(insert code for greek symbol omicron here)

 212th day sober. I was not able to sleep well last night at all, but I lay in bed from 6AM-2PM to at least simulate a reasonable(?) schedule. 

I actually feel pretty normal now, except for my lower back, which all the time in bed didn't help. 

Last night before bed I brushed and flossed and chewed Xylitol gum, my usual preparations for some trumpet practice, and I could barely play E in the staff. My lips had peeled, upper and lower, which probably didn't help but I can't blame it on just that. 

I felt very frustrated and drew doodles all over 5 index cards. I have my expensive little sketch book but it's thick and "unfriendly" to just doodle in. If I'm going to put in regular time doing this, I need to come up with a regular system which can be as simple as cutting the pages out of the sketch book, drawing on each one and keeping them in a box, with perhaps a date on each one. 

The thing is, I can be sick as a dog and I can still draw. Even if my drawing suffers, the ideas can still be put down. I grew up with this naive idea that to be a "real" artist you had to be able to draw things hyper-realistically at least if you needed to. And it's a nice skill to have, but I think it comes at the price of "tightening up" and it's a severe price to pay. 

Saul Steinberg's drawings were very loose, I'm tempted to say too loose a lot of the time but that's what let the neat ideas and feelings come through. 

Meanwhile, our bright shiny new Covid variant has us all looking forward(?) to a shut-down Christmas season. 

I packed the 4 things  that were "overdue" and left at 6 for the run to FedEx. On the way back I got a shwarma plate at Baba's and ate it outside, yeah it was $15 but it's a lot of tasty food and I had rice and a half pita left over. I saved those for the birds back here. 

I did my usual route looking for shipping stuff and picked up a few boxes, and by the electrical lighting place there was this Asian homeless guy who's .... kinda crazy but somehow we've sort of made friends. I parked my bike by the dumpsters and took the bag with the package of rice and falafel off of the handlebar and put a knife/fork/spoon/napkin kit I had in there too and set it down near him. "Thanks," he said. "'Sorry I don't have more" I said and then contemplated what a hypocrite I am, turned around and dug the $5 I had left over from buying my dinner out of my wallet and took that over. I hadn't seen the guy for the longest time, and thought he's either been taken in by family or perhaps, sadly, died. But there he was, alive. 

I stopped by Tom's to say hi but he was probably asleep or passed out drunk for some well-rationalized reason.

ST

211th day sober. I managed to get some sleep last night, lots of weird dreams but genuine sleep. I still feel rotten, but should get some work done. 

I finished reading the book I'd picked up on Saturday, about an outbreak of ergot poisoning in 1951 in a town in France. 

I re-read "A Man Without A Country" enough to find and bookmark the place where he says the US is "now feared and hated all over the world as the Nazis once were".  I knew it was nearer the end than the beginning, so I started from the very end, where Vonnegut says the wisest man he knows is the artist Saul Steinberg and after finding the Nazi bit in the book, I looked into this Steinberg fellow. 

I was familiar with the name and with some of the art, but if Vonnegut says a guy is worth knowing, it's worth it to look into the guy. So I found his foundation web site (he's dead now, of course) and he had quite an interesting life. 

He grew up in Romania, where Jews were hated the way "Haoles" are where I grew up. I cut tons of school, due to the prejudice there, in the same way I used every trick I could come up with to cut school, for the very same reason. With family help (like I didn't have) he left for Italy to get his degree, in architecture, and on his diploma he was prominently noted that he was a Jew. In the same way, the US is obsessed with race, and when getting my booster vaccination on Saturday, I'd been required to choose a race from a page full of choices. I noted with glee the choice of "Not Hispanic" so I could be anything, just so long as I'm not Hispanic. 

People outside the USA don't seem to understand how race-obsessed things are here. You have to indicate your race on every official form and not a few un-official ones, and if you don't the forms won't be processed. 

And in his case, as with mine, it was assumed that art would be the ticket out. As it was, if Saul hadn't been good at art and getting art published in magazines in Italy and having relatives in the US, he and his whole family would have been shoveled into the death camps for sure. 

I don't think Steinberg had his family hovering over him, expecting his art to "hit it big" and then they could all live off of him, as I did. I was in a real Catch-22. First, it's very difficult for a "haole" to get anywhere in art in Hawaii. Secondly, if I'd made it "big" somehow, I'd have been sure to have said something about the social system there and would have lost everything or even been put in prison for Improper Speech By A "haole". 

It's really that bad over there. I was expected to learn to paint beautiful seascapes that would sell for beautiful money and thus escape my circumstances, yet Dennis Hardy, an Australian seascape artist, who gave me paints and brushes and lent me books, got his house burned down and went back to Australia in disgust. He's lucky he got to leave with his life. 

I thought electronics was a good, "neutral" choice with the very big perk that, as I believed along with a lot of others, that if I got my degree in it, I'd be able to leave for the mainland when the ink on my diploma was barely dry and work for some big tech company. Tech has turned out to be a terrible choice, for myself and those many others, as it's very low-paying and that's if you can get a job in it at all. (Incidentally, Steinberg once visited a cousin who was an electronics repairman in Arizona, and pondered that it could easily be him, if he hadn't had access to the education he did.) 

(For the curious reader, probably the best field to get into now is to get, at most, a "criminal science" or whatever it's called 2-year degree and to be a security guard. You'll make more than in tech, and you can do it past age 40.) 

Everything hurts

 210th day sober. I got back in last night, Ken came by and he looked tired as hell - he'd been moving things at the storage place for hours, he said. I offered to make him any drink, cook something for him, even make a fast food run but he just wanted ice water and we talked for a short while then he took off. 

Eventually I started getting a reaction to the covid shot, and I was certain when, even though I kept it really warm in here, I was on the verge of chattering from the chills. 

I went to bed, and I was really happy I'd treated myself to a new sleeping bag. I think the one I was using was a 50-degree bag and this one's a 40-degree bag. It's just a bit fluffier and the liner's synthetic and nicer feeling than the cotton liner in the old one. 

I didn't sleep at all. I went through a stage of feeling cold, and that new bag was really nice to snuggle in, then a stage where I was worried about getting enough air and almost panting, then I was left with everything hurting, a lot. I emailed Ken to let him know what's up, and an update today. I hope to be able to do some work tomorrow, I said. 

Either my memory's not very good or this reaction is a bit worse than the one from the 2nd shot. I'm only having some diet 7-Up and black coffee, so I guess this will amount to a couple days' fast which is fine with me.

Just in time for Christmas

 209th day sober. I did some practice last night, and I think I need to just plain practice a lot to build up endurance. I was practicing an hour a day, and then going out three nights a week and playing for two hours; what's wrong with this picture? 

I'd hoped to get up in time to get over to the Tully library to get my covid booster and I actually did. I got going at about 1 or 1:30, dropped off things in the little free libraries, got got an interesting book to read "The Day Of St. Anthony's Fire" about some sort of poisoning that happened in a French town. I also got a "school lunch bento" at Nijiya and a can of coffee which I ate at one of the tables there because for once it wasn't super windy. 

I got down to the Tully library and it was a pretty relaxed scene. People were getting all sorts of shots, different makers and some for kids and some for adults, and I got my Pfizer booster no problem - those ladies are really good at giving shots. Some of the shots I got in the Army really hurt but Covid shots so far has been painless. 

I stopped at Big-5 on the way back to look around and ended up getting a new sleeping bag. And stopped at Nijiya again for one of those ramen "kits" for two servings, some cucumbers, and chocolate macadamia nut things. I anticipate being sick for the next day or so. 

I checked a dumpster on the other side of the complex and found a Springfield Armory "Compact" pistol box, high quality like a Pelican box. I don't know why whoever bought the pistol wouldn't keep it, it's nicer than the "Tupperware" box my Glock came in. 

And we've got a new variation of Covid to worry about, just in time for Christmas. That should make things interesting.

"Black Friday"

 208th day sober. I slept in until 3 because I'd been up all night, a bad habit that's creeping back. 

I did not practice last night, which is bad because I have to consider my miserable existence here to be merely a support structure for what practice I'm able to get in. Let's say one day I wake up and I can play like Wynton Marsalis. Or even like Bobby Shew. I'd be able to travel the world on that. 

I think "Wedge Breathing" is something some players arrive at on their own, for instance it's easy to see Louis Armstrong is using at least something a lot like it in the short film "Rhapsody In Black And Blue" which shows him in his prime. But even the mighty Maynard Ferguson had to go study with yogis in India to get it right, then he taught it to Bobby Shew. 

This is why I really don't care if I do any Christmas carol busking. Building my technique up from the bottom is more important. I liken what I'd been doing up until now to trying to maneuver on my bike but not pedaling nearly hard enough. 

When I used to ride with the Western Wheelers, there was one guy whose name I can't remember but he was a ham radio guy and also led a lot of minor rides. There was one ride where I was the only one to show up. He was big on knowing all these little trails that linked streets together, and he took me up this sandy uphill trail between streets. We were both on skinny-tire bikes of course, and he said, "No matter what, keep pedaling!" and I did, and while my bike did sink into the sand a bit, I got through and came out the uphill end just fine. He was really proud of me, and told me he'd taken this other guy, a European, I think Italian, guy in the Wheelers through there and the guy couldn't do it. Even I was surprised that by keeping on pedaling, my skinny tire bike could get through that sand. 

Take a guy like Harry James, his parents had him playing trumpet in their circus since his age was in the single digits. And Woe unto him if his missed a note! He developed something like wedge breathing out of sheer self-defense. He was the only kid who ran *away* from the circus. Trumpet was survival for Louis Armstrong too. Other than it, his employment opportunities were about as limited as those of a "haole" in Hawaii - a very unenviable situation. I guess if I'd stayed with trumpet in high school, I may never have been in a situation where the whole purpose of my life was to scoop poops and wash floors at the Blue Cross Animal Hospital. 

After coffee and so on, I packed about 8 small things to go to the post office (since larger things can go by FedEx on Sunday) and left at 5 to take those. On my way back, I decided to try something different at the chicken place and got a hamburger. The hamburger was pretty good, actually, and came with a ton of fries I ate maybe 2 of. On my way back here I had the bag of fries hanging off my handlebar, with the plan of leaving them out for the birds here, when I noticed a pretty large and elaborate "fort" built on the sidewalk and thinking about what a cold night it's going to be, stopped and offered the fries to its proprietor, who turned out to be a slight black gal with a nice voice. I hoped they helped her stay warm! 

I checked for foam at the circuit board place because it'd be good to know what's waiting for me on Sunday, but there was none. But, behind another place I found tons of really neat flat little boxes that held stacks of 2021 calendars, and spent some time there slitting the plastic wrapping with my pocket knife, then dumping out the calendar cards, and closing the boxes back up to stack nicely. I had a large plastic bag with me to carry them all in. 

I got back here and ... no Ken. But he showed up about an hour later, dropped off boxes and things to list but had forgotten his check book. He'll probably be by tomorrow though and can take care of my check then. I said not to worry as I'm not going to the bank until next Thursday, but he really wants to move things around and get out of one of the three storage units he has now. 

We sat and talked for a bit, and then it was time he got going so he left. There was a late night visit from the truck-taking-apart-scavenger-guy, and that was it for excitement tonight. 

Thanksgiving Day.

 207th day sober. I slept in until 4PM, then went out and cleaned out the trash enclosure that's "mine". I'm pretty sure (shared with the other two units to the right of this one) and the one that actually has dumpster service and, unfortunately, is popular with the zombies. There was all kinds of crap in there, including stuff that had been taken from "my" trash enclosure. I put it all into the dumpster because when the truck comes, it takes only what's in the dumpster. I was sure to wash my hands thoroughly when I was done. 

Zombies. Just. Everywhere.

 206th day sober. Up at about 3 in the afternoon, did some practice last night. 

I'd kind of given up on today's original plan, since I thought my laundry would not be dry in time. But I decided to look at the vaccine situation at CVS and the internet, as usual, made it look super hard to get a booster shot, and I decided Well, I'd seen a sign board right outside CVS saying they're offering flu and Covid vaccines, so I figured I'd just ride down there and walk in. 

I did so, and the sign board was not out. It was "Incorrect" they said, and they're no longer giving vaccines at that location. I get the impression I probably should have gone right in when I saw the sign out, and might have done it without trouble. 

This night, because by 5PM it is indeed night, there were zombies just absolutely everywhere. They were staggering all over the streets and sidewalks, around CVS and the hardware store where the workers there were pulling in all the bins of stuff they put out on the sidewalk during the day. There was, naturally, a zombie wearing a few layers of rags staggering around. I said something about "strange characters at night" to one of the guys and got a laugh. 

When I'd locked up my bike at Whole Foods to walk up to CVS, there was an old guy with a table full of petitions who's been a fixture there for a few years now. He was on Whole Foods property instead of on the actual sidewalk like I was always careful to be, and was more aggressive than usual. He didn't seem to recognize me and want into his blather about whether I'm a registered voter, and I said I was, but in Alameda County and we'd been over this before, and when he continued to pester me I said I had an appointment at the drugstore and had to go, and that mollified him a bit. 

When I came back, after going to CVS, to unlock my bike, I noticed he had a big sign on the front of his table now saying HELP THE HOMELESS. He also had a sign he held in his hands, about 4 feet wide, saying HELP THE HOMELESS. "See my sign?" he said. I told him how, after the last election, I'd collected the campaign signs made of that plastic cardboard stuff, and made a bunch of really neat drawer liners out of it, and it's great stuff to make signs out of. 

Apparently he trusted me enough to feel unabashed about going into his new routine: As some people got out of their car nearby (handicapped space) he left his table and went right over with that big sign in his hands and blathered at them about how he needs money, using the sign to block them from going into Whole Foods. So, whatever drug addictions he's got, or the zombie virus, or a wide variety of things have got him really acting more like a zombie now, and a particularly annoying one. 

I thought about setting up right next to him (on the sidewalk of course so it's actually legal) and having a sign on the front of my tip box saying HONEST MUSICIAN WORKING FOR HONEST TIPS and thought at least I don't have a crack addiction to feed or whatever problem that guy has. 

I also noticed that, while it's not obvious, there's a place that's closer in to the Whole Foods building where I could stand on the sidewalk, not be hidden by Christmas trees, be fairly visible/audible to customers going in and out, and as a plus, since it's  closer in I'd not feel compelled to play so loudly, which would make things a lot easier on me and better for my musicality. 

Nobody follows this exceedingly boring blog but if they did, they'd remember that many times I've given instruments to bums I've hoped to encourage to become street musicians. And out of the very few takers, exactly none have actually done anything toward doing anything but plain old begging. It's not to say that begging doesn't pay well, because it does, especially using strong-arm methods like Mr. Petition Zombie uses now. But plain old begging is boring. In 2 weeks you're as good at is as you'll ever be. 

I picked up bubble mailers at the Amazon place, some chicken at Nijiya, some O'Doul's at TAK, and came on back here and ate and watched some stuff on YouTube. Ken called and said he'll come by tomorrow or Friday, and I told him of my misadventure trying to get a Covid booster shot. (I looked up some Country walk-in sites though and might try one of those.)

I also told Ken it's really nuts out there and Thanksgiving Weekend is usual a time I lay low.  I normally don't spend anything on Black Friday, and the whole weekend is just a stay-in time for me. I'll stay in and read cheerful things like this: 

https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2021/11/23/man-mistakenly-locked-up-state-psychiatric-hospital-2-years-files-federal-suit/ 

Yep a white guy was kept in the jail/prison and nuthouse in Hawaii because he looks kinda like another guy who left Hawaii in 2009 and is in jail in Alaska. But all whites look the same, dont'cha know, and one thing I really don't miss about Hawaii is, if you are white/white-appearing, you are always assumed to be lying or to have some nefarious "angle". 

A "local" (basically anyone brown these days) would get the benefit of the doubt. They'd listen enough to at least check fingerprints. They'd actually ask the guy where he graduated high school then the questioning would go on to who he knew, and that leads to who you're related to and so on. If you're a local. 

Now, I can actually tick most if not all of those boxes. I did indeed "grad" from the school system in Hawaii. And I am indeed related to people there and have a work history there and so on. But that means getting a chance to spit that all out. Meanwhile there's that ever-present atmosphere that I'm probably lying, or have some nefarious scheme in mind. Getting financial aid for college was hell, because of the assumption that I secretly have gold bars under my bed or some damn thing. I just had to be trying out some scam, and for that matter I guess I'll never shake the habit of having my receipt in plain sight when I leave a store, because one is presumed to be a thief.

People love dead Hawaiians too

 205th day sober. I was up until past 6AM but besides getting 10 books listed on Ebay I got some practice in. I sound kind of awful due to 2 months off but I went back and tried the exercises I was last doing in the Rubank book and they're easy-peasy now. I tried the Israel national anthem, a thing that gave me trouble a couple of years ago, and it's super easy now. 

In fact, to expect to have made tons of progress over the two months or so I was busking is pretty unrealistic. I actually made decent progress and while the time I took off was kind of long, maybe I needed it. I think this "wedge breathing" thing is going to turn out to be very useful. 

Getting back to the book "People Love Dead Jews" the same thing can be said 100% for Hawaiians back in Hawaii. Everyone loves to romanticize about the long-past kingdom, but actual, live, Hawaiians with actual real-world problems are very inconvenient. 

It seems everyone's making money on the Hawaiians but the Hawaiians. I think if I were Hawaiian, I'd want to try to set up something where there's a sort of trademark on "Hawaiian" kind of the way "Champagne" is, and that somehow money is made from this, and the money goes to help actual Hawaiian people. 

I slept in until 3 or so in the afternoon, and Ken called and said he'd come by to move things around, so I finished my coffee etc. and got busy packing things for a post office and FedEx run, as our lateness number right now is 4% and I hate that - it should be about 1/4%. I helped Ken move some things too, then he gave me some money to get him some onion ring crackers and "Sky Flakes" at H Mart. 

So I really shopped it up at H Mart, and when I got back here Ken was gone. I called him and he'll be back by tomorrow to ... move more things. I told him my plan is to get my booster shot tomorrow. 

I had some dinner and sorted out some things to list, and finished the load of laundry I was working on, and since it's so cold up in the loft, even with a fan blowing on it, the laundry may not be dry by tomorrow afternoon. So, in reality, I may or may not go get my booster tomorrow. I could try doing it on Friday instead.

People Love Dead Jews.

 204th day sober. Last night besides getting 20 Ebay things listed, I packed the three things that needed to be shipped and got some practice in. I'm trying to almost rebuild the way I play, in light of the "Wedge Breathing" technique espoused by Bobby Shew. 

Bobby Shew talks about people playing too much "up here" by which he means upper chest and mouth/head, trying to do too much with the lips.  I think that's what I've been doing, too - tightening up too much and using too much mouthpiece pressure to try to compensate for it. I was able to play over high C easily then I started to tighten up, relaxed and took a break and was able to get up that high *again* which is a really good sign. I'm also starting to get back into doing exercises and I have the definite impression that I need to be really physically fit to play trumpet well.

I was up around 2 this afternoon, and Ebay's really slowed down due to it being Thanksgiving Week. I headed for the post office at 5, dropped off the three things, and did some shopping at 99 Ranch including a couple big bottles of Diet 7-Up because tomorrow, I plan to try getting my covid booster at CVS and if it's anything like the 2nd vaccination, I'll be sick in bed for about a day and a half, and I'll really appreciate that diet 7-Up. 

There's tons of traffic out there, I mean it's really nuts. I guess this is how it was in the before times? Maybe it was tons of people leaving town for the week and deciding Monday's a good day to do it? I'll have to see how bad traffic is tomorrow. 

Before taking off I did my usual reading on Reddit and found an AMA (Ask Me Anything) by Dara Horn  https://www.darahorn.com/ on r/Jewish and wowwwww...... I've already overspent for this week but I just might have to buy this book. It only took her a handful of college degrees to arrive at something I've been, I think, narrowing down on recently. Which is that a dominant culture hates "the other" and will do its best to kill "the other" off, whereupon it's time to romanticize "the other" now that members of "the other" are conveniently all dead or at least expelled to far, far away. 

There's actually an Israeli tour guide on YouTube whose videos comes up for me pretty frequently, and in one he says he (normally, in non-virus times) spends half the year giving tours of Holocaust sites in Europe, Germany mostly I think, and half the year in Israel giving tours there. So, as he put it, half the year talking about Hitler and half the year talking about Jesus. I should put in a comment that he's essentially spending both halves of his time talking about people who white people did, and do, consider their savior. 

The AMA by author Dara Horn has disappeared now. So, also, have a ton of links on Google to her articles and books. But I was still able to find her home page. And just the little I was able to skim this afternoon is eye-opening. Like Golda Meir saying something like, "We can all be dead and be loved, or we can be alive and be disliked". That might actually be a standard saying. 

Here's another good link about what she's all about: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/people-love-dead-jews-david-mikics 

I will say that in Hawaii, the same kind of thing goes on with Hawaiians, what few are left. People love dead Hawaiians. The live ones, the ones who should be getting their Hawaiian Homestead lands, should be getting decent education (not just the elite; descendants of royals, who have their own school) and healthcare, not so much.

In zombie country

 203rd day sober. Yesterday, my day off, my big accomplishment was reading Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut. 

There's a lot of reading in that book and it's also very depressing. In Slaughterhouse-Five he emphasizes how random life is, but it's easy to accept randomness when it's about a guy who time-travels and ends up in a zoo on a planet where the air is cyanide. 

This book, written about 30 years later, really drives it home. The protagonist is someone who might be Vonnegut himself. German-American, old Socialists in his family tree but gets into West Point because during Vietnam, they'd take almost anyone - even a DQ'd state Science Fair contestant. The guy bounces around like a pinball through life, like we all do. He becomes an almost certain war criminal, a teacher, a General, a prisoner, a ladies' man, a carillion (sp?) player, and in the end a defendant in a national Federal case, and there the book ends. 

All through this Vonnegut lambastes the America of the late-80s, which was on its way to becoming the America of now. It's all very bizarre, random, and depressing and no space aliens required. 

I woke up at about 9, depressed, and went back to semi-sleep until almost 2, thinking about it all. To deal with it, as humans do, I came up with a theory. Say you're looking at a painting, say a nice seascape. This is easy for me to imagine because I was "supposed" to become a great painter of seascapes. Say you're only able to look at a tiny bit of it, though. So all you see is a smear of one shade of blue, a smear of another shade of blue ... and it doesn't make any sense. So the little square of the painting you can see makes no sense and you'll never be able to see the whole, but the whole does make sense at a higher level you'll never see. It's stupid but it's comforting. 

Why wasn't I getting the horn out, at such a nice quiet time as I had, in the middle of the night? I heard a clattering outside a bit after 2AM, and looked at the video monitor and there was a zombie, with two trash cans and a shopping cart, loaded up with the kind of crap zombies collect. The zombie dragged these things around randomly, eventually leaving one of the trash cans of crap next to the trash enclosure here, dragging the other two to the other trash enclosure and doing something in there, then dragging them off around the corner. 

My point being that in zombie country, there's no time when the area can be assumed to be safe and zombie-free, and the zombies operate 24/7. They're a bit suppressed in the daytime (sun probably rots them faster) and regular working people are out and around and well, everyone normal hates zombies. So it's night-time when the undead feel the streets are theirs. And while there are several of us who live in our offices here, we're all pretty quiet about it. So the last thing I needed to do in the wee hours would have been to broadcast my presence here with trumpet sounds.

No hope in the Northwest

 202nd day sober.  I stayed up late because I had chicken bones and fish scraps I wanted to put out for the crows and gulls, but the guys next door were there LATE. Drinking, I'm guessing, because one guy did a fine job of crunching up the side of his white Prius against the trash enclosure. He kept going into the parking spot right next to it, pulling out way too close to the fence pole and duffing up the side, pulling, in then doing the same thing again. Eventually he backed out and steered 'way over almost into the next space over and was able to get out... Surprisingly he was able to open his door fine and get out, and the side of the Prius wasn't nearly as damaged as it looked like it would be. 

When they finally were done for the night I was able to put the scraps out and check the welding place's trash can which they'd put out for some reason, although I only got a little bubble wrap out of there. 

I went to bed determined to make up for the sleep I'd missed the night before, and seemed to have done so. I woke up 1PM. 

I actually got a reply from my aunt, who I'm trying to establish some kind of a friendship with. Who knows, maybe she's got "relics", things of my mother's, at her house? I'd like to visit her, but of course this being the end times and all, just going from here to Southern California is very difficult. If I had a car or a van I could sleep in it would make it easier, but paradoxically since hardly anyone can afford a car these days the car companies have cut production 'way down (the chip shortage is fictional and an effort to avoid panic) with the result that used car prices are bonkers right now. 

The other way would be take the train or Greyhound or something, but be prepared to "sleep out", so the trip would be during the spring, when it's warm enough but not too hot. Or to just spend some money and hotel it. I've also done cross country on a small motorcycle and that worked fairly well, my "burn rate" staying in hotels being right about $100/day.

But I have to befriend her well enough to make the trip possible in the first place. 

But as it is, here I am in the Bay Area for the reason, I thought back in 2003, that one can't go wrong in a northern-ish climate near a large river system. Great civilizations are almost always on large river systems, and it is a clear shot from here to the Pacific Northwest. Except right now, the Pacific Northwest, when it's not 115 degrees and all the sea life dying, is flooded and going through a sort of Apocalypse right now. So much for that plan! All is not well in the prospective Nazi Homeland... 

Fascism ascendant

 201st day sober. I drank coffee and O'Doul's last night and I think between the both of them, I really made a mistake. I must have gotten up 6 times to pee during what passed for sleep, and I slept in until about 1PM to try to get sufficient sleep which I'm not sure I did. 

I've been feeling better if I alternate coffee and green tea instead of just drinking coffee all day. And I probably need to have a rule of no coffee after 9PM or so. 

The Kyle Shittenhouse verdict is in, and he's off the hook on all counts. So that sets a legal precedent: If you are white, it's perfectly OK to have a gun you're not legally supposed to have, go to another county armed up, and shoot anyone who disagrees with you, even if they are white also. There's already precedent for that last, of course, when the Klan killed white civil rights workers in the South in the 1960s. 

So Shittenhouse is now a Nazi hero, and as they're saying on Reddit, next comes his million dollar book deal and speaking tour. I'm glad I've armed up to the extent I have, and am glad I'm not in flyover country. Of course I have unique "privileges" in that I'm white enough to be hated by blacks and browns, and colored enough to be hated by whites. Lucky me. 

To celebrate this day, I've just spent $90+ on Amazon on "Time To Read Hebrew" books 1, 2, and the teacher's guide set. Those books are used in the Hebrew reading class at the local synagogue, and I'd even taken the class, although dropping out in the end due to a bunch of factors. Being a drinker, I was not good at getting up early enough for the class, and it was during a very wet winter which made getting to the class tricky - although I dropped out, I told myself that if I re-take the class and it's rainy as hell on class day, I'll go down to the area the day before and stay in a hotel if that's what it takes to make the class. 

But I'm hoping I can essentially "do" the class with the books on my own and YouTube, and then I need to see about taking the other classes. I have no where near the level of internet access needed to take the classes now as they're all on Zoom. So I have to hope that in another year or so the classes will be in person again. The expensive one will be the Intro To Judaism, as it requires going to temples all over this area, many of which hard to reach by bus or bike. That will require some planning and hotel stays. 

I sent an email to my aunt, the one who'd rather cut her hand off than give me a sandwich if I were starving, to say I've gone 200 days without a drop of alcohol just as a conversation starter. It'd be nice to be actual friends with her, to find out more about that side of my family, but she seems to be pretty much a Real American(tm) by which I mean, she's really not friends with anyone. 

She's got a daughter who came over for the summer when I was a kid in Hawaii, and when she saw how poor and underfed we were, she spent a good part of her money feeding us. My aunt's only reaction to this was, "If I'd known how things were, I'd have taken her back right away". So, if she'd known her daughter was in the presence of poor relatives and even worse, caring about them, she's have yanked her right outta there and left us in the lurch, where we belong. That's a very American response. 

I actually got in contact with her daughter in the 90s, and her daughter wanted me to drop everything and come to work for her and her husband for free. Like, what? Again, a very American response. I explained that I had my own business going and could not afford to do this, and after that she wasn't interested in staying in contact. 

I've actually had someone I'd been friends with, or I thought I was friends with anyway, because he'd wanted to learn from me about that sport I'd been good at, finally give up on the sport and tell me "Because there's no more benefit to me to being friends with you, I don't want to be friends any more" or something to that effect; I'm sure I've mangled it. But that is how things are done here in the evil empire. 

So unless I am useful to my aunt somehow, I can't think of why she'd want to stay in touch, since in the evil empire family means nothing. 

When I was in high school I read a book about Albert Einstein and read of the Jewish custom of inviting a poor Jew to Sabbath dinner. I was shocked and had to put the book down. That's completely opposite of the American custom of staying as far away as possible from anyone poorer than oneself, and poor relations being untouchables. I cannot think of a single way to be more Un-American than to convert* to Judaism and to follow its precepts. If I ever actually do make it to Israel, I will say, "Einstein brought me here". 

*According to 23andme, I'm not the least bit Jewish, genetically speaking. But Mom sure used a lot of "Jewishisms" and also had some very strong, I won't say stated beliefs but beliefs that were unspoken and deeper; unquestionable. Such as that gambling is Very Not Good, likewise drinking and she hardly let alcohol in the house. Also, tattoos were not good and even after we became poor enough to fall in with the kind of people to whom tattoos are really cool, she could not be convinced to get one. My aunt's not saying anything either and the whole subject seems to be hush-hush. 

I was up at a bit after 1PM, had coffee etc., and got going about a quarter to 5. I dropped off packages at the post office, then did some shopping at H Mart, and got on back here. Zero zombie problems so this was a good night.

surprise rain

 200th say sober. After Ken coming by last night and after doing some corrections on Ebay listings and stuff, it was past midnight and I was tired so I went to bed. 

When I got up, around 11AM, I had plenty of time to pack some more things, load up some gallon bags of brown rice to donate to the little free libraries, and go over to the bank. I mailed the packages off at the post office downtown too, and after the bank I went over to the used book store and got a couple Kurt Vonnegut books I've not read and "The Producers" on DVD. That's one of those movies that I keep hearing about but have never seen. 

Then I doubled back to Whole Foods for some shopping and there's a beggar working the area near the bike racks, a black guy with a red-painted ammo can with a lock on it (to give the impression he's working for some kind of a charity; this would fool only the most gullible) and making noise about "Last donation of the day, do you wanna do the last donation of the day..." etc. 

After my shopping was done I noticed the beggar was gone and I looked at the time - 4;30. So if I were busking, I could play the 4:30 - 6:30 time slot. 

But I'd gotten an earlier start today for a reason, and by the time I had picked up Amazon things and bubble mailers, stopped at Nijiya for tea and eggs and TAK market for some near-beer, it was dark and I felt some drops of rain as I got close to home. 

I hurried on home as, waiting for a light on Old Bayshore, I noticed another bicyclist behind me and was not sure if it was a zombie or not; it was hard to tell in the dark. Since normal people tend to have lights on and wear light-colored clothing, I had to assume it was a zombie so I put on some speed and took a nice twisty hard to follow route back into here and got the bike inside and locked the place up quickly. 

There's a lot more traffic now and no lack of zombies. In fact, when I was loading my groceries onto the bike at Whole Foods and I'd noticed the one beggar was gone, there was an only-slightly-affected-by-the-zombie-virus type just sort of hanging out on the sidewalk, and I wonder if it was Beggar #2 for the evening, because crack and rotgut are not things that buy themselves. 

This is something a lot of people may not realize about that Whole Foods there. It may look nice but there are all kinds of places homeless hang out scattered all around there. That's why they have to have good security around there. 

So I got back here safely and had olives and cheese and near-beer and such snacks, while watching it get wet outside.

Prana breathing

 199th day sober. I listed a bunch of Ebay stuff last night and have the trumpet all put back together, and have watched a few interviews with Bobby Shew by now. 

The guy's really interesting - claims he never took a trumpet lesson in his life, yet it appears he went to college but I can't find anything on what degree etc. If he took a degree in music he certainly slogged through a lot more of the classical "Arbanized" material than he lets on, but after college he went right into the military and playing in the NORAD band, so who knows, maybe his degree was in English or something, something easy, and he was done with it once he could audition into the band.  

It took me far too long to realized, getting an easy degree in something like Psychology would have served me better than trying to get an EE degree I had neither the mathematical background, the time, or the stamina to get, would have served me far better. Because once you have the degree, you can take a few courses in programming and hey presto you're a software engineer or an IT expert or any of a number of good-paying things, and you never have to pass thermodynamics or any of the hard-ass jobs they haze you with in engineering. 

In any case, Bobby knew he was going to play trumpet anyway so that was that. 

I've heard of "the wedge method" for a while but always avoided it because I thought it was some way of "wedging" your lips into the mouthpiece or some dumb thing like that, but it turns out it's a method of breathing that Bobby learned from Maynard Ferguson that originates from yoga. And all it means is training for really good abdominal support. 

I think the idea with most trumpet training is the student will learn it on their own, intuitively. And if they don't, well, they just don't have "talent". That's why Claude Gordon advocated all those exercises aimed at beating the concept into you. And why another trumpet book I had advised that the student wrap a sort of band around their middle, if needed, at first. 

I no longer feel so weird about being sour on teachers, thanks to Mr. Shew. He talks about the stuff teachers will have students drill and drill on, taking the fun and life out of music, and a lot of it not translating to actual playing of actual music. In Bobby's case, it was jazz. Those Claude Gordon exercises one teacher had me do, didn't really do any more than I'd have done on my own in the same time, and probably a bit less in the way of progress. And that particular teacher was big on teaching me to double-tongue and got a big kick out of it. "I've never taught any student over 30 how to double-tongue!" he said. I was through most of my 40s. It's nice to know, but so far I've not really used that skill. 

Another, earlier, teacher was/is also a Claude Gordon nut and one day treated me to a listen of a record his mom had given him when he was about 12, of Maynard Farguson doing his thing. It was awful, it sounded like slaughtering day down at the ol' pig farm. This teacher raved manically about how it convinced him that trumpet is his life, etc. This guy was also big on yelling. I'm not naming names and I like to see enthusiasm, but there's a reason I'm not going back to him even though I could afford it these days. And I'm sure not a fan of Maynard and that whistling teakettle stuff. 

With my back still screwed up, it hurts to do the "prana" breathing stuff but at least I know what to aim for. I think I happened across it on my own, years ago. But since I didn't have a clear concept of what I was trying to do, I lost it again. But now apparently it's 1000s of years of yoga to Maynard Ferguson to Bobby Shew to, well, me. And in a week or so my back will be fine and I'll be able to cough and sneeze properly again and can work on prana breathing with regard to playing the trumpet. 

The theory behind this, according to Shew, is that without this technique, one plays "up in their chest and head" and uses too much tension in the lips and too small an aperture, leading to embouchure problems. Depending on the player and the style, this can work OK - for instance Chet Baker made a career out of playing softly and not too high. But for the average player, Why make things hard on yourself? 

He also emphasizes concentrating on the music you want to play more than drills. That's starting to make a lot of sense to me these days. It's just too easy to get bored and frustrated. 

Last night I also ordered a gun cleaning kit that I think might be really good for trumpet cleaning. It has flexible "rods" that are plastic coated that standard gun cleaning brushes etc screw into. One thing that really bugs me is that trumpet cleaning tools seem to be universally of "toy" quality. So if you have a Monette that costs as much as a good used car, you're still stuck using the same cleaning tools middle-schoolers use.

A hero steps down.

 198th day sober. 

A hero has hung up her sword and shield ... https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/californias-speier-becomes-latest-house-democrat-to-retire/2021/11/16/86c136ac-46f5-11ec-beca-3cc7103bd814_story.html

She did her bit in the war against Christian extremism, taking rounds for it too. When will we wise up and award military medals for politicians who serve nobly in the war against the Christ-tards? 

And speaking of places overrun with Christ-tards, this thread popped up on r/hawaii:  https://www.reddit.com/r/Hawaii/comments/qurn5f/would_naming_my_son_koa_be_inappropriate_if_im/

The ... fetishizing is the only word I can think of, of Hawaii is really starting to disgust me. Why not fetishize any of a large number of Pacific islands, any of which have far cheaper living expenses, healthier waters, lower crime, etc.?  I don't even think there'd be much paperwork to move to American Samoa and as long as you can live according to "Fa'a Samoa" which means just don't be a wild crazy fool, you'll be more welcomed among the Samoans who are basically not jerks, than you'd ever be among "Hawaiians" of which there are very very few genuine examples and these days means anyone brown-skinned who just stepped off the plane in Honolulu and has a chip on their shoulder. 

When I was a kid we (as a state) produced our own eggs, our own milk, much of our own produce (it was "patriotic" to eat locally-grown cherry tomatoes instead of the big kind grown on the mainland) and there was at least an effort to carry our own weight, food-wise. Now everything's shipped in from the mainland even eggs and milk which really surprises me. Everything's gonna just be tourism, tourism, tourism. 

And with tourism comes gatekeeping. Because how's a tourist gonna feel they got their money's worth unless they've visited a "special" place where there are sacred woo-woo people living (and said tourists can't tell the difference between an actual Pacific Islander and your average Japanese/Chinese/Portuguese person serving them at Germaine's Luau). 

Hell Kahuku corn isn't even a thing any more. Grow a stand of sweet corn on the fertile, rain-kissed land of Kahuku and set up a stand by the side of the road, sell 'um. But that's no more. Now there are shrimp trucks, selling shrimp raised on farms in Thailand. There used to be aquaculture out that way but that's no more.

I was up a bit before 11:am which is good, did some exercises, not too much but a little, with the aim of strengthening my midsection. I'm thinking now, there's probably no coincidence that Miles Davis and Clark Terry trained in boxing. And singer Anita O'Day used to train with a medicine ball to help her sing better.

When your life is worth less than a used car.

 197th day sober. 

It's Landsberg Prison all over again. Hitler, for his act of insurrection was supposed to get the death penalty along with his co-creeps. As are a couple hundred of the January 6th insurrectionists. I'll state again: I'll happily volunteer for firing squad duty. But right now there is a test case, that of Kyle Shitt, er, Rittenhouse. 

It turns out he alleges that he and his Fascist buddies were requested to protect a used-car lot in the area where he shot people. This appears to be as OK with the judge in the case as it's perfectly OK that Shit, er, Rittenhouse was perfectly in the right to be under 18 years of age when he was going out gunning for 'lib'ruls'. 

So it goes into the law books: if you are not with the Fascists in the US now, your life is worth less than a used car, nay, is worth less than a damaged mirror or scratched paint on said used car. 

I started tottering from tiredness at about 11:30 last night and went to bed around 1, woke up at 8 and finished reading the Donald Duck book, then got up around 11. 

My back was really messed up, ironically due to having done exercises I thought would strengthen it and make it hurt less! So I packed 4 FedEx things (and had one small FedEx package left over from Friday) and took those up to FedEx at 6PM and was actually back here at about 7. 

There'd been a lot of cops and an ambulance at Grill-'Em and usually it's an ambulance or maybe that and a fire truck if someone just dies, but here were tons of cops and they were questioning some scumsucker-looking people so I figure it was a "routine" stabbing or some variety of killing. Lots of "bros" and macho types in general go there so it sounds about par for the course. 

I've been thinking a lot about my musical situation. Violin's not getting me away from physical problems because my right shoulder was acting up right away. I can't run away from problems by changing instruments. 

I think I'd gotten kind of burned out in busking because I was starting to play just the same old stuff day in and day out, and I think I was falling into the trap of feeling like I had to "hit it out of the park" and reach the back corner of the parking lot and I don't think that's the right approach at all. 

I'd told myself I was going to take some time off, and so I have. There's nothing wrong with taking some time off; it's been about 2 months busking and about 2 months off. But since the Yamaha "Shew horn" has long been my dream trumpet, I somehow have come upon some lectures by Bobby Shew and I think the breathing technique he espouses may help me a lot, if I work on it.

Early enough Sunday.

 196th day sober. As per my new idea of a weekly schedule, I didn't do any Ebay stuff yesterday or last night. And come to think of it, I don't have to do any packing today because I'll be up in plenty of time to do it tomorrow. 

I got tired around 11PM last night and went to bed, although it was kind of early, woke up around 6AM, went back to bed until about 8AM, read some "How To Read Donald Duck", an interesting book I'd wanted to get a copy of for a long time, then got up close to 11AM which sounds late but is still earlier than usual even recent-usual, for me. 

I've had this weird headache that comes on in the evening, and that's not fun. It does not make me feel like practicing a loud violin right under my ear, and makes me feel even less like blowing into brass plumbing. 

It seemed like it was hardly there today, though. I took off from here around 1, after leaving the place circling around to make sure I'd locked the place up and also, there had been a zombie passing through who had a bunch of junk on his bike and was carrying a bucket by holding the handle in his teeth because what the hell does a zombie care about keeping his teeth? I circled around and came out of the complex a different way and hanging out by the fence was that zombie and another zombie. So the zombie problem around here continues... 

I'd decided I was going to check out Pars Kosher Market which is 'way down Bascom avenue, almost halfway to Los Gatos and I rode all the way over there, with a couple of stops on the way for errands. I finally got there and ... it's kind of a sad show. It's very small and sparsely stocked. I looked around but didn't end up getting anything. 

On the way back though I checked out the "International Food Bazaar" and I actually got some things there. Then on the way back from there I checked out another Middle-Eastern market and got a cherry fizzy water and a fairly large tub of those dry, strong, black olives. 

I stopped at Whole Foods for some cheese to go with the olives, and rode for home. There was no more than the usual zombie-dodging to be done downtown, but as I was riding on Old Bayshore to here a female zombie yelled from across the street, "Hey! Got ciggrit??" then when I didn't respond (why in hell would I have a cigarette, only the scum of the earth smoke cigarettes these days....) I heard a stream of gibberish that I suppose with the zombie cussing me out for not having a cigarette on hand. 

Thinking about it now, Renee a female zombie/scumsucker/whatever the term, who lived in the parking lot here with her son and daughter (who she constantly fought with and of course all three are felons) once called to me as I rode in for a cigarette and when I came up to her (I used to always carry a 10c book of matches to give to these beggars) she said she'd actually thought I was someone else. I guess some fellow crumbum who, like all of them, smokes "cigs" all day when they're not huffing glue or stealing things. 

So with the zombie yelling away I quickly ducked into the entrance that's a bit narrower and twistier (I heard the yelling get louder and was worried the zombie was on a bike) and zipped through the hole in the fence in the middle of the complex and got the bike into the shop as quickly as I could and shut the door. But I didn't see anyone on a bike, just a different zombie on a motor scooter with a bike trailer behind, that comes through here somewhat regularly.  I was back in here about 5:30.

Must be a big project

 195th day sober.  After getting back here with the various groceries I'd bought and putting them away, I relaxed. I want to get Ken used to my taking Friday and Saturday nights off, and mentioned it to Ken when he was over. "You have to schedule time off" he said. 

The welding place must have a big project because they've been grinding and banging away all day into this evening, and have been taking things back and forth between them and one of the other shops on the other side, that does machine shop stuff I think.

You've got COVID? Oh, deer!

 194th day sober. I'd stayed up listing Ebay things, got that done, and was in bed again by 5AM. I actually woke up around 10AM so I can see my body is about ready to go back to living in "day mode" instead of the night-owl schedule I've been following for so long. 

Just a couple of days ago NPR published a thing about how Covid seems to have an animal reservoir in the US now - in white tail deer. This is an animal that's very over populated, is happy living around people (they're a problem in a lot of suburbs) and like any good reservoir animal, can harbor the virus without getting very sick themselves.

Well, it *was* a holiday...

 193rd day sober. Ken came by last night, dropped off stuff including some things to take apart. Since with the delays caused by Ebay being down, I'd had to list stuff after I got back from shipping stuff, I still had two things left to list when Ken left, so I did those also. 

I really felt like taking things apart so I ended up staying up all night taking the two things apart. I'm not sure if this was a good idea as I ended up really wanting to at least take a nap by 3PM so I did so, woke up at 6, decided I'd read in bed a bit and set up to do that and went right back to sleep, waking up at 11PM. 

Well, it *was* a holiday...

9-5

 192nd day sober. I found myself tottering last night again and again it was too late to list stuff so I didn't. So today I got up at 9, and had the idea of confining my work to the 9-5 time slot so I'd have the evening to myself. Of course Ebay had to fuck up and not work for most of that time, so while I got 20 things cleaned up and photo'd, I had to spend a ton of time trying and re-trying to get labels printed to ship stuff. 

I did get all the things labeled, though. I took off at 6 and was throwing things away at FedEx when a guy from the FedEx came up and I was thinking, "Well, there goes my ability to throw things away here" and he asked me my shoe size. I told him, and he said he had some shoes I could have but they're size 9, and actually, they're slippers.... I said What in the world would I need them for then? And I've got Crocs back at my shop and liked them so much I have a 2nd new pair too, they're great for working on a cement floor all day, and I got outta there. 

I guess the guy thought I was homeless because of course all homeless people have lights blinking away on their bike and haul perfectly neatly wrapped and labeled boxes around. I know I'm the only one in this city using a cargo trailer for actual cargo, but still it's dismaying that the simple fact that I use a bike trailer pegs me as homeless and apparently gets me associated with the whacked out zombies around here. 

The drop-offs went fine and I picked up some chicken as is becoming my habit on Wednesday nights. On the way back, I noticed Tom didn't have his homeless friend there so I stopped in to say Hi. No, he's not sold any wood in weeks, he's kind of "laid off" his homeless friend because he's spent a ton getting the place fixed up - which I could not tell, and besides now the place stinks. 

Tom and I talked for a bit and it turns out his homeless friend is an epic pothead, and I think Tom didn't want to say more. I said I kind of figured the guy'd moved in with him and pretty soon there'd be a little colony of homeless hangers-on, but I think that's one thing Tom wants to avoid. 

We talked about all kinds of things but eventually I had to say "This chicken keeps getting colder and colder, I'd better go" and rode back along Rogers, AKA Zombie Central these days. The bad thing is, there's a shitty old RV parked out on the curb by the ghost kitchen and as I passed by I noticed it smelled with the same smell I associate with the time a horse died in the pasture when I was a kid living in Pupukea. So I'm thinking someone died in there and I'm not gonna say a thing, I decided, because there are tons of people around there and let *them* tell the cops.

A nice overnight rain.

 191st day sober. I took two gadgets apart for parts last night, and by the time I had things all lined up to list on Ebay it was late and I was literally wondering if I was going to fall asleep in my chair so I went to bed. 

Taking the stuff apart was fun, though, and I put the scrap metal out just as the rain was starting so that was pretty convenient. A guy in a little red pickup truck came by eventually and scarfed the stuff up. It's funny watching this one guy pick up scrap on his bike, because he can usually barely carry it, but it's nice when someone who's an actual worker and not a crackhead zombie comes by with a vehicle and grabs the stuff. 

I'm just naturally biased against zombies, of course. Some zombie had left two shopping carts piled high with the kind of random junk zombies collect, right next to the trash enclosure. But yesterday I noticed they'd been moved, and were now at the far corner of the parking lot and back under the bushes was a zombie, heavily tattooed and wearing a soiled safety vest which strangely made the zombie blend in with the trees etc better, was staggering around. Eventually it took off with one of the carts and may be back for the other soon.

Getting packages out before the rain.

 190th day sober. Yesterday was fairly productive. I gave myself a much-needed haircut, scrubbed my legs (when you don't have access to a shower and bathing is a splashy affair involving a tub and lot of cardboard laid out on the floor, I've found it can work pretty well to scrub your upper half or lower half with a worn-in Scotch-Brite and Windex, wiping up with paper towels, and it works better than you'd think) and left here at 3 to check out this large strip mall that's past the Filipino market on Brokaw (which goes through about 3 name changes by then). 

That was ... interesting. I wanted something to eat, first, and checked out the Vietnamese sandwich place. They had no grab-and-go stuff like a Lee's generally does, and I ordered a sandwich. Then I noticed they had some sticky rice with sausage on top things and changed my mind and got one of those. I handed the lady a $20 and she gave me change for a $10.... 

After eating my sticky rice sitting on the curb, I walked past the homeless bedding materials spread out on the corner and the human shit smeared on the walkway there, and rode around looking at what's there. There was a combination Filipino market and food place that does either breakfast or party platters and has a few lame groceries. Maybe all their money's in breakfast... 

There was a Carl's there and I decided what the hell. There was a 2 for $6 deal with either the "Famous Star" or the "Western Bacon Cheeseburger". The guy told me I could get one of each and I did that. Sadly, the burgers were tasteless and touch, slathered with tons of sauce and on hard, stale, buns. Carl's used to be good, decades ago... 

There was not much else going on. The "anchor" store used to be a big supermarket but that was abandoned, and everything was run-down and the only people I saw around were, besides a few workers in the stores and a few customers for the Vietnamese place I'd gone and the Pho place, homeless bums staggering around. 

When I'd paid for my burgers I saw the $10 sitting in my wallet and remembered I'd handed the lady a $20. I'd been short-changed by $10. I went back over there and explained what had happened, and a big guy, probably the son of the lady who waited on me, ended up in the middle with her jabbering away in Vietnamese and myself jabbering away in English. I didn't get mad or anything and figured I had a pretty low chance of getting the $10 back, but they ought to know what happened. But I did indeed get the $10 back, and I think it was just a mix-up. Apparently the lady thought I'd ordered the sandwich too, in addition to the sticky rice, and I think they'd gone ahead and made the sandwich. Now I feel bad. If I'd been more patient I could have avoided those awful burgers... 

All done at the Miserable Mall(tm) I rode over to 99 Ranch for some shopping. Waiting in line, and the line was moving slowly, was a young gal with only two tubs of tofu in her hand. "It's a long wait just for tofu," I said, and that got us talking. She said I must like Asian food and I said I grew up in Hawaii so it's just regular old food to me. She said something about how people are very much in a hurry and competitive here and I said I know, this area just seems to be about work-work-work no friends. 

It was a nice little conversation. When I said "mainland" referring to here, she was confused at first because in English when you hear "mainland" it's always mainland China. This is the mainland, I explained, pointing down at the ground at my feet. It's really saying something, though, when someone who probably has Hong Kong or Taiwan roots, two go-go places, tell you this area is hectic and impersonal. 

I rode on home, and noticed it was getting dark although it was only 5. That's the time change. I remember the time Daylight Savings Time was tried in Hawaii. It was a disaster. People came to work an hour too early, an hour too late, no one knew quite what was going on, and it was sort of quietly decided we're on an island out in the middle of the ocean and we don't need to do that and we're not gonna do that again. At least until everyone who remembers that farce has moved on, then some bright politician will come up with a neat idea... 

At 99 Ranch I'd found some "spare rib stew" or something like that, for about $5 a lb. The beef I used to get at Nijiya is $15 a lb now. Prices have gone up. If I'm going to work out a long-term plan to convert and retire in Israel, I need to change over to a diet that doesn't lean so heavily on things like pork and shrimp. So I got this stuff, trimmed it out into meat with some fat for me and chunks of fat to put out for the birds, and got 3, 4-oz. servings for $6.50 or so, which isn't bad at all. It'd be an even better value if I could figure out a use for lots of beef fat. 

So that's 3 beef curries to look forward to, and I guess beef and dairy are back on the menu, but eating the Israeli way involves using lots of vegetables. 

I got Ebay things listed last night and also got my hour of practice in, feeling a little rusty because I'd skipped a few days, but it went OK. I can't think of any other way to get good than to practice dutifully, an hour a day, and gradually work up to more practice.

For a short while here I thought I was screwing up my right shoulder, a certain small band of muscle, by playing violin. But I realized it's been colder so I've been zipping my sleeping bag up much more when I get in and out of it, and that involves a very awkward motion using my right arm/shoulder. So I've been training myself to do it using the other hand or be more careful about it and the problem is going away. 

A very good article on where we are, and where we're going: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/05/the-brazilianization-of-the-world/

I like the term mentioned in it; "Belindia", the idea of a society with an affluent "Belgium" on top and a poor "India" below, which is what I see here. From Brokaw Road I can ride a bit North and see what I call Dilbertville, which is part of our Belgium - techies making good money (at least until they're 40) owning cars, having access to health care, making payments on their houses, the whole thing. Or I can turn South and see my share of homeless camps, and the glory of what I call "Hamsterdam" downtown and it just gets poorer South from there. 

That excellent article also talks about a white elite and a mixed working class, that no matter how hard they work will never become part of the elite because they're not "pure". As someone who's not "pure" myself, I have to admit this is almost certainly why my father's side of the family, fairly numerous in California, have not wanted to have anything to do with me. They'll all help each other get ahead but not the "impure". 

So what do you do if you're in the "India" side of society? The same thing that's worked for 1000s of years, of course. You'd better be good at a 1000s of years old skills like music, art, buying-and-selling or thieving of some sort, or be an outstanding athlete. High tech isn't anywhere in the picture. You have to be a member of the elite to have the access to the internet that allows actually doing YouTube videos, for instance. 

So, 1000s of years old skills it is.

A Sunday before noon.

 189th day sober. Here it is Sunday and I'm up before noon, amazing. I had Ebay things set up to list last night but didn't list them because before I knew it it was 11PM and I was tired. 

Something has happened, in that at least according to Craig's List, the gold standard of online ads, Tel Aviv has gotten really expensive. Like San Jose expensive. The whole idea of retiring was to leave here where it's so damned expensive to somewhere nicer but if prices have gone that far up, I dunno. I was telling Ken the other day about how when I was in Colorado Springs it was possible to find a room to rent for $200 or so all over town. You'd not get a place that cheap now - it's California expensive in some of the most cockamamie places these days. 

Hawaii remains cheaper than here with the added positive of my sheer on-the-ground knowledge from having grown up there. Rents are half what they are here, and food's at least 1/3 cheaper. Plus I know where everything is. 

With the virus, what someone called the "first-world coat of paint" has come off of the US and thus I know places like New Orleans, or Asheville SC or Austin, TX are out-out-out. I'm just barely out of the way of the violent inbred hicks as it is here in the Bay Area. And if I stay here, not only is it the most expensive option but ... I'll never have any friends because no one does here - friends get in the way of commerce. 

Amazingly, there's more Jewish stuff in Hawaii than there is here. They have a few Kosher markets where there's exactly one here and it's far away enough to ensure I'll never go to it, and if the disproportionate number of nice people I knew growing up who were Jewish are any guide, I could do no wrong converting even if all I do is retreat back to Hawaii.

While the internet's still up.

 188th day sober. I could not keep awake past 11PM last night so I went to bed, woke up a time or two during the night but was awake at 9AM and out of bed at 10AM. 

The internet is becoming painfully slow, and YouTube not unviewable, but it's becoming more so. The default setting used to be 480p but now a lot of things are 360p and some things are as low at 144p. Older, boring things like lectures are easiest to watch on it. 

Work then crash.

 187th day sober. I got some laundry done overnight but it was a really hard push. I was just not motivated but I really was out of clean clothes. I stayed up overnight and had packed a lot of things, and close to noon I decided to take the things to the post office and FedEx and also see what food trucks were around since I hadn't gotten anything from a food truck for a long time. 

So I headed out at almost noon, and got the things to the post office and FedEx all right, but wow was traffic ever hectic. It was, I felt, much more dangerous than doing my deliveries at 6PM on. 

On my way back I stopped at two food trucks, and $8 got me a freshly made taco with freshly fried tortilla chips, a taquito with the same fillings you usually find in an egg roll, and some chicken wings. I ate this stuff when I got back here and it was all pretty good. I did the final rinse and fabric softening stage of the load of laundry and hung it up upstairs with a fan blowing on it. I considered just staying up but decided I needed to get some sleep and went to bed around 3PM. 

I woke up close to 11PM. And I mean, I woke up, it was dark of course, and I felt really awake and ready to do things.  

Oh and last night Ken came by and dropped off some things to list, wrote out my pay check, etc. We ended up talking about a somewhat grim subject, that of what to do if something happens to him. I said I'd help his wife liquidate what's here of course, but then I'd want to jet back to Hawaii to keep from becoming stuck here. I ended up showing him on Craig's List how rents there are about 1/2 what they are here. Given the same amount of money on Social Security either here or there, naturally I'd be more secure there. 

Although I have been having some other thinking. Returning to Hawaii is not a slam-dunk. I could simply finagle a way to stay here - I've mentioned to Ken a place I know of where I can rent a small office for $350 a month and they're cool with people living in there. There are options like that. 

I'm watching Reddit threads like a hawk, and it does not look good for 2022 and 2024. The Orange Bloviating Bloated Balloon might actually run for President again in 2024, and this time around might be able to win or steal the election or stage a successful coup. The Republican machine seems to be learning - this has been pointed out on the radio and on Reddit - from its past mistakes and our democracy is not going to be saved the next time by a few Republicans with conscience this time around as they're being purged from the party, or other measures as Biden has not gone full-on FDR as we expected him to do, and as he should do. 

Moving to Hawaii is not going provide any defense from a Trumpist regime. Social Security and a lot of rights and programs for the poor are Federal programs. Hawaii is absolutely rotten with Christianity, the Religion Of Hate(tm). I saw on Reddit how there were convoys of Trumpists parading all through downtown and Waikiki and holding traffic up, just itching to beat the crap out of anyone normal who dared get too close. I'm not sure how this was different from Munich in 1922 other than the coconut trees.

Yes I have two sisters there but one is an absolute gonzo googly-eyed Jesus freak, who's be all onboard with burning infidels at the stake and the other is married to a Catholic and a full member of the Religion of Wealth (his wealth, naturally) which views the non-wealthy as the damned. So being in the same state as either of them is not going to do me any good. 

And what about my plan of busking in Waikiki and picking shells. Picking shells was hard work when I was a kid and would be harder now. I'd hate to depend on it for a living. Plus the locals (anyone brown-skinned who declares themselves such) are getting a lot more political and protective and may not appreciate seeing someone on the beach, always picking shells. Busking in Waikiki's a solid plan except that it's an area noted for hostile encounters so even that isn't a perfect plan. It might be OK, it might not. 

I mean, it's nice to have the option to busk or to pick shells, but I remember those old days living around the University which is the best place to live to be near things, but while it's only somewhat a pain to get to/from Waikiki to play some music, visiting any beach other than Waikiki (no shells) or Diamond Head is a major pain in the ass. 

Frankly, the Hawaii I grew up in is gone. It's no longer scruffy and scroungy and full of little mom and pop shops. There also used to be a sort of a social contract that said if you worked at all, you slept under a roof. This is no longer the case in any part of the US but it's especially bad in Hawaii and a guy I know who visits fairly regularly says the homeless issue has become much, much worse even since 2003 when I was there last. I've been assuming that if I move back I might have a period of homelessness just like I might have that happen here once I'm no longer working for Ken, but there might actually be worse. 

I'd joined the local Buddhist temple with the idea that they, being Japanese-American, are the ones in power back in Hawaii too, so I'd be best off integrating into that group but who am I fooling? Those with money, those are the ones who are in power. Not some humble Buddhists. And I feel like I'm butting in, anyway. Yes, Caucasians are accepted, sort of, but you have to have married in or one of those rare few who become serious scholars of Buddhism - neither's going to happen here. I'm not marrying anyone, and there's not a lot to study about Buddhism, it's all pretty cut and dried. 

And it doesn't matter even if I *did* become a scholar of Buddhism, it still doesn't mean I'm safe at a bus stop, or walking down the street. My older sister may have all that money, but back in 2003 I went around with her and the level of fear she lived with was surprising. She didn't know the people down the hall in the building she lived in at the time, and was terrified the time I took her to a restaurant in a semi-industrial part of town that had good mahi-mahi sandwiches. She never went to the North Shore, or just about anywhere except a very restricted circuit of places, and would not take public transit. She was always looking over her shoulder.  I'm not like that; I like to get out and circulate around. 

The last times I was at one of my beloved childhood beaches in Punalu'u, one time I was berated loudly, and followed, by a large white guy speaking what he probably thought was Pidgin and the beach was just about covered with people. The other time it was actually getting dark and I was picking shells and a Hawaiian(?) gal who came up and sat there and just about stared into my soul. I tried talking to her and ... nothing. Whether she was acting as a distraction/lookout while someone else snuck up and caved my head in with a rock I'll never know - I got out of there. 

Things are being rearranged, stopping drinking and getting a new brain. I can't even get enthused about watching the videos by PhotoLuke Hawaii and it's forever since I followed Andy Bumatai. I'm like, "Oh, OK, that's nice... meh". There are tons of places I spent a tone of time in growing up in Hawaii and I could go back there and they'd be interesting for about 15 minutes and then I'd just feel like I was back in those times growing up when I was on the beach for hours at Kualoa because there was nothing else to do but be at the beach for hours at Kualoa. 

So I've started watching Israel videos again, like those by Corey Gil-Shuster. I'm really surprised how much of the little Hebrew I learned has stayed with me. Now, with a new brain, it's striking me that it might be a fairly easy language to learn after all. And I'm not going anywhere if I can't hack the language. But for instance, there about 26 ton of ways to say "No" in English and in a standard conversation just about all 26 will be used. It's gotta drive English learners nuts. But in everyday Hebrew, good old "lo" seems to do all the duty. Lots of other words keep popping up; verbal handholds and footholds.

I'm sure there are plenty of other sarcastic/snarky ways to say "no" in Hebrew, but you don't need 'em to understand what's being said right off. That's another thing - mainland Americans barely get sarcasm or snark, forget about 'em in Hawaii. They're just no-nos in Asian/Pacific culture, and as the US becomes less literate and more Fascist, they can get you into real trouble. 

In fact, to give an idea of how touchy things can be in Hawaii, I once took a math class from Paul Halmos, yes *that* Paul Halmos. I have no idea why he was teaching a night class in "pre-calculus" or whatever it was, but there he was, and there I was. Well, one night he said something completely innocent, along the lines of how cute his kid's teacher, who happened to be of Japanese ancestry, was. This got him reported, and reprimanded, and the next class session he stood there and told the class what had happened and that it reminded him of when an authoritarian government takes over or something along that line (he was a Hungarian Jew) and my memory is unclear whether he declared he was leaving ASAP and had someone else take over the class, or whether he said he was staying just long enough to finish teaching the class and then he was outta there. I know from Wikipedia that his final living place was Los Gatos, and now that I think about it, I think there's a large Jewish temple there that's part of the "circuit" you attend as part of the conversion process in this area. 

In any case, the thing he'd said was small and innocent and well-meant, and when he told us about it I could tell he was scared. Scared the way no doubt many were scared when they were in Hungary in 1956 and the USSR tightens the screws. Halmos came to the US in 1929 so he'd have the example of how Germany went also - I'm sure that was chilling. Our dear Paul learned that in Hawaii, it's not so much what you say, it's who is allowed to say it and if you are the dreaded "haole" you are not allowed to say much at all. 

Ahh, conversion ... of course the virus has made everything 10X as hard now, but presumably we'll be doing things in person again in another year or two. It takes at least a couple of years because there are classes to go to, and observance of a full year of holidays/observances and a lot of these are in places like Los Gatos that are not that easy to get to. But now that I'm not drinking, I've got enough money to afford to go around to the things, and to afford membership fees to the temple etc.

I packed everything that needed to be shipped and got out of here at 1 in the afternoon, did my post office, FedEx, and one UPS drop off, and got my usual 2 thighs from "Krispy Krunchy Chicken" which at $6.50 is cheaper than any food truck these days. The traffic was a lot lighter once it was past everyone's lunch hour, although still heavier than it is at 6 in the evening. 

After eating my chicken I cleaned myself up a bit and left for downtown at a quarter to 4. I left again at 4, as I'd forgotten a bag of trash I wanted to get rid of and had to go back for. No matter, though, as I was at the bank in plenty of time. While I was just starting my business, a weird guy came in and just stood around, with no mask. The tellers told him he needs to have one, and he said he doesn't have one, etc., and the tall male teller told him to go outside and he'll talk with him out there. That solved it, although the teller who helped me was kind of miffed "I just don't 'get' people like that, we've been doing this (she meant wearing masks) for two years!" 

I went over to the Amazon place for bubble mailers and only got two but it's still something, and thought maybe I'd go over and check out the First Friday thing because downtown was really dead. Even San Pedro Square had zero musicians, zero beggars, zero anything but a smattering of yuppies starting on their yuppie evening with yuppie food and yuppie drinks. 

I rode as far as Philz Coffee, where I stopped to ask them if they'd seen "the violin player" recently and they said they haven't for a while. I saw they had some pastries, Koign Amann I think they're called, sitting in the display case and asked about them and that's what they were. So I got one and ordered a coffee too. The pastry was pretty much what I expected; a sort of calorie bomb of layers of butter and sugar, but the coffee was awful. It had a strong bitter note and had some kind of horrible hazelnut flavoring in it. Just pure "gack". 

One of the people in there, a young guy, said he's learning guitar so he can go out and play, and I mentioned being the last busker in San Jose and even I'm not out playing these days, and they're always going to associate me with "the violin player" (Gabriel) so I didn't dare say anything about the coffee, but wow I'm not getting that again. I wonder if they got their wires crossed and put in some kind of weird sugar-free hazelnut shot in there, although that still doesn't account for that strong bitter note so basically their coffee is just crap compared to the wonderful $5 chicory coffee in the orange can I get at the Vietnamese market. 

After that cup'o'gack I didn't feel like checking out the First Friday thing after all and went over to Nijiya for some shopping, then stopped by the juniper bushes to pick some berries, then stopped at TAK Market for some near-beer, then got back here. There were tons of police sirens as I was riding back along 10th, and I saw some of the police cars going north on the freeway and now that I'm back in here I saw on Reddit that there's been a shooting at the Great Mall in Milpitas which is not that far from here, because why not? It's Friday night; might as well shoot up the mall.

Zombies can be useful

 186th day sober. I listed Ebay things last night and got my practice in, although I didn't feel like it at first but then I got into it. It's amazing how much more natural it's feeling, and I did the open string stuff and the first page with the first fingered note and part of the next one. When I was playing trumpet I had to be stubborn and play each exercise at least 5X if not 10X, and this has carried over into violin, where it's no sweat for me to practice each exercise many times before moving to the next. 

I want to say that even at my level I know this violin is not as good as the rentals I played years ago. Nor is the bow anything to write home about. But I am going to be stubborn and keep on with them as long as  I can so it will be more of a treat when I get something good. This violin does stay in tune and I'm pretty happy with it because it does all I expected it to do. I can practice like crazy on it for at least a year before even thinking about anything else. 

As for busking, there's no way I'll be ready to play Xmas carols in December unless I feel like getting out there and flogging away on them with the trumpet. But that's OK since I'm saving half of each pay check ($175) each week and at the rate things are going, in a year or two will be able to get a new Luis & Clark carbon-fiber violin, the kind Tanya in New Orleans plays, if I like. When I was playing trumpet I told myself when I got to a certain level I'd get a really nice horn like a Bach Strad or a Yamaha "Shew Horn" so it's pretty much the same thing. 

On YouTube I've been seeing videos of these hucksters who will set up by a Wal-Mart etc. in the parking lot with a cheap electric violin and an amp and so on, and mimic playing, with a sign out saying stuff about their hungry children and so on, and apparently it fools a lot of people because most people are kind of dumb. But it also probably alienates a lot of people who see right through it. But this is why I don't like the idea of backing tracks and amps and so on. Not only are they a lot more equipment to go wrong, but it's easy for a lot of people to think, "Oh, it's just on tape he's not really playing". I think this hurts Gabriel The Violinist because he always plays with a pretty loud backing track. 

So I'm getting less and less interested in electric violins, because while they seem neat, playing one seems more and more like a direction I don't want to go in. 

Another interesting observation: I follow Reddit subreddits like r/collapse and r/preppers and there are always these lists of what to have when the apocalypse comes, and musical instruments are never, ever mentioned. There are always long lists of electronic geegaws that will just about immediately fail, but never good old acoustic instruments. Yet Selco, who survived the Yugoslavia breakup, mentioned in one of his posts a typical guitar geek, the skinny type with long hair and so on, doing just fine because there was no music without him. The local warlord killed much more "useful" people than him on a whim, but he was kept safe. This of course was in the 90s and not the 1790s, so there was modern tech somewhere on the Earth but it might as well have been the 1790s and someone who could play music where there was no electricity, no radios, etc. was treasured. 

I slept late enough that I missed the window to take things to the post office etc. and that's if I had them packed, which I didn't. I slept until about 5:30. Once it was a bit later, I wanted to go outside to put a box I'd left in front of the trash enclosure inside it, as no one had picked it up, but quickly went back inside as there was a zombie staggering around out there. I looked again and the zombie was gone and so was the box! The zombie was now rummaging through the HVAC's place for metal and had apparently taken the box - so I didn't have to worry about it now. 

Day of the dead

 185th day sober. Today is the 2nd day of "Day Of The Dead" where people remember dead parents, etc. This is at cross-purposes with Western culture where it's considered weird to even think about your parents once they've passed. You're really not supposed to give a shit about anyone. 

I was up all night packing things, after Ken had come by dropping off a bunch of boxes and packing material. The main  worry was a large test instrument I didn't have a box big enough for, which is why Ken came by with the stuff. I packed a bunch of things and the big thing last, then relaxed a bit and read a bit more in my "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" book, a book I used to be able to read in an evening or two but now, made so much stupider by computers, is taking me weeks. 

I didn't practice but I did 100+ "bowing motions" which I think are helpful. I did this the other night when I didn't practice also. 

Ken cane by at about 4:30 and we loaded the large box into the back of his truck, and I said I have four smaller ones too that he can take and he took those also. 

I got myself somewhat awake, and was glad I had the postal service stuff all packed, because after coffee etc. it was time to take off. The delivery was no problem, except wow, traffic's 'way up. I guess it's getting back to pre-pandemic levels? Maybe I'd forgotten how bad it used to be. And, there are more zombies around again. In fact, I may have to go back to avoiding Rogers Avenue as there were zombies all over the place and it seems one even yelled something unintelligible at me and threw something metal at me which fell short - although sound really carries over asphalt and it could have been just as easily been yelling at another zombie, or just gibbering on its own and throwing things at random. The crackhead nests are back in their full glory across from the lunch truck place too. So yeah, a good road to avoid if it's dark when the zombies come out. 

And, getting back here, there are two shopping carts stacked high with the kind of random shit zombies collect and cart around, parked next to the trash enclosure, and the junked truck is still there, except after 2 days and nights of tinkering and banging on it, the zombie associated with it has apparently removed all four wheels to sell for crack, and now the thing's sitting on blocks. 

So I just came back here, unloaded the set of 4 boxes that were for 18-inch wheels (this size is large enough to pack a standard rackmount test instrument in) and foam and stuff I'd picked up, lock the place up, block the mail slot so no zombies can peek in through it, etc. I am IN for the night. 

I've been watching a lot of talks on YouTube by Max Blumenthal. He's a Jewish guy who's a reporter, who has taken it upon himself to try to tell the world that life in Israel is not all hearts and flowers. The picture he paints of Israel is something like how the US was in the "frontier" days. Of course these days it's not considered a very flattering picture, as we're all good and sorry about all those awful things we did to our "Indians". 

But what if our "Indians" weren't a tiny, defeated, part of our population that's largely kept out of sight and out of mind on reservations? What if, say, 1/3 of the US population were our Native American  "Indians", with a good number of them angry about how things have turned out and feeling no obligation to adhere to any code of ethics other than their own? Areas in Europe with large numbers of "Gypsies" would probably like a word. 

It's a hard thing to wrestle with, and it's easy to sit here in the West Coast of the US, on Ohlone land, the Ohlones conveniently almost extinct, and point fingers. The brutality of the Arabs, if not closely policed, in Israel is no secret so no need to go into it here, and I fully believe if Native Americans were still 1/3 of the population here, similar draconian policing would be necessary. 

So in Israel you see the same sort of things the US had in full effect in its frontier period. Kids are taught who wants to kill them, because those groups really do want to kill them. There are roadblocks and checkpoints and I remember that when they put up this big wall, bombings and attacks went 'way down. Israeli soldiers are still occasionally captured and they never return alive - imagine if soldiers or police were occasionally captured and tortured to death here, it'd be all over the papers and there'd be a huge outrage. 

I think Mr. Blumenthal wants everyone to join hands and sing kum-ba-ya and all that, which isn't going to happen. But he's doing a service because his lectures and books point out that if you're going to visit Israel or move there, you'd better be on board with the frontier mentality for your own safety if nothing else. 

Nothing like a good practice.

 184th day sober. I got in a good practice before bed, and I hadn't even felt like practicing but reminded myself that if I'm going to put in at least an hour a day for a year, I really need to practice every day. 

For some reason the bow is starting to feel more natural in my hand, and while I still have trouble going from string to string and not getting "some" of the adjacent string, that's getting better, and I don't recall any bow bouncing, and "Bobby Shafto", the trickiest piece so far, is starting to sound like an actual piece of music. 

I went on to the next page, where I start fingering a note, the E on the D string. I'd had to check it against someone on YouTube playing the first exercise the last time I practiced, but this time it's easy - the D and E are the first notes of "Sakura" and also the first two notes of the regular major scale. No problem playing it and getting that "hummmmmmm" when it's dead-on with the guy playing. 

Overnight, as I had trouble getting to sleep for some reason, I pondered how I'm kind of like a hermit crab that's "between shells" right now in that I've decided I'm sick of trumpet, but I'm not anywhere near being able to busk with the violin. So it's no wonder I've been depressed, which is the only way I can explain my sleep being so messed up and my not getting as many things done as I should. 

The thing is, if I'm not doing something, then my life is kind of meaningless. It was a terrible feeling, way back when, when my reason for living was apparently so the Blue Cross Animal Hospital, just down from Ala Moana Center, would have clean cages and floors. The college boondoggle gave me some purpose for a while, where I'd work and slog through my day but somehow it was all OK because I was taking a night class in math or, a bit later, taking classes during the day. 

Imagine my surprise when I moved to the mainland and found that taking classes was effectively not possible. All the "solid" classes were in the daytime, when I had to work. Plus the costs, the distances involved made things more difficult too. The one regular class I *was* able to take was that classical guitar class and did I ever screw up by not making full use of that. 

There were three different levels, a semester each. And you could take each level twice, if you felt you needed to, so it was possible to take a lot of classical guitar for a reasonable cost. The guitars used were small and friendly, nothing like the too-large steel stringed Silvertone beast  my mom bought me when I was about 10. I could barely get my arms around that beastie. No, these guitars were the opposite of that, and at least I did learn that in classical guitar, everything is set up to make it as easy for the player as possible, and the music is built up out of basic building blocks. 

That guitar class would have been great if I'd stayed with it, as classical guitar is the fundamental of all guitar playing and it's a useful skill. Even around here, there are classical guitar guys who get paid by restaurants to play out front and then inside, I guess, once enough people are inside. And it's got to be a lot more pleasant to do than blowing into a trumpet. 

So because all the other stuff I do each day now, is so I can get that day's practice session in, I guess I should make sure each practice is as good as I can do.

I finally did get to sleep, woke up at 2:30, and decided that instead of dashing up to FedEx and all that, I'll stay in and put things away which are starting to pile up in the office, and concentrate on getting things packed to take tomorrow.