Monday. To bed and to sleep before six last night, not something I want to repeat. Awoke not long after midnight to go in and out of consciousness for two or three hours before going all the way under again, awakening at quarter past six. An uneven, but long night's rest. Best not to do that ocular migraine stuff before bedtime again.

Still, quarter past six isn't too bad, up and out to the door to walk to breakfast on another warm, clear skies, going to be sunny day. Asked at breakfast if anyone knew what kind of trees those were in full bloom outside and it was confirmed they were almond trees. So good, I guess. Almond trees evidently bloom in February and so, if they're early, they aren't two months early and the world is safe from insanely accelerated climate change (for another few months).

Now, now.

It would be funny if it weren't so serious. Then again I wonder, as you get to my age, if you tend to look back and realize how precarious the journey has actually been and how lucky that so many of those early turns in your life, our lives, didn't go off the cliff. Probably just paranoia, right? The usual phobias and sky is falling fears of the old in years?

And what does any of that mean?

It means it's another warm morning, the trees are in bloom and it's The Year of the Monkey on a day I should be out shooting pictures. Can I get it together to at least take a look at Oakland's Chinatown, take a walk later? This whole week is a week of celebration and I'm with any celebration that includes fireworks. (A blast from my distant pyrotechnic past.)

Later. Sitting here at two in the afternoon in a t-shirt with the balcony door open in front of the fan. It's indeed warm. Not uncomfortable, but warm after these last few months, sitting here after a bus downtown, all the way to the end of the line to Washington Street, walking then over to Chinatown and the Chinese Cultural Center. How long has it been since I've visited? A place I would walk through and/or sit at the fountain weekly and more often. Had two scoops of ice cream in a waffle cone.

Ice cream? After yesterday's experience?

It didn't occur to me until later. Yes, ice cream, not as much as yesterday's pint, but enough. Haven't needed to blame the two scoops in a cone at the Cultural Center for anything in the past, but we'll know if we've gone completely around the bend soon enough with this ice cream in a cone bit.

Still, feeling tired without any ocular overtones, a free bus to 20th on Broadway to walk by the ATM and then on to catch (at the very last second) a bus to the burger drive-in, thinking I'd get one of their turkey burgers. I've been weighing in at one fifty-one in the mornings these last several days and I've been thinking that's too low. Didn't eat more than half the sandwich (they're large) and it's now sitting in the refrigerator to come out later for dinner. Here's to tomorrow and one fifty-two!

Later still. No ill effects from the ice cream cone, so we'll write yesterday's adventure off to the bean dip. Couldn't be the Doritos. No loss if I give up bean dip for the rest of this existence.

Watched Democracy Now for its take on the Republican debate. I listened to about half of it on the radio getting ready to head out to breakfast this morning, making me want to see and hear what I'd missed.

Stayed up to watch the first half of Charlie Rose, beginning with an interview with a conservative pundit on tomorrow's New Hampshire primary. An articulate and interesting fellow who's views on, say, the Iran anti-nuclear agreement make no sense to me whatsoever, but again, articulate and interesting, particularly when compared to what their canditates are spouting in the Republican contest. Weird and unsettling times with this coming election.

To bed by eight-thirty, to sleep not long after nine.