Practice before bed last night (early this morning) went relatively well. The night before I could not seem to get as good tone, and it was either that I was not practicing daily like I need to, or tiredness, or something with my position.
Monday was just sitting through the rain, yesterday was just avoiding (successfully) some rain, and today's .... not rainy. Dark and cloudy but not rainy. The rain's nice; gives things a much-needed rinse.
I honestly can't decide, do I leave for home right when I'm turning 64, or do I put up with another year here and leave when I'm turning 65, and thus will be able to start Medicare when I arrive home, and not have to worry about not being insured.
I'm also trying to get prepared to leave on short notice in case things go sideways. The real "oh, shit" plan is to grab my things and go to a hotel and spend a week or two selling off stuff and buying a plane ticket and all that, then leaving. I by no means have my stuff in grab'n'go mode yet but that's what I need to aim for.
Interestingly, the reason I have a fancy Monty Levinson fine-tuned Shakuhachi Yuu is that I thought I had a place to land in Honolulu a couple of years ago, which of course fell through because my friends back in Hawaii are useless. I wanted to have a "good" shakuhachi to take with me. Joke's on me as I can't tell how it's any better than the factory-stock one I also have.
I'm really open to trading one of them or both for a decent bamboo one, and there's a guy up in the city who seems to have a whole stable of shakuhachi, and I'm really considering going up there to see him and doing a cash/trade. The reason I'm holding this off is I have to have the skills to test what I'm getting, at least blow some 2nd and 3rd octave notes and have an idea of whether what I'm testing is a flute I want to keep for years or indefinitely.
That's an advantage of Hawaii; with the large Japanese population there are a lot of shakuhachi just floating around there.
The advantage of staying here until I'm turning 65 is, one more year of practice and experience playing and busking.
Right now I'm not up to busking, and am not inclined to pick up the trumpet and busk with that (I'd sooner busk with the flute even if I sound like shit if I really needed money). I am saving almost all of my pay checks and selling stuff to live on day to day.
No comments:
Post a Comment