callous

guitar lessons! so far i've succeeded in my goal of practicing every day. that's two days, people! i think i can keep it up. in fact, i know i can. i really enjoy the feeling of stretching my fingers and my brain to accomodate these new tasks i've set for myself. like moving each hand autonomously in a different way, a different pattern. i think i could get good at this. i mean, think about how fast I can type, right... that's just practice we're talking about here! why does complaining remind me of the guitar lessons... perhaps it is the tenderness of the fingertips on my left hand, the fretting hand (fret not!). over time, we play and build up callouses. fret not! the pain will not last forever. and rather than simply losing sensitivity in those tender fingertips, the callouses help to make the music, they help to make the music possible. I've always thought of the ways the body protects itself from pain to be a process of shutting down or turning in-wards... they all have negative connotations for me. But this callousing, this building up of skin tissue, sure it reduces sensitivity, but it is also neccessary for the music, no? The body protects itself from the hard metal string because it needs to press against the hard metal string to make sound. The body will accomodate the work, the world, the word.

finally, ben yankson left a message. seems he's really interested in talking over old times...

... i feel like i'm falling ... no that's not quite right ... what is it ... i feel like the humid sun blanketing a green field ... mmm ... i feel like kissing ... or what it would feel like to B a kiss ... yes that's it ... a kiss ...