Monday. A good morning, up before the alarm was due to go off even though I'd watched my Korean soap last night and got to bed after eleven, to breakfast and back feeling pretty good. Nice, feeling pretty good. I go on and on, but then maybe that's the idea. Better to go even stumbling on than go off in a silent little huff.

Dinner this evening with Ms. P, Ms. R and Mr. Mc, haven't seen any of them now in years and I'm looking forward to getting together tonight. Other than dinner and the guitar, the day is clear, and the way I'm feeling I may take another crack at that malfunctioning computer, strip it down to basics, figure out why it's not doing its BIOS boot.

But I'll crow about that when I've done it, too early to tell, projects I've noticed that start with the obligatory hup! hups! often as not drop off into the dark. I suspect the condition is familiar to the mental health community and they write papers about it. “Hup! Hup!” and the descent of man into its now 21st Century dreamlife.

Later. Back from a (light) lunch at the usual place feeling better after my hup! hup! morning fell apart. We won't go into the late morning, early afternoon meltdown, as it was a combination of the usual suspects. Complicated for a number of reasons and I'm tired of writing about it. But better now, looking forward to the evening on this warm afternoon in the skyward thrusting spires of asymmetric Oakland.

Has anyone noticed watching the national political news is really depressing these days? These years? You have? How long has this been going on? Since George Washington? Have I just not been paying attention or is it now more obvious with the various sources of Internet news now in place? Now that I have the time to pay attention? Depressing? Everything is a story that obscures a story that sidesteps a reality that nobody really understands. An edifice built upon smoke and mirrors. And quicksand.

Later still. An excellent two hour dinner with the four of us. Everyone seems to be doing well in these less than settled times. You always want friends to be on the better side of fate, not under the gun any more than everyone else is under the gun, with the kids thriving, the days making sense. So, a couple of glasses of wine for the each of us as we settled into a good evening of catching up at a place we used to habituate and the staff, interestingly enough, still remembered us.