308th day sober. It rained overnight and between various things I ended up staying up all night which is no biggie except. .. I just got an email from someone on Craig's List saying they want to look at the trumpet and cornets "today" but since the email shows as 2 days ago, which means it takes emails 2 days to get from the sender to the receiver on Craig's List (no wonder it's dead) I sent them an email saying to please call me and let me know what "today" is for them, and sure I'd much rather sell the horns to someone who will use them than just put them in a music store on consignment.
But, if they're coming by today at the stated time of 4-5 in the afternoon, then I don't feel comfortable getting some sleep because then they'll come by and have to see my bedding here in the office and that will be weird.
And I kind of was thinking of taking the instruments up to the music store to put on consignment except with the Ebay listing taking so long I was thinking the day would be devoted to sleep, but now that I may or may not have Craig's List flakes wanting to come by and have to stay up...
So I decided to hell with 'em and I'd get some sleep. I had my bed all laid out when the phone rang. It was the Craig's List people. I said they could come right over if they like and they said give 'em a half hour or so. And they showed up!
It was a mom, maybe around my age or a bit younger not sure, short like I am, as are all people who didn't get much to eat growing up. And her daughter (or grand-daughter? But she said daughter...) who was something like 6 feet tall due to calories being generally much more available in recent decades and those good school lunches where you always drink milk.
I had my bedding put away and the trumpet and cornet and mouthpieces set out like it's a showroom and even my Rubank book and the two Getchell-Hovey books. The gal tried the cornet and the trumpet and liked them a lot better than what she's been using, and I told the mom How about $400 for everything. That was OK all around so she gave me two $100's and 10 $20's and that was that.
They got everything; everything trumpety around here is gone. All the mouthpieces, everything. On parting I told them she (the daughter) ought to consider the military bands, that everyone's trying to get into Juilliard or Curtis or Berklee, but the military bands are the real win because the employment will be steady and you make tons of money in the military (true). The daughter seemed inspired by this. Maybe she'll go into college as a music major with ROTC funding and go into a military band and I'll be the one who told her to go that way.
The thing is, if I decide to play trumpet again, I'll get a Yamaha Bobby Shew model because to me that's the ultimate trumpet and I'll just get a cheap $25 Blessing mouthpiece again because to me those are the best.
After they were gone I got my bedding set up again and watched some YouTube while blowing the flute headjoint alone. There's an exercise James Galway talks about where you blow a note and the octave on the headjoint. I could get the main note and one that's crazy high that I'm sure isn't the octave but I did a fair amount of blowing. I went to bed around noon.
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