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.
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