163rd day sober. Today used to be called Columbus Day and it's about time they did something about that. I was all cranked about this a decade ago. Celebrating "Columbus Day" is about as nice as celebrating Hitler's birthday as "Jewish Culture Day". Finally enough people have gotten disgusted enough with celebrating the old ghoul.
But it also means the post office is closed, with the results that I spent what part of the day I was awake, in bed reading Slaughterhouse Five, and I've got customers all antsy about when I'm going to mail their orders. What genius that book is! I've read it before; of course I've read it before, but damn, how long ago was that now? It's absolutely great, even though in the little paperback edition I have the printing is pretty bad, so there might be a some remnants where an "m" is supposed to be.
There's so much I didn't remember from having read it however long ago. Like Weary, the character who's about to beat the shit out of Billy Pilgrim when they're "rescued" by some Germans. A truly horrifying character because they're so common.
In other good news, Governor Awesome, er, Newsom, has signed a bill outlawing gas-powered leaf blowers. That's another pet peeve of mine. For decades I've forecast that we're going to have a whole generation or two of elderly Hispanic guys who are deaf, going around saying, "What? What?" or whatever's the equivalent in Spanish, and it's going to be up to us to provide them with hearing aids.
After doing whatever shit I had to get done last night, before bed I practiced a little. The String Builder book has lots of neat exercises where it's just open strings, but counting out whole and half and quarter notes and switching from string to string. I probably practiced a half hour which is enough at this stage.
It's a whole different feeling counting off notes on a bow instead of blowing into something. I got a feeling of accomplishment from just playing those very simple pieces. Also, the violin had stayed in tune from the other night, which is a good sign. And while I'm not at the stage where I'm "fingering" notes yet, I fooled around a bit, doing a double stop with two strings on the same note which sounds cool, and tried doing "finger vibrato" because I kind of have a "soft" plan of learning, by December, some simple Xmas carols well enough to have them sound OK, to try busking with the violin and leave the "musical plumbing" at home.
I've just got to bitch about the trumpet a bit. Right now, for no other reason than the change in the weather, my lips are chapped. I use plenty of balm on them and they still are. So there's a good chance my notes would sound like shit esp. the high ones even if I were practicing like crazy. Plus in this cooler weather I'd have to blow out the spit valves even more often than I usually do and I've already talked about how disgusting that is.
Sure the trumpet's louder so you can "reach out" more, to give more people a chance to think, (a) there's a busker up ahead and (b) they sound pretty decent so (c) it turns out I have a couple dollars in my pocket so I'll tip them. But as I've pointed out to others, just as many people "hear with their eyes" so it's good to not look like a scruffy bum when out playing street music, and a violin player is very distinctive, visually, with the distinct posture and the bow moving around. That calls people in too.
And of course I can always "go electric" to be louder. But the main thing is no drips and no splatters of spit, and most importantly in the tropical atmosphere back home, no stink! In a tropical atmosphere, brass instruments stink badly.
I just need to get over this hump where I don't sound good at all yet, but once I can play some simple things and sound decent, I'll be back to where I'll know I can get by even if I lose my situation here.
I have to be able to go out and at least make enough to support a storage unit and buying things like a "bivy bag" to sleep in, or to be able to rent a small office perhaps paying a year's rent up front, and having that as a place to sleep and store my stuff.
I have to be careful, though, because while I have to wait for the virus to die down - if it does - before I can get my papers in order to be able to travel, I probably will not be allowed to travel without, on paper, having it on record that I live in a McMansion and am a good solid member of society, one that might just feel like taking a vacation in Hawaii. If I sense things getting dicey with Ken, health failing or something like that, I'll start making plans to get my ass on home before my planned time of late 2024.
I packed a lot of things today, glad to stay in other than a trash run, as the "end times" wind was howling away and it was really not warm out there at all.
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