As I celebrate the ONE YEAR mark of my piano training, I feel pretty good. I moved on from the first verse of THE ENTERTAINER to the second verse, and my teacher gave me a bag of M&Ms to celebrate. However, I gave myself a bag of Lindor Truffles to suck on all day. After all, this is a big day. I know there are those who never thought a reprobate like me would stick it out. But my passion for the keyboard and related musics has, if anything, become even more firmly entrenched.

And I've practiced every day when I've been home, and most of the days when I haven't through some means or other. I mentioned my roll-out keyboard, and I also spoke of my subterfuge of going to music stores when I'm out of town, pretending to be an interested buyer, and "testing" pianos in order to get my practice time in. Unfortunately, it was during this window-shopping I conceived an unholy love for the Yamaha Klavinova. Now I suffer eternal longings. To add to my misfortune, these cost between three to five thousand dollars, and I'm by no means a 3-5 large neighborhood pianist. Not yet anyway.

So I feel good about the past year. I look forward to the upcoming year and learning the rest of my two projects.