2025-07-18 - SiM AAD

overslept.  it was going to happen at some point this week.

addressing work concerns and dealing with stuff.  sitting at 10:30 am, a lot of mind drifting.

when there is very little to do, it's very difficult to do very little.

breakfast is quick, just an egg sandwich.  a bit of dismay as i realize the egg was over easy, not over medium.

taking a moment to look at the website set up for the upcoming year AAD project.  doesn't look like much attention is required from me, so i let it go.

most of the day is quiet.  not much to do.  a couple verbal utterances out of my mouth, some internet commenting while i'm distracted.  the rule i've been sticking with most of the week is to not listen to any music and keep any distraction videos closed, and i notice that when i let this go and allow these, it is damn near impossible to not begin to leave comments; most of the time i catch myself and make myself close the page or the app because no one needs my input.

most of the time.

also noticing that it's getting increasingly difficult to make the distinction between "necessary work interactions to not draw attention to my being quiet" and simple gabbing away.

a late shower to prep for heading over to the house-sitting gig.  guitar(s) loaded in the car; one of them (the guild) will be taken to a repair shop tomorrow, and the other (the gibson) will be a practice instrument while i wait to go pick up my other guitar (the martin, my old boston guitar).  the thought that i might want to postpone picking up the martin crosses my mind, but i wave it away.

driving over to DG's, pulling my bag and guitars out of the car, and walking up.  the dog is going nuts because she sees me now and knows that dinner is about to happen.  and... the key is missing from its usual place.  a quick text to DG, and then a call, and she realizes that the key is on her keychain, somewhere in eastern washington.  no big deal, i know curt has a spare, so i tell her not to worry.  curt on the phone ("okay, necessary talking time"), and luckily he's at home beginning to cook dinner.  loading back up into the car.

it is rush hour, and i instantly make a mistake of taking a turn that will put me in backed up traffic, with no way out.  so a 10 minute drive is 25 minutes.  picking up the key from curt, a little gabbing, but i'm waving it away on account of being semi-human--he's not the one taking the necessary talking thing on--and we also have a couple things to address for rehearsal on sunday.  back in the car, driving back to DG's, and i've managed to choose the stiffer traffic back.  another 30 minutes back.  out of the car, hopping back up the steps to the front door, and the key goes into the slot, and... nothing.  it doesn't budge.  at this point, i notice the initials on the key label:  "SP".

"hey curt, so the initials on the key..."

"yeah...?"

"they're SP."

".... oh FUCK."  we both laugh about it, but i bolt back down to the car, take a slightly faster way, and it only takes me 15 minutes.  curt runs the key out, we trade, and i head back.  it's still 25 minutes back, friday rush hour is in full effect.  finally back into the house, and feed the poor animals almost two hours after i left my place (and thus a full two hours late for them).

both the cat and dog want head skritches after eating, and i have a little bit of time, so time is killed on the couch.  i realize i could be practicing, but it's not enough time to actually get any steam built up, so i just relax for about twenty minutes.  back out the door to pick up a burrito so that i can have dinner and self-release from the talking rule.  i have a moment, after arriving early but parked a couple houses away, where i can cram the food into my mouth, and i watch a wasp buzz about the windshield for a few minutes.  i have the sense it sees me and wants inside to antagonize me.  windshield wipers eventually have their say.

inside to pick up the martin; the repairperson is a local lapsed crafty.  he complains about the job and how i'm the last person he'll do this for (the binding on the top had come loose).  i have the sense that he's both telling the truth and embellishing a bit, and feel a bit of pressure to pay more than what i'd intended.  afterward, we talk about gear for a bit and i find my mouth running more than i want, and am annoyed with myself.  i also find it odd that i'm trying to have such a genial conversation when i don't actually want to.

we bid goodbye, and back in the car again.  stopping by my apartment to pick up the laundry i need to do while housesitting, and a couple food items; i also take the time to put some things away before heading back to DG's.  back inside yet again, immediately beginning a load of laundry.  a bit more vegging out before finally pulling a guitar out to begin practicing, and i realize that i have no strap.  or normal picks.  so it ends up being 90 minutes of work with AAD material in a slightly compromised position, and some video recording.

the anchor and sensing exercise is a bit of a mystery to me.  i have the sense that when i've been working on it this week, i've been doing it wrong, largely because sensing my left hand is strangely impossible.  it's also fully geometric, and is the kind of material i have been increasingly avoiding for several years now because when i practice this stuff, i can only play like this.  but there is no denying that it has a use, and there's a legato-ness that begins to show up that, when i map the general concept onto some 3rd primary two-string ideas, is suddenly very musical.

very happy to have a reason to play this guitar again, i always forget how unexpectedly good it sounds, especially with the right pick.

more work with the 3rd primary variations, and singing key centers/target pitches.  it is hard work, mostly because singing without warming up is tough to keep steady, and a lot of this work pulls me outside my comfort range very quickly.  it's not particularly surprising why we tend to avoid this kind of work in the circle, since some people are very bad at singing because someone told them that they were*, and they just stopped even trying.

a few videos recorded, one posted to instagram.  it's finally time to go to sleep.

* i can't even begin to mention how angry this makes me.

2025-07-17 - SiM AAD

hard to wake up this morning.  and a general malaise.  the discussion with my therapist re: performance anxiety continues to roll around in my head, with all its implications (i guess).

up early, like always, but not out of bed immediately.  clocking in, addressing immediate needs for work.  feeling the sting of a self-imposed aim of necessary talking, and what it feels like to just... not do it.

quick recap from last night:  hot as shit in the apartment, and then heading over to wednesday night rehearsal.  i don't have time to get food, and thus get dinner, but i've already made the choice that i'm going to attempt to stick with necessary talking during rehearsal.  arriving at rehearsal, and just making clear that i'm engaging with it... and within 15 minutes it becomes clear that i just need to let it go.  between this and fighting a guitar that gets progressively more difficult to play, i spend most of the rehearsal feeling like a failure.  the power cuts out midway through, in a very large portion of Seattle, so we switch to candlelight, which is a nice ambience.  after rehearsal's done, back down to the car, and instead of taking the faster way home, i am hungry and also don't want to deal with traffic lights being out, so i head up and over to take a less direct way, which means driving down aurora.  sex workers are out, and i am kind of amazed at how many appear to be wearing nothing more than string.

finally back in my neighborhood.  i get a call back from my girlfriend; two things about the conversation end up making me even more glum than i was before, and then it is on pause.  i try and find a place to get a bite, but most of the area is closed and so i just go home.  in my head, some comedy bit about being so hungry you sleep for dinner plays.  this is a different situation, but not unrelated.  my phone rings again, and i am on the phone for a little over an hour, long enough to mean that any more guitar activity isn't going to happen.  futzing around until 1:30 am, and then to bed.

sitting at 8:40.  my eyes are a little irritated, i need to wash my face.  CaaD exercise feels a little more real than yesterday, and i notice an attachment making itself known.  very much wishing i was on site.  work meeting at 9:15, i still have not had breakfast.  afterward, i get a text message from a circle member asking if i have a moment; he knows about the necessary talking commitment and so i say "yes, i haven't eaten breakfast yet".  we talk for about 5 minutes, and i wonder why i continue to talk so much.

breakfast of coffee and a banana, while I wait for some muesli to absorb milk.  catching up on diarizing and avoiding work.  of course.

work ends up being a lot of busy work.  a couple more meetings, but mostly pretty quiet, quite literally.  some distracting myself at moments to let my brain decompress, and generally being able to not talk.  there is still chatter, and i can do nothing about that.

some reflecting throughout the day on a meeting from yesterday that was frankly depressing, and indicative of just how much of a dead end i've hit.  i need to get out of this, somehow.

a late-afternoon shower, and a brief trip to the grocery store.  it's not quite so hot but it's still very warm.  back at home, some dishwashing, and a quick dinner.  i feel a little pleased with myself about the idea from a few weeks ago to make kimchi using standard giardiniera vegetables.  more distracting myself because i don't want to practice on an ovation, and the phone rings; it's annie, briefly.  i make a note to make sure i have enough time this weekend to see her at cap hill.

finally in the practicing chair late.  ditching the ovation for the SG; it just doesn't feel right to suffer needlessly.  warming up, and then working with a couple of andres' exercises, noting that these are the kinds of things i would have gone nuts over ten years ago.  now i am working with them, mostly because they're course material, but also because i admit that a couple concepts would be interesting and useful to work with in a tonal context.  anchor work is always a challenge.

switching gears to tonal work.  the 3rd primary variations eventually come out, and i begin to work these while singing the pitches.  my voice is scratchy but that's fine, i'm in tune as long as i'm not breaking between head voice and chest voice.  on a whim, i begin including solfege symbols, and *this* is clearly what i can work with the next few days.  this is hard work because of all the vocal jumps, and being so out of practice means that i spend a lot of time yawning.

a brief excursion into chromatic solfege, and shifting accidentals/syllables while slurring (i.e., "mi" becomes "me" when minor, and sustaining a note while slipping from major to minor while also changing the vowel sound, like miiiiiiii-eeeeeeeeh).  i can do more of that while i'm house-sitting this weekend.

catching up on diary work until 12:45.  always strange to hear your ears shutting off because your body keeps microsleeping.

2025-07-16 - SiM AAD

quick recap from end of night last night:  hot enough in the apartment that i was genuinely exhausted.  a little dismayed by a text exchange.  practicing at end of the night was almost impossible; i got probably 35ish minutes in, maybe more, and passed out wearing a guitar.  finally made it to bed around 1 am or so.

today's going to be tough.  i woke up early enough but it is a low-energy day and so nothing has properly begun yet (8:04 am).  asked someone if i'd be able to pick up a guitar from a repair, and suspect i am going to have to drop my primary guitar off in bellevue tomorrow.

sitting at roughly 8:50.  noticing my hands are not happy.  1-1 with supervisor at work, i felt a little bad pointing out "these guys working for you have some issues to be addressed", but it was necessary.  interesting point to note:  an aphorism from the course in spain flew in from martin s. while we were still talking, "any act that is knowingly non-consensual offers violence."  for me, the second one in the message, "honesty is a quality.  our honestly invites honesty in others." is possibly a better encapsulation.

another longish call that fights to keep me talking.  i'm noticing a few more utterances than yesterday outside of the planned-for speaking.  some digging around to figure out a couple mysteries.  it's hot.

break for lunch.  breath of the wild.

back to work, but it's largely just checking on things, nothing particularly challenging.  tomorrow's going to be the harder/longer day.

practicing on an ovation, which i have to admit doesn't play badly below the 12th fret.  but it sounds awful.

working with a sort of made-up exercise:  ascending by major thirds from C to E to G#, while singing the tonic, then the leading tone which is the dominant of the next key, while playing the dominant of that next key.  right now it's just just the two-note primaries across the neck, but it works out to Cmaj/B7/Emaj/D#7/G#/G7.  trying to hear the target pitch is really tricky, maybe a bit more than i expected when i decided this was on the list for this week's work.

2025-07-15 - SiM AAD

up early again.  sitting at 7:22.

before moving on, i am realizing that i have not made my aims on this project clear.  there are several; the important one is first:

- necessary talking, when practical, between breakfast and dinner.

- contact at a distance with the team

- ear training while working calisthenics

"breakfast to dinner" is ostensibly an easy metric, but it's a little funny if you're not eating or coffee-ing at the same time.  so i'm aware of a little switch that hasn't flipped as of now (9:09 am), but it's balanced right on the edge.

two work meetings.  can't decide if it's interesting or depressing watching Brad The Performer pop out.

shortly after noon:  "oh no shit" flies out of my mouth as i realize i've been very close to a guitar repair shop i need to head to in bellevue.

another conversation, i get fairly animated.

noticing since yesterday that when i am choosing to not listen to music or talk, my inner jukebox gets really loud.

during lunch break:  blending canned tomatoes and passing through a sieve.  i notice an urge to hear music, i let it pass.  thinking about buying a better sieve.

a lot of phone calls today.  "necessary talking only" is really annoying when you're keeping your mouth shut about it.

a nap after work.  espresso.  sitting down early for therapy at 7 pm, time to think more about what to say.  "how can i do therapy better?", in so many words, which is irritating to me, intellectually.  it's warm and bright enough that i briefly think about my first time stepping into this apartment; it was even warmer then.  it's quiet outside, or as quiet as it can be at 6:58 pm on a tuesday.

therapy.  talking about things like the decision exercise, performance anxiety (not sexual but what isn't?), discipline, explaining the concept of being on a course AAD.  anxiety about not being able to perform discipline (this formulation emerging just now).  having clear goals; she understandably doesn't want to have therapy that just goes on and on forever with no resolution, there should be a clear and attainable goal.  i appreciate this, and after the fact i am noting the difference in approach here with the modern social construct of therapy as performative self-discovery to be more socially palatable to others.

using blended tomatoes to make pizza.  both small pizzas that i make are baked too long, and/or should be broiled instead of baked at 500.  but the quality is decidedly better than what i have done in the past, and will be better when i'm making my own dough.

2025-07-14 - SiM AAD

will update in real time.

awake at 7am.  sitting with CaaD.

i've been noticing the grind from "necessary talking only" since yesterday, even though it's only beginning today.  and the proviso is "when practical", so it's only internal.  still.

quiet until 9:30, then a flurry of discussion.  strange how much it takes out of me.

feels twitchy.  work is providing some extra sticking points; it is very difficult to just be quiet or to just focus.  also trying to decide if i'm going to count looking at my phone as "unnecessary".  maybe the rule will be to only count it if i'm not doing something directly related to communicating a thing or completing a task.

visit with a new dentist.  it feels strange to make the choice to "allow" myself to speak, to give myself permission to just interact as needed.  some anxiety rising up while discussing some necessary and expensive (monetarily and physically) procedures.  a little guilt as i pull my phone out after leaving the office to shoot a quick message to work.  the trip in both directions is interrupted on the ballard bridge by a boat passing.

realized after leaving a comment on FB just what i had done.  so it goes.

a late and irritating work day.  kitchen cleaning, and to the store for a few things.  trying not to mill about, just practical choice-making.  back home to eat, and finally allowing myself to relax for a while. 

practicing begins around 10:30.  pulling my main guitar from the case, and shortly putting it back after slacking the strings; it needs help and i can’t get it to the shop until saturday.  a little time with an ovation, and it is so uncomfortable and bad-sounding i put it back.  calisthenics with the taylor, which is in a different tuning and that is fine.  eventually switching to the les paul so i can get some NST work in.  off to bed at 1am.

When I was a kid, every winter, the school system would hold a wrapping paper (or chocolate) fundraiser. It wasn't really compulsory, but you'd kind of be guilted into doing it, even though the teachers really would have preferred to just do their real jobs and teach.

I was terrible at it. I really hated it, and I hated going door-to-door, asking people if they wanted to buy any wrapping paper. When I did make a sale, I was usually more surprised than anything, and it was just a distraction from the fact that I was walking around my neighborhood, and sometimes other neighborhoods, trying to get anyone to buy this wrapping paper. I'd be walking around for a couple hours at a time, wishing that I could just stay home and watch TV or play with Legos or read.

When the fundraiser was over, and the rolls of paper had arrived for distribution, I'd get embarrassed by how little I'd sold. I'd maybe have 8 or 10 rolls, not realizing that most of the kids that had sold so many rolls that their parents had to come pick it up, had done so specifically because their parents took the order form to work and passed it around the office or store. They were well-to-do kids, but I had no idea what that meant. All I knew was that I'd bring the wrapping paper home, I'd have to walk it to the neighbor that had bought some from me, and then I'd go home and have hot chocolate.

If I was really lucky, I might have sold enough to cash in for a prize or something. That almost never happened, but there were two times that I can remember that I pulled that off: one time, I was able to cash in for a CD. I had recently gone nuts over the Beatles, and so I scoured the list for anything from them. I came up a little dry, but I did find a copy of John Lennon's greatest hits from his solo career. This is probably the first time that I jumped into a record without having any idea what it sounded like, and I remember being disappointed because it didn't sound like the Beatles. It sounded... darker. Deeper, only because it was harder to understand. "Mind Games" sounded like it went on forever. "Give Peace a Chance" mentioned Hare Krishna, and what was that? "Love Is Real" confused me, because it was some sort of a love song that sounded like it came creeping out of some sad and lonely place, and then disappeared again, with a coda that was just as despondent as the song made me feel. And "Cold Turkey" really made me uncomfortable.

There was only one other prize that I remember getting. It was a pen with a digital clock in it. It was pink and yellow, and shaped like an elongated teardrop, and it had a lanyard on it. I guess it was probably something you were supposed to use for timing things and writing down the results, and I imagine that occurred to me, but mostly I just carried it everywhere. Effectively useless, I had it on me at all times, and I remember hanging onto it and poking at the clock buttons while sitting in the back of the family van, as we drove all over Lewistown looking at the different lights. I made up some sort of story, some sort of fantasy that involved a very contrived and involved backstory, for the pen, and it became a sort of luck charm for me, long after the battery died out because I'd pushed the buttons and timed and re-timed everything I could think of. Probably the death knell of the thing was when the ink finally dried up--for me, this was quite some time, because I hated using pens when I was growing up.

Seeing strings of lights, and mentions of the holidays, and videos about magic snowmen that may or may not exist, dredge all this up, unbidden. And, with the realization that this may likely be an extremely quiet and solitudinous season in a city not known for snow, I may need to find a pen, or begin listening to solo John Lennon again.

There are few things in modern American culture that are as instantly humiliating and emasculating as realizing you're a man that is about to begin crying on the sidewalk while on the phone.

I should back up.

Earlier this year, I split up with E.*,  the woman that I had thought I would marry.  This was preceded by probably six months of increasing unhappiness for both of us, probably catalyzed by her loss of a job that had been a stressful and upsetting place for her to work, but was a decent paycheck nonetheless.  I found out that E. had just been laid off while on a 12-hour layover in Peru, on my way to a guitar project, which in retrospect is fitting.

*E. is not her initial, but her actual initial makes this really confusing.

I'm not sure that it's useful, or even interesting, to recount ephemera or minutiae or anything specific about the last three months.  There were fights:  some of them more bitter than others, and some of them higher in stake than others.  But as anyone who has lived with their significant other will confirm, they almost always begin as small disagreements about matters that are uninteresting, even to the two people involved.  Listening to anyone recount an argument with their spouse or someone close can be tedious, as the opening statements are usually banal.  But what really distinguishes the big ones is the sheer velocity in which they move from banality to extremely serious.

I wouldn't doubt that you could just throw up a decibel meter and watch it like that.

The tipping point was in January, after leaving a trade show and picking her up at the airport.  The ensuing argument--utter bewilderment at my lack of caring, utter bewilderment at the anger directed at me--were the beginning of a long slide down.  I felt horrible about her not working, about not having an outlet for... anything, it seemed, but every new argument made me clam up.  I withdrew further, which frustrated her and made her even more likely to push hard for any sort of reaction from me, which made me withdraw even more.

There was one argument where she complained, justifiably, that I drove her car to and from work and I just took it for granted, while she was stuck at home.  After this, I immediately began taking the bus, because I wanted her to have the car--it was her car, after all.  This meant leaving for work at 6:00 am, and arriving home usually around 7:30 or 8:00 at night.  Even more isolation for both of us, and I was exhausted by the time I got home, so I maybe got another three hours of awake time before I began passing out.

One night, I woke up to E. crying next to me in bed and trying not to wake me up.  I pulled her close, because I missed her, and it felt horrible, and I didn't understand anything that was going on.  I wonder how many other nights I missed that.

I couldn't bear the fighting.  Especially with someone that I love, my habit when in an argument is always to assume an air of rationality, to try and meet in the middle, or at least be conciliatory.  And as the arguments ceased to be about different opinions on music and culture and started to really turn into really serious discussions about the state of us, and as the stakes rose higher and higher, I began to answer ever more slowly.  E. would ask a question that I wanted to give an honest and good answer to, something personal about us, and I would take one or two minutes to respond, or longer, because I would take every possible answer I could give and assess everything, in order to come up with a carefully constructed and non-inflammatory answer.  I constantly failed to understand that E. just wanted me to show some sort of emotion and just react.  It was not unusual for her to call me a robot, at this point.  But then, I had become so unresponsive, just as a matter of trying to not set her off, that this was sort of an accurate statement.

About two weeks before it actually happened, and I don't remember what had happened that night, but it was very late, I was drunk and extremely tired, and E. had been pushing me on what was going on with us very hard, on whether we were coming apart.  I confessed that it had been on my mind, and in my state, I remember using the words, "... bring it to a soft close."

Like pouring gasoline on a fire.  Instantly my things began moving out of the bedroom, and she began packing things left and right and yelling everything she could think of at me.  I panicked, because all I wanted was for it to stop, and was trying to make it stop, and why wouldn't she stop, and, "E., I'm sorry.  Please.  Can we try couples' therapy?"

In that moment, I really did want to try therapy.

But we never went.  The pressure had been released, and was taken off for about a week or so, and we just started to build up again.

I wish we'd gone, at least once.

At this same time, E. had been going to job interviews, and things were suddenly looking up for her, professionally.  She had several good interviews, and had one particularly good prospect in front of her.

The night before she would find out whether she got the job or not, I came home from work, to a meal that E. had made, which tasted good.  The subject of organic vs. non-organic food came up, GMO vs. non-GMO, and within minutes, after I'd taken a moment to look something up to verify what she'd said, I watched as the same ugly fighting cranked up in front of me, like someone had just pushed a button, and we stepped helplessly into the same bitter arguing, completely automatically, unable to stop ourselves.

The next night, I cried on the bus back home, knowing that she'd gotten the job.  I walked into the apartment, sat on the bed, and told her, "I think I have to move out."

Everything moved very quickly after that.  I spent most of the night pulling stuff together as E. locked the bedroom door.  The next night, I bought boxes to put everything in, and E. and I talked and sort of argued, as I began packing the boxes, and she asked if we were just taking a break, and I couldn't answer that.  Same as the night before, I slept on the couch as E. locked the bedroom door.

That was the last time I saw her.  The next night, I finished packing, but she stayed at a friend's house.  And the night after that, my last night in the apartment, she wouldn't come home, which I have always regretted.

I couch-hopped for the next month, and eventually landed in a place in West LA.  There were some text conversations, arguments, and discussions of feelings.  But no voice conversations.  I sent her money, because she'd said that I'd used her and dropped her when it was convenient, which wasn't true, but I could see how things would seem like that.  I didn't initiate any more conversations, but I was very clear when I told her that I wouldn't shut her out, ever.  We both acknowledged that we needed a cooling off period.  She was furious and angry and felt betrayed by me, and I felt horrible and terrible about myself.

We haven't spoken in five, almost six months.

I hated being told that I didn't love her.  Not just because it was not, and is not, true, but also because it was so hard for me to express anymore, and because I was hurt as well, and being called a robot and uncaring and unfeeling were in such opposition to what my experience was.  I never admitted that I didn't love her because I couldn't admit a lie.

-------

The bottom dropped out, this past week, and the crushing sense of loss landed hard, finally.  The past six days have been a miasma of intense self-hatred and doubt and anger and a single desperate question that has kept me awake and mostly not eating.  Being able to rationalize an answer is different from really knowing the answer, and not having anyone to talk to and measure out and discuss things with will really just turn acute emotion into a toneless and awful feedback loop.

Finding myself in conversation with my old teacher, V., we exchanged pleasantries and caught up a bit, and then he pushed straight into "so why did you really call?"

I was honestly surprised to find out that the breakup of his marriage and the breakup of our relationship were very similar, though his was a much more drawn-out affair.  And, after reminding me of the five stages of grief, he mentioned that he was also beginning to experience something of the same thing I was entering into:  after all the logistical matters of how to separate have been taken care of, and you've actually done the work, and you can finally come to a rest, you'll usually find that... you have to face the loss.  It's there, and it always was there, but this is your life now.  It's different than it was before.

I said that I had known it was going to be hard, and that at the time, I was fully convinced that it was the only just thing to do, that it was the kindest thing I could do.  Going back to that night, I had seen us fighting about GMO foods and realized that it was totally automatic and beyond our control, and knew that I had to do it either right then, or the time would pass, and a year later we'd really have to do it and end up in much worse condition.

It was about here that I mentioned that I was really having trouble having compassion for the person that had brought about such disruption.

"Compassion for who, for yourself?"
"Yes, I--"
"Stop.  You don't get to judge yourself for your actions."  And V. proceeded to point out that the only reason I'd brought about that disruption was because of a much bigger disruption, and that if this was what I had to do to preserve my sanity, then that was fine.

"Listen, I've known you for a while, and you're a good person, and you're a very caring person, and I know that it wasn't what you wanted to do.  But you did it, and you can't keep beating yourself up over it.  You did your best."

Even now, writing this up brings tears to my eyes.  That single desperate question that has been burning in my mind, both this past week and for some months now, has been, "Am I good?"  It's like that terrible imposter feeling:  even if you get the job, someone's going to figure out that you're not really able to do it.  I wanted to be good.

After this, V. said that it's not a black-and-white thing, and that there is a process that has to be undertaken.  There is now a void where something once was, and it would be good to stay with that void, instead of trying to fill it again.  That's a difficult process, but ultimately it's where creativity resides.

A few more pleasantries, and a suggestion that I check in sooner rather than later, and we both hung up.

And I walked inside to get some doughnuts.