don't trouble your beautiful self

Following the House Team Circle meeting with CG, I looked at the stuff I wrote about the Birdman. I didn't like it. I didn't like how it upset my self-image as a Beautiful, Lovely Person(tm).

So, I took it out.

But just now I put it back in. Why should I lie to myself?

And if anybody else out there imagines I am some kind of Beautiful, Lovely Person(tm)--a stretch, to put it mildly--then let them be properly disillusioned (don't worry...it builds character). Life is too short for that nonsense.

Besides, I have to admit that I greatly enjoyed it this afternoon when I once again pulled out Captain Beefheart's troutmaskreplica as a treat for the Birdman and his boyfriend. Their third sex session of the day was stretching out toward the 60 minute mark, and I suddenly hankered to hear some Captain Beefheart. Loud. Really loud.

A little later, I went to brush my teeth, and as I passed his room, it seemed to me the Birdman had fled the building.

Did I mention that I'm a Beautiful, Lovely Person(tm)?

Anyway, yesterday during the morning sitting, I had a kind of breakthrough. My thoughts would not sit still. I kept drifting away into clouds of fantasy. I wrestled with my thoughts, trying to still the troubled waters.

And then all at once, I realized I could just walk away from it. Don't bother trying to tame the beast. Don't even bother to judge it. Just walk away.

So, I did.

And there I was back in the room with the texture of the carpet in front of me, the space around me, the light streaming in through the windows, the sound of cars passing in the distance and reverberating in the hard acoustics of the space.

Then I drifted away again into some nasty snarl of thought.

Once again, I just walked away from it. And there I was back in the room.

So, maybe I had an insight of some kind. And I will inevitably forget about it and get lost once again. I always forget. Then I remember. Then I forget again.

Then the House Team Circle met with guitars, and we spent 90 minutes grinding our way beat by beat through "Eye of the Needle."

Then it was the afternoon meeting with CG. We sat down with our guitars. CG asked how he could help us. We talked. We sat around and stared at each other. We talked some more. Then we played "Asturias." CG asked us to pick a note and then play. So we did. Then he asked us to adjust until we were all playing the same note at the same time. Eventually, we coalesced onto the F at the 13th fret, 2nd string.

Then he got out the metronome.

He led us through the bass notes of "Asturias," and had us working on nailing the metronome click.

I asked a question about working with the metronome: when trying to nail a metronome click, the click sometimes disappears--does this mean I've nailed it? He seemed to agree this was possible.

He asked us each to rate how close we were to being dead on to the click. I estimated I was maybe 50% dead on and 50% ahead. He told me I was actually behind, that my pick was taking a while to get through the string, and the note was consistently beginning behind the beat.

Hmmm...

I found myself drawn into explaining that I had been deliberately practicing this way as an effort to get away from swatting at the string. He suggested I could also "just play the note."

I have to admit I was indeed sitting there in the circle self-consciously practicing my picking. I was thinking about it, in detail, while doing it. Maybe I should forget about all of that when I enter the circle and just play the note.

Then we tried to circulate C Major up and down through an octave. Then we did it with a metronome. We made mistakes. One mistake led to the group circulating on a slow triplet against the click, which I thought was pretty cool, even if it was uninentional.

In the end, he suggested that to get better playing together, we needed to spend time playing together.

Then Igor K. dropped me off on NW Market street. I got lunch and fell in love with a skater girl.

Then I went home, ate some chocolate and fell asleep without brushing my teeth.

Then I woke up with this awful taste in my mouth. I brushed my teeth.

The clock was blinking "12:00 AM." What time was it?

I still had time to catch Electrochakra at Mr. Spot's.

The 44 bus to Ballard was on time. There was an aggressive drunk at the bus stop, a young man who looked like he had passed out in a puddle earlier in the evening. He left me alone and harassed the skate punks sittin on the bunch, instead.

He left me alone.

Electrochakra was good. They had "hook." I drank a beer.

Then I went home.