I wanted to take tonight off. It is Monday; I kind of want to listen to the broadcast of the basketball playoff game between the Golden State Warriors and the Oklahoma City Thunder, or maybe it is the other game.
Since my laptop went down, I have relied upon my little AM/FM radio which doesn't get AM to supply me with news, sports, weather and a lot of opinions.
The Gift Of A Night Off
Poor souls have to do a 3 hour previews of upcoming basketball games of import; and they do have the effect of making one curious about at least the outcome of the games; if not just to find out which guy on the radio was the most stupid.
I had determined this morning, though, that the 9 to 16 dollars that I have averaged the past few Mondays was worth going out for in order to speed up the acquisition of a new laptop.
It (the saving for a new laptop) is also a major league test of my ability to delay gratification.
At some point, I'll have enough money to grab a used one off of Craig's List. I will be thinking like: "Wow, I could be messing around with my 'new' laptop tonight!"
Health
I ran "a quarter of a mile" of the way from the corner of ? street to the blue awning which overhangs the sidewalk at a distance of 455 paces by myself trying to imitate a referee stepping off a penalty.
That would have me running an extra 15 yards, if my pacing is accurate. which is OK with me. If I ever participate in the running of a quarter mile which has been officially measured, I should be pleasantly surprised at whatever time I post.
I ran the thing in 2:00.67.
That was 23/100ths of a second faster than the previous day. But 12 seconds slower than my "record" time, set almost a month ago.
Could it be my peanut butter heavy diet?
Could it be the way that I give my lungs a break because I know that I smoked the entire previous day and that if I really "push it" (by pretending that a bear is chasing me) then I will be gasping for breath and so uncomfortable that I keep walking after I finish running, as if trying to walk off the discomfort; taking as large of breaths that I can, then realizing that I will ultimately recover faster if I just stand there and relax as much as possible and take deep, deep breaths in between gasping out: something like: "F***ing cigarettes!!!" or "Man, I gotta quit those things."
Could it be related to the tendonitis type of thing which has effected the muscles around my hips?
The tendonitis type thing occurred during the Jazzfest, after a couple of nights when I played for at least 4 hours.
Through putting in these long sessions, I learned that sitting "Indian" style is probably not the best attitude for me to have, especially when playing the harmonica, when playing for a long time.
I believe that, when I was playing the harmonica, I was leaning into the thing in such a way as to utilize the muscles which are actually the thigh muscles, but are the thigh muscles at their very ends where they attach to the pelvis...I forget where that is exactly, even though I was a medic in the National Guard.
I Become A Crate Sitter
I developed a soreness; right in the area where a trousers pocket has its crease; which seems to be abating, now that I am using a milk crate to sit on when I busk. It doesn't seem to have effected the quality of tourist attention that I have been getting. I'm glad that sitting Indian style wasn't the vital element linking my music to my image and that I didn't discover the axiom: "When you're doing that kind of experimental stuff, you need to right on the ground; literally; or the music just won't come off right..."
If anything, I have been getting more unwanted interactions with skeezers, who may be having Pavlovian responses to the milk crate, perhaps realizing after all that, instead of being a mystery to them, I have become just another one of them guys who sit on milk crates and try to make money; many of whom they have successfully skeezed and for which ilk they even have a skeezing protocol: "First you sit down next to the dude, just to kinda' feel him out, ya heard me?"
So, I felt a raindrop as I returned from shopping with a gallon of water a whole tilapia, some mandarinas, some garlic, tomatoes and a small bud of the "loud" weed, and the NBA playoff basketball game coming on the radio at 8 PM our time.
I really would like to think that I can recover from taking a night off to listen to the game, read some American History (I'm up to 1905 and it is amazing how they show pictures of the cities back then, and if you replaced the horses and buggies with cars they could be the New England city I grew up in) feed and brush out the fir of Harold the cat, and get 8 good hours of sleep.
I once postulated that, since I never know when that $85 Tuesday night is going to come along, I should go out every night so that I would be guaranteed to catch it.
I then shot that theory down by noting that the $85 Tuesdays occurred at times when I just happened to be brimming over with joy and creativity and was going to play and have fun somewhere and so decided to just do it there.
Am I Petty?
The $11 Tuesdays occurred on nights when I drug myself out there, not really ready to do the songs again so soon, and not happy with doing completely different songs half-assed.
Nevertheless, If I were to go out and play tonight, instead of reading the newspaper over coffee and working out with my bamboo stalk with milk jugs full of water stuck on the ends, set of weights etc. I could pretty much count on between 10 and 20 bucks; just from putting in the 2 and a half hours...
I am going to tell myself that I can totally recover from missing a Monday night by showing up full of energy whenever the next time I do is.
It is a test of delayed gratification that I am thinking of setting up a "20%" jar to save for the laptop at a rate which would net me a new laptop in about 6 weeks. But, during those 6 weeks, I wouldn't be going totally "without" in order to save as fast as possible. I would have the other 80% of my income to live off of, bearably. I could buy the 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzle for $16 at Wal-Mart and that might occupy me for the entire 6 weeks.
Plus, the "6" weeks wouldn't even be that, were I to start the 20% jar off using some of the $80 that I still will have left after a reckless night of basketball and baked fish....
I
You could get a little folding stool or even one of those 3-legged camping stools, which would lift you out of skeezerdom because everyone knows skeezers abscond with milk crates for every purpose from sitting on, to using as a bike basket to I dunno, crib for their 11th born, who knows. But the fact that you could actually scrape together $12 or so for a folding stool or 3-legged camp stool would show you to be a cut above the common skeezer, a "real pro" and besides ... those milk crates give you waffle-butt.
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