Guitar Circle Journals

In the morning, a reminder that I need to get up earlier. So it goes.

On the way to work I drive by the local bike store in hopes of finding a time I can shop for a bike for the soon-to-be-four-year-old. They are still on their “winter hours” and I don’t know how I’ll get there. Later in the morning I get a phone call from the family – they are at the bike store, shopping.

I spend a large part of the work day wrestling with a 6-Gigabyte file. This was a form of torture. Here was a conversation from the afternoon:
M: The problem with a 6GB file is that it takes a very long time to do anything with it.
Co-Worker: Can’t you filter the file, and somehow make it smaller?
Me: “Filter” and “make it smaller” go under the umbrella of “doing anything.”

Again, a sense of waiting. One item has appeared, although I’m not clear on its significance.

I will now take five minutes to restore order to my desk.

Today I have decided to make this my last post for now.  I have gone back and deleted certain postings as I have come to realize that although some of the things I truly believe in, the delivery was way off.  I have in fact harmed some people and not realized it until today. I have jeopardized my  relationship with Robert and may have closed a door that might not open again. This was stupid on my part and I am now feeling terrible that I did this.  This was my fault.  A lot is due to misinterpretation and trying to control rage which appears that I have not and  been blind to.  I think an apology will not work at this time. Maybe time might allow me to reconnect with him at some point. This is a big loss. This also comes under the heading of I take things too personally and this distorts the reality of life and IHow I respond to it.

I have to thank all the people who have pushed on me incessantly to try and wake me up. I am just starting to wake up.

Thanks to: Bob Hansmann, Robert Fripp, Jaxie Binder, Tim Butler, Tony Geballe, Alan Neidorf, Kevin Pffeifer, Tom Redmond, Patrick Smith, Peter Legowski, Robert Berger, Marcia Gleason, Ken Lawton

There are others and I thank them as well.

The children have been waking up at an absurdly early time lately. When we set the clocks on hour ahead on Sunday, they will still wake up at the same time, but the rest of the world will have shifted to accommodate them.

The day is remarkably routine. I suppose that might make it unremarkable. It makes me uneasy to suggest that a day could pass without remark.

Part of this is because I’m waiting for something. While I’m waiting, what am I doing?

Something I noticed: my eyes watering as I walk outside. Moving on from noticing, this reminds me that I need to acquire the name and # of a prospective new allergist.

An evening in the studio, hoping to pack things up… I mean wrap them up. My brazilian neighbour comes by to help me out, with everythign would have been good, but lets be real… he can help me with the joke song. I’lll have to sing the other one myself… tomorrow, I suppose. Ho hum… it’s too long for him to learn. I was singing it to myself on the train. It still isn’t done. Some pretty nice parts though, not at all harmonized yet… oh dear, and I have to go to Bordeaux on Wednesday morning, and there is rehearsal tomorrow, which I suppose I must miss… (?). Who knows.

Anyway, he shows up and immediately starts pitching some mad idea involving next door’s restaurant, a scheme to make 50 plates of beans and rice at 10 euro each and do a “cultural afternoon”. Ok, I am in, as long as it is not soon. Then I find out that the chef is the mother of the ex-secretary of the samba school who, the last time I saw her (actually that was last night, but I had learned the lesson)… the second to last time I saw her (in the same place as last night actually), totally rebuffed me when I approached her to make amends for misunderstandings past (involving the administration of said group… last year). Anyway. Not sure I can be in the kitchen with her mother without her showing up to throw a wobbly.

Temperatures stayed low… too low. The sun was out. I will save the energy about the silly meeting I had today, by not telling about it.

Mostly just at work and also working on the main song.

In the morning a bike to the station and the 7h48.

And that was good.

It may be Zéro degrees… but at leas there is the sun!

Finally, in the evening…. home and cleaning, writing a mail, shop, and dinner, and then time for 30 minutes guitar before M came over. He pitches his idea, then we work on the funny song, and then we record it. Actually he thought we were just practicing with headphones…. and it’s a wrap.

Then we recorded the new Aquarela song, sort of.

But neither of these is the song I really must finishe and record…

NNot to mention 3 days of journals to post… hmm.

Morning weigh-in: none lost, none gained. Or, perhaps, equal amounts lost and gained.

I am determined to get a certain amount of work done today, but I am remarkably prone to distraction. The day is not fruitless, but not as productive as I had hoped. There are several tasks coming up that will function as pointed sticks: they must be done, and they must be done by me.

Thoughts revolve around: life and death; past, present and future; old friends and older friends.

I was surprised, while walking and thinking, to discover that I have not fully let go of something I previously believed to have been let go of. What? Let’s try again: I let it go. I believed this letting-go to be complete. Today I discovered it was not. There is a mechanical aspect to this: I see a picture, I read a name, and…not-so-much-letting-go. My buttons were pushed. There are some strategies for working with this, and I was advised that I would find that these strategies useful for a time, and then they might be dropped, and then I might feel the need to resume them. And so it has come to pass.

Rise at 8:30.  coffee.

Practice four Jazz Standards.  Work on YGT material for upcoming performance.

A great day with my daughter in NYC. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Indian dinner and a visit with a friend in Tribeca.

A busy day, once again.

A lovely organ recital, in partial fulfillment of a doctorate in musical arts, at the Bates Recital Hall, which has one of the premier organs in the States.

I was rear-ended, slightly, on the way by a Toyota Corolla whose brakes didn’t work properly. No apparent damage to the cars, but my back and interior got jostled–luckily I had AT work for three hours after that. The timing is challenging, since we are leaving early tomorrow for Arizona.

My discipline held me in good stead during the entire period of dealing with the wreck: I stayed calm and did what was necessary, and remained civil.

—
Affirmations for me today.

Affirmation Two:

Love cannot bear that even one soul be denied its place in Paradise.

Affirmation Three:

In desperate times, a reasonable person might despair;
but hope is unreasonable, and love is greater even than this.

Affirmation Five:

The poverty of our nature is no limit to our aspiration.

We stayed up late to watch a movie. 1 hour and 50 minutes in, the movie lost us. That is, it failed to convince. So close.

We all enjoyed the sunny and (relatively) warm weather. Everybody made it outside twice.

I had a brief sitting, which magically coincided with the one time during the day in which the house was quiet.

Throughout the day, the strange experience of blatant corporate propaganda, as a TV network and a cable company duke it out in front of the public.

I applied to join the Completion Course at a distance today.

Once upon a time this date was significant for me. That was a long time ago. Now it is significant in that I remember that it used to be significant.

The children awaken early. I don’t mind getting up with them, probably because the day is sunny and the warmest of the year to date. We attend to several tasks today, including paper and cardboard recycling, and donation of no-longer-needed goods. I am grateful to my wife for taking the initiative on the donations.

The afternoon is productive as well: I get some necessary reading and writing done. I have been compiling a history of the first NST weekend I attended (April 14-16, 2000). I am surprised by how long it is taking to tell the tale.

I made a decision a few weeks ago, going on instinct. Today I received confirmation that my instinct was spot on.

Family time into the evening: walking, play, dine, discipline, read.

A good day. Looking forward to a film tonight.

Reading the Bhagavad Gita today. This work is embedded in a much longer work, The Mahabharata, an epic story regarding a war between sons of different mothers but the same kingly father. The good guys win, but it’s not a happy ending for any guys, good or bad. In any event, the Gita contains a lot of good advice in regards to situations that are, by analogy, similar.

The basic topic of the Gita is about a Decision. Arjuna must decide to fight or not against his half-brothers, and his teachers; he is deeply saddened by either prospect and turns to a nearby king, Krishna, for advice.

Three paths are described (a triad!): the path of action, the path of wisdom, and the path of devotion. The royal path harmonizes these three paths.

There is a wealth of material in the Gita. One big take-away is that it says conflict is inevitable (even if illusory) but acting out of anger is not. Gandhi has a commentary on the Gita that is very good.