This isn't starting well for a birthday morning.

Well, I did enjoy my evening. Deadwood's an odd one, but it seems to keep my interest and I had a good time. Lit the last of the votive candles I have on hand having now gone through the last of some two gross I'd ordered some time back. I have another two gross coming from Amazon, due to arrive sometime after the weekend, so I obviously like the damned things. A holdover from the sixties, although I didn't light all that many in the sixties. Probably not good for your lungs. Cough.

So we'll say the day has started well. And it has, the sky absolutely clear, the sun bright, I've had a good breakfast reading the papers and I'm back now thinking what to do else. What else? Well, who cares actually? We'll see. One project, I think, is to take another self portrait to mark (and, what the hell, celebrate) this sixty-ninth year.

The number was incomprehensible when I was younger, not particularly comprehensible to me today. It never occurred to me I'd be sixty-nine one day, given the history of my more immediate male line - father and grandfathers - but what the hell? It's a new century and, although the world seems glued together with duct tape and twine, it's still stumbling along and I'm up for the rest of the (rickety) ride. Not that I have a choice, of course. We're not completely dumb.

Later. A walk to get an ice cream cone: a scoop of Green Tea and a scoop of Mango. Not bad. No pictures along the way, but a nice amble for all that. It's noon, no interest in lunch or sake at the sushi place after that episode earlier this week. We'll see, there's still some day ahead. I think for the moment we'll get our head around a nap.

Later still. A photograph to remember the day (the year, the decade) - oh, dear - taken after an hour or so's nap. We find we like our naps, more so if we don't get at least the requisite eight or more hours the night before. But good. Naps are nice as long as they're not being driven by side effects from what the doctors assure me are necessary drugs. Be nice to go back to the old days and make do with pot and American beer. Those good old days before we discovered we'd been drinking whale piss and should have known better.

The days before Guinness.

Guinness is the bare minimum, anymore. As bad as the wine business has always been and getting worse. Liked those wines, though, when I was in the business myself. Latour. Haven't had Latour in a while, might never have one again, but there was a time, my friend.

This is definitely drifting.

I probably haven't come to grips with this birthday yet, maybe thinking somewhere deep down inside about the next one. Seven is a lucky number, though, right? Seven, seven, come eleven? The Chinese like eight.

Stop!

Seven, eight. Right. Get a grip. No need for sake and such, ocular migraines and the like. Take it easy, finish that Deadwood DVD tonight. None of people in Deadwood seem to live long enough to reach any number of years. Most seem lucky if they reach puberty. As I said, an odd series.

Evening. A good slow afternoon. My walk to get an ice cream cone doesn't really qualify as a proper walk, but we'll live with that. A smooth and slow afternoon, the news mumbling in the background, a couple of stabs at the guitar stretching those fingers between four frets. My instructor is able to stretch his fingers without apparent effort, so I assume it will eventually come, unless this age thing is a factor. But we'll see, no rush.