Wild Thing, I think I love you

Not a whole lot new to report.  Decided to try a new song today - Wild Thing.  I can play it just fine, surprisingly - it sounds like music!

Yesterday, I had trouble with playing.  There was a perfect storm of crap - first, I had a few beers on Tuesday, so I wasn't really in the mood in the morning to play.  I did my exercises, but skipped songs/rhythm in the morning.  In the evening, I tried to play, but apparently had a I-can't-play-music-today day.  So, last night I was like "why am I doing this?  I'm getting worse....".  It was disheartening, and frustrating.

So, this morning, I did my exercises, and then decided "To HELL with these crappy songs that only kinda sorta sound like they are supposed to - I'm learning something new".  So, I watched Justin's Easy Songs For Stage 3 posting, and decided to learn Wild Thing.  And I said nay to the metronome, as well - I wanted to just play, and not be worried about details, as long as I got the broad strokes right.  And...  I did!  The verses, at least, I can do pretty easily.  They are dead simple, but awesome:

A-A--DD-E-E--DD   <==  Repeat this

Then, of course, there is the "Wild thing, I think I love you....  BUT I GOTTA KNOW FOR SURE!" bit - that's different.  Justin tells you what the correct way is, and but teaches you how to fake it.  I'm going to learn the real way, though it may take me a while to get it right.  It's pretty simple, but with a really hard chord change that needs to be done 4 times really, really fast.  It's:

GAGA

If it were G-A-G-A I might be ok, after a little practice, but it's not - it's GAGA.  My fingers don't move that fast...  yet.  I'm going to practice it this way, and take as much time as I need to get it right.  Sadly, G-A is not one of the 1 minute changes I've been practicing (though from today forward it will be).  I can do it, but there is currently too much of a pause between for it to work in the song.  I'll get there, but it may be a few days.

The real upshot here is that last night I was really disheartened, and thinking I was getting worse, and questioning myself.  Now, that's mostly gone away.  I played for a lot longer today than I had been (after the exercises), and really just enjoyed it.

As for my fingers, the mutations have... changed.  The weird scalie callous things have fallen off, which is good, (strings were getting caught under them, so I'd go to change chords and accidentally pluck a string - which was comical, but gross, and counter-productive) and my fingertips are becoming more tough and leather-like.  Have to update my character sheet with an armor class of 2 applied to my fingertips.

One of my friends wants to jam.  I think I mentioned it before - and how I'm skittish about it, since I suck so hard right now - I wanted to get better first.  Well, I'm doing it this weekend.  It'll be embarrassing, but I think it will help me.