Up this morning a good twenty minutes before the alarm was due to go off, so I assume the body, at least at that hour, was thinking it had gotten enough sleep. We'll see. To breakfast and back, no change there, the gas prices up another six cents over yesterday, a nickle away from the four dollar mark. This, as mentioned, is not the highest priced gas station in the neighborhood, so I suspect there are others out there that have gone to and over the full four dollar mark. In the middle of February. OK, noted. Not sure, though, why it should affect my morning one way or another.

I'm reasonably prepared for the guitar lesson at ten. We'll see. The proof is in the performance, but I'm able to get through the two assigned pieces in some semblance of facility. At least I was able to go through them yesterday. Had I been more diligent I'd have gotten them down by the weekend, but you can go on beating yourself up over these things forever. Success here would be a move from “why didn't I do more?” to “I've gotten along as far as I've gotten along, so be it”. From fretting to less fretting.

You do a lot of real fretting as opposed to just writing about it?

I think about it. Not all the time, but I watch myself doing it with some interest. Not surprise, I went through this in grade school and high school, and some of that I suspect has carried over. I'm the one who's taking the lessons and I'm the one who needs to be satisfied.

The idea is to play the guitar with some semblance of interest and not to live through a morality play where the music is replaced by whether I've practiced enough or not. Just as long as it doesn't become an 800 pound guitar packing gorilla in the room, this “did I practice enough?” Keep it around more like a (maybe less than) nice pussy cat that makes the occasional meow now and again.

Later. Not a bad lesson, but there were holes I could have filled with more practice (and brains). Memory, brains, they all flow together into the same river, I guess, heading for the falls. Go with the flow. But we're feeling good for all that, the sun out now full blast that it's approaching noon, the laundry in the wash, the desk chair indeed on its way for delivery later today. Hup. And all that crap.

We'll see. I feel like sushi for lunch, but won't, if only to be here when the chair arrives. It will arrive after five this afternoon unless I decide to go out for a walk, in which case it will arrive when I've turned the corner and moved just out of sight and earshot. I think it's written into their contract: the company's, the union's, the music of the sphere's. Who knows, other than it's a given?

Feel good - hup, hop! - so we'll leave it at that. Now to get rid of the broken chairs, three of them for the moment, all taking up needed space. I can do that, but won't. Diddle-dee-don't.

Later still. Laundry done and folded, shirts on hangers, socks in their bin. And no FedEx. Which doesn't surprise me. I'd walk over to the morning restaurant otherwise, but we'll stay here instead. FedEx has often not arrived until after six, so we're stuck. Why not just let them bring it again tomorrow if they're not able to deliver it today? If the apartment manager isn't in to accept it? Why would a day's delay make any difference? I have no idea, but once started on this track I'm evidently unwilling to get off.

Feel good, though. A fair amount of time on the guitar, enough so the inside and tip of the ring finger stings. Probably more a sign of lack of a proper amount of practice in the past, the fact it can still be kicked out of shape with a bit of playing, but it's always seemed to react this way, no matter how much time I've been playing. Still, again, a good energetic me on a good energetic day, we'll play it as it lays.

Later still. Good. It arrived before three. Some assembly required, but nothing too terrible, and now I'm sitting in a real chair. That won't break for another number of years. I say with hope and confidence.

So maybe we celebrate with sushi and sake this evening. After some more guitar. Quite a day, I'd say; quite a bit has been accomplished. One or two things crossed off the list. Hup. But a walk now, I think. I've been inside too long.

Evening. A very short walk, but a nice walk on a nice late afternoon, down the hill then for sushi and sake to finish the evening with a buzz. An odd sort of a six o'clock (Swedish, this time) not a police procedural playing along with the guitar, a peek at Charlie Rose and his establishment talking guests and then to bed. Before nine. That's right: before nine. Written here, just in case I forget.