For the first time I forgot to take a camera as I left for breakfast, remembered when I got to the garage, decided to set forth for the first time in a very long time without it, discovered the gas prices had changed, said “I told you so”, but felt a certain release for all that. My, my. Breaking a habit. For one outing. One breakfast. Aren't we adventuresome, though? Skating near the edge? Tempting the gods?

More a senior moment, don't you think? Forgetting the camera?

Let us turn our little foibles into steel eyed resolve in the face of danger. Life is much more interesting that way, particularly when it's life being lived on the pages of a journal.

The photograph, by the way, is the same one used yesterday with a closer cropping. I like the body language and the expressions, but I also like the shadows cast by the foliage and I'm not sure how to make it work to best effect. To best effect from my own particular perceptions. Maybe there's just too much going on and there's no way to be happy with it, but it's interesting none the less. A small group of us has been discussing similar issues on Facebook, posting photographs as examples. This is a minor blip, a minor question insofar as this photograph is concerned, but what it teaches, if it teaches anything, can be applied to everything I might shoot in the future.

And that's important?

No. Just a passing thought in a life full of passing thoughts. An explanation of why I might use the same photograph twice for reasons other than sloth, not that comfortable old sloth needs defenders.

Later. A walk down to shoot a picture of the new (higher) gas prices posted at the 76 station. A good excuse to get me out for a walk, even if it's a short walk. A couple of pictures of people framed by the columns by the lake, pictures I've taken now many times. Still, they get me out of the door to enjoy a walk, to sit by the lake and snap the same images over and over like Rover. Not to mention the occasional bird. “Think of it as an engine idling”, he said - a weird look in his eyes, foot tapping, camera jiggling up and down on his knee - “keeping its temperature up, ready for the first person of interesting aspect to move into the scene”.

Less is more. Settle down.

I need another nap.

Mr. S's band is playing not all that far down south of here this evening, a matter of a forty minute drive. I've been thinking of going, have a Guinness, take a few photographs.

Guinness isn't on that list of foods to avoid because they bring on this ocular migraine thing?

It says red wine and champagne. Oh, and things that contain alcohol. Guinness is unlike all other “things” that contain alcohol, obviously, so it doesn't count.

Keep it within limits.

Indeed.

Later still. A bus downtown, a brief walk around the City Center to buy an ice cream cone and eat it out at one of the tables, the sun warm without being too warm. A walk then not all that far to a bus stop on Broadway and then a bus back home, done for the day. Will I head to Livermore later for the band concert? I need to decide within about an hour. What will the traffic be like? I have no idea.

The MRI people called and we made an appointment for a scan in Los Gatos next week. My feeling is, no matter the location, use the labs and facilities familiar to the doctor. It's a one shot deal, use the people he's familiar with. Travel time and trouble shouldn't be an issue. Looking at the electroencephalogram orders, however, the second required test, I notice it's listed as an EEG - Sleep Deprived. You have it in the morning without going to sleep the night before as you need to be asleep in part of the reading. Oh. That's why they were worried about driving.