Deep Dark Depression.

The first check of this year went to GCSoCal, LLC, for $200.

Total Snowfall: 16.5 inches.

Talked to SteveJ today, we set up an appointment for Sunday, since my trip to WHQ has been cancelled.

Also booked my flight using my frequent flier miles. The best I could do was arriving on the 10th (the course starts 2/11). No biggie, a night in the hotel won't hurt me any.

Depression is better. Dr. Sermas always insisted I wasn't bipolar, but all of the meds he gave me were for bipolar disorder. Makes ya wonder.

Three restless practice sessions today. I am leaving at 8am for Casa Jolemore. Forecast weather is freezing rain. May be an interesting drive. Mark cleared the driveway of snow so that I could leave in the morning. Is it worth driving four hours for a guitar lesson? YES! I just have to remember all of the stuff I'm supposed to bring.

You know, these are weird days when a small plane flying into the side of a skyscraper doesn't stay on the news for more than a half hour.

Another great day with SteveJ. What an amazing musician. I think I could probably spend a week straight with him just playing guitar and learning about music. He also makes a damn fine psychiatrist. (read: he's been a great friend to me as well)

I brought him some tea and pictures of him and SteveB, also Balthasar and Bridge, which were viewed with delight. Ahhh but now it is 1am and I have to work in the morning. I wish I could just spend a Crafty week with Crafty people. OH yeah. February :)

I thought after posting this maybe I should write what we worked on. We worked on my left hand position. We lowered my guitar quite a bit. We relaxed my wrist. We worked on my right hand. And then we worked on playing one string very well. Lots of rhythm work. Some work on First Primary. More wrist relaxation. Holding the pick. Playing one string, perfectly. Finally a little five note pattern that sounds a lot like Eye of the Needle. Then a little bit of playing the one string at 100.

I am rather worried about a friend of mine. I really don't think he's in trouble, but I feel like there should be something I can do for him. For the life of me, I don't know what it is.

Another friend may become a co-worker after submitting a very promising resume. We'll see! Fingers crossed.

Investigating the possibility of moving the Pathways e-group over here to medtek.org. I want to use this site for others, not just for my own vanity. This would be a start.

There is some sort of police action at my company's headquarters. Neil, our president, orders a band of employees (sorry, associates) to kill a bunch of people who are visible on balconies. A slaughter takes place. Cut to a board meeting, where it is revealed that the intruders were from a competing company who was getting 2% more of the market share. I am horrified. I say so. Neil doesn't understand why I am upset. Neil thinks he's perfectly within his right to send this competitor a message. Turns out, he baited these guys to HQ with some juicy inside information and then had them killed. It's murder. And it turns out, these guys are from the company that in real life, our company just acquired.

Interpretations to dream@medtek.org please.

13:19

Out with the little dog for lunch. The kids in the neighborhood prolonged the snow fun by shoveling snow onto the street. I live at the bottom of a hill. It's a long slide down. What was really bad was coming home from SteveJ's at 1am. I just put it in first and tried not to apply the brakes. Got home, but not without a little slipping and sliding. Even though it's 40 out now, there's still a lot of slick ice in the street.

I have received a lot of kind words from people about my diary and the problems I have been having. I am still taking the anticonvulsant and it is helping me a lot. I am not taking an antidepressant of any kind. Perhaps I should (the anticonvulsant would serve to magnify its effects) but for now I am doing ok just with the Trileptal. Suprisingly enough, long conversations with SteveJ have really helped. He seems to have a good handle on what is going on inside my head, and what I can do about it.

RIP, Dave Thomas. Square burgers. Great concept.

Tonight I'm going to go to see about singing with a local choir, a Sweet Adelines group based in Raleigh. I wonder what they will make of my now bright orange hair and Hard Rock obsession? I'm not your typical Sweet Adeline. Oh who cares. This voice needs a workout and barring going to church, this is about the best I'm going to get. It will be interesting what part they assign me. Traditionally, I have been an alto or contralto. All through school, I had a pretty deep voice. Now, I'm not sure where I fit in. I seem to be in the mezzo soprano range. I thought your voice was supposed to get lower as you got older! Mine's much higher!

Looks like at least five Blockheads will be attending the GC course in Santa Barbara. (for those of you playing along at home, a Blockhead is a CGT enthusiast) How wonderful that the CGT has meant this much to so many. I hope that they are very proud of their work.

00:00

Well I have been assigned the baritone part in the chorus, which is sung an octave above what's written on the Bass clef. Interesting. Like being thrown into NST, I now have to get used to reading the lyrics ABOVE my notes. I'll be fine. Good to see that my sight-singing chops are still somewhat intact after a very long hiatus.

I made a point to Shim today that I am waiting for something. What? Maybe to die. What am I waiting for? I need to stop waiting and start doing things, because obviously whatever I am waiting for isn't coming.

I am getting really excited about Level 1. Strangely enough, I am not really nervous. I know whatever happens, will happen. My challenge is to be present when it happens.

23:21

I find it extremely positive that even when I was darkly depressed, I still managed to send off a check for this Guitar Craft course. If nothing else, I know how vital this thing is to me.

And now for your worrisome tidbit of the evening (From Reuters):

"I don't think we have a choice. I think it's imperative that we have a more direct association'' between the Defense Department and NASA, O'Keefe told reporters at a breakfast on the sixth day of his tenure at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration."

Talked to SteveJ. He does not want to have another lesson on the 20th. He needs to rehearse for upcoming Chesapeake Guitar Quartet gigs. He also does not want to "contaminate" me before the Level 1 course. Actually I just wanted to hear some more interesting music. Practice is going quite well after we worked on my wrists. Actually it is the same problem that Curt pointed out at the NST course but I forgot the memory of how it should feel in my right wrist. Now that I have that back I have better tools to be aware of it.

My right wrist is hurting. It doesn't hurt when I am playing, it's when I bend my hand back or forward that it hurts. I will take SteveJ's advice and wear a wrist brace to bed. I have had problems with my wrists before, mostly related to the computer. I already use a natural keyboard because of prior injuries. Despite my wrist problem, I was still able to work my right wrist for a short period at 100 (short bursts, one string). I hate my metro-gnome less now that SteveJ showed me some neat stuff about it. I think that my homemade picks are causing me problems, though.

An acquaintance of mine recently said to me "As I get older, I find I..." My initial response to this was "Well, we can certainly take care of that." Instead of verbalizing this, I just nodded politely. If you are this person, and recognise yourself as having said this to me, and wish for me to take care of that, then email or call me and tell me so. Otherwise, we can continue status quo. I am a fairly dense individual and painfully shy as you probably know.

Carolina Harmony wishes for me to sing with them Saturday. I have to learn this one song. It is very complex and they sing it very fast. My kind of challenge. I shall do my best. I have been picking it out on the piano but as mentioned before, I have trouble reading the bass clef.

I find that more and more I am placing myself in uncomfortable situations like this very deliberately. The most striking evidence of this is Guitar Craft. There is a high probability of not being the best. I have to interact with people I don't know and open myself up to them. This is also true, to a lesser degree, of Carolina Harmony. I am reasonably sure of my singing skills, but still, there are people here I don't know. What's more, in both cases, I feel I have something to add. Also high on this list is my merch work. I cannot do math in my head. It is a big fear of mine. Yet here I am throwing myself in front of people and forcing myself to do this math in a hurry, in their presence.

What does this say about the person I am becoming? Deserves more observation. But I think I like it.

No further work on the song for the choir, it is a big question mark whether I will be able to drag out of bed in time to have me there by 8am tomorrow. We'll see.

Good guitar practice today. Left hand calisthenics. The Trileptal has the unfortunate side effect of making any muscle exertion feel like I've run a mile, sort of lactic acid build up. Also my legs are swelling. So bye bye, Trileptal, hello tinnitus and depression. I can't use my left hand for more than about a minute without it feeling like it's going to fry right off of me. Bad stuff. Bad news. But I am determined so with the days longer and Guitar Craft coming up and with Steve and Shim and Dave to talk to, maybe I'll be ok?

Two good practices today. I am having difficulty getting through One of a Thousand Regrets without mistakes. I don't know why. I want to ask Curt but those guys seem busy enough. I suspect I will find the answer somewhere between my left wrist and my right wrist. The problem seems to be in the picking pattern, I can't do it consistently. What would Curt or Steve say? Practice more? Steve would say simplify it. It doesn't get much simpler than it is already. I am convinced that this piece is a Guitar Craft par 3 golf course. Simple enough for beginners to play, but complex enough to challenge experienced guitarists to play correctly and melodically. I love it. I did work on my right hand a bit and devised several small exercises based on first primary designed to increase my left hand stamina. What I show up in Santa Barbara with, I will have. Hopefully there I will find the improvements. My aim and challenge for the course will be to be present (and not zone out) for everything. A tall order, indeed.

I am working hard on building stamina by doing essentially first primary on two strings over and over and over for at least 5 minutes at a time. I realize this is small potatoes to experienced players but I need to get this motion down. I am moving it down the neck where it is extraordinarily difficult and painful for me to play. I need to stretch these ligaments so that I can play without pain. This is where Asturias lives and without these skills, that beautiful piece of music will never come to my hands. At the moment, four frets from fret 3 or 4 down toward the headstock is still a very painful stretch. I feel like I should be much further along, but I remember what I have been through in the past year. It is a miracle I am playing at all. Without the encouragement of my friends and teachers I would have given up. But everyone tried to help and they did. I think that there is some residual nerve damage but slowly I am building those muscles and remapping the nerves. My first primary exercise runs through different orderings of the fingers as prescribed by SteveJ. My right wrist doesn't hurt any more. I have been taking Vioxx for that and it has helped. Also the brace has helped, I think. I am looking forward to working with all of the guys again, especially Curt and Tony who have worked with me from the very beginning.

I have been putting a strong steroid cream on my neck nearly every night for almost a month now. I so want to get rid of this ugly scar. It hurts. The other one is not noticeable, but this one is. Not that I am so concerned about my appearance, but it is intimidating to people who see it and wonder what has happened to me. And it hurts and itches. I think I am going to have to have it injected if I want to get rid of it. OUCH. If people are intimidated by these "scratches" on my neck, oh man they should see my belly.

This is me taking responsibility for my problems and not expecting Guitar Craft to be the total solution to them. So there.

Pam awakened me at 4:15 after she heard what she described as a terrible crash which woke up the dog. In my stupor, I was not too concerned. Later, I discovered that the plastic encased string of lights I had wrapped around the 8 foot fountain in the living room had collapsed upon themselves. Much relief.

No practice today, what with the doctor and afterwards drinking some wine I don't feel as if it would do me any good. So a day off today.

So there.

And I didn't call Sermas, although I did try to find a practice space for TGC. No luck.

23:45

Attended choir practice, probably my last. I just don't have the time to consistently devote to this fine group. Maybe when I'm home for a while, but I'm going out of town next week and I'm not coming back for a long time (2/18).

Today the Triangle Guitar Circle met. We worked on all kinds of stuff. Slow First Primary. Scales. One of a Thousand Regrets. The picking pattern for Hope. And then we decided that we needed original repertoire. So we started improvising. There is potential there. There is click. And there is friendship. All very cool.

And I made very loud noises.

Oh yes and I finished Saint Vincent's data conversion, a big task. Smoothest I've ever had. What a fine group they have.

Pauly, 15 January, having not seen Ian's diary(confirmed via email): "Prelude, Hammer and Rude could be the scariest music that the CGT has ever played…scary in a variety ways. It is very scary to try and play it and it sounds even scarier! The measures are constantly changing time signature: 6/8, 7/8, 9/8, 12/8, 13/8, etc. On Stan's recommendation, we've decided to break everything down to groupings of 3's and 2's and figure it out from there. "

Gotta love it.

21:31
More non-electric practice, and then a little electric demo for Pam.

I am worried about a couple of friends of mine. Now a lot of people might take this to mean that I am occupying my time fretting about one situation or another and that isn't really true. What it means is that I am concerned, that they are in my thoughts, and I would like to help but know I can't. So I am worried. I guess I could just send them my love but that might be taken wrong too. So, I am worried.

My Erie client blindsided me with a crisis today. I didn't think it was a real issue. In the end, I updated their code which mollified everyone. Now there is another issue which will also need code.

The project executive keeps trying to tweak me about my vacation. I am not falling for it. "What are we going to do if we can't transition these people in time?" me: "Well I guess someone else is going to have to take care of them because I'm going to be in California." End of discussion.

Man I need Frank.

Colorado Dave sent me a transcription of the first part of the infamous "Airport Exercise" but it could not hold my attention today. But it's a good one and worthwhile so it will have to be worked.

A late night phone call from a special fella made me smile all day. I wish he'd call every night.

Worked on the Airport Exercise, started 28 bars. First primary. Long practice this evening, then heavy drinking (just some good wine). I think I have been talked into attending a square dance tomorrow. That's scary. Maybe I'll just stay home and make lots of very loud guitar racket.

Today Pam is having her first open house. I hope it goes well. Potential Difference on the stereo for Mark to peruse while he organizes the office. I love this album. Busy day.

In some ways I feel like someone who has never tasted chocolate before and now finds that chocolate is readily available anywhere. So many of the people I know grew up with music like this (well maybe not Potential Difference) and love it but the shine is perhaps not as bright for them. For me this is essentially a brave new world, at age 40. The first time in my life when I can purchase whatever I want and listen to it whenever I want. Kirk showed me the opening to this door in the early 90's and it's grown since then. Amazing.

23:00
Fell down the stairs. Just missed a step and took a tumble. Sore foot, sore wrists, tried to protect my arms. I think I'm ok. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Nice 3 hour practice. 28 Bars, a bit smoother, a little bit on the picking pattern for the airport exercise, prolonged one string at 70 type activity with a little bit of pattern picking mixed in at that speed. Definite improvement. I wish I had the focus to practice like this all the time. What am I saying? This is in my control.

I am looking forward to the day when the Triangle Guitar Circle can all meet together. Right now we meet at Dave's place of work on his lunch hour, and James is not available then. Soon, soon, I hope when Dave moves we can meet on the weekends or in the evenings or something. Hopefully James will continue this work with us and find value in it. Besides, we can use a bass player.

Tim is going to pick me up in Santa Barbara and then there will be a Blockhead brigade going to the ranch. So that will be cool.

Oh yeah I also have to pack. Shit.

Here is my schedule for the next few weeks:
1/23 - 2/8: Erie, PA
2/10 - 2/18: Santa Barbara, CA
2/21?: Possibly Baltimore
2/24: Norfolk for guitar lesson?

Again, restless practice. Must pack. Packing is overruling everything. Perhaps I will pack my guitar kit and then put my metronome and pick in the case with the guitar. That's the ticket! That way I can practice a little more tonight. My case is warped. I may buy a new one in Erie. I am afraid it will hurt my guitar.

I wish I had lost more weight. I've lost a bit, but I'm still fat. My body image is a big thing to me. I do not like feeling this way and I don't like being this way. I feel self conscious around thin people. I feel unattractive and in turn, this makes me more shy. Over the next two weeks, I will try to lose 10 lbs.

I am also out of the habit of sitting. I keep telling myself that I need to do it but I really do need to do this. It is amazing, the little vocabulary that exists in Guitar Craft. Sitting. I'm in my right foot. Tasks (and the weight and importance of them). Find your left hand. Have a relationship with your hands. All very meaningful things to me, but if I told a client that I was having trouble being in my right foot, they'd politely shoo me out the door. And I really need to get back into my right foot.

Men can go on an extended business trip and pack one pair of shoes and two suits, a couple of shirts, some undies and some socks. I wish I could get away with wearing the same thing every other day.

My check has been sent for the rest of the course. I think I am committed now. Or maybe I should be.

My client is pretty much ready to turn on their system. A few little things here and there, screaming doctors, the usual stuff. Monday night is the night, whoo hoo!

I came straight from the airport to the hospital, and not wanting to leave the guitar in the cold cold car outside, I took it to the project room. The client seemed happy. Tried to tune it up, A string goes SNAP. Oh well, I needed to restring anyway.

Ok, I have died and gone to heaven. I am staying at a Residence Inn in Erie, PA. I have a studio suite, which includes a little kitchen, a fireplace, a vcr, and a jacuzzi tub. The bed is a fancy canopy deal. There are nice straight backed chairs for guitar practice. This will be my home for the next 2.5 weeks.

This place has a nice gym and I went and worked out on the treadmill for 45 minutes. This is highly unusal for me, hater of all things athletic. I did 3x3 (3mph at 3degrees incline) for 15 minutes during the Daily Show, then I did 2.5x0 while Beat the Geeks was on, revving back up to 3x3 during every commercial. I also ate very little (sensibly) today which was good. Free food in the evenings, free breakfast, what more can I ask? Then I came back and played guitar (after restringing). I may bring the guitar to the go-live to keep the troops calm.

Posting may be a bit sporadic as my network access is difficult to predict.

Anxiously awaiting a late night phone call from a friend that I really want to talk to.

I have discovered that when I am playing, and I mess up with my left hand, my right wrist tenses up just a bit, which lifts the pick off the strings and then I miss the strings. This causes a train wreck. Now that I am aware of this problem, I can work on it. Also my right elbow is tension city. I have a lot to work on but part of Level 1 is that it is a beginning, so in many ways it is ok that I don't "know" as much as I wanted to (fretboard knowledge, for instance).

I wonder if he knows how much I enjoy talking to him? Well I guess he will soon.

Wrist is still very bad. Getting worse. Swollen and painful if I bend it back, picking motion does not hurt. Amazingly enough, or maybe not, wearing a brace all day and all night allowed me to play incredibly well this evening, a blistering run at One of a Thousand Regrets. I had to be approaching 80. After that, 60 felt great. Came back down to earth and did scales like I should. Getting better at UP, now to get better at down. Only 5 more days of practice left before the no practice zone. I am getting excited. Ok I have been.

I am very proud of the way this project has gone, especially in the area of the expertise of the client's team and their willingness to take ownership of the problems. What a fine client they are!

Snow in California? Boy I'm glad I bought a good sleeping bag! Debating whether to return to Texas to have my mammogram, since my doctor is there. It might be worth it since the doctor is familiar with my particular case and can take care of me better, quicker. I can be in and out of there in a day, stay with Mom and Dad or Kirk.

No practice this evening, sadly. Too much work work to do and now I must sleep.