one can probably guess

I bought another guitar.

I will say this again, like I did after the last one: this is absolutely the last guitar I can imagine needing or wanting for the foreseeable future. Come to think of it, that's what I said about the one before that, too.

It's a Takamine acoustic-electric 12-string. Her name is Guenevere (a song which, incidentally, no one guitarist can play). The Tak 12-string was a finalist last summer when I ended up buying my beloved Maggie, my faithful Seagull 12 string acoustic. Neither of these, and none of the others, are top-of-the-line professional guitars. But I'm not a professional guitarist. Nor do I play one on TV.

Anyway, it's a jumbo, which means it's a guitar with a big ass, which I love, for lots of reasons, many of which have to do with the gorgeous fat sound they give you, especially acoustically. Maggie the Seagull is a dreadnought, which gives you a ton of volume and a crisper tone, so basically this provides me a cheap rationalization, to wit, that each of my guitars is unique in its tone, construction, woods, etc.

There's a very good reason guitarists acquire multiple guitars, and it's this: guitarists are crazed fetishists. No, no, no, that's not what I meant to say. No no no no. Wait.

Well, okay, sure. This isn't a problem, though, because (a) I can afford these guitars and I'm not into the hard stuff, like $2500 Taylors, or worse [the store had a $55,000 Strat for sale], (b) I play them, every day, with love and affection, (c) they're different, they inspire different kinds of playing, and in fact I've written something new on each guitar I own that somehow belongs to that guitar, (d) I learn more about playing with each new instrument, because they each demand a different way to play. Without going into much detail, let me give a f'rinstance: I've written a handful of songs on Maggie, folky bluesy things (music I'm occasionally calling anti-folk, though I'm deeply suspicious of this label, but otherwise can't account for); these songs don't play well on the new Tak, which has a neck that works better for rocking numbers and (incongruously) fingerpicked tunes. (I recently read a review of a guitar that described the neck as being built for folk "grab a handful of chord" playing. This is how the Seagull plays, but the Tak simply can't play that way.)

You see how deeply this rationalization has already set.

Anyway, we're spending quality time with the guitars on a nightly basis. Most nights Lauren sings and I play, largely folky stuff, on one or another, or indeed several of the guit-fiddles (my brother's word). The place is full of singing and music and love, and, as previously and continuously noted, good cooking. What could be better than that?