Free Piano Lesson With Brain Tune-Up

Howdy, folks! I just got my electrodes unglued after spending a few days looking (and possibly acting) like Gollum of “Lord of the Rings.”

This week was my annual at-home EEG. I still have what I call “invisible” seizures, even though they’re not the convulsive kind, and only very rarely do I get an “aura,” the feeling that one might be coming on. Even those sensations, I’m told, could be anxiety attacks.

ANXIETY??? WHAT’S THERE TO BE ANXIOUS ABOUT THESE DAYS???!!!

Ahem. Anyway, this time I was monitored around the clock by video, so that any time something weird showed up in my brain waves, my neurologist would be able to match it with my facial expression, especially my eyes. I also kept a log of my activities. (I figured that “writing in my log of activities” didn’t count as an activity.)

I had to limit myself to areas where the camera could see, so during the day we kept the tripod-supported device on the kitchen table, rotating it as necessary. In the evenings it would be in the living room, showing the folks at Neurotech that we eat dinner on the couch in front of the TV. Then up it would go to watch me read and sleep. Bathrooms were off-limits, camera-wise.

Michael, a former Army medic who works for the home EEG-monitoring company Neurotech, got my head hooked up. As he expertly performed my “reverse makeover,” I couldn’t help but notice the awesome eagle tattoo on his forearm. He’d served in Afghanistan and is still in the Reserves.

We talked about the vets I’d met as a volunteer yoga instructor at the local Veterans Center — from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.  I also told him about how my dad joined the Navy in World War II even though he was underage and now keeps his own awesome (anchor) tats covered with his sleeves.

It turns out both Michael and I had taken only a bit of piano lessons long ago and mostly liked to teach ourselves. I have a stash of songs deep in my brain that my fingers know how to play with only a little practice, but sight-reading is a challenge.

He taught me the correct finger positions for playing a C scale with the left and right hands simultaneously. Elementary stuff, but I’m still working on it, as well as other scales. He also taught me some chord progressions that have led to aha! moments for me musically in the past couple of days.

So thank you, Michael of Neurotech, for your service to the country and also to my brain.