Thursday 6 December 2007

Oranges and lemons

Continuing with the (apparently dull) satsuma theme, a colleague was sat next to me today, his laptop bag left open. I looked, looked again, and spotted what looked like about 50 oranges in there.

I commented on this, and he said "No, only two oranges. The rest are clementines." About ten pounds of fruit.

He then proceeded to cruelly mock my satsuma that was on my desk, eloquently comparing his brighter, bigger, rounder, nicer-smelling clementines to my rather sullen, greenish, lumpy and frankly Frankenstein's monster of a piece of fruit. I believe the expression "I wouldn't touch your satsuma with a ten foot pole" may have been used.

I would have wept with chagrin, but he gave me one of his. And it was much much nicer than mine.

Other news: Sold my Strat yesterday.

I have hardly played it since I got my Les Paul, so it just sat there day after day, looking sad and neglected. My lovely guitar teacher told me about one of his contacts who was after a decent guitar, and gave me his number. I rang him yesterday and asked if he'd like to come round for a road test. So to speak.

He turned up as arranged, and then played the bejeezus out of my Strat for half an hour, making me feel completely rubbish and inadequate. He decided to buy it, and I am pleased it's going to someone who will do it justice.

The down side is that I now feel like all the time and effort I have spent on getting to the standard I have has been wasted and I might as well give up and admit I will never be any fucking good.

Gah.

4 comments:

badgerdaddy said...

Don't even go there. Or I'll have to scan myself, email myself to you as an attachment and bitchslap you through your screen.

Just because someone else is better... Well, that's got fuck all to do with anything. He might have been playing for 40 years, practising every day. He might not have held down a full-time job ever (most really excellent guitarists I know have not had much in the way of work. Coincidence?). Or he might be that rare thing, a natural - but I doubt it. Don't measure your achievements against someone else's, you don't know how they came about theirs. You know how you got yours though 0 with hard work and perseverance.

So there.

livesbythewoods said...

Ah, fair point. I am feeling a bit better about it now.

I KNOW I should just be pleased with what I can do, and I am really not that bad, but it was a bit of a nasty feeleing to sit there and hear my guitar played really, really well, and know that I will probably never be that good.

Ah well.

Keep practising, I suppose.

And I could sing a lot better than him. I expect. He didn't sing, but I bet I was better.

Caro said...

Yeah, what badgerdaddy said!

I will never be the Barefoot Contessa but I am a damn good cook.

And I bet you sound quite lovely on the guitar.

livesbythewoods said...

Caro, you are right.

I am less miserable and grumpy about the whole thing now. So hurrah.