Yes, that's how it is. I wouldn't want to live alone now, and yet I did for many, many years.I've really enjoyed my week to myself. I'm very aware that this is only possible because my wife will be returning. I would not want to live alone
Funny, the cleaning does have to take place after a week alone. It's fun to let things get a little sloppy, when it's just you.
Interesting little 'side notes' here (pun intended). To the reader: if you have no interest in hearing about playing a musical instrument, do not read on!
As a trumpet player in high school, I was never taught to improvise. Everything came from what was written on the score. Then I joined the jazz band in college, and came upon an improv solo. I must have handed it off; I didn't go on to learn improv on the trumpet.
Fast forward to guitar learning--I had to start improvising right from the get-go. I dutifully learned the five-tone "pentatonic" scale for blues, and the one for country, and then tried to apply them. It sounded terrible--like someone just 'running scales,' with no rhyme or reason to them.
I resisted for a long time, but finally I broke down and began to learn 'riffs'--little pre-packaged note arrangements that everyone in rock and blues uses in their solos. I wanted to be original, but I wasn't brilliant enough to be able to break the rules without learning them first. Once I put riffs into my solos, both the band and the customers at the bar went, "Yeah." They suddenly thought I was a great guitarist, because they recognized the language I was speaking. I had to stop thinking of riffs as 'cliches,' and regard them as building blocks.
All I can say is--I learned enough riffs so that I could play a solo from beginning to end, and then I used that foundation to start coming up with my own variations on each 'journey' through the solo.
Don't forget the best cross-dressing rock tuba player that never was: Opus Croakus of Deathtongue:
