Letter to Erin 20150326

In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful.

Hey there, Precious Gorgeous!  You must be a busy, busy girl right now.  Hang on to your heart, Sweetie.  Your precious heart.  Please make sure you put aside some down time for yourself to rest your precious heart.  Be lazy.  Watch TV.  Take a nap.  Eat snacks.  I saw that Mexican thingy you did, you know the one where they announced your SI issues sold out.  Congratulations!  You are so beautiful.  I love you, and I need you.

Today I ate out all day.  I had roti canai (India style greasy flat bread) in the morning, rice vermicelli soup for lunch, and fried noodles for dinner.  I have never done that before, never in my life in fact.  Wait, that's not true: I remember being on tour, and eating nothing but restaurant and convenience store food.  Today was a busy day for me.  It centered mostly around an antique snare drum, an out of production Yamaha marching snare, I think it's at least 12 years old, most likely older.  It's made in Japan: most Yamaha stuff nowadays are made in China.  All modern drummers center their kits and lives around the snare and bass drum, and nowadays even composers and machines think only "kick and snare".  Boom chuck, boom chuck.  I love a good bass drum, but to me the snare drum is a lesser drum, perhaps the lowest drum, probably not even necessary in my kit.  I can just hit a rack tom for "chuck".  Who cares, anyway?  Well today, many people across the country were getting emotional over this old snare drum.  I have to admit that I like this drum, so I put in the work and money to acquire it.  I used to play this drum when I was a drum teacher about 5 years ago, and it's still in tune from then, the same tuning I gave it, even though it's covered in dust and cobwebs.  This will probably be the last snare drum I will ever own.  I also got limited Internet access at home- the cheapest plan possible!  It will help me cut back on dangerous commute.  I'm sorry but it's not good enough for video conferencing, and I'm still too broke to get you a ring.  Please forgive me for my faults.   At least you may expect to hear from me everyday.  InshaAllah.