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I’m working on Schumann’s Intermezzo (No. 4 from Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26), written in 1839 when he intended to settle with his future wife Clara, whom he married the year after. A poetic piano piece, in the only recording I’ve listened to so far it is played extremely fast, with whirlwind-like arpeggios providing background texture, projecting a brief but so lyrical melody to the foreground.

In general I want my arpeggios to sound hazier, but to reach that effect I will have to first clear each note and train myself to clean the sequences. The middle part of each section I still have no control of. This section sounds like an effort to fly a kite, failing, trying to fly it even higher, failing again, reaching a certain peaceful height on the third attempt, and finally letting it float gently down while the wind ceases to blow. This is how the piece is structured, generally. The ending, then, when the wind has completely ceased to blow, is a series of declarations of simple major chords, a settling ground I haven’t yet mastered.

At the moment everything still sounds like a mere attempt. I found it helpful to break my practice in two, venturing to remember a Skriabin Prelude that I’ve once learned by heart in between. I will work on this again tomorrow.

A pudgy black Fold Away Tesco Green Bag, a silvery blue hard disk, two plastic bottles, a hazy Tate Aug/Sep booklet, a colourful Transport for London June 2009 brochure, a black umbrella, an empty tall glass, a little black mouse, several daisies dyed blue in a jar, a grey box of man-size tissues, an off-white Edinburgh International Festival 2009 tote bag that was used to carry a limited edition Scotch Whisky kindly given by Theatreworks, a transparent Snopake® Zippa Bag S with long orange zipper, a metal Ikea desk lamp with white glass lampshade, a row of miniDV tapes waiting for me, another row of miniDV tapes struggling to be seen, an open small-print Tube map, a crumpled tissue on my left, a crumpled napkin on my right, a thin white styrofoam layer I keep to protect my keyboard, a Palm™ charger hidden under a transparent something, a green plastic folder full of things under everything, the new firewire 400-to-800 adapter from iBox Jakarta and a 4-pin end of my beloved grey firewire cable, these are what I’m seeing on my cream-coloured wooden desktop today.

It’s blue-skied and sunny outside, and we were out doing small entertaining gestures taken from aikido, capoeira, judo, pair stretching and lovemaking, like frolicsome puppies, all after having a bit of very late brunch and tea. To my delight, an Ikea catalog was suddenly hand-delivered over the low fence. Thrown onto our welcome mat, sender unknown. For some reason we then imitated the Japanese. I feel uninspired to write. Looking at the very light yellowish white wall corner in front of me I feel grateful for Dan’s idea of stationing me right here. Any Which Way, a new play by David Watson, the poster boldly says in red and black over white. A thin green string stretched like a triangle peeping on top of it, hanging it onto a tiny metal nail. ”Amazing,” Daily Mail commented.