Need to take steps

 Today was a stay-in day. I have about $32 to last me until next payday, but there's not much of anything I need to buy. 

I practiced "some" last night, including working out some of "Rainbow Connection". At the last shakuhachi club meeting, Rinban played it just to goof off and I knew what song it was because someone else mentioned what it was. The thing is, he's got tons more time in playing the shakuhachi, but in actual playing, I know from busking, you have to "put it across"; really get it through the the listening public what actual song you're playing. 

This is a real issue in busking. Red The Flute Player could play "Amazing Grace" and it would be unrecognizable. I could tell it was something, and it sounded kind of wistful or sad, but had no idea what it was until I asked him and he said it was Amazing Grace. 

The violin player in Santa Cruz, if he didn't have the printed music in front of him, would somehow lose all sense of counting or rhythm. He'd muck up Shubert's Ave Maria, a simple tune that owes as much to the comforting, swinging rhythm of it, like the rocking of a cradle, as to its beautiful melody. 

I even told the new guy at the shakuhachi meeting that even if he can't sound some notes or gets them wrong, as long as he keeps the rhythm he can get away with it. 

Ah, well the doom proceeds apace. Now much of Northern California is on fire it seems (the Bay Area here is actually central California) and on Reddit there were maps showing pretty much all the inhabited areas of the Hawaiian Islands are fire-prone. The windward sides of the islands are the small exception. Fires used to not really be a thing in Hawaii. The closest thing was the intentional burning of the sugar cane fields which is a normal part of harvesting. Those were spectacular and nothing else ever caught fire. 

I just looked up another old friend or acquaintance anyway, who never left Hawaii from the time I knew him and is far less of a fuckup than the two friends I've been corresponding with. Of course this 3rd friend has no discernible email address even though he has a company with a few employees. But he does have a physical address, two of them in fact, one for his house and one for his business. So I'll have to write to him. Considering his business, he might even want to hire me. 

But not having an email address or web page is to be expected. Hawaii's much more modern than the mainland, having things like "Direct Deposit" where your pay check goes right into your bank, but there are areas in which they're behind. Mostly in areas that don't matter, as depending on the internet for a living is really stupid. He deals with government a lot and big companies, and they all have telephones and fax machines and what more could you need? 

I need to take steps, every day, to further my goal of getting my papers in order and getting back to Hawaii and to, once there, not end up homeless *too* quickly. I expect some rough times (not as rough as they'll be if I stay here) but want to minimize them if I can.