I still like to read, don’t I?
I gave up on another book today. Turns out I am not in the mood to read about Elric, Stealer of Souls. I may never be in that mood. But now I’m angry with my bookshelf, and I’m afraid to pick another book. What if I pick up a perfectly good book, one that I would enjoy if I were in another mood, but that might be forever colored by my current mood if I try it and reject it now? Because, oh yes, I’m in a mood. I have no reason for it (I could blame it on today being the anniversary of Riley’s death, but that would just be a handy excuse, I think, and not the real reason), but it’s true anyway.
I didn’t start the day this way. When I woke up, it was a nice morning. A bit cold, but I wasn’t planning on running. John and I decided that our Sunday brunch tour of Annapolis would begin today, so we headed out West St figuring we’d find something. The wait at Miss Shirley’s Cafe was too long (40 minutes), so we’ll try that some other week (earlier), but it was 10am when we came back by Rams Head, and they had just opened for brunch – no wait. The place was basically empty, so we picked a table all the way in the back. Shortly after sitting down, we found out that the jazz trio was going to set up right there. We couldn’t have picked a better spot. The trio was really good (they did a funky version of “Summertime” (from Porgy and Bess) that I liked a lot), and we were close enough that we could chat with them between songs. We ended up staying a lot longer than we planned (John has a lot of practicing to do – more on that soon), but we were having a really good time. When we finally left, I felt like doing some practicing of my own. We kept our bass guitar because I’ve been thinking about actually learning to play it (as opposed to the barely-getting-by fakery I had down for a few months my senior year in college), and after watching the trio, I felt inspired to start today.
For a while, that went well. I can get through scales (not prettily, but that’ll come with time – my hands aren’t tiny, but they’re not used to stretching for frets and strings), and before I stopped, I was able to play “Eight Days A Week” along with YouTube (thumping along on the roots only, but it was recognizable).
Then the phone rang (it was Ed, checking in with us since we checked out (and test drove) a Jaguar for him yesterday), and something about that soured my mood. That’s a little dramatic (and simplified) – I don’t blame the phone call or Ed – but it was around then that I lost any drive to do anything. I tried to read the Elric book, finishing the first story and starting the second, hoping I’d be more invested, and I just wasn’t. Skimming pages to get to the end of a chapter is a sign I’m not interested. BIG sign. So I gave up on that one and then got mad at books in general (when I scanned the shelf looking for the next one). I might be feeling the limits I set on myself. I have maybe 15 physical books left on the shelf, and I told myself that I was going to read them all (and get rid of them) before I went back to e-books. They’re only on the shelf because they’re books I want to read, so it shouldn’t be a chore. I could let myself off the hook for one book and read something on my tablet, but in my current mood, that might not work for me either.
John thinks we haven’t had enough down time (people coming to visit, I’m working all the time, we spent all day yesterday driving from here to VA to DC to Alexandria and back home, etc.), so it’s perfectly acceptable for me to melt my brain a little by watching Scandal. Rationalization is fine with me, so TV it is. May the magic of TV fix my mood!