An Online Journal / Diary

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Tuesday, April 24, 2001

More Ant Battles and 'Dodging Thunderbolts'

The best part of today was:

 Band practice at Lynn Marie's place.

What I did today:

Morning:

 I slept in! I went to bed fairly early: ten-ish PM, and then woke up in the early hours of the morning. So, idiot that I am, I then stayed up for a few hours surfing the Internet. After finally going back to my bed-couch, I listened to my relaxation tape and fell into a deep sleep. I didn't wake up until almost tenish AM!

I never sleep in that long. It felt good!

I am trying to get back into the habit of drawing first thing in the morning, therefore that's how I started my day. But not before I first brewed up a quick cup of coffee and read in my art book of the moment, Renoir's Portraits, written by Colin B. Bailey with the assistance of John B. Collins. Reading an art book always gets me in the drawing mood.

I'm drawing a portrait of my younger sister, and it's coming along nicely, yet it is taking too long. The reason for this is because I haven't been making the time to draw, like I had in the first three months of this year. Those first three months I was on some kind of art roll, let me tell you. I finished nearly nine portraits! Five of them are now in frames!

After my art session ended I made my way to my computer and finished writing and uploading yesterday's journal/diary entry to the website here. Somewhere in that time I cooked a decent breakfast of eggs, turkey bacon, and toast.

Noon:

 Since I want to get back in my good drawing daily habit, I made up a chart of stuff I have to do on a constant basis that will help me manage my life well. So after my writing, I started doing some of the chores I have listed on the chart. I washed a mountain of laundry and cleaned the kitchen, living room and the bathroom. I even scrubbed the toilet. With two men in the household, both with lousy aims, that toilet gets gross! (Too much information! Too much information!)

Added to this grossness, I also had to battle all day with those damn pesky ants still invading my home. I didn't use pesticides though. I filled a spray bottle full of lemon juice and sprayed and sprayed those little suckers whenever I came across them.

Evening:

With all my washing clothes and cleaning and battling ants my day flew by. But I did remember to practice my guitar to get myself ready for band practice tonight.

Did you know I'm in a band now? Its called 'Dodging Thunderbolts' and the two other members beside me include my good friend, Lynn Marie, and this fellow named Ben. Like me, Lynn Marie plays guitar, while Ben beats on a set of congas.

I arrived at Lynn Marie's before Ben and we ate some supper out on her patio. It was a beautiful, warm Spring evening, so when Ben arrived we decided to stay out on the patio and play our tunes there.

It was a marvelous practice. Something about playing in the open air with the possibility of Lynn Marie's neighbors overhearing us seemed to spur to musical greatness (or so I thought.) We even spotted one of the neighbors boldly walking into Lynn Marie's backyard to listen. She stayed for a few songs all the while talking on her mobile phone, mind you, but before she left she exuberantly praised us.

I am trying to memorize some songs without the use of my music notebook in front of me. Songs I pretty much play from memory are:

And one of the songs I wrote called, Our Little Angel.

We ended the evening performing three songs Lynn Marie had written. She wrote these when she first started playing the guitar a little over a year and a half ago. I had forgotten how good they are! I encouraged her to type them up on her computer and make copies so our band can perform them as well as all the other musicians in our Thursday Night Jam Session. 

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