Happy birthday to me.

139th day sober. Since I didn't have anything much to ship, I didn't go anywhere. Ken came by at the usual time with a bunch of stuff in a rack with tons of cables so while Ken took the goodies out of the rack, I worked on rolling up the flat cables and packaging them up so they're easy to store and sell. 

I told Ken it was my birthday coming up, "One more year closer to being out of here" and as I rolled cables, said that I've become very conservative, financially, and am "scared to death" to make any major changes like moving home before I'm eligible for Social Security but once I am, I'm outta here. I really don't want Ken to be surprised when this indeed happens. 

I also talked about how I know moving back home might involve becoming homeless there and having to work my way up, but that I'm prepared for that and still consider it worth it. That my attempt to move back in 03 failed because I didn't know as much about begging and hustling and street performing as I do now, nor was I used to living without running water or internet, but that living in San Jose here got me used to living without those things. Plus taught me about begging etc. 

I read r/homeless on Reddit regularly and follow different people's stories, and one person on there is homeless in Brazil so their life is really precarious, but she has an ace up her sleeve: she has a guitar and can play it. Many a night, most in fact, she's paying for a hotel room for her and a friend or two with the proceeds from playing guitar in the park. She's doing better than she would in the US. 

Likewise, I'm really banking on trumpet playing. Anyone can beg, or collect cans, but only a few can play music at all, and very few indeed play the trumpet. I'm really hoping especially with the large military presence in Hawaii, that it makes me someone people want to have around. 

I practiced before bed, lots of octave stuff which I think is really helping me. 

I woke up at 3, perfectly in time to have coffee and vitamins etc., and get out of here at 4. My first stop was the post office where I mailed a bunch of packages. Including two, one to Russia and one to Bulgaria, each holding two little LCD displays I'd gone nuts trying to find and had just about given up when I finally found them an hour before Ken came over last night. Whew! It wasn't just refunding the $50 plus shipping to each customer, but it would have also meant two more hits against us on Ebay, burying us deeper in the "Below Average" category. 

Then the bank, ho-hum there and one always wants visits to the bank to be ho-hum. Them over to Dai Thanh for a few things, and Da Kao for a pork and veggies with fish sauce on rice noodles thing which was marked $5.50 but they only charged me $5. I think because I show up with cash and don't give them any trouble. I had to sort of work around a crazy guy who was practically bouncing off the walls there and being a handful while he, I'm sure eventually, completed some kind of a transaction for the food he'd picked out. 

I ate over at the college and dinner came with a show, that of skateboard kids doing their usual tricks, mostly involving falling down. And listening in on their adventurous tales, like how, in the park, there are guys who *drink*, from *bottles*, and not only that, but they actually *yell at passers-by*. 

I went by the Amazon place after eating and picked up a bunch of bubble mailers and the Yamaha "Bobby Shew Jazz" mouthpiece I'd finally caved in and ordered, as someone described it as "a 3C with a little extra kick". 

I rode over to Whole Foods and had a coffee and an elderberry syrup shot because my throat felt a bit scratchy, and started playing at 6:15. I played the usual stuff, and one big problem is, when I'm out there I start using too much mouthpiece pressure and run into real limits on high notes due to this. I finally got out the new mouthpiece and tried it, and I'd describe it as being halfway between a 3C and a 3D. I went back and forth between it and my 3C and I think I prefer the 3C because the tone is better. 

People, including me for a while there, often think a different mouthpiece will "give" them higher notes, but it really doesn't work that way. A shallower mouthpiece seems to make higher notes seem easier, but at the price of less full tone. I can't believe I used to go out there with a 7C... 

It seemed slow although there were a few bursts of the crowd getting "tippy" and I figured it would be pretty routine, earnings-wise, but when I counted up, I'd made $84.48. If that's going to be the new routine, I'll take it. I really don't hope to make this kind of money back home, but hope that I might make $10 or $20 or so, which is enough to get by on day to day.