Or something like that.

Or something like that.

Overcast, still deciding after finishing breakfast to put off going to the supermarket. Maybe after tomorrow's guitar lesson. It's closer to the supermarket than my other haunts and I've often actually gone by after the lesson instead of just talking about it. Besides, other than actual food, something I do dabble with on occasion, my current needs have to do with laundry soap and Q-tips, neither of which have totally run out. Not overly grave things to be considering in the middle of a week, but things we should resolve before we go much further.

Best to not run out of laundry detergent for too long. Or deodorant.

We are living a cliché here, my man, one must develop the necessary habits to nurture it.

Later. A bus downtown. Walking down my hill toward the bus stop, the bus schedule saying the bus should be there already, I thought, well, if I get there before the bus actually does come, if it hasn't come yet, I'll take it downtown. Otherwise I'll walk around the area on this overly cool morning, the sun nowhere to be found. I arrived at the stop before the bus arrived and found myself downtown standing on a sidewalk. OK. What now?

And it is cool, this morning. I should have worn a heavier jacket. A cup of coffee and a donut out in front of the bagel shop in the City Center, a walk then along Broadway with no destination in mind other than back to a warmer apartment. I did stop in the music shop to buy a guitar strap (the one that came with my guitar is fraying: a sign of progress of sorts) out of boredom more than anything, a walk then the rest of the way home.

In the music store I talked with the clerk as he rang up the sale. In paying for the thing I entered the pin number for my long ago canceled bank card and realized I was a bit spaced, wondered if I came across as such in my brief conversation with the clerk. No big deal, but it caused me to notice.

No other symptoms, no double vision, some mild aching upper-palate and sinuses, but nothing terrible; no demons’ faces glaring up at me from the sidewalks, no bats, rats or wolverines carrying on incomprehensible conversations inside the walls of buildings as I was passing; just, you know, spaced. A bit spaced. I'm not sure I can blame it on age. I suspect I'm more familiar with “spaced” than I know or care to admit or say. Hey.

Maybe that's your normal condition when you're writing this.

Hmm. Hence the apparent lack of focus? Any downside in saying it's to blame?

Anyway, it's just passed noon. We'll take up the guitar after our most excellent set of sessions yesterday and see if we can't do a repeat. With both interest and pleasure as opposed to a clinching of teeth. Too hyperbolic, the teeth. Practice has never been other than OK, no clenched teeth - generally we just put the guitar down if we're not encouraged and stop or forget to pick it up - but we are admitting to a slow time lately as I can now feel us pulling up and out of it now.

All this “I” mixed together with the editorial “we” and an orphan “us” stuff. People conversant in English will not be amused.

“Spaced.”. We blame it on spaced. Spaced is the case.

Later still. Guitar: good. Not great guitar, but it's coming along. That four fret chord stretch seems to be settling into place. I'm thinking of sushi for dinner, sushi and sake, but I'm fighting it. We'll see, fortunately or otherwise, soon enough.

Evening. An interesting conversation with self, bouncing back and forth, arguing over heading down the hill for sushi and sake this evening, no logic whatsoever involved, just, you know, the subconscious stirring and erupting to the surface. We went for sushi and sake, although not in that order.

And, we've been back now by over an hour and we're feeling pretty good. Another good session on the guitar, the six o'clock police procedural an unwatchable “Italian Father Something or Other”, the program following it at seven an Australian “Muslim Policeman and Society Something or Other”, much less saccharine, that I'm willing to watch, so watch I did with guitar accompaniment.

So who knows? Feel mellow, feel a little spaced. More so than on my earlier walk? I wonder. Hard to tell. Life doesn't seem to become any clearer as time stumbles on. Here by the lake in Oakland, beyond the killing fields hyped by the newspapers each morning, under the cool rays of a setting sun.

You are a little blitzed.

But we're feeling well.