Sunday. Somehow I stayed up until eleven last night watching another Korean historical soap (kings, queens, wars, swords and treachery - lots of treachery). Such is life. And Korean soaps. Still, up with the alarm at about six after an uneven night's sleep, to breakfast and back at the usual place, the sky overcast, the day ahead. The general state of affairs: can't complain. Although I undoubtedly will. Probably by the next paragraph.

The Nihonmachi Street Fair again today? The Pistahan? The Pistahan is easier to get to in Yerba Buena Gardens, just a short walk down 4th Street from BART, but we'll see. Again, it's just after eight, hard to say where the head and the day will be in another couple of hours. And maybe a nap. We'll see if we can put together a nap. Not hard to do, you know, just go in the bedroom and lie down for a while.

Later. I've pretty much gone through and then gone through again the photographs taken yesterday at the Nihonmachi Fair, finding a full section for artandlife with no problem and finding another eight or ten more toward the makeup of a second section. Hmm. Maybe that decides it, we're off to do a second day at Nihonmachi. The sun came out around nine, it's going to be a warm afternoon, best to prepare. He said.

I used a 70-200mm f 2.8 lens yesterday, but added a 1.4 teleconverter to up it to 98-280mm f 4.0. I rather like it, like the fact it maintained its sharpness. I will use it more often. The loss of a single f stop seems reasonable, particularly in brighter light. Not particularly unwieldy or heavy, I'm surprised I haven't done this before. Well, maybe I'm not surprised.

Later, later. I knew when I was writing - I'd go over to San Francisco again for the Nihonmachi - that I wouldn't. A bit tired, feeling laid back, not up for repeating yesterday's outing. Not a new story. So a walk down to the usual restaurant after eleven, a bit early to be thinking of eating, ending up having a Mocha coffee and a lemon bar. Sugar and chocolate. Seemed right.

Walking along the lake I'd taken a couple of pictures, this one for the boat in the background. Hard to find something new after walking this path so many times and having taken so many pictures, but what the hell, one of life's little stumbling blocks. It could certainly be worse, stumbling blocks come in much larger sizes. Smile little man, take your pictures and run.

More pictures at the while columns. I wanted to stay longer, wait for the lady to move into a better framing position, but walked on when it became obvious she wasn't going to move. This one of the parallel bars farther on when I was returning. There are usually people working out on them, some of them looking as if they could lift a small car; these guys, though, were safely in the distance. You don't want to get people who can lift a car angry. Rule two in the street photographer's manual. They may not understand the difference between street photographers and paparazzi, looking to work out their sublimated anger over the death of Princess Di.

So I guess the rest of the afternoon is guitar and whatever's on television. I no longer watch the various weekend talking head programs and their commentaries. They long ago left for some other world with some other reality, discussing the fashions of unicorns and the passions of halibut. Sounds interesting - the unicorns, at least - but the actual listening will kill the brain and damage the genes. So I avoid it. Too old. Too fragile. Too much damage to the genes already. I'd guess most everybody's figured this out by now, although I suspect there are those who still watch. End of lifers probably, on I.V. drips, no choice in the matter, watched over by people in white coats. Safe enough perhaps to have taking heads mumbling nonsense as they sleep.

Nonsense.

Later still. OK, settled in a bit. Spent an additional hour with the guitar. Goes fast, it does, and it still isn't enough to do the job. There are a couple of new chord progressions I need to memorize and I don't quite have them down. I can play them well enough, but often foul up when I try to play them in order. I can look at the music, but then looking at the music means I'm not looking at my hands which leads to trouble. Part of learning is playing without looking at your hands, real guitar players do it in the dark, upside down, drinking gin, but, well, again mumble. Mumble, mumble. We do go on.

We don't go on, YOU go on.

There's probably a rule about going from the editorial we to the personal I and I've been routinely breaking it. We do these things. As do I.

Evening. More guitar, making up for the miserably short time I practiced yesterday. Well, “miserably short”. Some days are going to be miserably short. No big deal. It happens. Chill. Life proceeds.

Better.

Indeed. An appointment with the pulmonary doctor in the morning. I've stopped all the medications, will suggest we don't meet again unless the lungs start to act up again. There's still some activity, but nothing that would give me concern had I not had that initial flare up some, what, year or so ago? So good. No word on the recent MRI either so I assume it was negative. You never know about these things, but I'm assuming they've had whatever information they've gotten from it now for more than long enough to give me a call. So whatever it is, wherever it is, it wasn't there.

I suspect (no, I know) I'll stay up again this evening to watch that Korean soap, so what the hell, stay up, play guitar, take another nap tomorrow as I did today.