Best energies fly out to Scooter and pals in space (yes, even Rick) as problems with their airplane threaten their mission.

00:00
Scooter and Rick get to keep flying. Yayyy. Bizarre set of threads in the Seattle Circle. I am questioning whether I belong in Guitar Craft, and it seems that the answer is floating around there somewhere.

Looks like the hoped for Raleigh concert will not get to happen. Figures.

Hoped to see Matt play tonight, but came home instead. Not feeling well. Depression despite the increase in meds. Not sure how to take this. Most people would view this as a bad mood, but most people do not live inside my head. Obviously, something is very wrong. Am I in pain?

My new zafu and zabuton arrived today, just in time for AAD2002. I tried them out and it is like sitting on a cloud. Also, my new inflatable arrived. It had a leak, but fortunately, I ordered extra inserts.

3/2/2002 AAD1
S:20 P:~50

Alexander lesson today. Lots of good insights. My sitting this morning was rather uncomfortable, and I know it is all positional. I brought my new zafu to my lesson along with my guitar. We discovered that there is a lot of tension in my hips, which is a very ingrained habit with me, so I worked on releasing them. This helped a lot both in sitting and standing. We worked on getting down to the floor and not losing this bounce in my hips. Much better. Sitting on the floor, my spine felt like organized jello. Very nice.

The thing we discovered, that was most fascinating to me, is that I stop my spine completely (mobility) at the instant I take the pick into my hand. We worked with this, Glenna handing me the pick over and over, and being aware of what my spine was doing as I closed my fingers about it. Terrifying. Great progress.

I am happy to see so many familiar presences in the AAD course. It is great to be working with everyone.

22:30
Off to Kansas City tomorrow. Yee haa. I have zero enthusiasm for my job. None. Zip. I need some, and quickly. I need to lose the contempt and get with the program.

Kansas City. Well, I guess we'll see what At a Distance really means...

23:48
Today's rain brought back a very profound moment at the very end of the course... right after Robert declared it completed. It started to rain, just lightly. You could hear it on the roof, there was silence in the room. Robert, in his chair, cupped his hands and held them up slightly, and looked up. It was a very profound gesture to me. I'm not sure what it meant.

Long day of travel, but uneventful. My guitar almost went to Nashville (the guy asked me when he gate checked it, Nashville? I said no, Kansas City. He brought me a claim ticket for Nashville. BZZZZT). It's very cold here, causing much concern for the crack by the bridge in the guitar, but all appears ok for now.

Long, sweet phone conversation with an increasingly close friend. There are not many people I take to this easily. This person seems to dwell in the center of my heart. Not only does this person understand this love for music, but he also understands my depression. More importantly, he knows exactly what to say to make me look at it in the way I need to. What I had hoped for with this person, I already have. I hate talking on the phone. Except when I'm talking to him. It's not romance, it's friendship.

I am on the 31st floor of the hotel. Stunning view. Room service, some shrimp thing, half a chocolate dessert. Tomorrow I will begin training on the main product of my company. Previously, I only worked with the legacy product. I expect this class to be both extraordinarily boring and enlightening. I need very quickly to change my attitude about my job or I won't have one.

Interesting practice in which I eschewed my normal speed drills and instead played one note at 40. Tension tension tension. Relieved the tension, noticed the note sounding nicer, then that caused more tension. Vicious cycle. Interesting study...

7:45
Music awoke me at 4:30 and would not let me back to sleep until I had written lyrics for a song. Very powerful and angry. Where the hell did that come from? (oh, I'd say somewhere in the vicinity of Tulsa, OK by way of Annapolis, MD)

17:40
Class today was boring. My company has their own SQL engine. How to write a select statement 101. Yawn. It was a good practice in holding my attention. I didn't succeed very well. Well, at least I have something to do. LindaM from Houston is here, one of my favorite people from the home office. Yayyy!! party!

21:40
Fairly good practice, lots of relaxation insights, fairly good attention. So much stuff going on, it would seem that I could tell myself relax and all would be well. Kind of like stuffing a fat lady into a bikini, one part gets the tension released and a minute later, it's somewhere else. Tonight back to speed drills, with bursts as suggested by SJ to allow me to divert my attention back to my right arm and elsewhere and get rid of it. Eye of the Needle definitely sounding better.

I'm worried about this song. I thought it was about one thing, kind of a pleasant thought, but it turned into a Courtney Love type rant, very mean but powerful. Problem is, I heard the guitar part, but I have no way of getting that recorded anywhere. I can't play what I hear. I have gone to Curt for help with this. Any suggestions from songwriting Crafties who read this are appreciated. I think the lyrics are great. My mother would hate them so I won't post them here, they would upset her. They may be too personal. It may be that I need to get this song performed. I may ask Steve to help me write the music (or rewrite, based on the cadence of the lyrics). If I can get up the guts to reveal it to him. I'm not even sure I possess the voice that's required to sing this thing.

I also wanted to note that during class, one of the instructors was inaudible. This really pissed me off. I got angrier and angrier until I realized that I was in control of this situation. 1) my deafness is my own problem 2) I am perfectly within my rights to ask her to speak up, please. I did so. She did so (for a while, anyway). This is a big step for me.

Dinner with LindaM, told her about GC, which she was very curious and thought it was neat. Played One of a Thousand Regrets for her. Showed her some of the characters on my computer.

Good practice. Worked in front of a mirror. I think my right hand looks pretty good, although there still seems to be a lot of wrist tension. Played 2nd at 100 for a while, then took it down to 80 where time stands still. I love this sensation, going from 80 which seems blistering, up to 100 and working it hard, then back down to 80 where it seems there is all the time in the world. Left hand involved relaxing the triceps, finally FINALLY played with my whole arm moving my hand (instead of clamped to my side).

Tomorrow J the invisiboss is supposed to reveal himself to me by taking me and T out for dinner. T is here for a class too.

Spent the rest of the evening tabbing out Asturias on the back of the tab of Eye of the Needle that Steve did for me. A good practice in listening

I have a cut on my pinky, it hurts even to type. Distracted practice, distracted sitting.

I think I am upset about dinner. I can't compete with T, who is fun and personable. I am shy and intellectual. I keep thinking I'm about to lose my job.

Went shopping with Linda, spent lots of money, but I got presents for Mark and Pam, and me too. I feel like I don't deserve it. Why is this?

Long practice. Asturias found my left hand, haltingly, but it's there. EOTN is coming along. Still sounds like a two year old. Kinda depressing. But still, I am close to having a good working knowledge of four pieces of repetoire.

I am leaving early tomorrow, yayyyy.

I can't wait.

I want to go home.

Happy Birthday, Mark

MY brother is out of a job.

Diary entries will be backloaded from my laptop. It appears that I cannot get into my website from the work extranet.

I played Asturias at the airport(s) today. I can't play Asturias? Who was playing it? Surely those couldn't have been my hands.

Finally got the last part of February and the last week's diaries uploaded. Pretty good sitting this morning, until I was distracted by my leg falling asleep. Oh well, a valiant try.

More work on Asturias, I'm still amazed that all of a sudden BANG I can play this piece. It's a mess, but I am playing it at around 72bpm (16th notes). On Show of Hands it's at 80, so I'm not far off. Still trainwrecking on the string change. I think by next week I'll have it, if my pinky holds out. The author (BertBertBert) suggests that I use a capo and move it up. I have no capo. The stretch isn't so bad right now (it's bad but not too bad), it's the pinky that's killing me. Come on callus!

More guitar damage, this time the battery box has broken off inside the guitar. Perhaps I will glue it until I can get it fixed.

Balanced my checkbook today for the first time in a year. Yes, I'm irresponsible. But now I know where my money is.

12:08
SJ is sick. I am worried about him. I hope he gets better soon, I am going to send healing wishes his way. He has two concerts tomorrow, too.

All packed and ready to go to Nashua, NH. Probably no diary entries live for the next week, they'll be backfilled. (my company firewall has port 8080 blocked, which is what I need to update this site). So don't panic. You can always email me, for chrissake.

AAD shows me today that I am not available to silence when I'm not in a Crafty community. I am very good at this sort of thing when I am being all "Crafty" with my fellows, but alone, I'm not quite there. If I don't make myself available to silence, there will be no channel for music. As I explained to many people, silence is music without the notes. I don't know why this never clicked before, but it seems to be a big breakthrough for me.

I am currently reading "The Art of Happiness" by His Holiness The Dalai Lama. In this book, he suggests that a lot of people derive what they think is happiness by comparing themselves or what they have to others. This also presented a great insight to me. I am constantly wondering, am I keeping up with other Crafties? Do I have the best right hand? Am I the most relaxed? And even at work, am I the most knowledgable? Can I write the best scripts? I need to weed these superlatives out of my life and be content with what I am. Problem is, I'm not sure what that is, yet.

My former invisiboss became a daddy today. Please welcome Jet Rawlings into the world.

Speaking of which, he hasn't returned my call, and now I'm a little worried, knowing he's been sick. hmmm

Not much else to say, lonely, tired. Hard work. Good team. hoo rah.

Bleh day today, unfocused. Sitting was good. I am worried that perhaps my sitting is inadvertantly adversely affecting others. I can't explain it here without sounding really bogus or mystical or something. But I wonder.

On the subject of being available to silence (and hence, to music) I had the following insight, which I shared with a friend:

for me, i think this is because when i am with Crafty Guitarists, I am expecting it. it is something we "do", like sitting. we are available for the silence, anticipating it, so when it asks to join us, we readily allow it to enter. as individuals, this is not something we are expecting. it's as if it takes a cooperative effort for silence to make an appearance. the other thing is that it is the community that works together to hold the silence, as a collective instrument. it is much harder, by yourself, to be that instrument and hold the silence. when you're with Crafties, you want the silence to share with the community, it passes between us and binds us. when we're alone, maybe we don't see ourselves in that way, and therefore in some way don't see ourselves as "worthy" of the silence on our own. or perhaps, we are unable to use it and soak it up as readily as the group.

Also noted as an aside, that my reach is getting better. This because now the tip, rather than the side of my pinky is sore. I have a great callus on the side, but now I am fretting with the tip while playing Asturias. Improvement?

I did not want to practice tonight. I did, and it went ok, working on Curt's visualization exercise. I need to carry my sitting throughout my day. I am starting to not use my time wisely again.

Hard, hard day of work. Visualization helped, because I covered a lot of ground. Practice still looms large ahead of me. I talked all day and I am tired. I have said it before, and I'll say it again, when you don't feel like practicing, that's the time you need to practice.

All I have here is an office chair to practice in. I have taken to sitting in the chair on my travel zafu. This seems to help. There is a disk in my neck which is annoying me. I won't let it stop me.

20:42
I just noticed that I have not been posting my practice and sitting times. It would be hard for me to backfill them, but I have at least met my commitment every day so far. Most of the time I exceed my practice committment. Today I worked on speed, up to 120. This is a new high for me. I did pretty well in bursts at 120, ok at 110, really well at 100. Left hand coordination exercises at 80 were marginal. I cranked Asturias up to 80, LCG speed on Show of Hands. Train wreck but I was able to keep up with the picking. This is something I could not do even last week. Amazing.

Dismal sitting, dismal practice, both distracted. Sitting was the worst yet, but I remembered that I have hit the midpoint and it is very hard with AAD right now. I've been making mistakes for years but I made a doozy and it kept intruding into my sitting. Partially corrected, but still pissed someone off and I feel bad.

My plate at work is getting full, mostly with SQL to do.

You know, you gotta really admire someone who's so obnoxious telemarketers hang up on him. One of my top ten favorite people in the whole wide world and this just about seals it, right there.

I am almost the owner of an almost new Soloette. Just another day... Thanks again to Brad for letting me check his out before I bought.

Good practice, pretty good sitting. Really not much to say. I have a date next Saturday. Bismarck Tuesday. Busy week. Hope I get everything in!

I'm still not sure if I'm ready for this. But it's a good exercise and if nothing else, my right hand will improve.

Heavy focus yesterday also on Music Theory. Ow my brain hurts!

23:05
Joined the Seattle Circle and unnamed but definitely felt others worldwide in the Guitar Craft Anniversary Sitting. Very powerful sensation, bright bright light, almost frightening, the sensation I received. I did not shy away from it. Peace and love.

My luggage is somewhere between Minneapolis and here. I am SO GLAD I did not check the Ovation!!!!!

Here is my posting to Pathways for today:

A year ago today I was packing a small bag and headed for the airport. I took a flight to Newark from Raleigh. Thus began my last day as a non-guitarist.

I arrived at Newark, got my bags and my crummy Celebrity Deluxe guitar and headed for the curb, as instructed. There was another person with on Ovation case. I asked him if he was going to the NST weekend. He was. His name was Howard and he was from Chicago.

Pretty soon a red van with "NST" in the window drove up, and I met Terry Kalka. We orbited the airport for a while and procured Pedro, and then we were off to Camp Lebanon.

We all went to a large bunkhouse and I was directed toward one large room- the womens' room. I chose a bunk, and listened. Everywhere I heard different Guitar Craft songs, "Asturias", "Bicycling to Afghanistan", someone trying to pick out "Fragments of Skylab". I felt like I'd gone to heaven.

I didn't know how to play anything, so I tuned my guitar (I did know how to do that, the guitar had been in NST for the entire 6 years I'd owned, but not touched it). I felt self conscious.

I went to the common area, where occasionally people would come by and ask me if I could play this song or another (even more self conscious now).

Finally, we all went to dinner. And so it began, a year ago today.

In some ways it is very hard for me to believe that I have only known Curt Golden, Howard, Terry, Jonathan, Colorado Dave, Shim, Nancy, Leslie, Alex, Joe, Hellboy, Bernardini, Mascarini and all of the others for only a year. How can this be?

Anyway, that's it. What a difference a day makes. That evening I sat down with Tony Geballe and together with Howard, David, Randy, Shim and Pedro learned how to hold a guitar pick.

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