These Are The Type of People...

...who might stop in front of me, positioning the stroller so that the little tyke could see someone playing a guitar and a harmonica, while trying to draw the kid's wandering eyes in the right direction. And, then might drop a couple bucks in the basket. Darn! I wish I was out there right now, so I could take advantage of that!

I woke up at almost 6 in the evening; feeling depressed in a way that had me flashing back in my mind to things that I wished that I hadn't done.

But, then I thought about the fact that it was only the other people involved in those situations, ones that I could imagine recalling the same event and thinking: "What a jerk he was," that was bothering me.

Then I realized that those people, if they are even still alive, most likely saw the event from an entirely different, and maybe opposite angle...

I thought about an Eddie Van Halen interview I had watched on Youtube and how much work and devotion one would have to put into reaching his technical level on the instrument, spending all day, every day approaching music from every angle -he said that he didn't listen to any other music because he didn't have time; he was too busy practicing to sit down and listen to an album.

Somehow that depressed me. I figure that relates to the feeling that I had that I am so far behind Eddie that I would have to go back to being 7 years old and spend my whole summer vacation wailing away on a guitar from when I woke up at 7 in the morning, until my mom told me to shut it down because she and my dad were about to try to go to sleep, because it was after 10 p.m. and dad had to get up for work.

Then, if I was Eddie, I would drift off to sleep imagining different ways to string my guitar, or whatever and be already messing around with that when mom interrupted me to say that breakfast was ready.

I guess I figured that Eddie had already done "all of that," and what point would it serve for me get in my practicing that morning...

It took about 25 minutes to change the sinking feeling with one of gratitude and joy. I think the 3 things I came up with before getting out of bed were that I had alkaline water and plenty of juice and would start a juice fast. I had been a glutton the day before; unable to resist the sugary cereal that is everywhere around Sacred Heart. Someone had placed a bag of food outside my door, out of which I should have just taken the can of green beans out of, then slid it down to in front of someone else's door...

But, I wound up adding peanut butter to the cereal, then stirring coconut milk into it, sprinkling some cocoa powder on top along with some honey and then repeating the processes until the empty cereal box was in my trash can...

If it's not crack or alcohol, it's cereal...seems like battling addictions is one of the main story lines of my life.

But, I was thankful for the water and juice, first, and the second thing was that I had gotten a text from my childhood friend David Veautour, who said that he is moving from Massachusetts, where we grew up together, to Florida; next week.

He mentioned being then close enough to visit me during Jazzfest. Number 2.

The third thing, I don't recall, but as soon as I had placed myself in a happy and grateful state, I checked my phone to see that the Lidgley's had emailed me, mentioning that a Christmas parcel was already on the way. Then I went to my mailbox to discover that the Venmo debit card was in it.

I activated the card, and now prepared to go to Winn Dixie where I we be able to get Harold some food that he likes, perhaps buy toilet paper, but probably just stuff my pockets full of the free kind in the restroom...

And, well, it is already almost 9 in the evening and it is 46 degrees outside, just 3 degrees above the busking limit I have set for myself.

The de-cluttering continues. I've been going through all my recordings of myself and paring them down to the best parts, and have been working with knobs and levels and editing software to make music out of stuff that has already been recorded, maybe 11 years ago...

This is what I always thought I would do if I were in an accident and lost both arms. I would learn how to run the laptop using a pencil in my mouth and would continue to create "techno" music using the raw ingredients of tracks that can be sped up slowed down, layered on top of each other, etc. and the sung over. I would have to take the pencil out of my mouth, but that would be my method of making music if I lost both arms. I would be happy and grateful for that, I suppose.