Wednesday. What is now a normal night's rest, I guess, to bed at about ten, to sleep close to eleven, up with the alarm at quarter to six having awakened briefly two or three times during the night. Which, anecdotally I guess, is what people my age do: they wake up at night, sometimes take a pee, sometimes don't, and go back to sleep. And this works. Mostly. I guess.

My guitar lesson coming up at ten, I'll go quickly over the lesson, pack the guitar in its case and head out the door in another hour and a half. Am I ready? No. But I've done my homework. Mostly. We're playing better than we were last week, but not good enough, not good enough.

You say that a lot.

I'm assuming you need to push even when you're making a decent effort. Not so hard as to burn yourself out, but enough to make progress. Your progress, not their progress. A delicate balance everyone is familiar with, if not with the guitar, then with life.

Later. Not bad, the lesson, getting through it better than I have in weeks past, but still not quite there yet on the chord changes, Imagine still on the plate to practice. Which is OK. If I can get these chord changes down the others will come more easily and I'll see more light at the end of the tunnel. We're talking a two year commitment here and we're only in our tenth month. Months and years go by quickly, it's only the hours that tend to give you pause.

And you practice in hours.

I practice in twenty minute segments, five and one hopes more a day. They go reasonably quickly, often without thinking. An hour is another matter, but again, in twenty minute segments they're more often than not reasonable to overcome.

A run to the supermarket for orange juice, sake and sandwich makings. Probably keep the sandwiches to a minimum as I tend toward ham and cheese. We'll see, the weight is still at one-sixty, I've been dancing around the same three pounds for these last many months, currently over the mark by one. Given my past this is nothing, given these last couple of years it's now the norm, dancing around those couple of pounds rather than getting down and dirty and wrestling. Interesting change. Because I've retired?

I've mentioned the appetite has come back somewhat. The idea of a ham and cheese sandwich, for example, isn't all that wonderful, but it can be done. Other things easily managed such as pizza and such are not back on track yet, maybe they will never be, but again, progress.

One thing I haven't talked about, for obvious reason (I'm easily embarrassed), is the fact that after the stomach operation to correct the hiatal hernia I started passing air like a jet engine. I mean really. Room filling. Volumes of air you couldn't imagine. That seems to have stopped three months back after what, two years? So not all is gloom and doom in Oakland, although you might not notice from the way I've been whinging.

Whinging?

I think that's British English for whining (complaining, carping, crying out loud). Rather like it. Whinging. I probably have it wrong.

Later still. Tired. Sore and tired, I'm not quite sure why. The whooping cough shot has been aching now since I got it yesterday, the fellow who administered it said that was the norm. Not a big deal, it's more like a sore arm muscle that sits there aching and then lets you know when you move it. Add to that the other arm is aching a bit. I'm wondering if it's a psychological thing, a sympathy ache or if three camera outings in a row over the weekend with a big lens camera in hand might have been overdoing it. Altogether I'm a bit sore and in a good mood. Odd? I don't know.

This is infinitely better than the feeling fuzzy stuff, the double vision, the sinus-upper palate thing, let me tell you, and there's is indeed a certain feeling of righteousness: sore muscles, exercise, hup - hup, give the man a gold star and all that?

So anyway I headed out (relaxes sore muscles to do a little walking does it not?) for a cup of coffee at the usual place, sitting with it for maybe twenty minutes out at a table on their patio, and walked back. Slowly. Looking about. Feeling good. A picture or two, nothing interesting, but at least I put the camera up to the eye. This is good.

Now maybe a little guitar practice, finish out the afternoon and then take a look at that sake I picked up earlier at the supermarket. Relaxes the muscles, don't you know, a little sake in the evenings? Puts you right to sleep (he said) if you don't overdo it. And I would never overdo it. Not I, here on the billiard green lawns beside a lake in Oakland.