23rd day sober. Up at 2, had gone to bed at almost 7AM, but only woke one time to whiz. I'd eaten a lot of carb-y things last night though like the last of the "night time udon", the last of the 100% buckwheat soba noodles, and a bag of banana chips. That would tend to make my body pause in turning fat into energy + water.
What's funny is, last night, I'd put the scraps from taking the laboratory potentiometer apart and put them in the bag I'd carried the clarinet home in, out by the trash enclosure and sure enough, a car, a Mercedes, pulled up next to it at 3AM and the driver got out and grabbed it and took off. Mercedes' are more common than you'd think among bums, because even if a given one is 20 years old, it doesn't look that out of date and I guess the cars are built well and last.
I packed what I needed to pack, made a bit bowl of guacamole and ate it, and was out the door at a quarter after 6. The drop-offs at the post office went fine, and I stopped at H Mart since I didn't need the bike trailer, and did some shopping. There was a guy passed out by the front, not right in front but off to the side, who I honestly thought was the Vietnamese homeless guy who used to camp in front of the electric lighting place and I'd kind of befriended. So I got a bottle of Coke and an extra bag of peanuts for him, too.
Once done I put things away in the bike bags and set up a little bag of stuff for the guy, the Coke and peanuts, some band-aids I had floating around in my bike bags, a can opener, etc. I went over and the guy was sitting up, and gave it to him. It was not the guy, but another guy who honestly looked pretty close. He asked me if I have a blanket and I said I didn't, but that they toss out a lot of cardboard out back and it can be pretty warm stuff - put a few layers under you and some over you, and also plastic bags.
I rode back here and put things away, and got the Yamaha trumpet out and the stuff I was going to use to replace the pads on Tom's trumpet plus a bunch of sheet music, a fingering guide, and some exercises I had printed out and put in sheet protectors.
I rode over to Tom's and handed him the sheet music first and he was really happy to get it. "For me?!?" I said it certainly was. And I told him the Recycle Book Store on the Alameda is a good place to pick up music books.
I took some cardboard and made a cover for one of the 55-gallon drums he had sitting out front, as a working surface, and asked him to get his horn out. I looked at the pads, and they actually looked OK. They actually look like they're made of some artificial substance and look like they're sealing just fine.
We played a bit, I figured out that riff from "Baker Street" and messed around with other things, and Tom did things like, "let's go from low C to 'high' C (high but in the staff) and back down" and we did that, except his fingering was funny or he was bending the notes or something, so he's going to have to work on his major C scale. I did chromatic scales from the bottom up to high C and back, and the usual noodling around.
So we played a bit, but Tom was at least as interested in shooting the shit as playing, but as far as I'm concerned that's OK at this stage, as I don't want to push him too hard. Eventually he offered me dinner as he'd gotten some tofu soup with noodles at H Mart (I'd come just as he was taking a bunch of H Mart groceries in) and since there wasn't any way to eat it (no 2nd bowl) and his "kitchen" area leaves much to be desired in terms of cleanliness I said I'm OK.
Eventually it got boring watching Tom eat, so I said I was taking off and that he ought to work on basic stuff like "Saints" and "Amazing Grace" because the public likes something simple that's well-played more than something more advanced that we flub on. And I rode back here.
I ate a bunch of snack foods and two stalks of raw celery and even had a can of coffee (I'm very cautious about bringing coffee back into my life).
I rounded up my trumpet/cornet books that I'd just slapped onto Ebay and shakuhachi books too except for the first Koga book because that one's got all I need for, well, years at least. My thinking is I'll go to the Recycle Book Store, myself, get trade credit for them, and go through their music section for clarinet books. I'd not mind finding at least the first Rubank book, and the two Getchell-Hovey books of etudes. I remember Mr. Sowlakis had me get the Getchell-Hovey books and was just going to teach me out of those.
Before I knew it, it was about 2AM so I found a somewhat interesting documentary about Chris Farley and halfway watched it while practicing the clarinet. Went a few more pages in the book, learned a couple new notes (B and A) and got in a bit over an hour's practice. That's the main thing: Get in that practice, at least an hour, every day.
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