You didn't deep six any books?

Of course not. One doesn't climb a mountain by starting at the top.

OK, back from breakfast, three pancakes, mixed fruit and coffee, the sun bright, the day ahead. And the head in a good place, the energy in a good place, the body in the same place, but with attitude. The laundry, for example, is in the wash as I write. First thing I did when I got home from breakfast: trundle it downstairs and get it going. A trivial task, you say, and certainly it is but.... But, but.

That's enough.

Yes it is. My, my. The day ahead.

Later. A walk this morning before noon, down to the post office for stamps and then a tramp up over the hill behind my breakfast place to have coffee and a mudslide cookie at Noah's out at a table on the sidewalk. A little different route, although I stopped to sit beside the fountain again and shot a couple of photographs, not noticing until later the photographer photographing a male model on the other side of the white columns. Not nice to horn in on another photographer trying to earn a living on a shoot, so I got up and toddled along. Now, had that been a female model, well.... Still, not nice to get in the way of a shoot, more than a bit vampirish, I'm thinking, but.... Nah. I'd have picked up my kit in either case and done a scoot. No vampires here in this apartment. Not on a Tuesday morning, in Oakland.

Still, I did suggest yesterday it's probably not good to only go to places you've gotten photographs before, places countless photographers have gone in the past and shot much better silhouetted figures than I'll ever shoot. I say that, anyway. Try for something different, I said. Not something new, I suspect there's very little new under the sun. Still plenty of opportunity on Mars, I would imagine, at least until the first manned spacecraft arrives. Probably plenty of opportunity still left on the moon. I wouldn't bet against it. But here in Oakland? Well. We'll see. I still have the time and the equipment, let's hope lots of time. I already have lots of equipment. You may have noticed. Mumble.

Whatever the quality of the walk - I was huffing and puffing trudging up over that hill - I'm sticking with the observation my head is in shape, the living room has been cleared of gear and there is progress that can be made this afternoon and evening. For someone who did his laundry early in the morning. For someone who can look across the room and see, unimpeded, his record player, his record shelves, his framed print of Ray Mann's A l'heure de L'Observaoire—Les Amoureux, not something he's seen, now, in some time; for someone who can do these things perhaps anything is possible. A staggering thought requiring, perhaps, a nap to recover. One can only have so many staggering thoughts in a day without recuperation. Here in Oakland.

I don't think we need to hear “here in Oakland” again.

I do try to keep my ear open for the too repeated sound, but I suspect you're right, there's only so many times you can go to the well. For one who has a web site called here in Oakland and there in Oakland you'd expect, if not a certain restraint, then at least a digression, from time to time, to something different. Here on Lake Merritt. Here on the Coast. Here on a sunny day, home from play, writing away, in Oakland.