Chaos Attraction

Guitar!

2012-06-24, 11:33 a.m.

Well, this day turned out to be interesting.

I hadn't planned on doing much, other than going to the gym and the grocery store and hanging with the cat and going to the local flea market. I've been to the flea market a couple of times since it started and haven't bought much--a few items of clothing, which turns out to be a bad idea when there is no way to try them on at the market to see if they fit you. Guh. But anyway, I thought I'd wander on by. Since trying to park downtown yesterday was totally insane (it's Lance Armstrong Weekend here), I decided I'd just walk over like usual.

I should probably explain before I start this that I read this article a few days previously and it stuck in my head. Particularly this bit:

"Parie Wood was only 10 when she hit upon her calling one long-ago Sunday while flipping through the newspaper.
There, an ad for an inexpensive electric guitar sparked her imagination.
�Playing music had never really crossed my mind before,� Wood says now.
In fact, although her father played in a thrash-metal band and Wood wrote poetry, she says that until that moment she hadn�t considered herself musically inclined at all.
That picture of a cheap guitar, however, changed everything.
�It cost $99, and I had $100 in my bank account, so I decided to empty it out,� she says. �I became instantly obsessed.�

I read this story and felt jealous--I've also heard a similar story with John Mayer and a guitar except he was 13 or so. Would that it were that easy, I thought, to just stumble across your thing and know to buy it and it's just out there available for you and you do it!

The first thing I saw was a gorgeous, looked untouched, electric guitar on sale. I kept eyeing it, and thinking, "Noooo...that's too nice for the likes of me, he's probably asking a lot for it...I shouldn't get a guitar anyway because I sucked at violin...." Even though I kept thinking of that story, and how I've inexplicably been doing guitar art (that's not even all of it posted, some stuff I apparently forgot to photograph) for years. But back when I played violin in the day, I sucked at it. I hardly practiced--though this was pretty much because whenever I did, Mom would come in and scream at me for sucking. I liked playing in a group but couldn't stand listening to myself. So I have been repeating that to myself too-- you're not that good at music, why bother?

After eyeing the huge fancy shiny one, I walked around to the booth behind it...and saw another electric guitar! Which was ah, much less intimidating to me somehow, along with its owner. She only wanted $20 for it! Said it was her beginner guitar, she didn't really play it any more and felt bad about it and just wanted it to go to a new home. Other people had been eyeing it, but $20? OH HELL YEAH. It appears to be in good condition other than being dusty and needing restringing too.

Here's the funny thing: I paid her the money and then said I'd come back to pick it up with a car. I walked home to get L's car and found, all pretty much within a block of each other, the following objects:
(a) ANOTHER GUITAR PICK! Which apparently is some kind of guitar pick rarity, as I tried googling what was written on it and it's going for $40 on eBay. But it's MINE, dammit. I've now found ten guitar picks over the last year in many random places.
(b) I saw this ("8 GTAR") license plate.
(c) I found a blue feather, which is kind of a thing for me now after doing the manifestation experiment a few years ago. I haven't kept up the count here, but it's uh...over 800, closer to 900 at this point.

Now, three things at once? THAT'S A WHOPPING-ASS SYNCHRONICITY BOMB THERE! That's totally like, a sign from God or something there.

I've been finding the guitar picks for...over a year-ish now, I think? Maybe longer than that? I should look. I didn't figure they meant go buy a guitar, given how so-so I was at playing instruments before (I also played a little keyboard on my own back in the day). Heck, maybe they all just meant "go nail a guitar player" someday--not that I know any now, so someday. Hah. But...hey, maybe it's to go buy one.

And now I need to go sign myself up for lessons and go buy a shit-ton of accessories after work tomorrow.

Here's a picture of the guitar.


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