A bus to the ATM on Broadway, a walk to the appointment in the lower section of the City Center (I remember reading something about this), a cup of coffee and a cookie at a table afterward to kill time before the next bus arrived, a walk then to a Broadway stop and back home now at the apartment. And the guitar. And the guitar lesson coming up at two-thirty. A hectic day for an old man, let me tell you.

Are you going to do well at your lesson?

If I'm somehow able to cheat the Fates.

Later. Well, at least it was interesting. The guitar lesson.

A drive to the lesson, setting out an hour and a half early, to then lock the guitar up in the car and walk to the morning café for lunch: a grilled cheese sandwich, potato salad and lemonade out at the table on the patio. Took my time sitting under their awning in the shade, watching the people pass by on the sidewalk.

A walk then to pick up the guitar and go on to the lesson to sit on the patio until the lesson started, the student before me a youngster who was learning to play the drums. Drums. I wonder what it would be like to learn to play the drums?

Snap out of it! Can you imagine playing drums in your apartment?

I mentioned I'd forgotten how to strike one particular chord after having played it so many times, mentioned the fact to him as I was setting up and then proceeded to fumble over the exact same chord once again. OK, he's a really good teacher (in the sense he never seems to get upset or flustered) and we went through the chords one step at a time. I'm able to strike them properly, but again, forgetting one I've played so recently?

You do need more practice.

I do need more practice.

Home now, we'll just take a little run through those chords again.

Evening. A Maigret I haven't seen before, so an hour and a half watching him do this and that while playing along on the guitar. A decent session on the guitar, a decent Maigret to watch as I was playing.

To bed then before nine to finish that fifth book of the Maigret series I'd started reading, but then stopped to pick up and read the sixth, now all of them up on a shelf in the bedroom to gather dust with the rest of the books in the library. Not all that many additions to the shelves in these last few years that I've read all the way through, most of them more politically oriented than fiction, most ponying up a couple of chapters before I lost interest.

Anyway to bed early, to sleep quite a bit later. We'll see how well the night has gone in the morning.