Notes from the Cave

Another weekend of third shift has come and gone.  Friday night was a struggle, but after sleeping until 2:30 Saturday afternoon, then staying in bed virtually all evening reading, Saturday night was better.  M and the kids start school this week, so M has been putting her room together; I went over this afternoon to help out, but just for a little bit.  A nice 4-mile walk this evening.

I had a follow-up appointment with my cardiologist on Friday.  This is how M and I spent our 16th wedding anniversary - two hours in a doctor's office.  Everything was fine, and he is cutting back another one of my medicines.  In the long run, I think the aspirin and the cholesterol medicine will be the only pills I have to continue to take for the long haul.  I am scheduled in October for an echocardiogram (an ultrasound of the heart muscle) and a nuclear stress test.  I'm sure I'll be nervous about all that, but I'm also looking forward to having it done so I can find out exactly what condition my heart is in after all the dietary and exercise changes I've done.

While lying in bed yesterday afternoon, I made the rash decision to buy a new guitar.  I've been playing since I was 16 years old, and while I'm certainly no Eric Clapton, I'm pretty advanced as amateurs go.  Despite that, I only own two guitars - the classical guitar my parents bought me in high school, and an electric/acoustic I bought when I was 22 and fresh out of college.  I've never owned an electric guitar or a traditional acoustic, and I've never owned an amp.

Well, all that's gonna change on Tuesday.  I purchased a cherry sunburst Epiphone Les Paul electric guitar with a 20-watt amp for about 400 bucks.

The only electric guitars I've ever had the good fortune of playing were borrowed or rented ones (I rented a guitar for over a year in college when I was playing lead guitar in a band).  I'm pretty stoked about getting this thing and playing the crap out of it.

I might even buy some recording software for my computer and record a couple of songs I've been writing.  I know, I'm strange.  It might be worth noting, however, that the psychic I saw a couple of years ago (after being practically forced into it by my coworkers) told me I should be writing music and asked me why I stopped.  He said he saw me making money writing music.  He said this, of course, without me ever saying a word to him about being a musician, writing music, or the fact that I used to write music in high school and college and then quit.

I've got a busy week coming up.  In addition to working all week, I have a project I'm working on with a friend, ghost-writing an article for an industry publication for her, and I'm also continuing to make headway on my book about political parties, though it's coming along at a freaking snail's pace.  All that, with M and the girls heading back to school this week.  More than likely, the book will end up on the back burner again.  I had hoped to have it finished over the winter.  Last winter.  Now I'll be lucky to have it done before summer's over.