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I have invented a new form of insomnia. It involves going to sleep fine, but waking up ever-earlier and being unable to get back to sleep. Then, because I'm tired, I go to bed earlier, and my bedtime winds backwards. But if I nap, I can't sleep at night, and my psychiatrist has forbidden napping.
On the bright side, this morning I have invented a superior method of putting ointment up my nose.
I somehow injured the inside of my left nostril several weeks ago; it's been refusing to heal, not least, I think, because every time I bumped my nose or blew it less than flawlessly, it broke open and started bleeding again. Yesterday I saw my doctor, and her recommendation? Savlon. In my nose. Thrice daily.
On the one hand, it already seems to be helping. On the other hand, putting antiseptic ointment in your nose fills the world with The Smell Of Antiseptic. I have a reasonably sensitive nose. This is very hard to get used to. Also, putting my finger in my ouchy nostril to apply ointment both hurt and felt really weird. (Even weirder than having ointment in my nose feels generally, which is Very - it feels like I really, really need to blow my nose properly.)
Solution: Using a cotton tip. (Q-tip, for some of you.) Apply ointment to cotton tip, insert in nose (ignoring the bolded allcaps on my box of cotton tips that says CAUTION: TIPS SHOULD NOT BE INSERTED INTO EAR OR NOSE CANALS because I am a rebel and they can't tell me what to do), rub hurty places, resist urge to shudder violently at sensations this causes, resign self to everything smelling (and, therefore, tasting) of antiseptic for several hours.
I'd already had breakfast, but I keep thinking that my water glass is contaminated. If housemate.Dave decides in the next week that it's time to make his transition from Such A Quiet, Good-Humoured Fellow to And Yet, Also A Serial Killer by poisoning me, I'm so very much not going to notice.
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A matter of the acquisition of skills:
My brother-out-law Chas and I were talking about guitars, with general reference to my plans for buying an electric, and Chas pointed out that a good guitar is not necessarily an ideal learning guitar. A learning guitar, for a lot of people (says Chas) should be one that's really easy to play, because a lot of people will, if they're teaching themselves to play guitar, want to be able to play songs immediately, so things like soft strings are a good idea.
Whereas I want a guitar that will require me to learn to do things properly.
This got onto a general discussion of learning skills - like, when most people play basketball, Chas reckons, they will want to do the tricksy awesome stuff, where the way, in theory, one should acquire the basic skills is to practice the fundamentals over and over again until you get the hang of them, then move on.
Me: "... But that was how I practiced basketball, back when I actually did that."
Because I enjoy practicing basics, if I can get into a groove and feel like I'm working on the skill and learning something new. Apparently some people find that sort of thing boring; I find I can get lost in it, and do it until my body tells me it's had enough. Score one for ADHD, I guess. With guitar practice, this means that what I really do is practice chords, and transitions, trying to get the chords and the movement between them perfect.
Discussion continued, until:
Chas: "I wonder if you would enjoy suicides?"
Me: "..."
So, it turns out, "suicides" is a sport thing - endurance training, involving sprints of differing lengths.
Not knowing this, but knowing that I am chronic-depressive to occasionally suicidal, and Chas has made it a major priority of his life for quite some time to keep me as far from suicidal as possible, it produced an amazing moment of cognitive dissonance.
In any case, my plan for buying an electric guitar is to select one with great care, research, and testing of available choices. I'm not aiming for a "cheap just-adequate practice guitar" in this case - I'm wanting a good guitar that will last me for many years. One that I'll know well in its every detail, use and quirk, so I can really get the most out of it.
One day I might buy another acoustic guitar (the one I have is a cheap guitar for learning on), but I'm still undecided on that point, because I'm aware of the extent to which the acoustic guitar I really want is my mother's. Getting one that's equivalent in quality would cost me several thousand dollars for something that still, quite likely, wouldn't be the same - it wouldn't feel right, and it wouldn't smell right. My mother's guitar has a certain scent to it, one that smells to me like comfort and contentment, like the handful of bright, shining memories, spotted here and there amid the general mire that is my childhood.
This doesn't stop me loving my steel-string electric-acoustic, and it won't stop me loving my electric guitar; I love guitars, separate from my love for that guitar, but it will make me reluctant to spend serious money on a classical guitar that isn't that one. (And it will be some time, I think, before I feel the need to upgrade my steel-string.)
*gets distracted by researching electric guitars*
So, yes. Basically, music is awesome, and since a quite good day has turned to a quite crappy evening, I think I shall go do some guitar practice.Current Music: Dixie Chicks - Not Ready To Make Nice
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