Baby steps
My e-mail is Gmail, which means that there are targeted ads included in the sidebar based on the machine-read contents of my e-mail. It’s like a high-end form of spam, but you get to choose whether you click, and I am never offered a penis enlargement product through Google ads, so they’ve got that going for them, too. I’ve bought a few things through them. Some Wonder Woman undies, a t-shirt for a friend, who knows what else. I’m the queen of the impulse buy.
I cannot remember what was in the e-mail that brought up the ad to this site, but it caught my eye. So I clicked and read the reviews. And after reading the reviews and checking some of the links out, I ordered the top recommended one. And it was on sale. Clearly, it was a sign.
I’m very fussy about instructors (of any kind), and am not really up for auditioning a bunch until I can find one I can work with. And I’m not really excited about finding the time to go sit in a little room once a week for an hour. I just extricated myself from one such venture, as you recall. Plus, I didn’t want to have to explain to my teacher why I was crying during my lesson every time I looked up from my fingers to see someone who wasn’t A there. And finally, I don’t know what music lessons are going for these days, but my piano lessons were $15 a week when I was a kid, way back in the Pleistocene Era, when the ivory for the keys came from mammoths. I have to imagine music lessons are at least $20 a week now, so for the cost of the full course, I could have just 10 lessons. I prefer to cuss profusely in the comfort and privacy of my own home. Plus, dexterity and quick physical learning do not number among my gifts, and with a video, I can just hit the lesson again and again until I’ve got it, and my instructor will still have a patient smile on his face.
I didn’t want to be looking for a new guitar teacher. I was exceedingly fond of the one I had, and we had a good time together as I learned. A relived his early guitar days through my enthusiasm and new discoveries, and I was glad to have someone who would proudly cheer every milestone, even every half-milestone. I’ve progressed pretty well on my own with his guidance, but without him here to nudge me in new directions, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Stagnation was a realistic possibility. I have vowed to become the guitarist A always believed I could be, and I barely dared to hope I could be, or at least make sincere efforts in that direction. My goal since I started playing has been to get better, and I can’t stop now.
When I told E I’d ordered the course, I told him I was somewhat ambivalent about having a substitute, even though I realized that I didn’t have much choice. I got a little weepy about it. When you’ve got one foot planted in the past and are trying to go forward at the same time, it’s going to tear you up some. But the fact of the matter is, my guru is not available to me now. And he would want me to keep moving forward with the guitar. As E said, A wouldn’t want me to stop doing anything because of him.
In other guitar-related, future-looking news, I got an e-mail from the manager of guitar god Tommy Emmanuel last week to advertise a cruise that involves 3 musicians I don’t know, and, as a member of the guitar brotherhood, one I worship: the aforementioned Tommy Emmanuel. And so it is that E and I will be part of Polyesterfest 2007. As a part of this group, we get a t-shirt, a flamingo-head (oh yeah, baby–I’m wearing that one to work!), and official “bootlegs” of every show to take home with us.
E and I have been talking on and off for some time about the possibility of doing the cruise thing some day as our vacation. All-inclusive. All-you-can-eat. No driving once you’re on the boat. All-you-can-eat. On-board activities and on-shore excursions. All-you-can-eat. Sun and sea in all directions. I mean, what’s not to love? But we hadn’t gotten around to actually making any concrete plans. And then fate intervened and offered me all of that AND guitar music galore, including only the greatest guitarist I know of. It was a no-brainer, so I forwarded the e-mail to E, and was a bit shocked when he was all for it. I didn’t have to wheedle even a little. It’s just a shorty, 4 days, 3 nights, from L.A. to Ensenada, Mexico, which I think is about right for a first cruise, to see how we like it. We just have to get ourselves to the boat. I prepaid Saturday because there was a discount, and just hope I’ll have earned enough vacation time by February to not have to fight about it with my boss, seeing as I’m not about to eat the cash I just plunked down for this trip.
I’m trying.