Still, after breakfast and the papers, the sun, as I mentioned, overhead. What hope for the day coming? Photographs (have you noticed I talk about photographs a lot?) undoubtedly, I seem to be in a period of change with the photographs, but otherwise what? Things to do here at the apartment. Many tasks that have been put off practically forever now still waiting for something to change in my head, some shifting of gears, some shifting of vision, of attitude, of humanity to give them spark. The fact we are retired does not mean we are dead, at the end of the chain, at an end to clever things that keep us entertained, unless we are. And we aren't.

You need to tack on a hup! hup! hup! Are you really at the point where you're sitting there in front of a computer having to sell yourself so blatantly on this life is good concept? Are you really that stuck?

Well, maybe that didn't come out quite right. I'm in pretty good shape, the attitude is good, the direction seems to be changing although I have no idea to where or what. So that's not artificial ersatz energy there (hup! hup! hup!), it's real enough and the outlook seems bright, it's just I'm not sure what tomorrow may bring and there's a certain, well, curiosity about it. I've pretty much spent my life as a voyeur, just passing through watching all the activity around me without an urge to participate and I suspect that's what the next chapter will bring with one or two interesting add-ons or exceptions, add-ons and exceptions undertaken by voyeurs and loners, of course, nothing, you know, particularly innovative or productive in a broader societal sense. In some things we're consistent.

Neither innovative or productive?

Except in my own limited world, of course. I could write a book or photograph something that turned into a book or a show or a pile of trash; throw in with some off the wall group reporting on local Oakland stuff. Not that any of that would come to pass, mind you, but there are many possibilities I've played with, actually attempted in my former life (lives) and the outlook is therefore positive. No. Really. We are pumped, just not putting it down on paper right. Down in pixels right. Something like that. Can't you really tell? With all the drivel I've been putting out these last several months. Journal entries that go on and on, cover the same territory over and over? It all gets me out of bed and up for breakfast (and the papers). Haven't you noticed? Self? Hup? Hup? Hup?

Later. A good walk, a good afternoon, some pictures, the purchase of a small backpack just the right size for a camera attached to a 70 -200mm lens (I've been looking for one for a long time now), an H1N1 swine flu shot (I was the first one in line) and now back home to find the DVD printer had arrived. Pretty hot stuff for an old Oakland fart.

A walk down to the bus stop mid-morning to wait on a bus, a picture or two of a tree and then a tree trunk and branches silhouetted against a cloudy sun, the same series of thoughts turning in my head: go downtown or take a connecting bus to Berkeley and walk about Telegraph, something I've been threatening, but haven't done in some time? What, what, what?

A stop at every corner connecting bus taking me to University where Telegraph stops, a photograph of a woman sitting and smoking a cigarette. That image called to me while I was still on the bus and I should have done more, taken a chance on making a greater ass of myself, to get a better picture. But I didn't.

A walk then down Telegraph ultimately heading for the Looking Glass, a photography store well known in the Berkeley area where I finally found the backpack. A stop or two to photograph murals I'd not seen before, one on the side of a tattoo parlor, the other on the side of a building nearby, another of a boarded up door that called out to me, another of a pillar covered in posters and announcements next to the University, all this when I stumbled over a sign in a Walgreens store: H1N1 today, just like the Walgreens in downtown Oakland. Was there a line? Did they have the standard flu shot? Cut to the chase I was the first through the door and no, they didn't have the standard flu shot, but the H1N1 they had right then, right now and for free with my Medicare card. A breeze, it was. No complaints. Yet. I've never had symptoms from a flu shot, but there's always a first. Worried I'm not.

By now it had been a long walk and a long day. A bus back to Oakland to have a cup of coffee and wait on a connecting bus, a decision to say the hell with the bus and walk, taking a picture I wouldn't have gotten otherwise of trees silhouetted against the city (I'm into this silhouetted in the sun stuff, am I not?), another picture of the tree where the cormorants and snowy egrets hang out before stumbling up my hill to find the CD printer had arrived.

I think we've done enough of this twenty pictures in an afternoon business. Shoot them, if you must, but don't post them unless they involve cute kitty cats and women without clothes.

The old keep it simple, approach-avoidance monkey business. Too many pictures you think?

Not every day. Write reams if you must, but make it less repetitive, post the pictures somewhere else.

Best to ask for opinions, but I don't believe there's any rule about following through on advice you don't like.