365th day sober. I've made it a year. It's a good feeling. Maybe someone people can have a glass of wine with dinner (the old trope of it being healthy has been disproved, it turns out French people live so much longer because they have national health care and can see the damn doctor when they need to) but I am not one of those people.
The "scientific" technique works for me. Not AA, which is based on emotion. What works for me is learning, and reminding myself of, the damage alcohol does to the body and there's plenty of information on that! I read r/cripplingalcoholism on Reddit all the time, and just things like seeing Tom being so forgetful and crawling into the bottle by 6PM and how horrible and smelly his place is, which would not bother a committed alcoholic. The other day I saw a chicken bone on the floor at his place and joked that he needs to have some pork and beef bones "to balance it out" and he kicked it with his foot and said "I figure the broom will get it" - like he ever uses a broom.
That life is not for me! Sober life is so much better, and I know how to live it better than my sober teens and 20s too, because I know more about eating enough, and the right things. You've got to get plenty of meat and veggies to have energy, while in my early 20s I often would eat a bag of potato chips and call it a meal.
Last night I listed 20 things on Ebay, then got a good hour in doing the octave exercise and just long tones, on the flute headjoint.
Before the virus, before all this craziness started, I was riding through San Pedro Square and heard a flutist. The guy was playing not by the Old Spaghetti Factory but over by the big, airy enclosed area that sometimes would have bands inside it, and generally had people in there, eating and milling around, because there are lots of little restaurants inside that building. The guy was good and I mean really good. He was able to get shakuhachi-like nuances in his playing and I was very impressed.
I don't know if he was making any money, and I believe I'd gone by again when I saw a cop hassling him. If he'd played by the "Old Spag" he'd maybe not have made much, but everyone knows buskers play there so he'd have remained un-hassled. If he'd played by Whole Foods he'd have made a mint, I think, because he was really good.
By that time, even, buskers were become rare and I wish I'd hung around and waited for the cop to be done with him, then gone over and talked to him, maybe bought him a meal and told him about Whole Foods. I'd really like to have learned how one gets to play that well, and to have shown him it's possible to busk in this town just not right where he'd tried it.
I woke up at around 5 in the afternoon, as I'd told myself I'm having a day in and can sleep all I want. After coffee and nuts I took some time and went back to bed and read the first 6 chapters in James Galway's 1978 autobiography. I've got his later one too. This one's great though, lots of descriptions of his, what today would be called "feral", childhood "let's go burn some tyres" etc. childhood. In both his and mine not completely feral, because we'd both be in super hot water if we were rumored to have said a cuss word, for instance.
His father was on him all the time to practice the flute, and this is where the magic happened. He describes playing his flute on his way to school, at lunch, and on his walk home. And by this time he was playing in flute bands that marched for miles and miles. I'm just to the part where he gets his first really serious teacher, who has him do exercises on the headjoint only for a month. It seems he was using a "hard" embouchure with the lips rolled in, and she wanted him to "use the soft part" as I believe he put it.
After this reading which it seems I have to force myself to do these days, I fixed up dinner (some marinated herring in a jar I had around here with cheese, sour cream, and cucumber slices) and put the things I'd listed last night away, and packed a load of things to take with me on my way to the bank. Then I rounded up 10 things to list (I've got a pretty good idea of 20 to list tomorrow).
It was really nice having a day in while it stayed rainy outside. During a break in the rain I "rescued" a lot of little foam envelopes from the welding place that are really good for packing small things. I don't know why but I don't think they like my digging in their trash can, and had 'em under a big black trash bag full of stuff. I actually pulled that out and had their can tipped over to get at the things I wanted, then picked everything up and neatened the whole area up. That's how fanatic I can get about good packing materials. I wish I had a use for all the little lengths of welding rod they leave, but so far I don't.
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