Friday. I should have remembered my neurologist runs late. Really late. Up without an alarm around eight, to and back from breakfast and the papers by ten, off to my eleven-thirty at ten-thirty thinking an hour would be cutting it close if I were to run into traffic, arriving ten minutes before my appointment to discover he was running a hour and a half late. OK. He was running an hour and a half late the last time I showed up for an appointment and one of the other patients waiting commented at the time he was always late, part of his charm.

Well, what the hell, an hour's drive down, a walk then across the way to the hospital to find their snack bar and sit for a while over a cup of coffee, a walk then back to the office to sit. And sit. Back home now before three. I'll call ahead before I head out for the next appointment in April. Unless I forget. I don't think I'll forget. Can't bitch about it if I forget.

Later. I did receive a Roxio LP to MP3 package in the mail. A program to transfer the output of a turntable or a tape machine, converting it to MP3 format as it writes it to the computer hard disk or to an attached CD burner. All the various cables and such needed to connect the various components are included. It says. We'll see.

You really want to convert all those lp's you've got to MP3? Really?

They caught me with an email promotion at a weak moment. It didn't cost very much, less than some of the other solutions I've seen. And no, I really don't want to convert more than one or two lp's to MP3 format so I can play them on, what? My iPod? I could do that, I guess. A computer? Burn them to CD so I can play them in the car? Give them to friends? We'll see. Next week. Next month.

Later still. Wadda ya know? I loaded the software, hooked up the cables and converted John Lennon (and Yoko Ono's) Mind Games lp to MP3's. The first side, anyway. And it seems to work. A test, really. There's some editing software included that I should futz around with a bit and the first cut on the album has a little “blip” when I jacked the recording volume up (this was a test, remember) for a few seconds, but otherwise they sound pretty good. So (hup! hup!). A sign of increasing energy and enthusiasm or a way to avoid guitar practice? Or both? The mind can only hold so much.