A wonderful addiction.

Made the mistake of drinking four cups of coffee after getting off work this evening. The days are long gone when I'd drink 48 shots of espresso and just barely feel it. So yes, I am still up.

Practiced a good two hours in roughly half-hour chunks on the guitar and am getting good at it, and fast. Finger memory -- I'm *getting* it. It's *not* "the same thing" as learning piano. Not at all. Each time I pick it up or make some tiny adjustment it sounds better and better, making me want to pick it up sooner the next time. I put it down finally because my fingertips are just worn out enough to really need a rest. I can't bear to leave it behind when I go anyhwhere. Then when I'm away from it at all for any length of time, all I can think of is the next time I will get to pick it up. Best addiction EVER.

I do hope to get five hours sleep. I'll have to move it (and the amplifier) off the bed, and doing that will make me want to pick it up. I'm terrified of falling asleep with it in my hands if I sit in bed playing it unplugged, 'cause I might shift positions in unconsciousness and hurt it.

Tomorrow's gonna be fun -- fifteen deposits or something like that need to be posted. Have to be fast &and& accurate. Spent three hours today just learning how to do a chargeback which is sort of the insurance industry's equivalent of a double-halfback-pirouette-media-veronica-swan dive bluff with a dash of tabasco. That's three hours spent on one line item in one check in one deposit that didn't even have anything to do with bringing in money but just moving numbers around. But it needs to get done, 'cause well, that's just accounts receivable. Or something.

Bill's given me the somewhat grandiose title "Account Manager", so I finally get to call myself something *much* nicer than "hired hand", "warm body", or "cannon fodder", which almost every job I've had up to now amounts to. This even though I don't actually *manage* anything, but just try to hold chaos happening all together everywhere at once as best I can. I'd honestly prefer the title "Junior Assistant Choreographer of Bedlam" but I think that wouldn't look right in the email signatures, 'cause no one working in the clinics ever reads Foucault and if they did they'd be offended by the reference. It's nice, though, having a title that makes it sound like peoples' fates are in my hands. Now I want a sash like the Mexican president, and finally get to aim for a chain of office like the lord high chancellor. But seriously, it's nice to be able to say who I am to the rare panicked or irate and always mentally unstable patient on the phone without going into "I'm the guy he took on 'cause he really needed someone".

Then I get paid -- tomorrow -- and I get to spend all weekend with my guitar in my apartment that I'll finally have time to work on. I think the kitchen may get done, at last.

Enough! I need to take a bath. And then dry off before I dare to approach my guitar, lest I get it wet. And then move it. Hopefully without picking it up to obsess over tunings or intonation or action or worst of all learning more chords. And then, I hope -- to sleep.