This is not starting well, is it? Familiar, yes, but who needs another “woe is me” rant. I take these little pills. They're supposed to make you tap your foot and see rainbows on the lake. I do tap my foot, I'm tapping away as I write, and I do see rainbows on the lake, but I don't mention them to friends or strangers. Not good to say you see colorful objects rising out of the waters (“aren't they beautiful!”) unless they're pretty damned obviously being shared by the crowd.

Now, there's a convention going on in New York City starting tomorrow, right? I could write about it. Write how I have no idea whatsoever where this election is going. There are too many variables. There are too many things that could happen. And we all have our thoughts about the coming election, mine darker than most. If I were living outside of New York City again, as I did during my high school years, would I go down to Madison Square Garden to shoot the excitement? I might. Take a double dose of the little pills and tippity-tap-tap down on the train.

Then again, if I were in New York.... Well, let's not think about New York. New York is OK, the people are more than OK, but I'm not OK for reasons common and complicated that equate New York with “Stress”. (You remember “the Fear”? New York is “Stress”.) Pre 9-11 stress. I left New York in the late sixties and I haven't been back. So we'll skip to something else.

This leaves me here in Oakland by the lake, Ms. Emmy curled up on her (imitation) lamb's wool blanket beside me on the chair. The air is cool. The moon is approaching full. Photography weather.

Photography weather? The bullshit indicator just went red. Are you selling yourself on something with this or what?

No, although there's a touch of that. Lately I've been getting off the dime. The car, the classes, adjustments at work. The head still aches, but I say it's better; or, if it isn't better, then it isn't getting worse. Who knows? The doctor's don't, except at least one of them has mentioned after all this time it most probably isn't going to kill me because if it was I'd already be dead.

People read this and wonder if you're on your last legs.

It's hard to tell from the written word, isn't it? Particularly cartoonish exaggerated written words of the kind I like. I'm learning how difficult it is to communicate on the page. No, I'm not falling down getting ready to die. I have an aching head, but I don't have migraines. I have friends who have migraines and I'm happy my aches don't come within a hundred miles of those particular beasts. Otherwise I haven't a clue. I suspect the world is getting ready to shift, my world, anyway, and I suspect it will shift whether I'm ready or not. Life seems to be like that: ready or not.