Off to breakfast and back, the sun breaking through, clouds up there but with some sun, hope for the day ahead. I'll not think about what I might do of course, wouldn't do any good this early anyway, whatever my condition, but I can clearly see progress - none of this guessing business this time - and whatever cold/flu I might have had is clearly on the mend. It's only taken a week of saying it's only going to last another day, but what the hell, an end is an end and we're happy. Hup!

More guitar if I'm to do well at the lesson tomorrow. I've made progress since the lesson I missed last week, but not much. No problem, these things happen, colds and such, so we'll stumble along. There was an interview program on radio last night and I caught some part of a discussion with a scientist (neurologist, psychologist, chemist - I don't remember) who'd written a book about learning to play the guitar, starting to learn at the advanced age of thirty-nine, the interviewer and the interviewee taking this as something unusual. Learning to play the guitar at such an advanced age? That unusual? How about taking up watercolor, portrait painting or gardening?

Well, they were talking about what it takes for the body (physiologically) to learn an instrument (quite complicated, involving large physical changes to the brain, not too dissimilar to learning a new language) and deciding yes, it was better to start young, but not all that much better, unless mastery was the question. Then it's best to start before your teens and to be be blessed with the genes that make good music.

OK. I wasn't really intending to tour the world. Not in the two years I've given myself to play three chords crisply and on the beat, so nothing there so terrible as to change my thinking. Two years - hey! - three years!

Looking out the window I said there was some sun, but it's darkout there now with lower lying grey clouds. Rain may well be in the offing. Still, as I said, feel pretty good. We can weather a storm.

Later. I occasionally (well, more than occasionally) mention monitoring my weight as time travels on. It had been up just over one-sixty recently, one sixty-two or three and, after the beginning of this cold thing, it has gone significantly down. This morning it was one fifty-three something, as light as I've been at this height and weight, which, my buckos, is a very long time.

The clothes fit pretty much as they did at the ten pound higher reading, I don't notice any difference in the belt, for example, which would tend to lose a notch with this much loss, so I'm assuming all or most all of it is some kind of water loss, but interesting to watch. I've been having to force myself harder than I have in the past to eat or search to find something I'm willing to eat this last week and I'm often not successful. Interesting to note, some of it good, some of it I suspect less good, to those who keep score.

How is that in any way important to mention?

Reading the scale in the mornings is like reading about someone else's weight, interesting, particularly for someone who's always been heavier than he'd like, heavier for reasons not every quite really understood (art, life, and all that, are often difficult to resolve), but still, another's story, something you'd read in a book. There'd just be a slightly different slant to the story if it were reading say fifty pounds higher, a little more angst in the mix maybe, but the dissociative aspect of this lighter weight business is the thing that seems most prominent. I mean it's good, we all incessantly hear it said, we know from experience the consequences when it gets out of and, but emotionally seemingly treating it like a story told about someone else? Was it always thus? Maybe it was, words and bullets just a distraction as they fly over our heads while we're getting on as best we can through this life.

Later still. Well, hell, the day goes on. A walk finally (bundled up against the weather: cold, although the sun was out) to the morning restaurant for lunch. I was hungry enough to contemplate something on their menu, a grilled cheese, fries and coffee out on the patio as it turned out. Not so cold as to not sit out on the patio, but close, so I was the only one. I'm afraid I rather like no people around as well as I like having other people around, which means people or no people, I can't really lose. This noon hour I had my choice of seats.

A walk over, a bus back, the strenuous activity half of the day pretty much done, so we'll stick with our afternoon routine and finish up. The first disk of the second Deadwood season arrived, so we'll go with it if nothing else. An odd little beast it is. Then another good night's sleep so we can analyze all over again in the morning. How are those old old sinuses doing? This nose blowing and stuff, does it help? No end of excitement at the far edge of sanity, here in a city some call Oakland.