Bits and Pieces

Doc says I need to lose some weight and take Niacin (B vitamin) so I have committed wholeheartedly to these worthy goals. Of course watching what one eats focuses your attention on food, so I watched a little television and in 90 minutes saw advertisements for four different fast-food places and other purveyors of fatty, high-cal food. With this kind of brainwashing it's no wonder it's harder than sitting through an entire Dane Cook movie to resist crap food. Plus fast food does taste good, let's not forget that.

Doc also informed me Aspartame, the sweetener used in most diet drinks, creates a hunger response, so I switched to Tab. Yes, they still make this, and it's sweetened with saccharine. I found a stash at the local Kroger and strode cockily from the premises with my new favorite beverage. Three people on the way out of the store gawked at my 12-pack and exclaimed, "Do they still make that? I used to drink that twenty years ago!" You would have thought from their expressions of amazement and awe that I wielded the Ring of the Nibelung rather than a box of odd-tasting soda. I briefly toyed with the idea of slowly raising the magenta box over my head to see if everyone would drop to their knees and began genuflecting.

Aside from drinking what appears to be an archaic soft drink once favored by the Great Old Ones, I have noticed a reduction in my food cravings, so maybe science is right for once.

I continue to refine Cristofori's Dream, now I'm working on the rhythm pattens, adding tweaks here and there. Same with The Entertainer. I'll probably never stop trying to refine the pieces I learn, so won't mention it again.

Music of the Night, my -golly--third repertoire piece, is coming along apace. I've memorized the right-hand part for the first three pages (of five pages) and much of the left hand. The right-hand part is so chorded and developed it can almost stand alone. The left hand part is far simpler and mostly provides accents and emphasis. It's an interesting piece musically and just challenging enough to keep me interested, but nowhere near as knuckle-busting as the other two behemoths I'm tackling.

I was bitten by a spider today and soon an alarming red welt appeared. I had images of a Brown Recluse spider, cackling maniacally while injecting me with flesh-rotting toxins, so I hied me to the local Walk-In Clinic. The Doc was suitably impressed by what was by now a dark red splotch of two-inch radius, but assured me it wasn't Brown Recluse or any other homicidal species. I also learned there has been a rash (tee hee) of insect bites this season. They're turning on us, and there's a lot more of them than us. Is this the beginning of the end? Yes. Put your affairs in order and wait for the swarm of carnivorous cicadas.