Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2005-08-08:

"A piece of village wisdom he was slow to grasp is that sex is a holiday, an activity remarkably brief in our body's budget compared with sleeping or food-gathering or constructing battlements for self-defense, such as the Great Wall of China." -- John Updike, in his novel Villages.

(submitted to the mailing list by Mike Krawchuk)

folkmew pointed out that Musician's Friend (a place I bought stuff from last century but whose catalog mailing list I fell off of a while back) is having a "moving to new warehouse" sale. So, of course, there's a whole bunch of stuff there that I've wanted to pick up for a while, at tempting sale prices, that I mostly still can't afford anyhow. (Resist, resist, resist.) But I've had "replace guitar cases" on my to-do list for several years now -- the last time I looked, hard cases worth using were too expensive, and I hadn't bothere looking lately because I haven't had any more extra money at hand than the last time I'd looked. But the case for my main 6-string is missing significant chunks of wood near the edge of the lower bout, and is reinforced with strapping tape under the spraypaint and gaffer's tape over the paint where the strapping tape had started wearing out and the wood had mysteriously vanished -- it may actually have a couple more years left in it thanks to all the gaffer's tape Allon attached to it -- and the 12-string case is, well, toast. The hinges and one or two latches have fallen off, and the plies of the plywood around the bottom curve have separated so that the wood there feels like soggy cardboard. I keep a bungee cord around it to hold it closed.

So it's obviously time for me to look at guitar cases on sale ...

The last time I looked at guitar cases, there weren't three hundred and twenty four models of cases to choose from. Eek! Okay, the number shrinks considerably when you narrow it down to folk guitar cases and cross off the ones that cost a bunch extra for fancy paint jobs. And, importantly, they've gotten a lot cheaper (well, the cheap ones have) than the last time I'd looked ... and they're on sale on top of that. I'm not sure I can really justify spending the money for two right now, but I think I can manage to afford one. Now I just have to sift through all these open browser tabs and pick one. (The two undecided questions: do I want to get a plastic one, lighter and more water resistant (water was what did the bulk of the damage -- maybe all of the non-cosmetic damage -- to the cases I've got), or stick to wood so that I know the lid and bottom will be flat for better stackability and squeezing into car trunks? And do I trust an unfamiliar brand?) This might go faster if I didn't keep going, "ooh, shiny!" at various other things (drum and cymbal mutes on sale -- for thirty bucks I can mute everything but the kick drum and the two smallest Roto-Toms and feel less self-conscious about practicing the drums when neighbours are home ... hey, a mandocello in the scratch-&-dent section -- still too expensive ... whoah, a USB microphone!).

Whatever case I get, I'll have to do something distinctive to it to make it easier to pick out of a pile of cases, at least until I get used to the change. I'm so used to just looking for "the light blue one (now with red tape) and the beat-up brown one" among the jumble of black guitar cases at various events that I'm bound to forget to look for a black one at first.

---

In other news, the house, which was at 88°F and 60% relative humidity at the hottest part of yesterday, finally cooled a bit overnight and a little more since the rain started: it's all the way down to 85°F and 58% relative humidity. Gee, no wonder I feel sticky. And no wonder Perrine keeps retreating to the coolest patch of floor she can find in the hallway (and glaring at me as though the weather is my fault when I pass by). I'm trying to avoid plugging in the bedroom air conditioner -- I'm still paying for the electricity consumed by space heaters over the winter, and the rates just went up significantly -- but I may have to give in and fire it up for my own sanity.

I don't think the heat is the reason I've been sleeping so poorly -- I'm only managing to stay asleep for 30 to 180 minutes at a time, with 60 to 120 minutes being the usual, and I'm gettin' awfully tired of being tired -- but it probably doesn't help.

The good news is that the temperature in my house is now down to 77°F (thanks, I presume, to that tropical storm somewhere south of here), which means that I can be comfortable as long as I do not move, and have a fan blowing on me.

The bad news is that the humidity is up to 70%, so the moment I expend a Joule more than what I dissipate resting (say, by standing up, for example, or bending over to pick something up) or interfere with the airflow (by putting on a bathrobe or other clothing), I'm instantly dripping with sweat again, which doesn't want to evaporate.

*sigh* At least it's cool enough for Perrine to hang out with me in the bedroom again.

Okay, just a couple more things left to do, then a quick shower to rinse off the sweat and a retreat into immobility to try to cool off again. Take out the trash, check the laundry, check the buckets under the leak in the roof. And maybe I'll stay asleep longer than fifteen minutes on my next attempt.