Just a matter of time

There is this great little music shop at the end of our street.

Back up: Every year, around my birthday, I choose to do something that is outside of how I normally see myself. I started when I was 30 and realized, suddenly, how afraid I had become of things. Drowning. Breaking a hip. Facing a waxing specialist. I also noticed I didn't do things because they weren't "me," and that just leads to a cul de sac life, one devoid of water parachutes, lemurs and short-statured lovers.

This makes it sound as if I go jumping off cliffs, which I don't. Some of the things I have tried have been harder than others, and many of them probably would not be hard for you. I took a radio voice-over seminar, I deep sea kayaked, I did a two-day roller blading course at the Esplanade in Boston, I allowed a stranger to put hot wax on me, I went far under the ground.

So, modern day - I do not see myself playing music, in any fashion. I took a summer guitar class the summer I was twelve, and I don't remember any of it. I did not do well. I spent one woeful teenage winter drunkenly playing (and badly, very very badly) harmonica around my town. I can't read music. And I had a birthday and now it's time to learn an instrument, just because. Before I die, basically.

I went in to this sweet little music shop near my house yesterday and asked to see a nice soprano beginner ukulele. Now, a starter uke is only $55, so one should be able to buy one's own starter uke right off, but my husband and I were both laid off earlier this year, on the same day. Every penny that comes into our home which does not go immediately for cheap wine or swill with which to feed our children goes, obviously, to subscription Internet porn. I cannot in any conscience drop more than twenty bucks on a whim, unless it involves Xanax and weight loss. And lemurs.

And the uke is seen as a joke many places, my friend, but not here. The uke is known as an instrument almost impossible to not learn. I don't plan to play it for profit or in public, but I do want to learn it, just for me, just for in my brain. Luckily, Santa Cruz takes the uke very seriously.

Anyway, things are interviewing right along, so I know I'll be getting my groove on soon enough. I leave you with this: