A former student sent me a picture from the orchestra pit where she's working, said she still counts the difficult bits out loud like I made her do. Man, that got me. I showed my wife, then the next kid arriving for his lesson, who was mostly interested in whether she gets free tickets. Fair question. For a while I wanted to send it to my dad too, with something smart about this not being a real job, but that would've made a perfectly good message into another round of that conversation. Haven't sent it. I've looked at the picture about ten times though, zooming in on the music stand like I might recognize the pencil marks.

I've got a bass line stuck in my head that I keep turning into somebody else's song when I try to record it. The first four bars are mine, pretty sure, then my fingers head straight for this thing we used to play in the van band and there goes originality. Tried changing the rhythm, tried starting on a different note... now I've got six recordings called new idea, very useful filing system. I like the rough first one best. There's a kid yelling for breakfast halfway through it and I come back in late, which actually gives the next bit some room. Can't remember whether I meant to leave that space. Keeping it anyway.

Put on a record after the last guitar lesson and ended up playing bass along with the whole first side... actual playing, not showing somebody where their finger goes. By the third song my left hand was getting tired and those nice soft teacher fingertips were complaining, but I kept finding little parts I used to know without thinking. Had to stand up because the stool was killing my hip. Standing felt good, I was moving around enough that my wife came in to see what all the thumping was. Just me. Forty-three years old and still apparently incapable of keeping time without involving the floor.