Just stop.

OK.

Breakfast at the usual place seated in front of what sounded to be two real estate brokers in their late twenties talking about the market and what they were doing to make money during times of no money. It sounds, from what they were saying, that times of no money may still have pockets of money around, although its effect was to bring back turbulent thoughts of the younger I just out of school setting forth to make my place in the “real” world, talking trash as they were talking trash over an early morning breakfast. Not that I've figured out what's “real” about the world in the intervening years; it's too easy to invent your narrative as you stumble along, confusing mortgage banking, for example, with art and life. But I wander, do I not, safely packed away across the bay from the city that sits at the end of the rainbow?

You speak very confidently about this “real world, fantasy world”. Not everyone agrees.

They live in their fantasies, I live in mine.

Later. Well, I did get down to Jack London Square and walked about a sparsely attended farmer's market, reduced in size I thought from what you'd be likely to see in the summer, one lone guitar player up on the stage playing to an empty audience. They're putting up more palm trees, really big palm trees, down between the empty Spaghetti Factory building and Heinold’s First & Last Chance Saloon, but they seem to be planting them flush to the ground this time and not three feet up on a makeshift earthern platform as they did next to Scott's. Which makes these look as if they belonged, not giving the impression they were plunked down by a careless giant with a garden shovel messing up the cement and blocking the view.

And?

A sandwich finally at a Subway at the other end of the block from Beverages & More, avoiding browsing B & M's (totally inadequate) sake section as I've been experiencing severe stomach aches these last couple of weeks, often after I drink (just a sip) of alcohol. My Prilosec consumption has shot up, and yes, tomorrow I'm talking with the doctor. My assumption is it's my well cared for hiatal hernia, but you never know. No bleeding, but the pain can be uncomfortable. Anyway, a sandwich at Subway (a small sandwich, chewed thoroughly in case not chewing thoroughly might add to the problem and washing it down with sips of lemonade, turning it over a bit before I ordered lemonade, let me tell you), an ache free walk back to the car, a drive home and now, in the early afternoon, at the computer. Enough excitement for one day, don't you think?

Alcohol kicks it off?

The worst session I had was yesterday when I ate some table grapes. Acidity, I'm thinking, but it took more of the Prilosec pills and an hour to settle down, all this wondering if there were any last minute adjustments I might need to make in my will. But it passed and I settled into an evening of Korean soaps and a cup of hot oatmeal.