I have managed to lose my gruntle after all.

Mainly because I work very hard to not suck at the guitar, and although its meant to be complimentary, it seems like when people attribute my non-suckatude at the guitar to “natural talent” (of which I have none) it detracts from where I really do feel pride: my stubborn, painful, grinding persistence. It takes time and effort to not suck, my chops are hard earned.

No one makes me practice until my brain threatens to bleed out from my ears, I do that to myself. People who are naturally talented aren’t filled with the same dread and self loathing that I am when they hear themselves play.

Sometimes it feels like I have misshapen flippers attached to my wrists instead of human hands.

And I’m developing some kind of neurotic thing about practicing when my husband is around. He makes these faces when I stop to work on a chord transition, or to repeat a few measures until I get the attack just right. Matt thinks I really suck, then he acts all supportive, and reassures me that I don’t suck. I have no idea how to communicate to him that its just practice, and practice sounds bad, and I don’t need the reassurance. I know practice sounds bad, that is why it is practice.

As if that weren’t enough to give me a complete gruntle-ectomy, there are people close to me, people I love that always like to point out “You play very well for being left handed.” and I don’t know if that means if they think I play better for being left-handed or that I’m allowed to live with lower standards because I’m left-handed.I am left handed, but I play right handed.

I don’t want to ask because I have a hard time forming a question about the statement in such a way that might not be slapping down a kindly given compliment. I would just like someone to tell me the answer without me having to create the question. Is that too much to ask?

Here’s a screen cap of the pics on the auction for my new guitar. Don’t you love it? I like the Sex Pistols-esque “Hello Kitty” on the back. There was much debate on which was better for me, the pink or the black version, the font decided it all.

It’s a little disturbing and quite sweet that a concerned person emailed me to say that playing a Hello Kitty guitar might undermine my legitimacy and seriousness as a musician. At first I thought it was a joke. Then I realized this person has kindly overestimated my musical potential and emailed back explaining that legitimacy and seriousness are not things I’m known for musically.

For the record, I have a Hello Kitty waffle maker and I take waffles very seriously.

So what’s with the Hello Kitty stuff anyway?

Everything has a threshold, pass that threshold at the end of the spectrum and you flip into the extreme of the other side.

At one point in time all I wanted was a pair of black Chuck Taylors, a pair of Levi jeans that didn’t flair at the ankle and a gray and pink sweater. I got the Chucks. Then I got orthodic inserts which meant I couldn’t wear the Chucks, a leg brace, bifocals, orthodontic gear and back brace. Oh yeah, and my parents were in the middle of a bitter divorce.

There is no cool when you hit that point. It’s just cold.

I knew that, I gave up even trying. I picked a pair of Buddy Holly frames because they were the cheapest. I started buying pants at the military surplus store because they were not only cheap but because they concealed the leg brace. The shoes I wore (which I really had no choice, they were the only ones that were my size that could fit orthodics and my narrow feet) were ugly bulky British manufactured work boots and oxfords.

At this point in my life my favorite things included 4-H for dairy goats, home economics, reading, watching Monkees reruns, swimming and trying not to get beat up. Then I saw her. Hello Kitty. At age eleven I didn’t care about irony. I was just thinking how cute the t-shirt transfers bearing the pink maneki neko were.

I bought them.

I took them home and carefully transfered the happy Hello Kitty onto some t-shirts that I’d tye-dyed with the little kids when I volunteered to help at church day camp.

Hello Kitty made me smile.

Later, Hello Kitty and kawai stuff became sort of an in-joke. The back of my motorcycle jacket was painted with a pink Kitty-like skull, Misfits style, by a friend in high school. Kitty’s face was sandblasted into the headlight of my Norton Mk3 by the body shop guy I worked for one summer. My kayak was Kitty pink.

Sometimes my hair is Kitty pink. I have the aforementioned HK waffle iron, plus bento box, and Pez dispensers. I have a few kitty hair combs. I want to buy the Kitty sewing machine for the kids.

Hello Kitty still makes me smile.

I will never be accused of selling my soul at the crossroads.

I played dulcimer in church and trumpet in school band. I wanted to play violin at church and flute in the band, but as you may have guessed; my parents hated me. Want to get your kid beat up at school and church? A dulcimer is the way to go.

My voice was not produced to make the sweet plaintive music of the raths and hills, to float like slow smoke over the ruins of forts and lodges and grass hay fields to sweeten the very sky. My bardic ancestors bequeathed me little in that way.

I can play Yellow Submarine on a ukulele, along with a handful of blues riffs– and much to the horror of my immediate family I am willing to do so, if given occasion or excuse, in public. Although I’ve failed to master Chuck Berry’s harmonized slide technique on any other instrument, it sounds great on the ukulele.

I think that I’m the only one of my circle who failed to learn the intro of “Stairway to Heaven” on the guitar when we were kids. I had a little acoustic guitar that I practiced on, but it was cheap and Oregon is humid and the neck bent so that I had to tune the stupid thing every two minutes. I cursed it then, but I am really good at tuning to this day, so at least it wasn’t a wasted effort.

My husband has purchased a guitar for me and I’m eagerly awaiting it’s arrival. I believe the Fed-Ex guy is a little scared of me, as I run out when the truck pulls up and ask “Is it here? It’s about this long and it’s from Massachusetts. Are you sure? Have you even looked in your truck?!”

A little obsessive? Me? Noo. Not me.

My very own Fender. On it’s way. To me.

My very own black Fender. Stratocaster.

My very own black Fender with a Hello Kitty pick guard.

In the words of the immortal Eric Cartman: “Super sweet”