while my guitar gently...

..tolerates my general roughhousing and questionable vocal skills...  of course it can give back as good as it gets, biting into and slowly callousing my coddled fingertips. you know how with anything it can hurt while you're learning, but you don't want to stop?  because of the payoff on other levels. because you actually want to learn more. several times i actually checked to make sure they weren't bleeding. yesterday, i had new lighter steel strings installed. just means i will be able to play a little longer before it gets uncomfortable,  at least until i develop more formidable callouses. checking their progress - pinkie not so much, but ring, middle and index have new character. yeah i'm so tough now - hah.

i love the minor chords, truly i do. E minor for instance is the love of my life. there is no substitute for that sweet yet melancholy sound. any excuse to sneak Em into a song...it's that compelling. there's also an "easy" version of F# minor - that elusive Iberian, previously unavailable - now we share a casual friendship over coffee or perhaps a hoppy IPA. lately any song i want to play, within reason, i'll give it a go - but if the chords involve too many digital gymnastics (pesky barre chords still a struggle) well then, no.

more fun though to play the one song i wrote, the only one so far. it's done, yet i'm still tinkering.  perhaps i should whittle down the whining, and wait - where's that silver lining?  there needs to be a bright one, in a song that at first listen is more than a little glum. the chords could use some work, the first part sort of blah: G C, G C, G C,  followed by Em C, Em C.

mopey songs with a measure of hope are in my nature, if my other writing is any indication.
trying to imagine a poem or song where i wax ecstatic about how great everything is.
nah - i'll take the sweet with the melancholy any day.