Friday. It's only taken however many years, but I finally reset my alarm to go off ten minutes earlier at five-fifty this morning to give me just enough more time to read the papers so I won't be hurried. It's odd, but those ten minutes make a big difference. Otherwise, up, out to breakfast, back at eight, the sun shining, a warmer (some say up into the eighties) weekend ahead. Which is good.

For whatever sleep I got night before last, yesterday was a good clear headed day where I got one or two things done. I have to get the two blood tests run later this morning, something I'll do, and I have a package and a bill that need to be mailed at the post office today. Or tomorrow. Which have needed to be done since Monday, but what the hell, at least I'm consistent. I suspect there's something of psychological interest under here somewhere with this procrastination thing, but for now we'll not worry about it.

Later. A bus and then another to the hospital lab, a walk back to the apartment feeling pretty good, the head clear, the double vision hardly in evidence. All this before eleven in the morning (hup! hup!). I have no idea what the “esoteric” test might have been that the neurologist wanted, but it did indeed take them some time to figure out what it was and how it should be handled. Probably best to have it come back negative unless whatever it's looking for can be cured with an aspirin.

Other than that, what? Finish packaging up the batch of negatives for Ms. P taken ten years ago at her parents’ 50th wedding anniversary party out on a boat on the bay, a set I certainly have no use for but are important to her. Not sure why I didn't hand them over then. Photographers don't like to give up their negatives, an advantage now to digital where it's easy to make any number of copies. Hi, ho, to digital we go. We've gone. Long gone.

Maybe a nap or a brief lie down to listen to whatever's on the radio. Not tired or fuzzy headed, I'm probably giving in to habit. Either way they're nice, these naps.

Later still. For some reason I took another walk over to Lakeshore and on impulse followed the loop up over the hill on Mandana to my morning café to have coffee and a cookie. Wore me out, it did, so I took my time ambling back to the apartment, sitting for a while in Splash Pad Park to rest my bones and take a picture of a Black-crowned Night Heron eying some bread crumbs that had the attention of a group of ravenous pigeons. Far from being a particularly good picture for a number of reasons, but the focus was sharp enough in looking at the portion containing the heron. Hi, ho. I knew it wasn't going to quite work, if only for the light-shade contrast when I took it, but at least I took a picture.

Another photograph with my reflected image at one of the bus stops. The Bay Citizen is a local journalism group, an experiment in web journalism that covers local news and contributes, interestingly, to The New York Times in their Friday Bay Area section. Another portion of the photograph to see what it looked like. No particular reason for this, perhaps just a way to make the afternoon go by. Like the sentiment expressed in the ad.

Later still again. Anyway, two walks today, the body tired when I got home but coming back together both times within about an hour. So I guess that's good. I've learned I'm comfortable practicing guitar while recovering from these walks - and very little else - so I've gotten in a good two hours or so of practice so far, hitting that B7 chord from every which direction.

Real guitar players are able to play these chords blindfolded I'm afraid, so I need to learn to do it myself, the hands and fingers evidently need to program their DNA and re-scramble the brain to make it happen. I'll say “good” again, I guess, but with some enthusiasm, as it seems to be (please dear god) happening. (hup! hup!)