Picking Up the Pieces

I'm going to practice. Now. I really hope I don't have to commandeer the sanctuary, Jack Bauer style, from the Organ Lady. Seriously. Jack and I are both English majors who were born on February 18. Don't mess with the likes of us. And don't get between me and my piano.

Pretend this is a left hand. See those red arrows? I put those there to show where my pinky is hurting. It's at the joint between the intermediate phalange and the proximal phalange. It has definitely helped to lay off piano for several weeks. Massive doses of ibuprofen have helped, too. Today I practiced, just a bit, before the Organ Lady came in. The pinky didn’t hurt too much. At this one point, however, I had trouble even lifting my pinky (the circled numbers are the fingers). Note that the pinky holds down the G, then picks up and presses it right back down. My pinky doesn’t want to pick up, much less press back down. It would rather just stay down. This could, of course, be due to lack of practice. I’m hoping it is. Many thanks to my favorite arpeggist for pointing out that the IMSLP site is alive and kicking.

On weekdays, the Organ Lady haunts the halls of the stodgy Baptist church on the corner of First and Main. She's not the organist for this church, but she practices there. She wears shorts and a t-shirt, regardless of the weather. She's lonely. She's friendly, but only to certain people (or so I've heard). She's always very friendly to me. I think it helps, in this case at least, to be a Bach nerd and a half-decent pianist. She was haunting the halls again today. I didn't know that this morning, when I got a wild hair and decided I would practice on Xan the Grand at lunch. For my faithful reader, you may remember that Xan the Grand is the old Steinway grand at the stodgy Baptist church on the corner of First and Main. I hadn't visited old Xan in ages. It was time. So, shortly after 1:00, I braved the frigid winds and walked the block to the church. "Please, Organ Lady," I thought. "Don't be practicing today. I really want to spend some qua