Done:

• Slept from 0400h to 1030h  (~6.5 hrs)
• Banking
• Chat with Apurva
• Breakfast and an extremely long time thinking about the math problem!
• Still working on the math problem.  Must stop now.  :)
• Finally done at  1540h .   That means I probably worked on it for close to four hours!
• An effusive practice session
• Today’s practice session reinforced many lessons I’ve been slowly learning over the last year.
• The first lesson is that studying away from the piano has a tremendous effect on what I can do at the piano.  For example, the scene from  Tosca  has only one or two places that I’ll have to physically practice now — the rest of it was learned sitting at  Max Caffé !
• The second lesson is that I still haven’t learned to accept that my body needs time to digest.  What does that mean?  Well, last night I felt very unmusical, and  —probably these are related—  focussed more on the physical part of playing than the mental.  It was just an unsatisfying session.  But then today I was intensely musical, really capable of shading my playing in the most subtle ways.  I can only conclude that sometimes reality is a step behind desire, and that is not a problem, provided  you give reality a chance to catch up !
• :)
• A physical reminder:  Use the full body to play.  Never just let fingers do the work; redistribute that weight into the forearms, upper arms, and torso.  This is especially important to remember on my piano, because the action is flimsy, and one can get away with just using fingers.  That sort of playing will never transfer to a grand piano.
• Voices of Gotham concert
• Remembering what some people call camaraderie
• See tomorrow’s blog

Breakfast/Brunch/Lunch:

• Chicken fillet, red onion, garlic, orange pepper, broccoli
• Espresso
• Celery and almond butter

Lunch:

• Salad with lettuce, arugula, orange pepper, broccoli, red onion, Brussels sprouts, olive oil, and a can of tuna fish

“Dinner”:

• Crab salad  (actual crab (!), mango, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, red onion)
• ~5 wings in ranch
• 2 Guinness
• 3 shots Jameson
• Hamburger wrapped in lettuce, with all the fixin’s
• Coconut bar
• Piece of cheesecake

Late night snack (ie the thing that really refreshed me):

• The remainder of the celery