Last night Josh and Ben came over and we played some guitar hero, Ben cooked dinner (a delicious corkscrew pasta with a home made marinara, mixed baby greens with Cesar dressing, and garlic bread), and we hung out here at the house for a bit. It was nice. Later, Josh and I went to the Florida room for a couple drinks and on the ride over we were listening to some Black Crows and I mentioned, off hand, that I'd like to learn the guitar.
Now I've never actually played the guitar before. When I was a kid I would sometimes make some noise on my uncle Howard's guitar - until he'd hear me and take it away. That man is really protective about his instruments. So here I am, with my soft programmer's fingers. Sure they see more than their fair share of labor, but I'm pretty conscious about wearing gloves when I'm working with them, so they are soft and supple and feminine. But all that aside, Josh says he'd be totally stoked to teach me what he knows.
So, a bit of whiskey later, we head back to Josh and Ben's house and start my guitar lessons. Thank god for the whiskey or my fingers would have fallen off last night. I woke up this morning and picked out the one recognizable tune I know (the intro to Smoke On The Water) for a bit, then switched to my two chords. That's right, two. That's all I know. One's a G, and I think the other one is an A... but I wouldn't swear to it. And that's when it hit me. The pain in my fingertips that the whiskey had numbed last night. Ten minutes of pressing steel-wrapped strings against the neck of my borrowed guitar and DAMN! I can barely type with my left hand. But everything worth doing is painful to learn, and an old guitar seems like a good way to pass the time when I'm on the road.
So bring it on. Bring on the pain, bring on the callouses, bring on the frustration and the joy of learning something new. Bring it all on. I can handle it.
