Practice, practice.

 288th day sober. I woke up around 2:30, and after coffee etc. had time to pack about 7 things and took those to the post office. 

I was going to go to H Mart but opted to go to Lowe's instead. Mainly because they're my one source for gallon bottles of Windex. I got one of those and some paper towels. Since it was a cold and blustery night and presumably the zombies would be taking it easy tonight after drinking and drugging the night away after the big football game yesterday. And indeed I only had to avoid a couple of zombies, a fat one wandering around by the railroad tracks and a skinny one on the road leading to Lowe's so that's really minor for this area. 

I also stopped by Tom's and the lights were all on but I could not get his attention - maybe he'd been drinking himself blotto after the football game too. It looks like he's been working on the place but it doesn't look any less messy, in fact more. Maybe he'll end up being like the "crazy neighbor" a few instances of which are on YouTube, the kind who's always "improving" their place yet it looks progressively worse. 

I'd practiced last night and gone through all the exercises on that page in the Koga book, and that's the kind of thing I need to do daily. I can also do the exercises an octave up, not perfectly but I *can* do it. As I keep reminding myself, if I put the same work into the shakuhachi as I have into the trumpet, I should really get somewhere.