Tiresome, this much repeated lament.

I suppose it is, but one I admit to thinking about. I'm willing to focus on one or two or three things regularly, daily, like clockwork, yet I'm blowing off most everything else. Winding down? A poor attitude made plain to one and all by an otherwise happy and seemingly fortuitous retirement? Too much sugar in the diet?

Later. A bus downtown to have a cup of coffee and a bagel at a table in the City Center, the head flying along reasonably straight although the slight double vision was evident. Still, just the reoccurring odd horizontal dual overlapping images, none of the other symptoms along with it that have made it even less than entertaining in the past and it cleared itself up by the time I'd returned to the apartment. If this continues I'm not going to have anything left to bitch about.

You could pick up and start doing all of the things you've let drop.

Scary thought.

A decent day, overcast with sun, the temperature nice. Well, a little cool, but a sweater to take care of that. No pictures downtown (well, one), no real interest in sticking around, all of yesterday's excitement with the Oaksterdam University bust no longer in evidence. Two people with a small video camera on a tripod sporting a channel 28 sticker were shooting in front of the Oaksterdam University entrance, but that was about it.

I think some guitar now (best to get started early or I'll goof off and not get in enough practice). We'll leave off listening to the news for as long as we can. Too much news, maybe, too much attention to too many unpleasant events. Seven kids killed just a few miles south of here at a school. Too far to have anyone in the neighborhood involved, but too close for any particular comfort. It does say “Oakland” in the headline and the report. Taking pictures of a marijuana bust, well, I can do that. Guns and bullets: not. Folks who've lost their kids: not. Cops beating up a mob, well, as long as I'm not identified as part of the mob.

Or the cops.

Or with the cops. I'm getting closer to Snappy Sammy's attitude in the sixties (and seventies): “Remember now kids: Smash the state!”, but only from a safe distance, preferably over tea. (Or a little room temperature sake served with a small slice of cake.)

You've lost it again.

It's the Saint Stupid's Parade picture I put up top. Too grotesque. Leads one to hyperbole, changes your direction and drives your head right off track. Hallucinogenics and senility have a similar effect.

Later still. A nap, good, I needed it. The head has been reasonably clear through all of this. Tired, yes, but just tired. Tired I'm familiar with, have experience with, none of these “other” elements to give it, well, an ominous sense. I mentioned it above with the slight double vision that comes and then goes after a while, usually in the mornings and gone in the afternoons. No other concurrent “distractions” to give it hints that it might be something more, something else. So good. Hup. And that stuff.

Evening. I had an urge to have sushi and sake for dinner, but it was only a passing urge. Oh, I put on my street shoes, put the wallet in the pocket and headed out the door, but detoured somehow to the mail box instead and sushi and sake somehow got lost. Close, though.

More guitar. We'll see what they've got running at six. Last night it was another hopeless Italian thing, father someone or other chasing after bad guys of nefarious intent. That particular mix wasn't appealing the first time I checked it out.

Cranky old man.

The younger me wouldn't have gone for it either. There are certain standards after all, each to his own.

A knock on the door and two young women who live on the floor above me, one directly above, the other above the apartment next to mine, were calling to warn me they were having a party on the 20th, that it would be noisy and they wanted to give me a head's up, allow me to make proper arrangements to the point they suggested they'd put me up if necessary for the night at a hotel. Interesting. I'd been wondering if I were being too noisy down here with the guitar and they'd been wondering if they'd been too noisy above, so we settled the question to the good.

Anyway, I suggested we talk about this before their second party to see how it goes with the first. I was young once, had some parties of my own and, way back in the seventies, had an upstairs neighbor who did indeed complain to the landlord. He had some reason to complain at that one party, but better that he'd come to me instead. That one time when the landlord did indeed come by to check the party had quieted down and he'd apologized saying he could see we weren't making all that much noise, he'd talk with the upstairs neighbor. Better the neighbor had talked with me as I'm easy and probably too willing to listen. Still, my one brush with loud parties in an apartment. It's been a long time.

There were those days later at the old Rip Off Ranch on Potrero Hill.

Well, we knew the people downstairs, most everyone either worked at the press or knew one another in Austin at school and they came to all of the parties, threw parties themselves downstairs. Two flats, but really one set of occupants in a two flat building.

Well, there was a period, I admit, when occasionally during the day and I thought no one was downstairs at home, I'd crank up the stereo and let the speaker columns wail. It's good to let your speaker columns wail, gives perspective, and it's good for the brain. Which is what rock and roll is meant for: to nurture the brain. We'll see what they play upstairs on the 20th. Maybe I'll have a little sake that evening. Maybe. Along with a headache.