Sunday. Up this morning - hup! hup! - at the usual time after getting to bed after eleven (having watched my weekend Korean soap again last night at ten, deciding it's obviously hopeless to stop), home now after breakfast and the papers with a visit to the supermarket on the way back. Sunday morning before eight. If I'd skip out on going to the supermarket because it's too crowded on a Sunday morning before eight I'd never get to the supermarket yet I still had to talk myself into it. Breakfast cereal, milk and sake. We have our ducks in order, the important stuff well in hand.

Otherwise nothing on the plate for the day other than time on the guitar and maybe futzing with some of the existing pages on artandlife to get them up to snuff. As a photographer you want your stuff to be up to snuff. So many things to take care of, some many things to worry about, no wonder I'm into sake. You'd be too if you led this strenuous existence! You would. Yes you would. (hup! hup!)

Later. A slow morning now heading into the afternoon. No thought or desire for a nap, not sure why. I walked out the door with a camera a bit like a robot wondering where I wanted to go and decided, once I got to the corner across from the lake, I wanted to go back to the apartment and practice with the guitar for a bit. Well, a bit. Maybe an hour and a half now that it's over.

What say a walk to the morning café for a cup of coffee and a browse through the book store, although I'm not sure I want any coffee (I'm never sure I want any coffee, come to think of it, even in the mornings) and I know I won't buy any books. Maybe read one of the books I've recently bought. One I started on the Kindle. Do that out there somewhere sitting in the sun.

When's the last time you've read sitting out in the sun?

Not since I tried it once or twice in my late twenties, early thirties, when I was reading books like a lawn mower cutting grass. I'm best reading in bed, always was, even as a teenager.

Later still. OK, for all my grunts and groans about walking around and about for two or three hours shooting photographs, I seem to feel similarly wasted just walking down the way to my morning café for coffee and a bun. These symptoms, much lighter, will take but a short time to pass, I have no doubt, but still. Moan, moan. Maybe it's just the way it is, the way it will be until it isn't anymore and then I can complain about whatever it is that comes next. Still, a good walk, a picture or two, some thoughts on how to spend the rest of the day on things other than the guitar.

Tired? Moan, groan?

Well, no. I don't feel like doing anything productive after a sort walk like this, but as I said, it passes in maybe thirty minutes when the longer ones can take the rest of the day. When I was half this age it all passed along in ten. If I correctly remember back then. Which I don't. I just make it up as I write. Right?

Right.

I was sitting having that cup of coffee when I looked down at the camera eyepiece and display screen. They were, well, grungy. Hmm. Why had I let them get so far along? I'm good with the lenses, cleaning them pretty thoroughly, inspecting them often, but why not the camera body as well? So I took a clean napkin and rubbed whatever it was off. Look good, they do, my camera display screen and eyepiece.

Still, there's the issue of the CMOS sensor inside the camera. It has some very small pieces of dust (or whatever) on it and it's time I did a proper cleaning. Rather like restringing your guitar for the first time, you hold back until you have to and then discover it's no big deal. So, if not this afternoon, then tomorrow, I'll clean the sensor inside the D3s and, if that works out, the D3. Both have small blemishes they leave on a solid background like a blue sky or white wall. I checked yesterday shooting the sky with the camera stopped way down and there they were. Not sharp edged, only one of them looked alike a small speck of dust, but still. Bad karma not to clean your camera when necessary. I'll send them to Nikon if I screw up.

Evening. That dry funky tasting mouth began mid-afternoon as I wrote the above, to bed and what I assume was an ocular migraine, not as strong as some, but strong enough, up now feeling better. I'd had a bowl of that cereal, something I haven't had in some time, and I remembered one of the reasons I haven't bought any in a while is I wondered back then if it might be a trigger. A regular size bowl of Special K with non-fat milk triggering ocular migraines? We'll see, there's still a lot more in the box.