BACK TO:

[Journal Menu]

[Home Page]

[email]

[100 Books]

[Other Sites]



Here In Oakland

Art & Life


Most Recent
Art & Life
Postings:

Oakland Holiday Parade

SantaCon

Today at the pump

My sister!


   


Under here.

January 2, 2012

Want To Hear It

Monday. To bed closer to midnight than I like to think about after listening to The Concert For George last night, up this morning at eight, off and back from breakfast under a grey overcast sky by ten. A trip by the gas station and the supermarket on the way back, taking a look then at yesterday's entry, the first of the new year, and discovering many errors in changing to the new 2012 date.

There are a number of edits required to change the year when you're still using HTML for your journal (something others have now long abandoned for WordPress and similar others to good effect) and I'd caught some and missed many others, some of which should have been painfully obvious.

OK, these things happen, but the thought that made me take a step back was, yes, how many I'd missed but, more important to me, how obvious were most of them to anyone who might have been paying even minimal attention. Had I been in that deep a fog? In the morning, maybe, but the afternoon was pretty clear: both the weather and my noggin’. Of course most of the changes were made early in the morning, the actual writing is the last task to be undertaken and is done in pieces throughout the day, but still? Makes me wonder. I talk about the “foggy brain” fairly dispassionately - it's there, but quite honestly as yet not too worrying - but this brought it much closer to home.

The swing by the supermarket - a short drive from the gas station, a parking space on the street smack dab at their front door, few shoppers and plenty of check out lines awaiting my arrival - resulted in buying all of two packages of the small heat 'em and eat 'em Cup of Noodles with shrimp and four of the small bottles of sake. What in the hell am I doing? I couldn't convince myself to buy salad makings, bread, cereal, milk or any of the other basics most people consume? If I continue with this, well, hell, I may find myself making silly mistakes, the mind starting to wander, missing dates and transposing numbers!

You may stop.

Still, it does make me wonder.

Later. A bus downtown. How long has it been? Been a while. What might be open? Do I want to take a turn through the Occupy area in front of City Hall? Silly me. Of course I did and once I'd gotten out the door half the questions evaporated, the other half disappearing when I stepped off the bus. Pictures to take. Still overcast, but really nice light for photographs. You tweak them a bit in Photoshop on a day like this, add just enough contrast to brighten them up.

A turn through the Occupy area finding they'd re-inhabited a tree next to the original tree they'd cleared of its platforms last month, how they let that happen I don't know. I asked the guy how long he'd been up there and he said a couple of days, although he wasn't quite sure. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only foggy brain in town. Still, a turn around the plaza taking photographs, some of which I'll put up later I suspect on artandlife.

A walk then through the Chinatown area taking a picture or two of grafitti I've seen before, but interesting and somehow fresh, none the less. A walk on farther and then a bus back home, stopping at the 7-11 look-alike for an ice cream bar. I'd had a cup of coffee and a piece of Tiramisu at the bagel shop in the City Center, there were a few cafés open when I'd expected none. You're starting to understand why I'm thinking about my diet, how it may need to change. A little. Not too much.

There's some sun now that I'm home at three in the afternoon. A bit of guitar, I think, while I listen to the news. A good outing. I'm pleased.

Evening. Nothing much on television now that my Korean soap is history (thank god). They've started up another, but I've glanced at it once or twice and winced, turned it off and told myself I certainly won't be getting hooked on this one. Certainly not. Of course I've glanced at it now three or four times, but the reaction has been the same. Safe for the moment, the week, maybe even the month if I'm careful enough.

So a bit of puttering around the apartment as I've been consuming two of those bottles of sake, a nice buzz without any danger of wanting a third. Did I mention I'd bought four of them earlier this morning? I did? I'm curious too. How many times, having more than two sitting on the counter in the kitchen, have I exceeded my most sensible limit? How much longer will I go on with this inane conversation? Probably longer than I'd like to admit.

Anyway I for some reason moved some DVD movies stacked in the bottom of the player cabinet where they've pretty much been invisible, impossible to make out their titles without taking them out, and I've put them up on a more visible shelf, where I might pull one down one day and watch it. There are some I'd totally forgotten. For someone who doesn't buy many movies I seem to have accumulated a few, some of which I'd obviously forgotten I had. Maybe I'll play one this evening. Or tomorrow.

Anyway this has led to finding one or two old framed photographs from the past, an empty picture frame or two, all of which need to be placed somewhere more visible. You see where this is going. Maybe we can follow this thread and allow it to lead us through more than just an evening, conceivably moving on into tomorrow. It doesn't take much to change your surroundings, get rid of the junk, put things in order, frame pictures, dust furniture. I know this, I've lived this way in earlier lives in earlier decades. It could happen again. Grasping at straws, but it could.

The sake is showing.

I guess it is. Who cares? Still I'm enjoying this little digression. Time to go back and re-arrange some more of this stuff. So much of this stuff has become over these years, well, trash. Trash it is, but I don't want to hear it.

Grand approaching Lake Merritt taken with a Nikon D2X mounted with a 24-120mm f 4.0 Nikkor VR lens.


LAST ENTRY | JOURNAL MENU | NEXT ENTRY