Still, for all my saying they seem to be disappearing into the past, they're still close enough around to bite me when I'm not expecting it. Thinking back, though, I've been eating sandwiches with Swiss cheese lately after a run to the store, had as many as three yesterday to battle the munchies (in between the pumpkin-cheesecake cup cakes and the ice cream cones). Couldn't be the ice cream cones. Or the pumpkin-cheesecake cup cakes.

Still, after over ten hours of sleep I feel just fine. Up at five forty-five with the alarm, to breakfast and back with the sun climbing over the hills in the distance (it's overcast now at nine as I write, but I'm looking for sun later whether it comes or not). So we'll go with the current up feeling and say, well, an hour of hallucinations, we can live with that. Unless they hit while I'm out and about. In a car, for example. Laden down with camera gear. Like tomorrow at six at the Chinese New Year Parade. Hup.

Still, if they continue to come at the rate they've been coming lately, not often at all, we can certainly live with it. Just trundle right along. A bit like splashing mud on your pants: you change your pants. Yes, it sometimes happens when you're out and about (where do you find mud, after all?), but something like that. An hour out of your life leading, sometimes, as in this case, to a very good night's sleep. After figuring out how to turn the television off. And shut down the computers. And turn off the guitar amp. And remember where the bedroom is. Hup!

That camera is due from Nikon repair today so I'll probably do some laundry this morning, hope it arrives by noon so I can get out for the walk. Then again, I can leave a note asking them to leave it with the apartment manager. If they're in. Do I want to miss it, not have it for the parade tomorrow? Will life end? I suspect not.

Later. Some futzing with the photographs scanning a couple of pictures I ran across in going through the old negatives. Made a couple of (very large) prints. Does the body good to make a large print, now and again, let me tell you.

Otherwise an overcast afternoon. No sign of the UPS truck. The last camera came after five and, I suspect, this one will as well, so we'll doodle around here pretending we're getting things done and wait on its arrival. Sometimes you just give in to the bastards (but you don't smile).

And no, I didn't do the laundry. I knew it when I wrote earlier, but that's obviously no impediment. Not here, not me. I've got plenty of clean stuff to get me through into next week but I still note this madness in passing. Doing it is easy, trivial and, well, time consuming. Time consuming? Keeps you from getting outside? Even when I was planning on staying inside anyway, what with the delivery? None of it seems to have any effect. Maybe this is a way to “rebel” from the days of earning a living and you had to, under penalties not explicitly stated, do a bunch of stuff.

The laundry?

Doesn't really make sense, does it.

Ah, the camera arrived just as I was writing this. Seems to be in one piece. A run now to the 7-11 look-alike for ice cream and, well, a little whiskey. It's been a long day, time to celebrate.

Are inebriate and celebrate the same thing?

Sometimes. There's some overlap. Here in Oakland.

Evening. Maybe not a good plan. Feel fine, but two and then three drinks did not make me want to play the guitar. Or futz with the stereo system to convert a song off an lp to digital so I could play it along with the guitar. I've copied cuts off an lp before, but best to look more closely and do it tomorrow. OK. Such is life. You learn and relearn. No sign of ocular migraines, but maybe it takes them a while to gather together the horses and one will kick in tomorrow. For the parade. Could. Playing with fate.