Tuesday. To bed last night before eight. A long day, I didn't become tired until early evening, but for some reason I decided to turn in and got a somewhat fitful but decent night's sleep. Up this morning with the alarm. A clear day out there, to breakfast and back before eight, the laundry downstairs in the wash. Just like that, didn't even think twice, just came in through the door and went for the laundry basket remembering I was running low on clean shorts, let's get this done while the morning is young. Hup, hup (and all that stuff).

Later. Time with the guitar going over the usual stuff asking myself why do I spend so much time on this set of assigned exercises and with some of the others, playing them, practicing them, but not playing them to the same extent? In other words the usual fluff. Stuff.

A walk after down Grand to have a cup of coffee and a bran muffin of some kind at the morning café, pausing by the lake to take a picture I've taken many times before (postcard stuff) and then farther on taking a picture of a young woman doing stretching exercises, although I wondered if she wasn't practicing to become a contortionist, the pictured pose one of her less agonizing looking configurations.

Sitting outside at a table I noticed they'd lowered the gas prices across the street since earlier this morning, thinking why not walk on farther and pick up a couple of things at the supermarket? Which I did. Air pop popcorn, bought the last one on the shelf, wanted two; some frozen dinner entrees (I wanted to try what they have these days, maybe some of them will be better for me than my strict late afternoon diet of convenience store ice cream in cones or bars, M&M's in their various configurations and black coffee.); a box of crackers (on sale); a small block of Swiss cheese and two bottles of sake. The small single serving bottles that don't lead to trouble.

You lie.

Just about the lunch, not every one of them consists of M&M's and ice cream. Sometimes I leave off the M&M's. No reason though to lie about what I've bought at a supermarket. Be interesting to think what it would be if there was.

Later still. More scales and chords. Then a thought to look at one of the songs I'd picked up some time back on sheet music, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, written in music notation so I had to sit down, put on my glasses and convert it to tablature. I've stopped practicing reading music notation in the last couple of months and I need to do a rethink. Still, an hour or so of playing it over and over, adding it now to the two Beatles songs in my repertoire.

Maybe you'd better not suggest to the world you're far enough along to have a “repertoire”. Sounds pretentious, particularly after listening to you play.

Now, now. I agree, but let's be nice.

Early evening. The sake has gone down well, best we don't have any more in the apartment. For some reason I've continued to pick up the guitar after every time I've put it down and I'm wondering if I'm getting into some kind of weird guitar addiction. Then again I understand there are people out there who force their kids to practice five hours a day on whatever instrument in preparing them for the world. The concert world? The music world? I don't think they're pushing them to become rock and roll stars. Not a lot of longevity there and the health problems are notorious. So maybe two or three hours a day isn't so over the top, particularly when I now have the time. Still. I'm suspicious.

A guitar lesson tomorrow morning, a get together at six in Oakland with some of the old APL crew. Sounds good to me, deedle-dee-dee. Best to do it now, who knows about later?