I've been making prints, now that I have the Epson printers, of some of the photographs as I scan them for the journal. The one below has a whole different look and feel as an 8 x 10 print versus the small image I'm able to put on this page. I seem to take these things one step at a time, buy a printer, wait a month, unpack the printer and place it on a desktop, wait another month - oh, I need to buy some photo paper! - wait another month, make prints, get my rocks off, make some more prints just a week later, give them to friends, they seem to like them, wait another month, make another print, and so on. Still, it happens. It moves forward. The good feelings are real. That's good. If I were 14 years old making pictures it would still take me the rest of my life to stagger beyond beginner. As I've said, I'm low maintenance.

I've been feeling the spring in my journal mechanism winding down. I've had periods in the past where I've felt I can't - don't - won't do this anymore because the walls are closing in and nothing, absolutely nothing, is prodding me to write, but I've always come back feeling better. The walls are not closing in, the alligators are not swimming into my pool, but the mechanism that drives this thing is failing. Haven't the vaguest idea if that's important or not, whether it portends an end or not. I have a cold. The weather could be better. In a few weeks or months I'll go outside into the sun and shoot some pictures, interact with people, get a little crazy and let the juices flow and feel like writing something more amazing than my low maintenance entertainment budget normally would allow. I am the consummate observer and observing me in my never ending days of excitement is entertainment enough, here, in low maintenance land, above Oakland.

Thursday evening. Early evening. Tired. The chest has broken up somewhat and my cold is rolling along, a low level affair, but there, letting me know it's there. Hi, ho. So I drink more orange juice and go to bed earlier. This is OK, but the added drag of the cold gives me an idea of what real people - read people with wives and husbands and kids and jobs and absolutely no time left over to do anything else whatsoever - must put up with every day. Tired. Sell a soul for a long night's rest. I am properly humbled.