For the last couple of months, I've been talking about getting an electric bass guitar.

"What do you want with that," J would ask, "Why don't you just play your keyboard?"

A good point she has, but I'm anything if not a dilettante, and it's been nearly 25 years since I last owned a guitar, and I've been wanting to try the bass guitar because you only worry about one note at a time instead of chords.

"Well, then, why don't you borrow one to see if you actually play it before you buy one?"

Unfortunately, none of my musician friends had an extra, although I did get an offer of an electric guitar from one.

"Then buy a used one--don't go buy a new one for so much money."

And that's the reason why I began to research eBay as well as the used rack at Bill's Music and, just recently, the classifieds for musical instruments on Craigslist. A couple of days ago a fellow posted a listing for a Ibanez Bass guitar at a very reasonable rate--third off the list price and half of what it cost from the deep discounters. I contacted him on Friday and arranged to meet with him today to look it over and see if it was in good shape.

"Don't buy it if it doesn't look good, or has been dropped or something."

Turns out the guy was a guitarist who bought it a couple of years ago to teach himself the bass guitar but never really did anything with it. Rather than continuing to gather dust, he wanted to sell it. It's in perfect shape--not the best bass out there, but one that is a perfectly good learner model and in pristine condition. Maybe this is just a phase, like the rest of my recent musical travails, a part of my middle-aged crazy, but I'm kind of excited about learning how to play it. Matt and I "jammed" a bit this afternoon, and it was fun to repeatedly play the riff from "Seven Nation Army"--a riff that I can play on the keyboard, but was much more rewarding somehow on the guitar.