The morning is again overcast, as it was all throughout the day yesterday, no sun at all, home now from breakfast and the papers. Up at seven instead of six, to bed last night at ten for what was probably about eight hours of sleep as I kept getting up on what must have been three or four occasions to take a pee. So who knows? We'll say the day has started well.

Off on the bus to get the various blood tests taken and then meeting with some of the usual crew for beverages in the city starting at five. Mr. E should be able to fill us in on his new employment, which is good. I don't have a mortgage, kids and a fearsome health insurance payment hanging over my head the way he does and employment with full benefits is appreciated as it keeps the craziness in check.

For some reason I ordered two high speed CF cards (the memory cards that store the photographs in the camera) for the newest Nikon yesterday thinking I'd take the two CF cards they were replacing and move them into the older DX series cameras that take only one card each. The idea was to enable these hand me down CF cards, when they're removed after shooting from the two older cameras, to download a lot faster than they do now when I plug them into the computer. This rationale is totally ridiculous of course. I spent some money, money I should not be spending, on a couple of CF cards for which I have no need. Faster? By a couple of minutes? We are living in FantasyLand here, Mr. Natural. I need to do something about it. No, I do. Really.

Well, two 8 meg CF cards. They're not all that expensive.

Nor was everything else I ordered this month. The four Noritake place settings from Macy's, for example. I can use them, I guess, and they were indeed on sale, I spent probably half what I would have had to spend otherwise. And they're nice. Still, I've lived for years without decent plates and such, why get them now? Because they sent me an email I couldn't resist? Comfort purchases to mourn my cat?

Later. A walk down to the bus stop thinking I should go back up the hill and take the car for the blood tests. There'd been a light mist in the early morning when I was driving to breakfast, certainly there was a chance of the same while I was out there in the jungle transferring between buses? But no, the bus came, I got on, got off to make a connection to the next bus that came within the minute and the hospital blood testing was pretty much done in a flash. I stopped by their cafeteria for a small orange juice thinking I could use the sugar and a napkin to rub the finger prints off my sun glasses. (How in the hell do I manage to do that so often?)

Another bus from the hospital all the way downtown, a cup of coffee at the bagel place in the City Center, a three or four block walk as I checked my watch to time the right stop and catch the bus back. They were setting up tables in Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of City Hall with big Ignite signs placed here and there as I passed, no particular indication as to what they wanted to set on fire, but there were a number of small business and start a business related signs on the tables people were setting up, so I assume they were talking about igniting the economy. I wish them luck.

No pictures, as such. A desultory, not particularly thought out shot of a reflection in a window while changing buses, another reflection in a window walking down Broadway on the way home. Might as well not have been carrying the camera. Not altogether tired, the walking I did went well enough, but I'm looking more to the afternoon for the head to clear. Maybe a nap now that it's approaching noon, maybe not. Pretty much the same overly used conundrums clattering about here in Oakland, don't you think? The kind of thoughts you filter through over and over when you're tired, but not tired enough to sleep?

Later still. A get in bed and take an hour's journey into the really foggy side of the brain kind of a nap. No sleep, really, but refreshing none the less. A look at the calendar in my kitchen to see it said the Gay Pride Parade is tomorrow morning No way I can go to Harrington's tonight, no matter how “sensible” I might behave or how soon I might return. I'm not screwing up another once in a year morning parade by not thinking clearly the night before.

My, my. Rational behavior in the mid-afternoon. When did that last happen?

We are wearing our photographer's hat and, as a certain Mr. Thompson used to opine, we shall get the image: rain, snow or shine. Something like that, anyway. Doctors of Journalism can be opaque on occasion and amateur photo buffs can misinterpret the master. I'd capitalize that, the Master, but we are winging it here, no connection to fact or reality implied.

(Added at the last minute: I checked the web site to confirm the parade is tomorrow. The parade runs on Sunday as it's run on Sundays since I first started photographing them. Idiot. Still, this means Harrington's is still in the cards, although I'll still take it easy, wanting to, you know, not do too many of the things that end this life overly soon. Oh, and the Protime - blood thinner - test results were phoned in just now and all is swell. It's best, if you can, to stay in a place where all is swell.)

So, let's see. The guitar practice goes along. I can't say I'm doing two hours a day, more likely an hour in four fifteen minute sessions, but the finger tips continue to toughen and the fingering of the scales is becoming more fun. More accurate? More of something. It goes slowly, but it goes. Same with the chords. There are three, as I mentioned, and all three to some degree gave me problems for the first week but now it's down to but one. Well, all three still need work, but I can finger the first two first time out but have to futz with the third, stretching the fingers and the hand and such, before getting it right. But again, no complaints.

So, charge the camera batteries, pack the camera into the backpack I use for the camera mounted with the 70 - 200mm lens. Fits with but a smidgen to spare. Best camera backpack I've ever owned and I've owned a few. (So many things you think you need, so few you actually do.) It works. I know, I know, rather boring information for anyone who doesn't have reason to think of such things, but a revelation for those few who do.