Acting my wage

 Last night I futzed around with Ebay things and packed 7 things that are small and have to go to the post office. I also practiced for at least an hour. 

It'd be nice to think I could get simple shortcomings in my playing gone in a practice session or two, but that's not how it works. It's not like using Windows and doing something some ass-backwards way and then someone telling you, "You can do it this way" and they show you a better way and you use that from then on. Nope! You have to build yourself into a player of an instrument, or someone with a decent 5K time, or a speaker of a foreign language, over much time and effort. 

I used to understand this deeply, at the gut level. It was the very beginning of the 90s, so the internet was not really a think the average person had any interaction with. I got into a sport and I *knew* it would take serious time and effort so that's what I did - I put in serious time and effort. 

Back then I think it was easier because there was no internet as a distraction. And at that time it was possible to slack off in life to an amazing degree. My place was a smallish mobile home in a park where I was in one of the back corners and had a tiny lawn and a big patio and a parking spot and a side-yard full of lush grass that was so because the toilet flushed out there. This cost me $500 a month and I think the only bills were for electricity and phone. My motorcycle was all paid for and super cheap to run. 

If there had been something like Ebay back then I'd have jumped right on it, or any kind of work I could have gotten that was self-employment, but any sort of work was really hard to get and that was a real blessing because that kept me from being distracted from getting good at the sport. 

This is why I really have to wonder about some of these homeless people who have a lot less free time than housed people seem to think they have, but still have quite a bit more free time than the average housed person does. Why not pick up art or music or shoe-making or any of a number of things that result in being not just housed again but ending up in a better position than the average "housie"? 

I think, though, that the kind of person who'd use the free time that comes with homelessness to better themselves, don't end up homeless in the first place or if they do, they're out of it again in no time. 

I woke up a bit after 3, and was out the door at about 3;45. I went to Nijiya first and got a can of coffee and a daifuku and cash back because I wanted to make sure, if I had to pay for my flu shot, I had the cash on me to do so. I ate it and drank some of the coffee out front, then rode down to Walmart. 

Monday's a good day to visit Wally World it seems, as it wasn't very hectic, there were a ton of carts out front which means relatively few shoppers, and the pharmacy in back wasn't busy at all. I had to show the pharmacist my ID and health insurance card and give her the last 4 of my Social Security card so she could look me up (maybe they share information with CVS?) and fill out some papers, and then she said, "Just a few minutes while I prepare the vaccination". 

I know how this works from the animal hospital. The vaccine likely comes freeze-dried in a little vial, which is then hydrated and mixed up. The shot was interesting because she rubbed my arm with alcohol and then put this thick around bandage on the spot and *then* injected me. Only after I'd been back home for a few hours did I take the bandage off and it's interesting, a little round foam thing with a circle cut out in the middle, like a corn pad, and thin plastic over the hole. I guess if I bled much, the thing would keep the blood contained and also keep the pharmacist from having to deal with it. Pretty neat. 

I wasn't charged anything for the flu shot, and went to check on the fabric softener situation. There are many types of the sheets that go in the dryer but I don't use a dryer. I've read that softeners are bad for washing machines, but I don't use one of those either. So I just got a 6-pack of Diet 7-Up and that was that. 

There's a saying I've seen on Reddit, where it's said half-jokingly, "act your wage" well, with as much as I'm going to Walmart and have become "their" patient at the pharmacy, I guess I am certainly acting my wage... 

I rode over to Lee's and got 6 large day-old croissants for $3.50, found a few interesting books in the little free libraries, and stopped by Nijiya for more things. One of these workers, I still don't know anyone's name so I'll call him Chubby, had said he needs to get his flu shot and covid booster too so I told him how easily it had gone and how they hadn't even charged me anything. 

I got back here at 7, when it had become dark. It had been sunny today but like yesterday, most of the time the sun was shining through ice clouds so it was not very warm.