Last night's TV show (no, it turned out it wasn't a Scandinavian police procedural) didn't hold my attention, so to bed and to sleep a quarter after nine, up with the alarm at the usual hour, the sky clear, the sun rising, a good day ahead. I'd had three glasses of beer with dinner, so sliding under wasn't a problem.

I did enjoy dinner with Mr. S, seeing his live-work apartment in one of the converted warehouse buildings (there's a lot of them in the Jack London Square area). Nice, although I'm sure I'll stay here north of the lake if only through sloth. This confirms I'm ninety percent talk, ten percent walk unless it comes to cameras, and there, if the world were a more kind and rational world, I'd be, well, talking and solvent as opposed to talking (and shooting) and broke. We all have our little foibles. Sake and the occasional Guinness takes their own place somewhere in there betwixt and between.

Later. Using a ruse (to see if they had a copy of N-Photo magazine at the 24-hour newspaper/magazine store on Broadway) I got on the bus and headed downtown around ten to not find the magazine (probably because it's pricey and published in England), but it gave me an excuse to have a chocolate cake-like thing and coffee in the Rotunda building before a walk through Frank Ogawa Plaza to see what was up in these late winter days of Occupy Wall Street.

A bus back, the temperature rising to a point where my heavier winter jacket was getting too warm, so home to sit, tune the guitar (maybe) and meditate: where to go later (in a lighter jacket)? Pretty existential stuff, even for a Friday, here in Oakland!

Later still. About an hour's lie down drifting off before getting up to head over to the morning restaurant for a grilled cheese, potato salad and a diet Coke (one of nature's perfectly balanced meals). The weather just fine, the light bright, the world in its proper place. A picture or two in Splash Pad Park. I suspect someone has permanent if not full time employment in keeping these two - power? telephone cabinets? - clean from the variety of graffiti that's adorned them over these many years.

On from the breakfast place to have two scoops of ice cream in a paper cup - green tea and espresso chip - before heading back. My question is: if I plant one or two of these will they grow into palm trees? Not that I have a patch of ground to put them in you understand, but I don't think I've ever seen palm tree seeds. Or even thought about them. If they are, and I suspect they are.

The regular gas portion of the Conoco-Phillips 76 station sign was still dark, by the way. I'd thought of taking another photograph if they'd managed to fix it. I figured you needed to know that, now that it's after four in the afternoon and there's only so much time left to add more more excitement into the day. Before a long weekend. If you get President's Day off. If you're employed here or over across the Bay at the end of the rainbow.

Evening. So much for The Rum Diary, we popped it out of the player and put it back in its sleeve to mail it back to Netflix in the morning. Half way through was more than enough. Such is life. Another three episodes of Deadwood on the third DVD followed, keeping me up til eleven. It's a Friday night, so why not? Decent amount of time on the guitar, though. Be interesting to see if I can keep the pace through the long weekend.