tuned raze i almost didn't hear the doorbell over the hum of the air_conditioner. i wasn't expecting him to be on time. i unlocked the front door and let him in. he asked me how my birthday was. "it was good," i said. "it's funny. in a lot of ways i feel younger and better now that i'm getting close to forty than i did when i was twenty." "i felt that way too," he said. "until i got past sixty." he has three pianos in his dining room. one of them was built during the second world war. it only has one string for each note. i don't think he spends much time playing any of them, but he keeps them tuned. i wonder where he eats. i asked him how he was doing. "the band keeps me going," he said. "we just played a show out in amherstburg. i had to cancel everything the next day. i knew i'd be done after that. we didn't make any money. we had to pay the city to use the park. we passed the hat around after. but as much as it wipes me out, it rejuvenates me mentally and emotionally." i smiled behind my mask. because he'd just answered the question i didn't ask. and because i know what it's like to play music with friends and feel yourself being filled up with something you didn't know you needed. he played a few notes and flinched. my piano was eight cents sharp. "pianos never like to be brought down in pitch," he said. "raising them isn't a problem, but they don't enjoy going in the other direction." "they always want to get back up again after you knock them down," i said. "that's right." "maybe i shouldn't have gone a few months between tunings this time." "it's just our climate. there's nothing you can do about that." he's usually done in about forty minutes. today it took him two hours to make right what humidity and the instrument's instincts had thrown out of alignment. the tragedy of any stringed thing is it's always in the process of going out of tune. you just don't notice it leaving home until it's already gone. most of the time he tells me this upright is a joy to work on. this time he really had to fight it. he said the pin block had absorbed so much water, the tuning pins didn't want to turn. he got halfway through and had to start over because everything he'd flattened was going sharp again. "if it was someone else's house," he said, "i probably would have stopped after forty-five minutes and just left it the way it was. i can't remember the last time i had to work so hard to get a piano back to concert pitch." he said he thought the tuning should hold until around november. after he left, i sat down and played for a few minutes before i made lunch. i felt my friend of fourteen years unclench its massive jaw and sigh through eighty-eight monochrome teeth. until we drift again. 220817 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Alas that it was a hassle. But the tuner sounds like a character (in a nice way!) 220818 what's it to you? who go blather from