Tuesday. Up after eight having turned off the alarm when it erupted before six, feeling pretty crappy as the world came into focus without, however, setting any bad morning records in getting out of bed. To breakfast before nine, the attitude markedly improving over breakfast and the papers, even with the rain.

Yesterday afternoon was nasty enough, described as a “California winter day in the middle of May” by the weather folks, but this morning is worse. Rain, rain. Still, I'm feeling pretty good now sitting in front of the computer in the apartment, the heater on the opposite wall going full blast. So good. We say that a lot, in a rut with all this “goody good ” business, but then I think of the alternatives. There are, after all, other ruts; some of them, well, “bad”. Baddy bad.

Does gross stupidity come in here anywhere?

I figure after about sixty you're allowed. As a youngster you're an idiot, self described when you finally come to consciousness, and after sixty you're an idiot, but only because you've begun to forget. Somewhere in the middle you're an actual adult: up to speed, thinking clearly, watching the diet and being nice. When was that, exactly? How long did it last? From forty to sixty? From fifty to sixty? A decade? A year? Ten minutes?

Q.E.D.

Later. An hour with the guitar going over the scales, the chords; the scales, the chords: pickety pick, bumpity bump. For some reason I find this restful, an acceptable way to spend my time. Practice, after all - hup! hup! - it's the societally approved way of the effective child and adult, ready to take his or her place in the line, shoulders to the wheel. A back door entrance, this guitar, to making the frivolous respectable, who really wants their kid after all to drop out of school and join a band?

But for an old fart it has a certain ring to it, learning an instrument after you're retired. Couldn't be any harm in that, close to being culturally correct in fact, rather like reading Proust. Better the piano, but what the hell? A musical instrument. Maybe join a rock and roll band in an old folks home, no one would even wrinkle their nose. So I sit relatively blissed doing scales, the mind somewhere else, the fingers getting just a little quicker, don't you think? Just the smallest bit better at hitting the notes?

And so?

So I'm thinking now of more DVD backups, get another month up on the shelf before those two hard drives arrive and give me a reason to crap out. Exciting stuff.

Later still. Finished the book. Yes, I ordered the sequel. The first was published in 1983 (The Butcher's Boy, Thomas Perry) set in a time where the characters didn't use cell phones and Justice Department analysts poured over computer printouts searching for clues. The difference in price between the hardback and the Kindle edition was two dollars. I ordered the hardback. What the hell.

And I've returned from the sushi place down at the bottom of my hill. What in the hell is this about? I've had these two ounce alcohol equivalents every evening now for the last five days. Four days? Doesn't matter, I'm not sure that's good. Leads one on to three, deedle-dee-dee, here in the black mining hills of Oakland where the buzzards fly like saucers in the sky. I guess I don't need to mention the sake with dinner.