gross.

about five weeks ago -- about when the laser broke and i stayed home to "work on my thesis" -- i started playing my guitar regularly: every day for about an hour a day. the first week was agony because the tension in my strings is entirely too high and i hadn't played that particular guitar in a while. after the week, though, i'd developed an impressive set of callouses. asbestos fingers. the strings didn't cut into my flesh anymore.

when smorg and gerry visted, though, i didn't play. for three days. just three days of not playing and a brief brining in the ocean by wreck beach, and my resilient finger pads just kind of fell off. now i have these rough patches of dead skin on my fingertips that are kind of peeling off and getting caught on stuff. it's irritating and frustrating. it feels like i've just squandered five weeks of dedicated callous-building.

interestingly enough, it looks like the area under my finger pads doesn't actually have fingerprint ridges. maybe now's the time to commit those homicides i've been planning.