A long day, this Friday, however. Home now, the news on TV, a couple of Ibuprofen seeping into my blood stream, a large bottle of Corona (la cerveza mas fina) in the refrigerator, which is nice, although I haven't had an urge to take a drink in weeks. Probably for the best, although my curiosity will undoubtedly get the better of me before the evening is finished. It's raining outside, the head feels better for the Ibuprofen, the weekend is coming. Life, for the moment, is good.

Sounds like you're trying to sell yourself something.

I'm sure that's true. I'm noticing these weeks are awfully similar in how they begin and how they end: what it is I do, what it is I don't do; what it is I attempt, what it is I avoid. Which is the way of the world, I suppose, but I'm aware that waiting for retirement to come in five months is maybe too much time to spend floating here treading water given how much life any of us may or may not have left in his bucket.

You're looking to take a leap into the darkness in your sixties? Didn't you do enough of that when you were younger? Lions and tigers and bears?

You only think there's lions and tigers and bears out there in the darkness. I found it pretty tame stuff when I finally pitched my tent, except for the occasional pratfall and the odd bullet that passed through the canvas. I'm not looking for any close to the bone adventures anymore, but the people around me, for some odd reason, keep asking me what kind of a trip I'm planning when I retire, as if a trip to somewhere exotic were a given, as if time on a beach in Mexico or the Mediterranean was a given for a man who's thrown off his tether.

Sitting on a beach in Mexico doesn't sound like lions and tigers and bears to me. You think you'll stay in Oakland?

I think the Bay Area and I need a trial separation after shacking up together all these many years. Part of me would like to explore the boondocks up north where it's reputed old hippies are living - I remember my earlier life as a freak most fondly - but I'm also partial to stumbling out the front door to a nearby cafe for breakfast or a little sushi when the mood arises. And the mood does arise, more often I hope when this fog has left my head and I've learned again what it's like to live as a human being.