It is now late in the afternoon and I've had a single whiskey and water and although I feel better, more relaxed, I don't think I'll have another. I think a second drink would let the demons in, the little bastards have been watching me from the edge of the fire now over these last two days. I know they're up to mischief. I'm playing Dark Side of the Moon as I write. Maybe not a good idea.

At least everyone else I'm working with is in a similar fix. Not just me going nuts, everybody's going nuts, everybody's looking for a way out of the company, out of the area, out of the, well, most of us don't want out of the state. The sun and all that.

I drove over to see an art exhibition where a friend is showing her photographs. A large building in a less than lovely section on San Pablo, a rabbit warren of artist's studios, sculptors and photographers from the look of it, low rent art and life in Oakland. The place was pretty funky reminding me of artist's quarters I knew in the 70's in San Francisco, places to draw and paint. Not as nice as one or two of the studios some of the underground artists put together, not as bad as some unheated warehouses where beginning talent made do as best they could. A city can be a cold place. A place I could rent studio space for the studio lights? Shoot portraits? Shoot stuff, who knows what kind of stuff? Maybe. One day, if I ever really figure out where I'm going with this.

Buffalo Springfield now playing in the background, the second or third album with the cover by Eve Babitz. I was in the army when the Springfield was recording. Other things on my mind at the time. I don't remember them at all, hearing Springfield for the first time in 1969, the next big band that somehow never became the next big band. Incredible music, but why listen to it now so many years later? The thought is am I trading the present for the past? I hope not. I remember those times fondly, the people fondly, the music fondly, but, given the choice, I don't think I'd go back.