How much perspective in all that? The Sole Proprietor has always remembered a line from a song on the Dark Side of the Moon: "And then one day you'll find, ten years have dropped behind you, no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun." That might not be an exact quote, but you get the idea.

The Sole Proprietor heard those lines when he was in his 30's and wondering what he was going to do with his life. Early thirties and no apparent interest in settling down, finding a wife or raising a family. The thought of a career, wife and 2 1/2 children was so scary he seems to have buried the whole concept. Even worse, there didn't seem to be any wondrous absorbing life work out there to get involved with. Everyone else had gotten out of school, gone through or around the military, gotten jobs, settled down and set out to achieve their world. What was the Sole Proprietor's world?

The Sole Proprietor has kind of bumped along since. He's had what is considered some interesting work, he's known some interesting women, none of whom ever became his partner (laziness and lack of impetus on his part, really, no fault of theirs), he's been out on his own, he can tie his own shoes, he hasn't owned very much, but he's never really been without (look at the Nikons) and that stuff was never very important to him anyway. So where does he go from here?

He says he's not particularly upset with things, but maybe he should be. Maybe that has always been his problem, he doesn't get upset enough, he needs to get mad and jump up and down more often. He lives in Oakland in a place he doesn't like very much, but doesn't dislike enough to get off his duff and find another. He talks about doing it. How long has he talked about moving? Maybe he should just do it, motivated or not.

So maybe that's what this is about. He needs to get off his duff. He needs to decide where he'd like to be at the end of next year. It isn't important that he be there, it's important that he set a plan and do it. If it leads elsewhere or it takes a little longer than he projected so be it. He's learned there's not much you can't do if you really set out to do it. Set out to do something, Sole Proprietor. Anything, just do it!

He searched for the recommended restaurants this morning. The one located on San Pablo near Gilman didn't seem to be located on San Pablo near Gilman, but he'll look up the name and the address and give it a call next weekend. Maybe. The other, located across from the Claremont Hotel was there he thinks, but it was crowded on the sidewalks and there didn't seem to be any parking and something triggered his "flee the area immediately" subroutine, so he split. He may try that one later as well, but earlier, before all the people get out of bed and become unpleasant for the Sole Proprietor to deal with.

He screwed the pooch and opened his camera on a roll of film that hadn't rewound back into the canister this morning. Some of it may have rewound and be useable, but this is the roll he shot at the street fair yesterday. He promised the singing couple that he'd send them some prints. Maybe no prints inside to send. Bummer.