Tuesday. Up with the alarm, out to breakfast and back by eight, the day ahead without the taxes hanging over my head. There's still the trouble straightening out the medical insurance, but we'll get to that. This afternoon, maybe. A phone call or two should do it (hup! hup!). Life in the fast lane here in the sun drenched Oakland desert. But I digress.

I didn't use the photo above in the Cherry Blossom Festival Parade section on artandlife. Nice looking lady, which you'd expect being a parade princess and all, but I didn't quite catch a look that fits my idea of what a candid portrait is about. Such is life. An “in between” sort of a picture, but part of learning the craft. Teaches you to look for what you're after and then to look some more. That's a bit opaque, but closer than some I've come up with here.

I should do my laundry today but I won't.

Later. A walk down and around the way this morning just to get outside the apartment taking in the process the odd picture or two. I went out with a dry mouth and a funky feeling head, but such are the ways of the world. And what the hell, you can never have too many pictures of pigeons in a pool. Certainly not here in Oakland. Otherwise, back at the apartment again, a bit of sun now and again breaking through the overcast, maybe a half hour in on the guitar and then I'm ready for a nap. Yes I am. I need a nap to pick the writing up, add a touch of coherence, of rationality, of intelligible thought to this experiment. Yes I do.

Later still. Much better after an hour or so of rest. Not sleeping, dozing a better way to put it, seems to clear the head. The mouth not so dry (yes, I drink water, but if it helps, it doesn't seem to help all that much), the head is clearer, the day now ahead. Maybe even the laundry ahead. The head spins at the thought.

I think a little experimentation with the portrait setup is now in order, see what the new toys can accomplish. A good task for a day indoors, a day to prepare for my guitar lesson tomorrow, a day after the taxes have been filed. (hup!)

Evening. Not quite evening, but closer, closer. More time on the guitar playing the scales and the chords, mostly the chords. The entire technique is applying the correct fingering through practice. How to correctly strike a chord without looking at the fingers or the frets. The way you do that is through repetition, more repetition than you might imagine and I can imagine a lot.

Same with the scales. And it takes time. I see why the instructor said the first year was the hardest, the first six months where most people fail. We're beyond those first six months (barely) and we're struggling, but we're having fun. I think. Yes. I think yes as the sessions are stretching out comfortably ever longer without any prodding on my part. (hup!)

Oh, and the laundry is in the drier. Not all that much laundry, I've got more clean clothes I could be wearing before I had to absolutely break down and get it done, but it's Tuesday, a good time when no one else in the building home during the week tends to do theirs, and what the hell, you do your taxes, everything else is now seen as a snap! So the laundry is getting done. (hup!)

Hup! More chords. Always more chords.