to protect it. Ken will take care of mailing it so there's one less thing for me to worry about. 

I ended up taking apart the "lid" of what's essentially a huge, glorified medical Xerox machine. I got some neat parts out, a motor and wheels and stuff. Ken had tons of stuff out on the front driveway here because he was doing a lot of re-arranging. 

When I was done I told Ken I could ride out and get some food for us somewhere, but "No, Suzy's got pizza at home" then we laughed about how the pizza place they like it called Bronco Billy's. "Yeah, made by an old Italian chef named Bronco Billy..." 

So I scrambled some eggs for myself and was eating them when Ken brought in more stuff to take apart, or sell, etc. A tub of stuff and a bunch of pieces besides. So after Ken left I looked at the problem of where to put the stuff. I ended up taking a "stack" of things down and, finding the huge grey plastic tub at the bottom held tons of light bulbs, found smaller boxes to put the light bulbs in and dragged the big tub out by the trash enclosure for someone to find. We just don't need a tub that big. Then I was able to put things away in a way that made sense. 

And now the big tempering oven is right in front when I roll the door up, and as for a pallet jack, I told Ken that any truck driver with a lift gate should have one, but the welding guys told me I could use theirs if I need one so there's also that. The pickup driver will come by during the day, so the welding guys will be there to borrow their pallet jack from. And more stuff can go where the tempering oven was, so Ken's thinking bout emptying the storage unit. 

Ken and I got to talk about a fair amount, funny old electronics surplus companies and all kinds of things. I told him that I think my doctor had "fired" me because I was not staying off of alcohol like I should, and I was gaining weight, and she'd tell me to get off of alcohol and I'd said I would but then I wouldn't. I said I think I'll have to be sober for at least a year before I can expect to have a proper doctor-patient relationship because doctors don't like it when patients aren't team players. 

Ken said he thinks he's been falling into drinking too much at night too. He's not even supposed to drink when he's taking his nightly sleeping pills but he certainly does. Maybe he'll cut down now. He'll go home and tell Suzy about my troubles then Suzy will say she's concerned about me which she is, and then get on Ken's case to cut down. 

The drinking is even messing with my shakuhachi practice, I'm sure, because my practice is in the evening before bed, and training while drunk isn't a good idea for anything. 

The kind of person who drinks is not really a good fit for Hawaii, either. Typically people get up super early in the morning to do a lot of things like fishing or selling at the swapmeet or visiting garage sales which are typically all played out by 9 or 10 in the morning. The kind of people who drink are not the kind of people who can get up early, so they miss a lot of the greatness of Hawaii. 

I plan to live in "town" somewhere, hopefully around the university, but want to get out to my old favorite places on the North Shore and Windward Side, and that's probably going to make a couple hours on the bus each way. That's not going to work if I can't get up early. And while some people associate fishing with drinking beer, I am not one of them. In fact I think it would be awful to have any kind of "buzz" while at my old favorite beaches. It would spoil things. 

After settling down a bit and watching some YouTube, and drinking water with very small amounts of sake in it, I realized I'm hungry so I made a sort of pork and green bean soup with not too much broth, and it came out great. I ate that slowly, took care of some dishes and then .... did my taxes .

I actually did my 2019 taxes. It was completely easy, as long as I got away from the "start from the top of the 1040 and follow the instructions going down" method. The thing to do is to start with the Schedule SE to figure the self-employment tax, then go figure the taxable income on the 1040 and the tax on that, then you add 'em up, and it goes pretty smoothly. I owe a little over $2700. That means I'll owe the same for 2020 and I can cover that, especially since I won't have the expense of drinking any more.

Kava Konnection

 I woke up around 11, not having had enough alcohol on hand to really sleep, and kind of went to half-sleep until around 2. Did my deep breathing stuff and tried to come up with a reason to get out of bed. I thought about Kumar's Island Market, reputed to, according to one reviewer, have "strong" kava. That was a reason. 

I got up and tried my best to ignore being twitchy and took off at about 3, my first checkpoint aside from dumping a bag of trash, being Nijiya. I bought my sake and a bento and a beer, and went over to eat on the steps of the Issei building. The food and especially the beer fixed me up. 

Next checkpoint was Kumar's and that was fun to go to - Santa Clara street has a lot of cool Hispanic stuff on the east end. Also cool Vietnamese stuff. Kumar's was easy to find and there was even a bike rack in front and no bums around - it was really nice. 

I went in and the store capacity according to the sign was 2, which seemed to mean 6-8 large Polynesian persons. I knew the place was legit when I overheard that one lady had spent a couple hundred dollars on food, including turkey tails. They had kava, at $42 or so a pound and I had to buy a full pound as the bags are sealed. "Looks like I'm buying a pound of kava, then!" I said, cheerfully. I'd taken out $40 cash at Nijiya but used my card. 

On the way back, I saw a guy selling T-shirts and hats and so on, in a park area just off of the sidewalk. I doubled back and asked about bandanas - he had 'em in rainbow and I said that's fine and they were a buck - but I didn't have a single dollar and he didn't have change, so he just gave me his "example" one. We talked a bit about surviving scroungy times, and busking, and all sorts of things. I need to find a reason to go down to that end of Santa Clara St. to get him his dollar, and explore some of the cool stuff around there. 

I stopped at the Amazon place to pick up a few bubble mailers and pick up a CD that goes with my latest shakuhachi book but it's not in yet. 

Next was Nijiya again, to buy another beer and some fried smelt that are a seasonal thing. I crowed to Blondie (I really need to get the name of that kid!) about obtaining kava and how I got so much, a whole pound. "You could sell it..." he said and I said Nah but I'd give some to people who are interested. He said he's up for it and I said I'll see if it's good stuff first then certainly I can bring some by. But waiting in line, sweat was getting into my eyes so badly it was hard to keep them open, so along with a beer and the fish I got an unsweetened green tea. 

Right outside by my bike I washed my face with some tea. What a relief! Then I boogied over to the Issei building and opened my beer - it foamed all over! So now I had a beer spill on the steps of the Issei building which I washed down with more tea, and "swept" the puddle into a crack using a leaf. 

Fortunately the Ito-En tea bottles are really nice and sturdy, and the bottle will serve me well as a water bottle to carry with me in the warm months for drinking, washing up, etc. 

So I sat on the the other side of the steps and had beer and some of the fish. I thought about all kinds of things and then relaxed and looked at the pine tree there and the rocks and the benches, and how beautiful the natural things are, and I thought, Maybe a motivation in art is nostalgia. Not "the" motivation but one of the various streams, along with political message, aspirations, and the simple conveyance of technical information. But nostalgia... it sure carried Marc Chagall through a career and his work makes me nostalgic for schtetls I never knew. 

I am not sure I'd want to be a political artist because I think I would be too angry. A teacher I had in high school wanted to encourage me that way, back when the daily political cartoon in the newspaper was an important thing. 

And aspirations! My only aspiration is for the rest of Life to somehow survive Humanity. So I could never do rockets-to-Mars type art. 

But nostalgia, there's an elephant in the room. I learned nostalgia early on. It's why I like the shakuhachi, it being, to me, the most "nostalgic" of instruments. 

I rode back here, messed around on Reddit for an hour or so, and then rode up to H Mart. I got some sake, some coconut cream in little boxes, a bottle of Asahi beer, and a package of gyoza, among other things. 

I thought about nostalgia on my way back. Of course I could make paintings of the old Portlock Pier and such things that will arouse a great sense of nostalgia in those who have known them, but then, who are those who'd remember the Portlock Pier and old buildings around Honolulu and the island of Oahu in general? Those old guys who burned their trash piles on the beach when I was a kid and seemed to have so much fun probably were real bastards in WWII who collected "Jap ears". The Portlock Pier, when it was taken down, damn near killed the reef. It must have damn near killed the reef when it was put up. How many locals were displaced when Hawaii Kai was planned and laid out by Henry J. Kaiser anyway? 

Representative, depicted nostalgia might be a dead end. Maybe that's why Marc Chagall's paintings are so abstract. They are of a dreamland, of a rabbi or a yeshiva student floating over a schtetl dreamland, the buildings all tipply-topply. It could be anywhere. They're wonderful paintings and people of a certain background and of a certain generation will get all misty over them, perhaps not remembering that some of those schtetl Jews were so poor they had to eat mud pancakes like they do in other, extremely poor, areas. 

This is where music gets around this. Gustav Holst was certainly writing about the vast, mysterious, interplanetary spaces when he wrote the last parts of The Planets, yet I found it perfectly fitting to have it booming in my head when I was walking on the wild reef off Kokohead Point. The same piece of music creates a wonderful, and different, mental world for everyone who listens to it and loves it. 

That is the true universality of music. Probably the closest thing art can come to this is the paintings of things in nature that were done so brilliantly in China and Japan from 1000s of years ago to the present. That's one of the fun things I did today, to look up at the pine tree in front of the Issei building and a particular dead branch on it, which had a beautiful form no human could invent. And a single, small, 2-spined pine needle, that was so perfectly formed and curved. I looked at it and almost cried. We humans are going to burn this all up? 

I would seriously consider taking up sumi-e to paint things like that pine needle. It could be a nice thing to do, along with the shakuhachi. I would certainly like to take a Shodo (calligraphy) class when things are back to normal, and while I don't see anything for sumi-e scheduled now, I'm sure something will come along. There are classes in beginner and intermediate Japanese too but of course I'm not able to do "Zoom" because I don't have the internet speed. I *do* need to pay my dues to the Yu-Ai-Kai Center though because even if I'm not using their services much this year, I think it's the right thing to do and who knows, they might have some inside line on getting covid vaccinations. I'll be glad to fork over the $60 yearly dues for that. 

But getting back to music, it's got to be in the same realm as prime numbers. Most people don't even know what a prime number is, but even Nature knows what they are, and used them long before humans came along. With humans gone, they'd still be there. They survive kalpas (universes) as the Buddha does.

Rinban Sakamoto would probably think I'm crazy if I told him this, but this is why I believe in the Pure Land of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism. You can't hold a prime number in your hand, but they exist, as surely as any other thing. And the realm of the Hungry Ghosts, well, as he says, this is happening all around, all levels are all happening all around us. You just have to go to the part of San Jose I call "Hamsterdam" to see a few Hungry Ghosts staggering around and screaming at each other. At the same time the realms of the Devas and Buddhas are here, and if we are lucky we might get a glimpse of them. "This is all happening, right now" - Sakamoto san. 

This is why I look forward so much to going back to Hawaii. The weather there will not kill me so I don't need to fear becoming street homeless like I do here. I can fish and forage and if the experiences of "Panther Hawaii" are any indication, there's tons of free food anyway if you know where to look. Plus I plan to play a lot of shakuhachi. I can go to the practice sessions at the Buddhist center 2X a week, and as John Coltrane aspired to do in his final years, purify myself.

So glad it's Friday

 So glad it's Friday. As usual now I did my practice last night, and I'm also doing deep breathing exercises like the hour or so I spent doing them while lying in bed today before finally getting up around 2. 

I got the things packed I had to have packed, and was out here around 6:20 and busted my ass getting to the post office as quickly as I could to make the drop-offs there, then drop-offs at FedEx, then didn't forage for packing materials because (a) I plan to do a FedEx run tomorrow and (b) I wanted to get to the curry place earlier than I did last time. 

This time I got the chicken curry, and the usual add-ons and something called a "papadum" which is just really crispy flour with spices in it, dry-fried. I only ate a bit of it, being flour, but it was interesting and just the kind of thing you'd make if all you had was a bit of flour and spices, and not even any cooking oil. 

I got lettuce, both iceberg and Romaine, on the way back. And some brassica buds for soup. 

I chowed down on the curry and it was a big meal. Everyone's doing "American" portions these days.

Ohhhhhhh it's bank day

 I got my practice in last night, watched inane YouTube stuff, etc. It's fun how Ken and I get along, work together, and have these talk sessions, but it's also pretty tiring. 

I woke up around 1 I think, lay in bed doing deep-breathing exercises until I felt like getting up, around 3. I got online and found an appointment for 4:30 at the bank and got woken up as well as I could, washed and wiped and de-stinked myself and got on the bike, straight for the bank as I left at 10 after 4. 

I got there 3 minutes late which is perfect. Slathered up with the hand sanitizer that's by the door (it's been an object of humor as the nozzle will at times get clogged, causing it to squirt on one's shirt etc) and did my deposit, some cheerful words with the people there. The last time I was so liked at a bank was a "Savings & Loan" my Grand-Aunt Mary had recommended to me back in Honolulu, where I was praised for being a good saver. 

So that was done and I rode over to Dakao for some cheap food. There was a zombie lurching along the sidewalk who grunted, "Nice bike! What is that, a chopper?" and I had to ride wide around, and locked up the bike in front of Dakao keeping an eye on the zombie, in case it turned around and started lurching closer, I'd go somewhere else. But it kept on its zombie way, toward some zombie goal. 

I got a pork and veggies on noodle thing for $5 and rode over to the university to eat. It's pretty nice, classic old buildings and people walking their dogs and having fun. A kid on a skateboard accompanied me, it seemed, as I toodled along to my eating place, and then did tricks, falling off a lot, some distance away. Presently a girl with flaming red hair skateboarded by and I thought, "I bet she's better than him". The pork and veggies and noodles and fish sauce were just right. 

Done eating, I picked up a shakuhachi book I'd ordered at the Amazon place and some bubble mailers. I had two things coming but only one was "available" I was told. "It's OK, the other one will come in later, good enough!" I reassured the guy there. The other thing is the CD that accompanies this book. 

It was now 5:30 and Nijiya closes at 6. I got over there, stopping to pick up a copy of "The Medusa And The Snail" by Lewis Thomas which I read ages ago but it's well worth reading again. 

Nijiya was a bit busy so I waited until invited in. I picked up usual things, sake and a beer and some seasoned peanuts and some Korean "Tofu Kim Chee" snacks, some interesting cucumber tsukemono, but they were out of my favorite "big orange bean" natto. Blondie (I need to learn the name of that guy) was my checker and we got to talk a bit. Politics, and I told him the best thing to do is pick a business that's not going anywhere, like Nijiya, and stay there for life. That I wish I'd done that with Foodland, the big market chain in Hawaii. I'd even worked for them. Pick something stable and stay with it for life. 

I also said I hope my shakuhachi playing will ensure I will always be fed, somehow. So now we're going back to 1700s feudal Japan. Seriously busking is 1000s of years old as a profession so that probably makes it the most reliable thing. 

They were closing up and I rode off, stopping at the temple for "weed patrol". There was a bum with a dog sitting on the front steps, no doubt seeing it as a calm, safe place. I went over and checked the edges of the recently-mowed lawn, and found Velcro plant and some other annoyances and weeded them out of the border of the lawn and put my wad of weeds in the trash can and rode off. 

I'm glad I went to Dakao and got food there because the bentos at Nijiya had been wiped out completely. I had some of the tofu snacks and peanuts and my beer, good old Asahi "Super Dry" which I'm getting to like the taste of. 

I'd felt like shit and dragged myself to do what's necessary because that's what I do. And I thought, while out riding, that I'm in a much better situation than I was when I banked my whole life on being good at a certain sport. I'd lost my job, had $800 a month from unemployment but that wasn't going to be forever, had $500 a month rent and could be evicted for not paying same or on any whim, really. Had conflicts with some crazy neighbors and the manager of the trailer park, one of my friends there, and my neighbors, were all in long-standing feuds and I was friends with them all. They just didn't like each other. One time they got into some kind of a yelling match at my neighbors' place and it woke me up - I went out and *ordered* everyone to go home, including my neighbors. The sport I did made me an authority who could order people around. After the manager etc. had been ordered off I went into my neighbors' place and smoothed feathers there and let the manager and his bunch smooth their own. The thing is, I could have been evicted on a whim. 

I'm not likely to be evicted from here because Ken values me too much. As a Polish Catholic he seems to have the old Roman idea of patronage, as he is my patron and has been, and is, the patron of others he's let live at his place or has living out on his Patterson property. I'm making money. My new "sport", the shakuhachi, costs very little. And in 4 years, I'll have a trickle of money to lean on. So I should have more confidence in myself.

Getting my goat

 I woke around noon, I think. Laid in bed doing sort of deep breathing exercises until about 2, then got up. After tea and natto and nuts and vitamins, I finished the packages I'd staged and packed some more, except for 3 I'd do later. 

I was out of here around 6, did my drop-offs fine, and picked up some packing supplies. I also picked up a big orange tackle box sort of thing with an EMS sticker on it, thinking it would make a great first-aid kit. I'd put all our first-aid stuff in it, and we could sell the metal first-aid box. But on Brokaw Road it fell off the trailer and when I picked it up off of the road, I realized it had a hole in it. So I left it by the side of the road for someone to pick up. I dunno, the hole wasn't in the bottom or anything, maybe I should have kept it... 

It was about 7:30 when I realized if I want to get over to Sam & Curry I'd better hurry because I think they close at 8. I got there, and they told me "We don't have much things left" but they had what I wanted, goat curry on rice with some spinach and various garnishes. It was a bit over $10 and they had a hard time coming up with change, having to hit their tip jar. I'll use my card next time. 

I rode home and had my curry - it was pretty good. The goat curry was just spicy enough but not quite salty enough, while the spinach was a bit over-salted. I ate some of the rice too, because yum, rice, but left a lot of it out for the birds when I was done. 

I washed my head/hair and shaved/trimmed but realized I didn't have time for a full bath by the time Ken was due so instead I worked on packing the three packages I'd have to by midnight or they'd be "overdue" and we'd lose standing on Ebay. When Ken came by I explained this, so he did his thing, bringing in a lot of electrophoresis stuff, while I did mine, packing the packages. Or staging them anyway by which I mean putting them in their boxes with padding and printing the labels but not doing the final taping-up and covering up old labels etc with brown tape. 

Ken wrote me out my check, $400 this time, and said he could have his tax guy do my taxes, and I said that really, in the past I got stuck using a tax guy because I had tons of write-offs that I wasn't taking into account on my own so I'd gone to a tax guy a mutual friend of ours used, but these days I have no write-offs and it's really straightforward. That in fact, while I'll have to do my 2019's on paper, it looks like I can used TurboTax online for free for my 2020's. 

Ken had also brought by my new driver's license so at least I'm up to date even if it's not a Real ID compliant license. You have to go in person for that, but at the rate things are going, with the vaccinations, it should be pretty safe to do that in a few months.  

Ken also told me he's had both shots, and Suzy also. That takes a worry off of my mind because when Ken's over we're not masking, and we're hanging out in a small room together. I'd hate to have it mildly or something and pass it to him.

Then I made him tea and we had the usual hang out and BS session, talking about everything under the sun.I told him how "humbly" I plan to live back in Hawaii and how much of a relief it will be, since I'll really not have anything worth stealing. "But you keep large amounts of cash around..." he said. I went upstairs and got my cash-stash box and counted out $250 and a bit more. "But back in Hawaii I never did this; I kept my money in the bank" - because in Hawaii  I was never concerned about the whole system breaking down.

Taxes on Tuesday?

 I was up around 1. Too late to just ride over to this one local place, called them and no answer anyway. In fact I called 6 - 8 places and one actually answered the phone - they might call me back "sometime this week" if they think they want to. 

I guess being able to just find a tax place and have it taken care of is another thing that's died due to the virus. A few hours later a place called me back to say they're not taking on clients now and are very busy this time of year.

I got my practice in last night while watching documentaries on YouTube. The theoretical reader may wonder why I'm practicing while watching a show? Doesn't that seem to distract from the practice? Yes and no, I suppose. I remember when I was really into trumpet, watching the movie "Trumpets Republic" about the hotshot Balkan Brass players over in Serbia, and that year's champion would practice while watching awful Eastern European soft porn, it looked like. So I got into the habit of watching say, a documentary that's 1 hour long and practicing during it, so I knew I'd put an hour in. Or an hour-and-a-half one or whatever. 

I sure don't want to be distracted if I'm working on a serious performance piece but I'm not at that stage yet. I'm at the stage of learning very basic things and building up lung power and breathing habits. Like a tennis player going out and hitting "200 balls" every day, or a classical guitarist practicing those simple little Lego blocks classical guitar is built up out of. It's skills that will stay with me, even if lose everything and have to be a street bum with a flute. 

To make last night and a good part of today more interesting, my anus was stinging and itching like nothing I've experienced before. I tried cleaning the outside, hydrocortisone cream, squirming around, everything. It was awful and did nothing to improve my mood. I even read online about this and it was not encouraging - it might go on for weeks or become a chronic condition. Of all things! I finally took my now-dreaded daily crap, and when done used a little bottle I'd gotten a while back to be a sort of makeshift bidet, and washed up real good. And the problem was solved! No wonder people who use bidets are so enthusiastic about them. I'm not going to hook up a bidet to the toilet here, but I might get a travel type one, essentially a glorified squirt bottle. Those are best searched for under the name shattaf, as that's what Muslims call a bidet. 

Breakfast was scrambled eggs with onions and cabbage in, and I've got scrambled eggs just about dialed in right. I put shoyu, mirin, and some instant dashi mixed in, and they come out great. Kind of like making tamagoyaki but just scrambling the eggs instead. I got the idea from getting some of those impulse buy mixes for eggs at Nijiya and then realizing that at about $3 each, it'd be best to come up with the same thing myself. 

At the end of "today" I went to download to last couple of forms to have the same ones as I used for 2018 and it turns out good old schedule C has been replaced by Schedule 2, and another one's been eliminated altogether so it's no wonder the 1040 instructions for 2019 seemed so confusing. Also, I remember now that I'd taken some of the "smaller" forms like the Schedule SE and filled those in first, which made the main one, the 1040, easier. Man, skip one year and you forget a lot. So between this and having called about 8 tax places today, I've done enough.

This Monday's too taxing for me

 Today I really wanted to get taxes done. 

But first, I packed packages and realized if I just left one large one here, I could take them on the bike and not need the trailer, which means one trip instead of two, and I could do some shopping. So I did that, going to 99 Ranch after the post office and getting things, then dropping the one box off at FedEx, and got back here - it's really been cooling down at night. 

After doing a bunch of other things, I decided tonight I'll get cracking on those 2019 taxes. And I tried; I really tried. It used to be really simple. It was the 1040 and schedules C and SE. Nothing to it. But now it's a lot more pieces of paper, 8 or 12, and when I last filed, my 2018 taxes I didn't do something right and got billed for a few hundred more. So I was really going to do this, but they've made it damned complicated. 

So finally a bit after midnight I admitted defeat. I've found two tax preparers near here, and I'll work with one or the other of them.

Hurry for curry

 I woke up and my right shoulder hurt like hell. I literally did a lot of, instead of elevating my right arm on its own, using my left arm to raise it, like onto my computer mouse.  I was up early enough to turn my computer on and go on YouTube and listen to the services at the temple  - they play the kids' service than the adult one and it's actually really cute to hear what they're telling the kids.

I finally got up and had coffee, aspirin, natto, nuts, and vitamins. One the aspirin kicked in I was kind of OK and left here around 4, I think, maybe a bit earlier. 

My plan was to, after tossing out trash and bottles somewhere, go to DaKao and get something cheap to eat. It all went fine except they had a special, two things plus rice, or plus fried rice for $1 more and I had enough for that - I had $9 on me and it was $8.25 and I put the .75 change in the tip can. 

The amount of food  I got was huge. I ate over on the college campus and it was a really beautiful day. The curries I got were chicken curry and pork curry, and I think next time I'll see if I can get just the serving of chicken curry and plain rice. I only ate about half of that I got and bagged it back up and left it where it can be found. 

Who will get it? A bum or a crazy, a fast-walker or a lunge-er? Maybe a screamer or a staggerer. They were all out in force. 

There'd been no sign of the demonstration that was supposed to have happened at City Hall about violence against Asians. Oh, well.  I rode back, finding a copy of The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald in one of the free libraries. I was being written in 1940, this printing is from 1970. 30 years after it was written, but a 1970 book is 50 years old. 

I went to Nijiya for my shopping, and they had the carts all inside because they were worried about the demonstration - and I could hear someone talking over a bullhorn up the street. I got my shopping done and walked the bike up to the corner. Some guys were sitting there - a Japanese guy, a white guy, and a homeless guy who was just kind of hanging out and not with them. The first two guys told me the demonstrators had left, going down 5th street to go to City Hall. "You only missed them by 5 minutes". 

So I rode down 5th street, carefully avoiding Hamsterdam as it was really raging, with several crazies reeling about and yelling, and there were a bunch of people there. There was street chalk, and a food/water table, and the usual accoutrements found at a demonstration. It was nowhere near as big as the BLM demonstrations, but there were people on cool bikes and roller skaters and rollerbladers. 

I considered last night whether to bring my shakuhachi to make some noise with, but "make a lot of noise" and "shakuhachi" do not really go well together. And I'd considered making a sign saying "Say No To Racism" but with the "No" being the kanji for "no" which is that cool circly thing. 

So I drew this last on the sidewalk and it came out pretty well. Some people took pictures of it. It's pretty easy to figure out; "Say (symbol) to racism" obviously the symbol is for the word no. 

There wasn't much else to do, so I rode home, taking the old route up First Street to Brokaw and around. I've found a local tax place I'm going to try out, that's in one of the new towers on the corner there and going by, it looked like the place might be really hard to find. But I think I can find it OK. My old tax guy from years ago is still around according to the internet, but he's kind of far away and hard to get to. If this new place works out for me, I can walk to it and afterward get curry at Sam & Curry. 

Or I could just do them myself, probably in no more time than it takes to walk up there and back. I've got 6 grand in the bank which should be enough to pay my 2019 taxes and 2020 which is coming up (although I think they've extended it to mid-July). In other words I've been a responsible person. Also a lucky one as, if I suddenly needed a root canal or something I'd get that root canal. 

But then, I'm just not sure I've been doing my taxes right, because it went from 4 sheets of paper to about 12, plus more besides that the IRS wanted. I can't see this place charging me more than $200 and my old guy used to charge me almost $500. 

But what me worry? My future will be blowing into a simple piece of bamboo! Not only does it not need strings, but it doesn't even need valve oil or slide grease, or a weekly cleaning that's akin to working on plumbing. 

I did practice last night but my shoulder hurt so much I didn't do the full page. Right now I feel like I have to work on moving tons of air, but I think there's an efficiency thing that develops also. I read somewhere about it being advised that a new student work on playing loud for their first 10 years. 

I ordered another shakuhachi book with an accompanying CD, by a fellow named Abbott. When I return to Hawaii I can pack things like this in boxes, and leave them with Ken's family, to mail to me when I'm settled in. Even the smallest rented room will have room for a small book case and a few hunks of bamboo. 

I cleaned my water filter which involves taking it all apart and cleaning with bleach, then discovered some temperature probe things had rotten batteries inside so I've got those soaking overnight (main part of the circuit is potted) and will rinse 'em out and dry 'em out tomorrow. And I listed 9 Ebay things. Dinner was miso salmon soup with some brassica buds I'd picked on my way home.

Sagging Saturday

 I woke up, I dunno, sometime, and read the hardcover copy of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie I'd gotten from one of the little free libraries. 1950 printing. That's a hell of a book. Right up there with Charlie And The Chocolate Factory at least. 

I'd done my practice last night, while watching inane YouTube stuff, if by "inane" is meant interviews with Art Spiegelman and so on. And went to bed sometime. 

My playing is improving, I can tell. Now that I think about it, the sport I did, was not something you could "muscle". It wasn't like, do more push-ups and you'll get better. It was a delicate coordination between muscles and nervous system that takes years to develop, and trying to push things makes it worse. You just have to have a talent for it and to do it a lot. 

And in the beginning, no one but me seemed to believe I'd get places with it or really even give a shit. And my first competition, I did 2nd to last only because the guy who placed last fucked up. But I was convinced I was going places and even my best friend pooh-pooh'ed it until it was really obvious that I was going places with it. Looking back, I'm amazed I had that much blind faith in myself. At one point I did decide it was silly, and that I needed a real trade, that being of sign-painter and even befriended a local sign-painter desirous of learning the trade in the proper way, as an apprentice. 

But the sign-painter was more of a "kept man" than anything else and didn't paint much or send me out on sub-jobs, and besides there was another competition coming up. There was always another competition coming up. That was another big factor I think. There were always competitions, large and small, like little stair-steps, and bigger stair-steps, so there was always a place to put one's foot however small. There was one coming up that interested me so I made sure I was practiced up and went, and qualified for Nationals. I didn't know it was a qualifier for Nationals. So the thing, that I was good at, kept pulling me on. 

I look back, and I was really on the edge of homelessness but somehow it didn't matter. People and situations came through for me. Needed things like a place to live, supplies, and so on, were arranged. I don't know if people have changed from a quarter-century ago, but this is something that can happen if one has a specialized skill. 

It was like this when I was supposed to become an artist as a kid. Art supplies, books, you name it, it was arranged for me. It was when I was 18 and realized I was not that good that as an adult I'd just be another broke-ass artist and if my heart were fully in it I'd just have gone ahead and things would have worked themselves out but my heart was not in it. It was all my parents' idea. The oldest would be a writer and write the Great American Novel or something, and my older brother was to be an astronaut or something, and I was to be an artist. I guess the youngest two would be housewives and that would be that. 

The truth is I may have been considered one of those musical savants if I'd been let at the piano. You get these parents, who have two full sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica and subscribe to The National Geographic but they don't really put any effort into their kids. The oldest should have been urged to write, little pieces and poems and so on, and I should have gone to art classes, real art classes, where I had to sit down and draw a chair, or whatever, every day. Or at least they'd realized music was my thing and let me at the piano. I'm not complaining so much as mulling over how things turned out the way they did. 

We've all turned out painfully ordinary; mediocre. Even in my case, yeah I was national champion a couple of times but it's not all that hard to do. It takes some work but it was easy in those pre-internet days, and somehow floating along without having to work a job. I had free time in a way no one born after 1995 will understand. The conditions conducive to the thing occurring were arranged, and thus, unsurprisingly, the thing occurred. 

Maybe the art work was seen by myself as a sort of chore that was expected. After all, one of my earliest memories being of myself painting some thing, with my mom hovering nearby and all and sundry looking on. Maybe it was, to me, like the weeding we had to do - esp. of nutgrass, a sedge that grows like a grass but with a "nut" below to sprout back from and maddeningly, another "nut" much further down. "You have to get the root!" mother would say. I accepted the weeding unquestioningly and I accept that I must do artwork unquestioningly.... 

At one point, though, I came to enjoy doing artwork. My drawings of my seashells went from primitive to really quite good. I learned to draw bicycles, and those are not easy things. But of course then we lost our Portlock house and everything was topsy-turvy-tizzy as we went from a house on the next ridge from ours, to a place in La'ie, to the Schofield Sands, to Pat's In Punalu'u, and I'm not even sure I've got the order right. Eventually our Pupukea house was finished and we moved in, and eventually things settled down and I even came to enjoy art again, just for a bit. I started doing nice little colored drawings of the "lady crab" shells I'd picked up at Ke'ehi lagoon at our friends', the Bethunes. I was getting into undergound comix which Mom let me buy in Hale'iwa, 2 or 3, depending on the budget. She'd bought me MAD so she bought me these. They were full of great art. 

But then we started down the slope of decline again, and now art became a way to maybe scare up a few dollars so my sisters and I could eat. A job. Plus the island was overpopulated and still is, with starving artists.

Foosty Friday

Last night was the usual shakuhachi practice, and I am making progress.  I can play Hinomaru and the next song to work on is called Horses. And then the usual, went to sleep.

I packed the things I absolutely had to, and it was few enough things that I didn't need the bike trailer so I did a combined drop off and shopping trip, ending up at H Mart. I got a few things like these sort of skewers that are surimi, green onion, some kind of vegetable, and all dipped in egg and fried. Pretty good! And along with the sake, a bottle of Asahi "extra dry" beer. 

So I came back and ate, then staged more Ebay things, and I'll probably take a trip to FedEx tomorrow to drop some of them off.

Drip-drop

 Wow that was a long day yesterday. I finally realized around midnight that I was really tired, and just "geared down", cooking some salmon miso soup, settling down for bed-time, watching inane YouTube stuff and practicing the shakuhachi. 

I woke up a bit before noon, and went back to bed after checking the radar map. It was raining. I thought to myself, Why didn't I make a 2nd trip to H Mart for more sake, as Ken's "hours" as in "About an 'hour'" tend to be 3 hours long? 

Today I had to decide whether to go to the bank today because my week is always better when I go on Thursday, or put it off to Friday? I looked at the radar map and outside and it looked like it was going to taper off so I made an appointment for my bank for 4:30. 

As soon as I did that, it started raining again. I got out my Marmot waterproof jacket and my boonie hat and got on the bike and got going, not riding too fast so I'd not get rain splashed on me from the wheels. So I was speed-limited but I still got to the bank early, so I rode around to the back of the Old Spaghetti Factory and took off my safety vest, shook it out, took my jacket off and shook it out, and used a wet wip to clean the junk off of my hands from my bike handlebar grips and cleaned the grips too. And it had stopped raining so I was able to go from drippy to merely damp. Perfect! 

I went into the bank and did my deposit, and that went great as usual, we talked a bit and we wished each other good weekends. Then I headed for the Amazon place and it had started raining again. At 1st and San Fernando I heard a homeless(?) lady talking loudly, on the phone I thought at first but she turned out to be just ranting. "I can't get away from it! It stops raining then it starts again!!" etc. I called out, "My sentiments exactly!" and she really started ranting, screaming. Really the rain today reminded me of the old days in Hawaii where I never let a little rain get in the way of a bike ride. Or even a motorscooter ride up on Tantalus, on the twisty road. 

I went into the Amazon place and picked up 6 bubble mailers and two things: some clear tape rolls for my little tape dispenser, and a sort of polishing disk for my electric drill that might be just the thing for the bathroom floor. 

Then I dripped my way over to Nijiya and did my shopping, including sake of course, a beer, and among other things got some seasoned dried conger eel as I'd buy if I ever got over to Mitsuwa Marketplace. 

I put things away on the bike and there were two, what I thought were security guards so I got talking with them, "Are you doing security for that building (being built) over there?" It turns out they're San Jose cops, new on the force they said and going around talking to everyone, getting to know the neighborhood. I told them it was really nice, but of course there are some homeless and crazies. They were very nice and told me to be safe on my bike and even called out to, as I ended up doing a 3-three-sides-around crossing of the street to go to Minato's, due to some asshole drivers. 

I locked the bike up there and went in and ordered the tempura appetizer and mentioned the Buddhist fundraiser which is why I went in, alongside the tempura there being about the best I've ever had. For some reason I had to call on my phone, so I was talking on the phone with someone who was maybe 8 feet away. Then you wait until a tag with your name comes up, turn the tag in and pay, then go find, on one of the tables, the bag with an identical tag. It's odd but it works. 

While waiting, I figured I'd walk around, and discovered Nikaku's was open. That astonished me because it's this hole-in-the-wall place and you have to go up a long flight of stairs too. The guy in there and I had a delightful talk, and I looked around at their stuff .... one of the most intriguing things being sets of rubber stamps for all the katakana and all the hiragana. At $65, I said maybe it might be better to learn how to letter, but he said sometimes people want "that printed look" and that's a real point. I love that place but their prices are ... ugh. They had a full, complete, series of the 2nd version of Astro-Boy and I'm still kicking myself for not getting it, but it was about $100 and I had maybe $200 in the bank at the time. They want $25 or $30 for Ghibli DVD's and they're American versions, where at Book-On over at Mitsuwa's you can get the same ones where you can choose between the dub or subtitle and they're never more than $20. 

I walked around at ground level on the sidewalk a bit more, then collected my food and drip-dropped my way on home. I was really hungry, having had pretty much nothing to eat all day. And I could still barely finish the tempura. That's why I always get "just the appetizer" because I can't imagine finishing that plus rice, salad, and miso soup. It was $8-something, and I told them to round it up to $10. A lady from the temple was there at one point too and recognized me and tried for a hug but I backed off, don't want to spread germs... Now that I think about it maybe she's been immunized as the Yu-Ai-Kai Center's been making sure the olders get their shots, but still ... I'm gonna be masking and distancing for quite some time. 

I've been noticing in my practice that I'm gradually being able to hold notes longer. I've not been using the Voldyne for the last week because I'd rather put in time on the flute than on it, but I'll use it to check up on things. It could be that my Voldyne numbers will level off but my ability to play the actual flute will become more efficient over time. As I read somewhere, "Old guys with one lung are masters of this instrument...." I would say I am at the "Embryonic stage" as a shakuhachi player right now.

I got back and put things away and had my tempura and a beer, Oh, man that stuff is good. Probably not the healthiest so I should really save it for once a year for the Buddhist fundraiser.

Pallet-able

 For some strange reason last night I didn't feel sleepy and after I'd gotten 10 things all cleaned up and ready to list I realized it was getting close to 6AM.  I prepared for bed, watched inane YouTube videos, and did my shakuhachi practice including playing my best Hinomaru so far. 

I woke up at 11 when I heard the truck outside, and orchestrated the delivery of two pallets of stuff, stacked on one another. The poor guy delivering them seemed to be Middle-Eastern, maybe Eastern European, and I felt sorry for the guy, having to deliver packages from probably early in the morning. 

I went back to bed for a couple of hours, then after some vitamins and nuts and so on, headed out with packages I'd packed last night. The guy at the welding place called out if we needed a pallet jack to handle the package, and I said that No, my buddy would come by later and we'd handle it. He said he didn't think we had room, and I said, "We don't - it's why we have the storage unit". Then we talked about all the shenanigans of the homeless bums around here, and how nice it is that it's calmed down a lot, with the security guards guarding the now-closed ham factory, patrolling around here too. 

The lunch truck was out front, so I stopped in for something and got a half burrito for the usual $2. The poor lady there told me about how homeless people had stolen her car and her purse and her phone and so on, took it all, and I told her I always felt worried when I saw her being nice to homeless people because "They'll kill you for $5" and even repeated it, "They'll kill you for $5". She said something about paying another homeless person to find her car but it was unclear whether he'd done so or just taken off with the money. 

I ate most of the half-burrito sitting on the curb by the Indian grocery and noticed bums were scrounging around on the other side of the fence. Guy bum saying to himself or someone else that it's going to rain tomorrow "It'll be bad", he said. I waited until he was gone then tossed two empty Tom Price beer cans over the fence. 

Deliveries went OK except a tall thin black guy wanted to put his package in with mine at the post office chute, like what happened to social distancing? I was already on edge due to the bum out front, who may or may not consider stealing my bike. So Mr. Tall And Skinny and I had words. In all the 8 years using that post office I've never experienced someone being so pushy. Just like with white bums, it's Me, Me, Me, and I'm Entitled. 

That's the trouble with African-Americans. It's not that they're African, it's that they're American. They're members of an incredibly shitty culture. I probably should have just let the guy put his damn package in with mine. 

I called Ken to tell him the delivery is here, and he said he'd be by in "about an hour". I gathered some packing stuff on my way back and unloaded everything back here, futzed around on Ebay and on Reddit, and a couple of hours later, was cutting the wrappings off of the package when I heard Ken drive up. 

We worked together loading up the first load, and when Ken took off with that I got busy putting the big shipping boxes out with "FREE" signs on them, or the first one anyway. The darned things cost $85 from Uline. There was a lot of plastic lab stuff we were throwing out because it's pretty much worthless, and I harvest the zipper bags from those. 

Eventually Ken came back and in the meantime I'd gotten bored and opened up the 2nd box and found a lot of small and/or heavy stuff in a flimsy box in there so I put a lot of things into 5 different sturdy boxes I rounded up, so when Ken came back for the 2nd load it went a lot faster. I'd saved Ken a lot of time and hassle. 

Ken did not, however, load up a big hydraulic thing, a monster squirrel cage fan, or the some kind of a pump on a little mini-pallet of its own. "I'm gonna put those in the shop, somewhere", he said. 

All three were bastard heavy, and the squirrel cage fan I couldn't even lift. But I got them into the warehouse. So when Ken came back the area was all clear, the things were in the warehouse, and the work was all done. "Some ancient Egyptians came by and helped me," I explained, referring to how Ken is always saying that people think the things the ancient Egyptians built had to use supernatural forces but nope it's just plain old figuring things out. 

So it was Tea & Science time, and we sat around talking about science-y stuff, and we had a good old time talking about this and that. But I was feeling very tired, and started looking at the clock, and Ken said he's worn out too, and amazingly quickly got up and got into his truck and was outta here. It still amazes me how well we work together. 

And I was tired, having slept from maybe 7-11 then a couple more hours.

A delivery to wake me up

 I was awakened by a delivery of a large box at about 10AM. I kept hearing a small child's and a woman's voice and finally realized, as I dealt with the package and told the guy my name, that it's the guy's wife and kid, along because they probably live in the truck. They'd go around doing deliveries, then if they make enough maybe get a hotel room, or just bed down in the back of the truck for the night. And I'm sure the guy could tell I live in here. It's the new normal. 

I drank a little sake to get sleepy and went back to bed until around 2. By the time I was actually up it was 3, and I ended up having a bit less than an hour to get some of the packages I had staged, packed and onto the bike trailer. I took off at 6:20 which is as late as I dare and did my dropoffs. 

I stopped at the storage unit and took some things out. The light bulb still doesn't work and I'd forgotten to replace the batteries in my bike headlight and the flashlight I carry on the bike. I could see just well enough. 

I ended up talking with a young guy who works at the drone place and we had a very nice talk about all kinds of things from tech to the affordability of different places and so on. He reads r/socialism and a lot of the other subs I do, and he seems really clued in. He's got a college degree and is dead thrilled to make $21 an hour at the drone place. But he's leaving to try out another job and if that doesn't work out, the drone place told him he's welcome to come back. We just had a nice old time gabbing along, and he started to say he has to go, and I looked at the time and said I really had to go, as it was 7:47. 

I got over to Grill-'Em just in time to order some wings, and listen to the tales of a bunch of chud-type Hispanic guys talk about their adventures in Mexico, telling girls fake names so they can't be hunted down later. Typical chud behavior.

I collected my wings and got back here and put things away and poured out a beer and had my beer and wings. Yum! 

Last night I did my usual shakuhachi exercises and watched an excellent documentary about the Fleischer brothers, who were pioneers in animation. I'd take them over Disney any time. I also watched some pre-WWII Japanese animation which is amazing.

Blew Lots

 I'm not sure what time I went to bed. I listed 10 Ebay things and ate some, and settled in to watch the latest Adam Curtis documentary, the last two episodes, and just played "stuff". Not grinding away on the 4-note figures so much  but just messing around to keep it interesting. I now seem to be able to play not only the low, or otsu register, but all of kan, which is the next one up. It's possible to go higher than that, too, but that will be for later. 

I also watched the little documentary with Peter Barakan about the shakuhachi, which I've watched before but it'd been a couple of years. It's still excellent. One of the players says eventually the shakuhachi to be "like a part of your body; like your arm" and that's what I want to accomplish. Hence all the random playing around last night.

Everyone has their Price

 I was up at 1 I think which made it 2 because of daylight savings time. I called the FedEx to see how late they're open, and they said 6, although the sticker on their door still says 3 on Sundays. 

I took the package that's 20 feet of copper sheet and put that in the bike bag, and took for for H Mart where I locked the bike up and took the package to FedEx then went in for some shopping, sake needles to say, a plate of oh-so-healthy Korean fried stuff, and a beer. It was busy so I just got in and out of there. 

I rode back, and noticed the door of the old building was open and a truck was there. So I stopped in, called out "Hello!" and Tom Price was there. He's the guy who bought the building from the other owner, who'd been renting it to us, before we moved here. 

Tom's a weird guy. We talked for hours. I explained exactly why I don't want to work for him, and his position is that the offer's always open. That's actually kind of nice to know because if something happens to my situation here, and I don't want to immediately go back to Hawaii, I could always work for him after all. Because I would likely live in the old building with him so I'd not have to pay rent. 

We talked about everything from how awful Trump and the right-wingers are, to various adventures in side-hustles and busking, and tons of other stuff. He's got this hulking giant of a son who's 24 now and really only ever wanted to play video games. He's in junior college but not sticking with things. Tom's sleeping in the old building on weekends partly to get away from the kid. 

A lot of people don't like Tom Price but I think I'm getting to like him. Mark, the old co-owner of the old building, likes him and admires how Tom just keeps plugging along no matter what. I guess I'm like that too, and Tom and I talked about things like that, like all the stuff I'd fixed and improved on Mark's place when I lived down there. Tom's actually at least a couple of years younger than myself although he looks older. 

We even talked about busking and I told him about my busking experiences. It turns out he played trumpet from the age of 11 or so, and pulled out his own horn from high school - an Elkhorn "Artist", nothing special. Old trumpets that need a cleaning get this stink, and later, back here, I had to wash my hands just from handling the thing. 

We talked about lots of business ideas like one I've had for a long time, that of getting a pen lathe and making pens from wood from old basketball courts etc., that fans will want because they watched games there or played there. And it could be extended to old hotel dance floor wood, etc. And he's welcome to use the idea because if I do it myself, I'll be doing back in Hawaii. 

Eventually he pulled out a 12-pack of Modelo beer, opened one for my and one for himself, and stuffed the other 10 into my bike bags. "Doesn't this taste just like beer did in high school?" he mused. Half-cold, nothing special. I didn't have the heart to tell him I never touched beer until I was halfway through college. 

Eventually it looked like the rain was going to come in, so we ended the BS session. He's not the most high-caliber friend, but then I've not been able to make any really high-caliber friends (other than Ken I guess) here on the mainland. Back in Hawaii I had friends who were electrical engineers, scientists, doctors, etc.

5-6-7 Times

 Naturally I got my shakuhachi practice in last night, the 4-note figures on page 23. I was struggling to play them 3-4 times but now I'm going at each one playing it 5-7 times, really making myself do my best to make them sound good. 

This reminds me a lot of the sport I did, where at first it was just going through the motions and practicing every day, and the subtleties of it were revealed to me gradually. At times I didn't feel like practicing but I was reading every book I could get my hands on about sports psychology and the careers of athletes and I knew that tennis players do a lot of just going out there and hitting "100 balls" or whatever, and even if they don't feel like it that particular day, it makes the *next* day better. 

Japanese stores sell those headbands that say things like "Ninja" and so on, I wish they had one that said "Gambatte" which means to keep going no matter what. 

I slept deeply, and wasn't up until a bit after 3. So much for going to the Mitsuwa Marketplace today. However I read the reviews for Kumar's Island Market where my Polynesian peeps go, and is not that far away, and one reviewer talked about "strong kava" being available there so while I won't make it there today, I need to get over there and check it out. I'd looked the place up before, in the process of looking up Chaparral Mexican market, which has 99% ethanol, essentially Everclear, and Ken wants me to get him some. Well, just up the street, Kumar's showed up so I knew there was an interesting Polynesian market I needed to check out. Reading about the kava just makes my interest a lot stronger. 

I finally got my lazy ass going at about a quarter to 5, and after dropping off trash and bottles, picked up a bunch of old recipe books and stuff from a sidewalk "free sale" and an interesting book from one of the free libraries - a sort of book that's a diary for keeping track of your garden, with no entries in it. I dropped off a big package of roasted seaweed at one of the free libraries too. 

As usual there were lots of bums and crazies around. I rode my St. James Park, skirting the region I call "Hamsterdam" and some unfortunate guy, a Hispanic guy who looks like he works some routine job, with a Toyota Camry or some such sensible car, had gotten a flat there next to St. James Park. So the poor guy's raising his car with the little crank jack, and a gaggle of bums are clustering around giving advice: "You need to tighten it!" "Loosen it, you're doing it wrong!" "Take it off!" "Why dat man lookin' at us?", this last referring to me. 

I went over to the Amazon place and only got two bubble mailers - oh well. Tine to bounce back to Nijiya. 

I locked up the bike and was getting my cart when there seemed to be an enthusiastic discussion with one of the workers, and a couple of other people, about a Stevie Wonder song, something about living in the city ... none of 'em could carry a tune in a bucket so I sang out, showing 'em they were onto the right song and scat-singing that part Stevie scat-sings because I really like that bit, how it seems to waver between minor and major, and that went over great. Always a good time at Niji's! I said if they go on YouTube and search for "Stevie Wonder enough for the city" it'll come up. 

I got my usual sake and stuff, a big piece of seared tuna, some little things to try like gingko beans and vegetarian "jerky" and a little bean salad to go with the fish, and a beer. 

I was apportioning all this into the bike bags and which ones to hang off the handlebars when I overheard one of the guys talking about the guitars he has and as I was returning my cart I asked, "You play guitar?" and he replied that he's got a guitar, bass, and drums. I told him about my trumpet playing and switch to shakuhachi. We ended up talking about all kinds of things. The guy's name is Ken and he apparently grew up shuttling between the US and Japan so he's got Japanese and of course English down pat "except some of the reading" in Japanese. We talked quite a bit - politics and stuff - and then he had to close up the shop so I left. 

The guy's name is Ken so that's easy to remember as the kid I was "partnered" with when I started Aikido class all those years ago in Kahuku was named Kenji. He said he was in a school band in Japan and he remembered the trumpet players doing all kinds of exercises like crunches and planks to strengthen themselves. 

I think that even if I knew I could do lots of crunches and planks to strengthen myself and get comfortable up to high E on the trumpet, I would put that same effort into the shakuhachi. I liken hearing Yamahuchi Goro to when Van Halen's "Eruption" came out on the radio and we high schoolers were amazed, because we'd never heard guitar like that. I'm sure it started many a guitar career. 

I stopped at the temple and did something I've started to do; I pull weeds out of the lawn in front. Mainly just the annoying ones I know are unwelcome like the milkweeds and "Velcro" plant. There's not really any way to volunteer I know of, but I know that's a little help and not everyone's got as good a tool as my pocketknife for cutting the root of a weed without disturbing the grass. 

By this time I needed to put the lights on the bike and it was downright cold riding back. I got back here and had a nice big meal of seared tuna and bean salad.

Mango?

 I woke up around 1 and tried to sort of half-sleep in bed, then I thought I heard a knock on the door and jumped out of bed, calling out "Hello?" but I peeked out the mail slot and didn't see anything. 

I finally got up, had vitamins and nuts and things, and got to work finding things that have to get shipped, or at least packed and ought to get shipped, today. I already had 6 or 8 packages I'd packed yesterday, and with all the things I packed today, it amounted to 24 packages. 

There was a good documentary by DW on YouTube so I ended up watching that, about Fukushima and the fact that the aptly-named aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan got a fair dose of radiation. I say aptly named because the officers took iodine pills right away and stayed below, while depriving the sailors of iodine pills but making them sign papers saying they'd had them, and also not moving the ship away from the radiation plume. 

Then Shaun Renzo Head had a live thing going on and I actually got to talk to him a bit. I mentioned my cheapie shakuhachi and he showed us one he paid $40 for, because it had a split near the top, which he bound up. It plays great. I also mentioned the Yuu and that I'd heard some amazing playing on a Yuu. 

So I left here at a bit after 6. I opened the door and there's a big Uline box in front of the door (tape) and a smaller box (free "tape gun") so I wrestled those in, got the bike loaded up, and took off. The drop-offs went fine at the post office with the chute working fine, and I got thinking that it's Friday night and I really want to do something different. I went over to Vons chicken and it's expensive! I looked at a couple of Chinese places in that shopping center, then went to the one opposite and decided to get something at the Vietnamese place that's take-out only. I got the ever-popular shrimp and pork on noodles, and waited 10 minutes or so while they made it. 

I had a place picked out to eat it; a place in a corner of the parking lot that's got a light right over it so well-lit, and away from people. And even  a dumpster right there for my trash. So I walked the bike over there with my dinner amongst the packages on the trailer, and the Thai (I think) guy who was taking trash out there or something came and up said something about "Mango?" I thought maybe he thought I was delivering something, and I said that no, I don't have any mangoes, and am just stopping to take a break. He got curious about the packages and I pointed out how they're all addressed and I have to take them to FedEx, and he started to tell some story about this one time his friend... then he started bugging me about mangoes again and I muttered, "That's it, I'm outta here, I'll eat somewhere else, it's not safe here!" and rode off. 

I ended up setting up shop on these curved stairs at the center of that complex that only lead to houses/condos behind it so no traffic that late (it was something like 7, pretty late in these wartime days) and ate, and it was really good. No one bugged me, and it was great other than a wind gust that scattered my napkins and chopstick sleeve around. But I picked those up when I was done. 

Then I went to FedEx and dropped off 6 packages with them and got my new Koga book spiral-bound which cost me about $9 this time, sheesh. Still, Friday night is the time to do this because FedEx was super un-busy. 

Next I went to the storage, thinking I'll take out two 500-series plugins to replace the two that just sold, and some other stuff. For some reason the light inside the storage unit didn't turn on so I wonder if the bulb is bad. I found that not only does the flashlight I carry on the bike need new batteries, but the bike headlight too. Ken had put some more stuff in so I grabbed my 2 plugins, a box of Plantronics headsets, and a few other things. 

By now it was after 8, which now, is equivalent to being out after midnight in the Before Times. I got some packing stuff from the electric lighting place, which seems to have a dog in there overnight who barked a bit. I went back my usual route, past Univision but didn't see Arnold so I didn't get to wave and call out "Hey Arnold!". 

I pulled in the complex with Grill'Em and there was another large-ish dog, running around loose. So I called out like people do with dogs, in that falsetto-ish voice, "Puppy! We've got a puppy!" and the dog wasn't aggressive but was just with "his" people, who were working on a truck there. One of the guys called out, "You got any catalytic converters in that wagon?" and I said "Nope!" as I rode by. I didn't even find anything in the veggie dumpster. 

I got back here and put things away and decided that since it's so damned late, something like 8:30 which is like being out and around at 1AM in the Before Times, I'll get rid of some stuff. 

I opened up the huge Uline box and took the 4 boxes of tape out of it, cut the flaps off the box to make it a big tub, put some paper stuff from around here in it, then put these 5 really long probe boxes I'd tossed into the trash yard, into it also. These boxes were something like 4 feet long and held some kind of probe or something that does something like go in a guy's leg and all the way up to his heart or something. So I took all of this and dumped it by the bridge where 10th street starts and now the hobos can burn the cardboard or whatever they want to do with it. 

I got back in, exchanged a few friendly words with my Mexican buddies next door, and That Was My Day(tm). 

I measured out 20 feet of this 24-inch wide copper foil we have, which takes a bit of doing. I made 20 little stickers to put at each foot mark, then rolled it out while rolling up the measured end, until I got to 20 feet (with a little more to the customer's benefit) then cut a mailing tube down to fit with padding eat each end, rolled my 20 feet up to fit inside, then taped the ends with really strong tape over the caps. It weighed 10 lbs, and the customer had paid us $200 for it. 

I packed this not only because if I didn't tonight it'd go "overdue" like a library book and lower our score on Ebay, but I also thought Monday will be rained out and so I wanted to pack a lot of FedEx things and take them there tomorrow. Instead, it seems Sunday will be a rain day and Monday will be fine. Plus, all the things I have to ship now are small so they'll go to the post office which isn't open on weekends. So any "going out and doing stuff" will have to be tomorrow.

A while back I had a plan to do voice exercises every day and I was doing them at least for a while and they were making my voice stronger but what's been doing that even more is practicing the shakuhachi. It gets right down to the fundamentals of breathing.

Just in time.

 I woke up at 1. My bank appointment was for 2. I washed my head/hair and trimmed and shaves, cleaned up the rest of myself and put on fresh clothes, and got on the bike and go going. 

I was at the bank 5 minutes late which was perfect. It beats being 10 minutes early and having to wait out front with the bums and the crazies out there on the sidewalk. 

Done with the bank, I rode over to Whole Foods to lock the bike up. There was a petition guy, middle-aged black guy, who was doing it right, I think. He was jolly and making friendly comments to everyone, and I bantered with him as I locked the bike up. 

I walked down to the drug store and bought some witch hazel and a couple little bottles of rubbing alcohol - image that being there! - and walked back to Ace Hardware to look for a polishing buffing thing for my drill to buff the bathroom floor with but there wasn't anything. Not even one of those things you stick sandpaper on which I could use with T-shirt scraps. The salesman helping me, a black guy, was super helpful but it was just no dice. 

Done with all that, I rode over to Dakao thinking I'd get some boiled peanuts or something, and ended up getting two pork egg rolls and a flaky pastry that had pork pate' inside. It came to $3.45. I rode over to the SoFa marketplace area where there's the food court and tables outside and ate my goodies. That pork pate thing was really good! Two of them would make a meal, so if I were a working person in the area I could go there and get a nice lunch for under $4. 

I decided to go inside and get a beer at The Fountainhead, the very bar I was in on election night in 2016. The tall skinny black guy who's been there from time to time was there and we really got talking. About Cafe Stritch and how we didn't appreciate it enough when we had it, and about instruments, and music in general, and how awful that night in 2016 was. I told him about my trumpet and shakuhachi adventures, and he told me about playing the sax, the clarinet and the flute, and that he found the sax the easiest. I said if I took up the sax I'd go with the soprano instead of the alto like everyone starts with, because the soprano's easier to carry. 

I also told him what I told Ken about last night. That I'd gone through all this trouble to build a theremin from a kit and it worked OK except the circuit drifted which is like playing a violin whose neck gets randomly longer and shorter ... so I realized if I was going to play the theremin, I'd have to get Moog's modern offering, which is about a grand. But meanwhile I'd learned of the Chinese instrument, the erhu, which is spit-simple and sounds exactly like a ... theremin. Not close, exactly. 

So this was why I find the shakuhachi so interesting because you can get so much interesting sound out of it and it's so simple. 

We talked and talked, and since there were no bar stools and no standing allowed at the bar, I took me $10 Racer IPA ($8 and $2 tip) over where I could sit and watch basketball with the volume off on the TV. Then talked a little more while handing my glass in, and went out to the bike. 

He apparently was leaving or taking a break, and I noticed he had a Needle In The Groove shirt on so I raved about how great that place is, and he said the owner of that co-owns The Fountainhead or something like that, and gives out stickers etc. so I asked for a sticker and he went in and got one for me. 

Of course we talked about the need for Socialist revolution, and I think I've got a friend. He's only got 3 days a week at the bar, and is considering learning more about his father's business, and I told him about my busking success in the Before Times. 

I wonder if I could get him into busking once this virus thing is all over? The guy's been playing sax since he was pretty young, and maybe like my viola-playing friend years ago, just needs someone to go out with him the first time or two. It's a great way to make side money and might really help him and his family. 

So I'm going to make it a habit now: After going to the bank, go to The Fountainhead for a beer. I'm not good enough to perform anything but Hinomaru on the shakuhachi now, but I can at least demonstrate how it sounds. So I should get a soprano sax gig bag to carry it in. And not the cheap'n'cheesy one I had for my Yuu, but a good one like a Protec. I need to get another Yuu also, because I don't know if the bamboo shakuhachi I have now actually plays better or if I've improved from all the trumpet playing. I've heard some amazing stuff played on a Yuu. 

I rode over to the Amazon place and picked up 19 bubble mailers and my pickup items: a large brush pen and Koga's 2nd book on the shakuhachi. Much more advanced stuff in there, and I only got it because in the 1st book he says to look up something in the 2nd. 

I stopped in Japantown and first went into Kogura's to get a chopstick rest. When using the disposable ones, I'd just fold the sleeve they come in into a rest, but now that I'm using non-disposable ones, I need a rest. I got a neat one that looks like a tuna fish. 

Then I went into the shop that resells clothes, and got talking with the guy. I'm pretty sure he's not a young boomer like myself but a member of generation X, and he sure had a lot to say about "kids these days". Socialist revolution is needed but will they be willing to do the work? Keyboard warriors etc. 

I then went to Nijiya and got sake, a beer, some sashimi, a little container of sugar peas, eggs, some senbei, etc. I had also found, in one of the free libraries, "The Norton Shakespeare", a very thick book with, apparently, all of Shakespeare's writings plus commentary on his life and times. A good one to have when the internet winks out. 

So I rode home, against a somewhat strong and cold wind so slowly. The only problem was, coming around from Queen's Lane to Rogers Avenue, a bum calling out to me, "Heyh! Heyh!" so I sped up and figured that even if the zombie broke into a run, I could get into here and have the door all locked up before he could catch me. And that's what I did. I even looked in the security camera if the bum was out there but I think he lost interest once I was around the corner and out of sight. 

I settled in and had a meal of sashimi, senbei, raw sugar peas, and beer. NPR had an excellent interview with Jon Batiste, the Tonight Show music guy, and I guess there's a reason he's the Tonight Show music guy because he can do everything - sing, play many instruments, compose, knows a ton of music theory and history, etc. This is why I pretty much keep my radio locked on NPR. 

 

Crash, crash, crash

 I didn't do Voldyne practice last night but put in extra time on the shakuhachi. More work on the little 4-note figures and starting to dig into the notation and understand it. I also can now play Hinomaru correctly. Yay! I also found a shakuhachi hero, a fellow named Goro Yamaguchi, passed away now but he taught a lot of students and did a lot to popularize the shakuhachi, also one of the best players ever. I used to rave over guitar solos in music by Steely Dan and the Eagles and Pink Floyd and so on, but Goro Yamaguchi blows 'em all away. 

I woke up around 1 when there were three long peals of thunder, then heavy rain, then hail rattling. NPR's promise of thunder and hail fulfilled. I finished off the dozen or so packages I had staged, packed one a guy's antsy about, and thus had a good large load. 

It had stopped raining, but then it started again. I saw the mail truck come in and park in a corner of the parking lot, grabbed the USPS stuff and hurried out there. These guys will take packages or letters etc as long as it's not a huge amount. Nice older Indian or maybe Pakistani guy, and of course he took them and seemed quite happy at my profuse thanks. Now I only had 3 large boxes to take to FedEx. 

But then I had the shits 2X. What the damn hell. I took a good slug of Pepto and waited for things to settle down and took off around 5:30. I got the boxes to FedEx OK and found some boxes on the way back and 3 white onions from the veggie dumpster that only needed their outer layers removed to be fine. 

Once back, I scrambled some eggs with sauteed onions, as something easy and relatively non-exciting for my stomach. 

I did things like put Ebay stuff away and start a load of laundry, and pretty soon Ken came by. He brought a few boxes and I reminded him of our need to order more packing tape, and he wrote out my pay check with an extra $100 on, which almost pays for the shakuhachi books I've been buying lately. 

Then we sat down and I made him tea and we talked about the usual science-y stuff but it wasn't the long gabfest of the last time, ending at 12:30 but we were done at a quarter to 12. 

I finished the laundry and hung it up and made some very "soothing" pork and vegetables. It really was; it was what I imagine I'd get if I went into a good Chinese restaurant and wanted something soothing.  

Then shakuhachi practice and bed.

Come on rain already

 Last night I got my Voldyne and shakuhachi time in. I even got a few breaths that went over 2000 and eventually I want to consistently max out above 2500 then I can get the larger model Voldyne and use that. 

The shakuhachi practice went well, working on those little 4-note figures. There's sheer volume of air and then there's efficiency. I read somewhere in one of the shakuhachi books I had, a teacher saying for the first X number of years the student should try to play loud all the time - then presumably they'll have developed the muscles etc that they can lay off or gas it as needed. 

I wish I hadn't sold off my Shakuhachi Yuu and the books I had, but at the time I thought, well, I'm getting places on the trumpet and want to get above high C, and I can stick with Western music and I wasn't even considering retiring back in Hawaii at the time. 

So I will have to amass what I had again. I do want to get a Yuu from Mejiro and probably some books from them too - all the way from Japan. If I really, really, get serious about the shakuhachi, take care of it, it may well take care of me. 

Once the virus is over, I imagine going to the airport and playing by one of the pianos. I can play "peaceful" music there and I'd think that would go over well. At the temple, at the end of the service when people are doing oshoko (putting a few dollars in the jar and putting a little incense on the burner and saying gassho) there was often a woman playing this little organ they have, and one time there was a guy playing his sax. The sax was pretty cool and I complimented the guy on his playing, seeing him outside. It could be that shakuhachi would go over well and although Rinban Sakamoto is surely an expert player, he can't do it then because he's got to do his rinban things. 

I was up at 2 and looked at the weather radar because I was surprised to see it dry outside. Still dry at 5:20. According to the radar it should be pouring right now. I think the radar looks at the clouds at a certain altitude, but I even looked out the door and the clouds are doing this weird virga thing again - the rain's not reaching the ground. 

The rain started with a clap of thunder around 7. So at least we're getting a good rinse out of this. 

I watched some videos of Goat Island back in La'ie back home. I never got out there because I was told to "save it". "You're always exploring places first and ruining it for the rest of us" - supposedly mom, her boyfriend, and all of us would go out there together. Which never happened. Which is why I went ahead and explored places. But I did save it. Now there are tons of videos, drone and otherwise, of it. I bet there are tons of kahelelani shells out there, another possible lifeline if I decide I must return home before I'm eligible for Social Security.