There seems to be plenty of stuff going on to photograph starting tomorrow. Various street festivals, jazz festivals, blues festivals and something called a Night Out at Jack London Square, so I'm pretty sure we'll be taking pictures over the weekend. (Cross our fingers, here. Toes too, if it makes a difference.)

I'm finding I'm taking fewer pictures that I don't crop one way or another, which is fine, but in cropping them they don't fit in the space required up above. So I spend more time going through old photographs as often as not, sometimes selecting one or two that are marginal. Just one of those little conundrums faced by an old, operating in modern times, photographer. Something I'd probably do something about with another mind in another world, but only prattle on about it here. Dear oh dear.

You may stop now.

Later. Well, I did at least warm up the guitar, played through the various sequences noticing the fingering, somewhat ragged yesterday, had gotten better this morning. It will fall back into disrepair, but this seems to be the way you make progress: you're stuck for a while, you sleep on it, and it jumps for no discernible reason a step for the better. Two forward, one back. One and a half steps forward, one back. Something like that.

Anyway, I then took an hour's nap. Not so much feeling tired as, well, that's what I did and I did drift off easily enough, getting up feeling better. Now off to the lesson and maybe something to eat.

Later still. A lesson about lessons. No matter how well prepared you think you are, you aren't. There is a long list of things you can set forth to explain it, but only one really counts: practice. More practice. All the rest is bumpf and fluss.

A bus to the ATM on Broadway, when I got home, to walk on to the City Center to have lunch out at a table, a chicken, Gorgonzola crepe with a side salad. And then a walk over to a small convenience store for an ice cream cone. Of course.

A walk then back to Grand, getting in the walking for the day (a pat on the head for wonderful me), meeting a bus at the usual stop and a ride the rest of the way back home. We'll listen to PBS news and practice. Yes we will. For some reason I'm really good at getting in my guitar time on the days just after the lesson (after screwing up the lesson?), less good as I tell myself, sell myself, I've got it down. When we don't always, obviously, have it down.

Hup?

Hup.

Evening. I was thinking of having sushi and sake for dinner, understanding I wasn't particularly hungry, and sake, although it would be nice, has taken the blame for some “tired” days that follow and I don't want any tired days that follow into this coming weekend. And, quite honestly, I think I was just feeling a bit antsy, energy not quite knowing where to start a fire. So no sushi or sake for dinner. Q.E.D.

Nothing to watch on television, no urge to take another nap, the antsy-jumpy feeling leaving by about nine. Probably a good sign if it lasts through the next three days, I'll get in quite a bit of shooting and maybe take care of one or two things on my list. I've mentioned the list? It's not that it's all that long, but it's a list of the things I want to get done that have been camped out on this list for a very long time.