Monday. To bed early, up later than usual at close to seven, to breakfast and back. Overcast, a little cool, they're saying sun later. You never know how much later, but it will be here by afternoon is my guess. Sometime in the afternoon. Unless it comes later this morning. Which about covers it.

A little painful, this morning, going over the journal entry for yesterday before putting it up. More choppy than even I like and I've been running along the spare edge now for some time. If I were editing further I'd add a word or two to make it more liquid, smoother, with maybe more detail. But that's not the way it's working, not the way it's being written for reasons I suspect more complicated than I suspect. But we'll go with it. Always have.

When I was writing a column there was always a story in mind: a beginning, a middle and an end. Not what I've been doing here. To do that, to do a daily column rather than a mind dump, would take more time and effort. I could do it for a while I suppose. My old column, done as a university student, was done weekly against a late Thursday afternoon deadline and written when I sat down at a newsroom typewriter perhaps two hours beforehand. Maybe I was subconsciously cooking up ideas during the week prior, maybe I wasn't. This one is done is dribs and drabs throughout the day. When I say “later” it's later and written in the moment. Like this, done in the morning, before the sun has made its appearance.

Why mention this unless you think you should change?

We're out here on the bleeding edge for someone my age, ten years ago before the blogs we were the bleeding edge at whatever age, and sometimes you wonder what in the hell you're doing. We live in an interesting and sometimes brutal culture and it's best to beware. Darwin said some things about that. Does the journal gene have survival value in an Internet Age? Might. Might not. The paranoia gene is still present. Do the two tango? In Oakland?

Later. The sun came through just before noon after I'd taken the very short walk down to the lake, turned around and come back to the apartment. Some time on the guitar, just enough to go through the scales and then through this week's assignment, but not enough time to really count. A warm up. We've got a couple of hours left to make it a proper day's play. And we will. Without too much effort.

A funky day so far, a late morning nap, that aborted walk (it was grey and cool and the thought of heading downtown was a drag), so maybe we're going to have another twenty-four hours of sitting around here babbling in place.

Later still. Out the door and down the way to the usual place for an artichoke quiche and a diet Coke with at stop on the way by the white columns on the lake and a stop in Splash Pad Park and the columns on the lake again on the way back. This distance is only six tenths of a mile. Two stops even when ambling along at half speed? Sure. The sun was out, the day was nice and there was nothing to keep me from sitting and staring into the distance. And watch the people pass by. Vegetating, some people call it.

We'll do our time on the guitar now, bitch more about the state of the head and listen to the various news programs as they talk about the latest stock market antics. Pretty exciting stuff for a day in August.

You really are going flat.

I'm going to have to do something about it, I'm afraid. Something different.

And talk about doing it forever?

Wouldn't surprise me.

Evening. Well, yes it is. Early evening. The day is almost done if I go to bed again at nine. Or eight.