Today was a fulfilling, eventful day, even though on the surface, it was quite ordinary. I played the role of international personal shopper: Jens asked me to send him some music books from Chas. Colin here in Manhattan. Sylvain asked me to get him a hard-to-find-in-France documentary (which apparently is also hard-to-find in the US: I got my hands on the last normally priced copy.) Anyhow, since I was up in Midtown west getting Jens' music books, I decided to stop by Sam Ash and start working on one of my big New Years' resolutions: to get a keyboard so that I can recover the 13 years of piano training that I threw in the trash 15 years ago. Remember when I mentioned that I never win anything? This must be my lucky year, starting with finding the Virgin Mary fève in my slice of Guillemette's galette. Today, I won a free guitar! When I asked if it was because I was customer number xxxx, my Sam Ash sales guy just giggled, repeated, "Yes, you won a FREE guitar!" and never game me an answer. But there it was, on my receipt: "Dreadnaught, 40", Natural, MSRP $159.00"--for $0.00!! I guess I should now add "learn to play the guitar" to my resolution list. I have always said, "I wish I could play the guitar," wistfully, as if it is a completely unattainable skill, at least not in this universe. I think "the gods must be crazy"--they want me to learn how to play in this lifetime. This, after telling Eugene that I need to pare down my interests and be otaku about something.