I have kind of secretly been taking guitar lessons since September. I didn't keep it secret because I keep secrets, I just didn't mention it because I didn't feel completely committed. Progress has been slow for me since I never manage to make the time to practice. I can't get better if I don't practice! I knew that going in, but truthfully because of my crazy schedule and also because of the ongoing neck injury that makes it painful for me to lift my arm over the back of the big acoustic guitar, and also because I always save practice for the end of the day and then when I have to choose between sleep and guitar I head for bed, I just never do it. And then this past week I grabbed Matt's (who has also been taking lessons since September but practices every single day and is playing awesome already, his teacher says he learns in a week what other kids master in a month and I am as jealous as I am proud) smaller thinner electric guitar, and discovered I could play and play with no neck/shoulder/head pain at all! Now I have been playing and playing Matt's guitar and tonight the fingers on my left (chord pressing) hand are not enjoying typing at all. Pretty much the whole left side of the keyboard is a big ow ah ooh ouch.
Anyway, I went on line and found some songs that I played when I was 8 and 9 and took half assed guitar lessons in my NYC public school's inner city underfunded not destined to last for very long after school program. Man, was I a child of the 70's! Leavin on a Jet Plane, Blowin in the Wind, If I Had a Hammer, House of the Rising Sun, etc.... I was trying to remaster Puff The Magic Dragon because I thought Josh would really love to sing along that song with me when Evan came into the living room, took a seat and listened to my heart felt singing and "playing" of Puff. He smiled through sealing wax, frolicking in the autumn mist, and traveling on a boat with billowed sail. But when I got to a dragon lives forever and the one grey night it happened Evan sat up in alarm. He gripped the chair as I sang along until he finally pleaded with me "Who died? Was it Puff? Was it Jackie Paper? Wait, it sounds bad, what happened??" So in between words I said I'd tell him when I finished. I made him listen to the whole song. I totally hammed it up. I sang with feeeeeling. Evan was so adorably concerned. And then I told him the truth. And he who hung on to and memorized every single word out of the DARE officer's mouth, said "Oh, I get it! Puff! Hahaha."
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