Tuesday. To bed at a decent hour, more than a decent hour, but for some reason pulling out the Kindle and deciding to watch a movie. Hmm. A movie, I realized, when I got into it, I'd seen before and still vaguely remembered the plot, but with enough interest to watch it through. I started watching another one before bailing (I'm not sure I'll go back and finish that second one as it's one we in the trade call “a stinker”.). And got to sleep around midnight. Dumb, but not surprising.

“We in the trade?”

Well, it sounded good. No relation to reality, of course, but we all knew that. Right? ??

Anyway, up this morning with the alarm ready to amble if not rumble (hup! hup!) when I should have been dragging, so I suspect I'll hit the wall later when I get home from the once monthly haircut scheduled for ten. At which I'm thinking of getting a good part of this dry unmanageable sticks straight out from the head hair significantly reduced, more in line with real people I often see on the street. I won't, but I've had the thought. More than once. Or twice. An image thing, I'm sure, but I haven't quite figured it out. We've had our freak period decades ago. That's done. I think.

Later. A bus downtown with a stop at the bank on the way that required I leave a bit earlier than I'd have liked, so a cappuccino at a table in the Rotunda building to wait on ten o'clock so I could then walk to my appointment. I can't recall the last time I've had a cappuccino, so I can't say the one I had was a good one or a bad one, a state of the art attempt or a sad misrepresentation, but I'll not be having a cappuccino again, at least at the Rotunda building. But I digress.

I just missed the bus as I finished, watching it pass by on the other side of the street. I'd have caught it had the light not been red, so a walk up Broadway noticing the increasingly dry odd taste in my mouth and the odd flickers of double vision. Not an ocular migraine, I don't think an ocular migraine, I've come to know those, but I suspect a side effect of this allergy inhaler crap I've finally become pretty good about taking.

Didn't last all that long, felt pretty good by the time another bus had come along, picked me up and delivered me home, but I'm thinking whatever causes these particular things, again not the ocular migraines, has to do with this damned inhaler drug. No more inhalers for the while, I'm thinking. The same symptoms started the last time I got up and running an an inhaler and, I suspect, it's back to its old tricks.

So the excitement for the day, I think. I hope. I got the hair trimmed a little shorter than I usually do and that seems to have placated any thoughts of cutting it shorter (until the next haircut comes round). The day is really nice, a crisp almost but not quite cold walk in the downtown earlier, the sun beating through the sliding glass doors as I write now at one in the afternoon. Maybe get outside later if I can think of anything I'd like to eat. I'm hungry, but not hungry enough to make me do anything about it. The same ongoing conundrum, although it's still novel enough to be surprising.

You spent most of your life with a fat ass and a fat head. Now just a fat head?

Hey! Progress!

Later still. A walk after two o'clock down to the morning restaurant again for lunch, a BLT, potato salad and a diet Coke. A good, all American, just before the winter solstice lunch, I'd think. If such can be considered thinking. Still, it went down well. Didn't finish the potato salad, but that's to be expected. Good potato salad, through. I remember that much, how good potato salad should taste.

A photograph or two set in the later afternoon sun. I passed by another photographer sitting on a bench by the lake, he mentioning tomorrow was indeed the solstice. I knew it had to be coming pretty soon having sometimes been startled to look at my watch when it had become dark and seeing it was well before six. Fine. I understand the celebrations, the sun returning from the grave, some chance of another crop and another harvest, the gods having been placated although, in checking the web, the solstice is not tomorrow but occurs late in the afternoon on Thursday.

Feel much better as I often do in the late afternoons and evenings except when one of the ocular migraines comes along. I mentioned I had a light one last night around six or seven, laying down for a while to let it pass. I hadn't had any alcohol since the last one, hadn't eaten anything on the forbidden list.

So why? Too much eating only at my café? MSG and, for those that don't use MSG, another ingredient mentioned by my doctor that's often used in its place that can cause my little problem? They serve a standard fifties American breakfast, so much so I have to be careful to not eat one of them more than every now and again, substituting plain waffles with mixed fruit and such, no butter or syrup. Still, who knows? We grasp at straws.

No further progress on getting the bedroom in order, although I finished my Christmas shopping. A card for the nephew to be mailed tomorrow. That's about it, here in Oakland.

Evening. For some reason I put together two sections of older photographs for the Art & Soul link on artandlife. It basically required going through all of the miscellaneous photographs from earlier years, copying them and then putting them in their own section so they can be viewed as a group.

Again, for some reason I got into it and zipped right through finishing at ten this evening. I'm always a little surprised at how much I enjoy it, futzing with the pictures, enjoy in the sense of getting under the hood and not stopping until it's done. Good. A good sign the interest isn't flagging (unlike everything else).