Later. A bus downtown remembering I needed to pick up next month's bus pass, walking then over to the Rotunda building for a caramel coffee at one of the tables overlooking the ground floor center of the building below. I decided, on a whim, to take a left instead of the usual turn to the right when exiting the building as I was heading for the City Center and ran across this. Done last night? Last week? Someone is obviously still alive, well and active in Occupy (and up to creative mischief).

The tiles have been numbered along the edges of the image (I should have taken a picture), one up to whatever number, so they were probably working from a design done and duplicated on grid paper allowing them to work quickly when putting it down, each with a numbered grid map in hand, each knowing which squares required what color. Interesting. I wonder how long it took from start to finish?

This evidently was enough downtown excitement. I felt fine, but wasn't up for a lot of walking, so I took the bus back to my home stop and then headed down to the lake instead of back to the apartment, walking on to my morning restaurant feeling quite hungry. I was hungry last night and ate a bunch of what I'd picked up at the supermarket. Maybe the lost appetite is coming back? If it is I'm ambivalent about it. It's been nice, after all those many years, having the weight take care of itself, no real need to check the scale every morning, although retiring seems to have also made its contribution. Anyway, coffee (black) and an apple turnover before heading back to the apartment. An altogether good morning.

It's possible at some level I set out to have lunch in order to avoid going home and restringing the guitar, knowing it was waiting for me and there was no way to practice without it. Could be, the thought occurred. Not all that difficult to restring a guitar (he said), I've done it a good dozen or so times, buying string sets now in boxes of ten, but you never know, heading on to lunch could have been for something that silly. I'm quite familiar with silly.

You're drifting again. Time to stop, screw the head back into place.

Later still. Well, I restrung the guitar. Took a good thirty minutes, tacking on another ten during which I relearned a trick I'd learned earlier this month, the last time it was restrung. Why the forgetfulness? Still, what the hell, it's done, it's ready, I'm ready.

A bale of hay dry mouth came on fairly quickly after I got back and started working on the guitar. Dry and foul tasting, but without any of the other ocular migraine symptoms that usually follow. Decided to put down the guitar and lie down for a while. Not tired or sleepy, but got into a nice half buzzed rest for an hour.

The intensity of the dry mouth made me wonder again if it really is brought on by something I've eaten or been taking or maybe, as I was hoping yesterday, if they were indeed leaving, but taking their leave one symptom at a time. Who knows? We'll see. We'll hope. We'll bitch. We'll moan. We'll take naps and talk interminably in circles.

Evening. Retuned the guitar. Retuned it again. Sounds OK, even with the low volume I need to protect the neighbors, so I was able to get in quite a bit of practice while watching the six o'clock police procedural (another Italian thing, but this time palatable). An interesting series of chords in this new lesson, the two string chord fingering needing to be done in ways I'd yet to see. So far they sound like crap, but we're making progress.