Plans

I had planned on visiting my grandmother yesterday but my dad called early to tell me that she was being moved to a better facility in a nearby town. He didn't know when.

After lunch I phoned the hospital. They told me that she had been moved, so I called the new place. They didn't have her on the roll...probably in transit... a couple of hours passed without word, so I called my dad. His cell was off. Probably in a hospital.
Where? Which one?
I left a message and Dad called me back. He was with his mom- still in the same hospital, just moved to a different room.
They moved her today and we are waiting on tests. Waiting. On. Tests.

tic toc tic toc tic toc

Still nothing. I'll have to drive up there tomorrow. I can't glean any useful information via the telephone.

The last time she went to the 'big' hospital she didn't get out for two months but she did get out. I'm not terribly sanguine about this time. I hope I am wrong. I've been wrong before.

The worst thing I can do is what I have been doing, which is placing my own long-term goals on hold while her medical saga plays out. I had been so preoccupied with waiting that I lost sight of doing.
Screw that.
I have time. I should be doing stuff.

So I went to meet this guy who had placed a 'guitarist wanted' ad on craigslist. I mean, who knew that you could use the internet to meet people? I tend to use it to avoid others...anyway, we met at a Starbuck's near my house.

Crap, I thought as I looked around for the guy, I can't really afford a cup of coffee. I could make five pots at home for the same price as one cup here... gripe, grouse, grumble.

"Can I help you?"

" A grande."

"We are out. Can you wait one minute?We'll have fresh in a minute."

"Sure."

A minute later I had coffee, which the barista informed me was free. Right on.

Before long my new pal and I were seated at a table, introducing ourselves. His name is Gene and he plays rhythm guitar and sings. He is old, nearly my age.This is a relief to me. Tim, the bassist, is 22. Gene, recently from the Washington DC area, asks me about my musical history. I like answering this question.

I've played in a lot of bands. I give Gene a scaled-down version of my band history- the whole thing seems a bit far-fetched, even to me. Very few traces remain of what I once thought of as a career...it was all so serious then. Not anymore.

Gene asks what I'm looking for in a band -a question I've been waiting to answer. I want to work with a new band as a musician/producer and record a really shiny demo tape, preferably on archaic and/or malfunctioning equipment with little or no budget. I'd like to litter the soundscape with cleverly worded guitar utterances and flesh things out with thoughtful synthesizers, percussion, tuba...anything that works. And I wanna play in front of people again.
Problem is, I no longer have a recording studio in my basement. I don't even have a basement anymore-about all I have is guitar stuff and the junk pictured above...my apartment isn't fit for bands.

Gene, it turns out, has a digital multi-track recorder and a nice rehearsal space. He doesn't really know how to work the recorder- maybe I could help with that?

Hell, yes. I can help with that.

I've already heard some of his songs and I have some ideas...we wind up talking for an hour. Plans are made to play on Sunday. It feels good to be making plans again.