there was once when i wanted to learn to play the acoustic guitar. i was telling everyone this for about eleven months before i whined to the wrong person. my friend wend, a regular bass player, happened to have an old guitar lying around the house so he SENT it to me. it arrived in a well packed cardboard box the size of a human coffin.
immediately i searched for learning materials. i borrowed all the instructional video tapes from every library within a 98 mile radius. i even hit up one of my then colleagues for books and techniques. i was making some decent effort.
one night while learning to tune my very own guitar, i broke the finest string. i forget the name of the string now. it really scared me. the booiing sound it made reverberated in my head well into my sleep. so the next day i left work early so i could have my guitar re-stringed.
it turned out i had over tightened the string because: 1. the guitar was not well made, or so i was told, so it couldn't be tuned properly; and 2. i hadn't developed an ear for tuning yet. and that's why i tuned and tuned until i broke the string. the shop guy seemed pretty genuine but, now that i think about it, he might have said that so he could sell me a digital tuner. i bought everything he said.
i left the guitar shop feeling pretty good. my guitar was in tune and i spent all evening immitating the instructor on the video playing "michael row the boat ashore." try as i might, my fingers wouldn't press the strings where i wanted them to. my right hand felt detached from my control. my fingers bent and twisted weirdly like individual aliens.
night after night after night. my husband was getting pretty sick of hearing the instructor sing the same songs again and again. especially the kumbaya hallelujah song, it drove him nuts. but i kept at it. nightly. religiously.
some two weeks would go by before i celebrated the day when i finally gained control of my index finger. i could press it on any string i wanted. i was overjoyed. my attempt at a musical future looked positive. i chatted with wend all day about it the next day. he patted my ego, letting me believe that, in a matter of days, my fingers would produce beautiful legal chords. i believed!
that very evening, i went home and, in my unharnessed eager, i picked up the guitar, turned on the video, and did what i had blissfully avoided doing: i began tuning.
BOOIINNNG
i broke the finest string again! i was horrified. the very moment it snapped, i shot up from a crossed leg sitting position, and dropped the guitar from my lap.
this past weekend i saw the guitar case in the corner of the garage. i paused for a moment to look at it and sighed, "well, it may only have five strings, but it sure is safe and warm in that case."
i'm bragging this web site to everyone i can get a hold of on instant messaging. i don't know if anyone looks at it because i'm not getting much feedback. i'm so obsessed with it right now i can't concentrate on my day job. is there such a thing as a html anonymous? i need to sign up for it.
i forced one friend to look at my web site this morning. he commented that i need more content, preferrably more "pix" and a "simple about page, but beware of not revealing personal information so much that it may result in identity theft." sounds like an advocate for an anti-about page to me. i've been avoiding the about page business; it seems rather vain. as for pictures, i don't own a digital camera. i could show really old ones i scanned years ago. i'd rather not reminisce forever. this is a major glitch to my web site.
i have a cat page except it's not about cats. i'm trying to get my webmaster to create me a knitting page. i prefer it to an about page.
something funny happened yesterday. i asked rick if he remembered a line from a song called california by luna. it goes something like: if you don't stop quoting poems i will show you the door. to this rick said,
"stop quoting rodney king in your postcards or else i'll have to show you to the door."
those were his exact words! boy, i just about fell out of my chair laughing.
it's rod mckuen. and the accurate wording is:
"he asked her please stop quoting rod mckuen in your post cards
can't understand it anymore
and if you're gonna read your poetry aloud to me
i'll have to show you to the door"
but for rick's effort, i must admit that what rodney king said is equally lyrical:
rain never lasts as long as forecasted in santa barbara. the precipitation has been disappointing but i can forgive the weather because it has been beautiful all weekend. i spent all morning hanging around the creek and taking pictures.
the last of the magnolias this season
a magnolia close up
extreme close up
while i was eating my breakfast doughnut, i stood real still and snooped on the ducks. i caught a pair mating. a colorful boy sidled up to a plain looking girl and jerked his head in quick bobs right before he hopped on top of her. it looked like he bit her in the face and her entire body sunk in the water. they both quivered for a moment and she shot out from under him, quacking loudly and swimming away. fowl sex!
some hours later, i took these:
mallards in the creek
mallards close up
jg spent the morning looking for model making supplies. he needed xacto blades but, sb being what it is, they cost almost three times more at the local store than they do on line.
he painted instead. here is his latest masterpiece in the studio, also fondly known as the garage.
