Wednesday. I mentioned having sushi and sake last night, last night starting at five in the late afternoon when the place opened, the effects of the sake having worn off by six or so, the rest of the evening pretty much spent on the guitar and watching whatever it was on television and the last half of a Netflix movie. I bitch about not watching many movies anymore, and I don't, but I do subscribe to Netflix and I do wade through the ones that seem to have promise. One lives one's life as a cliché, it just takes a bunch of years to recognize the fact. Unless you're in marketing, of course, where they study such stuff.

Up with the alarm, out and back from breakfast, feeling pretty good. No complaints. My guitar lesson coming at ten. New batteries in the guitar and in the tuning device and new strings over the weekend pretty much define an end of the month (we get more time from the batteries, I've decided to change and recharge them monthly). The guitar maintenance and paying the of the rent introducing the new month and mark the mid point in the calendar year. Which builds us up to another cliché: “time flies”. Yes it does. No complaints.

Later. A bit rough (to say the least), but the lesson went well, the next covering more of the same. I talk about practice for a reason. I need practice. And more practice doing the new (hard) stuff and not going over the old (much easier now) stuff. Such is the way you learn anything, I suppose, including photography.

As in don't keep repeating yourself by taking the same pictures?

I'm not sure I want to think about that. Certainly refine the technique, keep the challenge. Hmm. Photography and guitar playing. Why not? Cartier-Bresson talked about photography and the Zen of archery in a way that made sense, not that I'm enamoured in any way with a need to make sense, here on the vast rain spattered moors of darkest Oakland.

Later still. A walk down to the morning restaurant to have a cup of coffee and a brownie as I sat and watched the people walk by. This fellow surprised me in that he was walking out in the street along the parked cars while I was sitting with the camera in my lap so I didn't quite get off the shot I wanted, but interesting to see none the less. No, I have no idea what he's about, not sure I want to know. What's your guess? An Andy Warhol, Soupy Sales hybrid? If he's not trying to make a statement and I'm showing myself the fool. Still, Andy Warhol-Soupy Sales. Struck me as more toward being original than brain damaged.

Then again a shot or two as I walked, nothing special, nothing to write home about.

Other than here.

Well, maybe, who knows? What I found out there today that caused me to put a camera to the eye and pull the trigger. No complaints other than the usual complaining I'm doing right now.

A nap when I got home, some work on the laptop to allow me to more easily play guitar along with a music CD, something I should have done a month ago. Practicing with music is important and the laptop is now set up to play a song as slowly or as fast as I might like while still keeping proper pitch and tone. The magic of new music technology. Again, nothing to complain about other than my own sloth in getting it done. It's done.

Evening. More guitar, but not much more. A bit to television and to bed early. They say the rain has stopped and we'll have sun through the weekend. Time for the weekend.