Wednesday. I got to bed a bit later than usual, the lights in the neighborhood failing at three separate times for less than a minute each and then failing altogether for well over an hour. It gave me an opportunity to light all the candles I have in the house, some few in front of the mirror in the bathroom, three or four in the bedroom, a couple in the kitchen. The votives and t-lights I have sitting on an end table in the living room were already burning, I'm finding I like to have them lit while I'm sitting there watching television and practicing guitar (no fumbling for flashlights and such when the lights went out), but a little excitement on an otherwise ordinary evening.

Up this morning maybe half an hour later than I'd set the alarm, off to breakfast and back by eight. The sun is out, evidently there's some chance of rain in the North Bay later today and they're still saying rain then through the weekend, but it looks like a good day ahead. The guitar lesson coming up in another hour, I'm ready for that (he said, as he always says and sometimes he's right) and then I'm clear for the day. A run to buy a ream of paper, I'm out and need to print a letter and get it in the mail. I know, odd, actual mail, but necessary sometimes I find.

Later. A decent lesson. We're going over it again this week, adding an earlier lesson where we learned Jimi Hendrix's The Wind Cries Mary, which I've somehow managed to forget. I'll remember it the first time I play it again, everything has been hard wired into the noggin through practice, but odd to watch the instructor go through the chords thinking “where did those come from, was I really playing them last month?”. The brain on power chords: not so sharp.

A run by Safeway to pick up necessary items. I've been avoiding this forever, another thing on the list of things I seem to avoid at all possible costs until I don't. This morning I didn't. A trivial trip, no checkout lines, just grab this and that, pay the lady and be gone. Some sake, of course. And cheese and crackers. I haven't had an ocular migraine in a while, I'm obviously lonely. We'll see if one visits this evening after the usual routine.

It's approaching noon and I'm noticing it has clouded over. Maybe I'd best get in my walk before the rain starts. Before the rains begin. Here in Oakland.

Later still. A decent day, I'd say, bubbling along here at three in the afternoon. A bus downtown to pick up that ream of paper at a Walgreens (a handy not so little shop selling everything from condoms and party favors to packaged lunches and flu shots, just pick them up, stand in line and open your wallet), leaving then to cross the street and get on the return bus home to take a nice long nap, no thought to stay down and around town to shoot pictures. I did mention I'd stayed up later last night?

Still, as said, a decent day, the head intact, the brain staying within relatively linear lines. No odd visual effects, clouds forming in the cortex, no hunkering down against oncoming “events”. We've had our share of events. Which leads me to wonder why I picked up that sake and cheddar cheese this morning after my lesson? Feeling pretty good for these last few days I want to test its longevity? I'm a little buzzy and a sake/cheddar cheese wall will slow me down? We'll see. Odd behavior, maybe, but we'll see, one way or another.

Evening. A bit of guitar, nothing to write home about, another Scandinavian police procedural (well, not quite that, but closer than not) set in late Eighteenth Century Sweden during the turbulent period of the French Revolution followed by (again) a police procedural set in contemporary Australia, a continuing chapter to a chapter I'd watched last week. And I didn't remember a damned thing about the chapter I'd watched last week. I'll have to think about that. I remembered some scenes and had some idea of what was going on, but most of it was a blank. The program? The accent? I couldn't make out half of it. Are we seeing a pattern in this?.