Q. What’s going on inside?

A. Decision making.

Q. And what are you using to make your decisions?

A. What kind of a question is that?

Q. What do you mean?

A. Well uh — using as in what?   Am I using a slide rule?   Am I using a compass?

Q. No no no – I mean, are you using your sound reason to make decisions?   Or are you using your fickle and volatile emotions?

A. How dare you accuse me of making my decisions based on emotions!

Q. Methinks he doth protest too much?   Ya think?    

A. All right, smartypants.  I’ll admit I’m a bit of an emotional guy.   In fact, the subject came up last night in counseling.  I do seem to have made a few decisions based on strong emotions lately.

Q. Such as?

A. I gotta tell you – I was so jazzed about rehearsal on Tuesday, it just went so great — when I came back home, I was sky high with elation.

Q. Don’t tell me –  you then made a decision based on elation?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you go out and celebrate?   Did you party?

A. No, I did not.  I cranked up the headphones and my new Finale 26.3 music notation software, and I didn’t stop until I’d completed the whole accompaniment score to the opening number of my musical.   

Q. Then how did you feel?

A. Even more elated.

Q. But why?

A. Because I didn’t think I could do it!

Q. Why wouldn’t you have been able to do it?

A. Well, I hadn’t really worked with the software before, and I hadn’t used Finale much at all since 2016.

Q. What happened in 2016?

A.  You already know.   I emerged from years of homelessness in the Bay Area with a bunch of tunes in my head, found a coffeehouse and with a nice little round table, sat down, and sequenced most of the music that had been whirling around between my ears.

Q. So you did it then.  Why did you not think you could do it now?

A. I dunno.   Low self-esteem maybe.   Lack of confidence.

Q. But you did do it?

A. Yes!

Q. And this led to further elation?

A. I believe it’s called over-elation.   

Q. Ah.   Then did you make a decision based on over-elation at that time?

A. Not so much a decision — more like an expectation.  

Q. What kind of expectation?   

A. Well, I was really rockin’ on that song, man.  In a way, it kinda was like a party.   I was snappin’ my fingers, boppin’ my head, and rockin’ out to the beat.   A friend of mine was also rockin’ too, a gal named Kathy – ordinarily a very quiet and studious person.  As I was working on it, I sent her updates.   She kept writing back and saying: “Yeah!   Makes me want to get up and dance!”   So I was further spurred on by her enthusiasm, and —

Q. Cut!  You haven’t answered the question!

A. Sorry, I was getting around to that.  My expectation was that, since me & Kathy had rocked out to it, everybody else would too.

Q. And they didn’t?

A. Only on WordPress.   Nobody anywhere else ever said anything about it, so I may assume they did not listen to it.   Either that, or they listened, but didn’t rock out.  :(

Q. How did that make you feel?

A. Ultimately, thankful for WordPress.   But at first, I was pretty disgruntled.  And maybe a little angry.   More than a little, perhaps, at moments . . . 

Q. Moments?

A. All right, so I was mad for twelve hours straight.   Pacing the floor all night, messaging people, talking out loud, trying to figure it all out, and not getting a wink of sleep till five in the morning.

Q. How do you account for this?

A. First off, the expectation that people would groove on it like me and Kathy did was pretty unrealistic.   Most people didn’t even know I was working on it.   Secondly, why should they listen to my music at all?   Especially these days — people naturally have a lot of other things on their minds.   But thirdly, and most importantly, I believe that when I found myself disgruntled, it was the natural reaction to the over-elation.  Law of gravity.  What goes up must come down.

Q. And where are you now?   Up or down?

A.  Neither.   I’m in the Middle.   

Q. What are you going to do from there?

A. What do you think I am going to do?   I’m going to start working on the second song in the show!

Q.  Do you think you can do it in three days?

A.  I tell you what — why don’t you check back on Friday and find out for yourself?

The Questioner is silent.     

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