April 3, 2021:
Two of us, piano and guitar, Masonic Avenue out the opened window.
I'm showing him a new song. In that period I was writing good ones almost daily. Our mode was usually that I wrote the structure while he contributed decorations: horn parts, say, or an unexpected but beautiful bridge. He really was absolutely brilliant at embellishing the music of others. He'd done that for years, in a context which shortly became quite momentarily famous without either of us.
Right now we're working together. Things are more than merely good. I'm writing, I like my girlfriend, I'm free of the dysfunctional band dynamics and the destructive ex. This is the moment when I am deeply and truly joyful. It all goes to shit not long after. But nowadays I can look back at this time with gladness that it happened, combined with a certain optimism that if it happened once, perhaps it can again.