But what the hell, the sun is out, the sky is clear, the head is reasonably coherent, we're looking at a good day ahead sitting here in this new, sturdy, works like a charm Herman Miller chair. Hup!

I waded through somewhat less than ten more minutes of The Rum Dairy last night. A dense two or three scenes of political rhetoric - “bomb Cuba, kill any liberals you may find in your garden, buy Puerto Rican real estate and don't come near my beach or I'll shoot you dead” - a bit hard to sit and hear, not so much for what was said in defining the character as how it was said/written. A little more subtlety please. Yes, it's a Thompson book, an over the top writer, but he's able to handle it. Usually. There's a balancing act here and the writers apparently haven't spent enough time on the wire.

I think you'd might like to put a little more thought into that. I'm not sure how much time you yourself have “spent on the wire”.

Ah, well, the sake, you know. It's my journal. You need to master coherence before you can tackle subtlety, I'm afraid. Give me a few more decades.

Later. A walk over to the usual place to have coffee and a cranberry scone, passing by this lady along the way. Why does she strike a familiar chord? I'd photographed her at a distance as I approached the lake, but didn't notice the camera until she turned. She didn't glance at me once, focused on her picture.

Finishing my coffee out on the patio at the morning restaurant I walked up over the hill, rather than the long way around toward the Grand Lake theater, noticing the gas prices at the Chevron station at the corner of Lakeshore. My, my, four-thirteen a gallon.

I noted it had gone to three ninety-nine this morning at the 76 station across from my café and I was sure from experience it was higher elsewhere in the neighborhood, but I hate to think what it must now be in San Francisco, let alone what it's going to be come summer. They're talking about a national average of around four-fifty, which means close to five if not more in California.

Again, I go on about this for no reason other than we've all been watching it happen, listened to the explanations and pontifications, and we know it's going to go way up and beyond as demand increases and supply fails, but still, why the apparent fascination? Pictures? Every day? Hell, why not? We're allowed. Better than counting penguins.

The weather continues, the sun shines, the temperature's fine (I like it a bit cooler as it is now), so we'll see how the afternoon goes. No signs of being tired, needing a nap, double vision or any of the rest of that crap (perhaps we're on a roll - knock on wood), so we'll go with the flow.

“Go with the flow” is a bit overused, don't you think? Trite? Used when you can't think of something better?

You start calling me at that level of crap and we could go on forever.

Evening. Back from the downtown near the train station after dinner with Mr. S and the young Mr. S, having attended a tae kwon do demonstration at the young Mr. S's school. An excellent dinner in the warehouse district in one of the live work lofts. I'm jealous. Bad manners to ask what they're renting for, but I suspect I need to find out. I won't do anything about it, but just, you know, to know.

Home now at eight in time to do a little guitar and see what Scandinavian police procedural was that played at six, as they repeat them at nine. Lately they've been expanding beyond police procedurals, but we'll soon enough know whether or not I'll continue to sit in front of the tube later than I'd like.

Than you'd like?

I know, I know. I do what I like.