Displacement theory

 If this bozo's sax is OK in Waikiki, my trumpet might be ....

 I got 10 things listed last night, although I was falling asleep in my chair, and had the trumpet out ready to practice but sleep won. But, maybe getting the nifty new gig bag which means I can go out busking this weekend, is enough for one day. 

I woke up around 9, maybe 9:30. Neat! I checked my blood pressure and it's still high at least according to the meter I have. Once it's the new year, I'm going to pay my dues at the Yu-Ai-Kai Center because they have things like blood pressure screenings. They've kept me on their email list, and they have a lot of neat things. Like they show movies, have cheap meals especially cheap for 65+ people, and have a very inexpensive series of Japanese classes held at the Akiyama Center. 

Plus kicking in my $60 for 2024 is a benefit to the local neighborhood and that's always good. 

I have come up with my Trumpet Displacement Theory which is merely that, if I spent an hour or more a day doing things that are "supposed" to be good, like exercises out of the Rubank book, this does a number of things, all of them bad. First, if I have the time and energy to play or practice for an hour a day, now I've spend that hour doing dull exercises. Secondly, I'm beginning to think the exercises have a stiffening effect on the chops and body in general. Flute taught me that. Lastly, it means that I'm not learning songs. Lastly, I'm not having fun. That's the worst of all. 

Instead I'm thinking the best way to go is to play songs and bits of songs and explore in that way, and play exercises only afterward as needed if they're a real help. I notice that classical/pro musicians tend to instead play snippets of actual pieces a lot. 

I realized I had plenty of time to list things, so I photo'd and listed the 10 things I had ready. It was a nice feeling, having that done.

Then I to work packing things, and was going along when I realized that walking to FedEx would take at least 2X as long as riding the bike, and thus I was already too late. But, if I get up early tomorrow, I can go pick up the bike and be back here in plenty of time to take the packages to FedEx with the trailer. Or I could just get Ken to take them for me. 

Ken came by, an hour earlier than usual. I got my check and we hung out and talked. He said he'd take the FedEx packages, so that's one less worry.