The thing that galls me is a part of me actually addresses the problem: selling Afghan and Iraqi flavored soap to the populace. One reason ads such as those run by Chevron touting their responsible approach to global warming drive me up the wall, not for what I consider their chicanery, but because technically they're really quite good. I suspect they work, old farts like me aside. Great talent expended on, well, you know where I'm leading this horse, no need to take it any further.

Where'd that come from?

Probably a flashback. Pay no attention. I obviously have buttons that are pushed by stuff that reminds me of the spin we endured in the sixties and seventies. It's like a cold that won't go away and you find there's not much you can do about it. Just, you know, grit your teeth and have another hit. Of sake, of course, none of that other stuff. That brings back those memories too, only much stronger and in Technicolor.

So, back from breakfast, all that gibberish above written last night, a large breakfast this morning consisting of the dreaded bacon and eggs, the bacon hardly worth the effort, along with the usual mixed fruit and coffee. The Wednesday business group was meeting in the back of the restaurant, all talking at the same time, but no problem for me for some reason. I read the papers and got out before the meter maids arrived, home now well before nine.

I'd forgotten about this photograph, taken on my way to Hayward for dinner and to take in the Pladdohg gig at the Bistro, but I like the color. Maybe they're just accurate rather than enhanced to any degree, the saturation, for example, turned up. The evening was clear and the lights were exotic, a fantasy land like walk to BART through the City Center after parking the car. I shoot a lot of City Center photographs, but it's one of the few places you can sit outside at a table and I did, after all, work just across the street for more than a decade. So. Well. Maybe do more than threaten now to photograph an amusement park at night, see how those colors hold up. Marine World, one of those, they're open during the winters at night, right?

Later. A different sort of a walk: a bus downtown, a walk around to see what was going on, a boxing match announcement of some kind going on in front of City Hall with lots of press and a small crowd, a descent down into the 12th Street BART station thinking I'd take the first train heading out for either Pleasanton down south on this side of the bay and get off at Fruitvale to drink a cup of coffee and have a pastry of some kind at the coffee shop just off the entrance (I'd like to see the area without the crowds experienced at the Day of the Dead festival) or, if the first train was headed for San Francisco, I'd head for San Francisco and get off at Embarcadero and walk around or (we're getting there, honest), get off at Montgomery Street and check out the Avedon Exhibit (that's closing one of these days pretty soon). San Francisco it was, The Embarcadero it was, a walk around the area it was, a ride back to Oakland and a salad in the City Center. It was. My, my.

Back now at the apartment. Turbo Tax had arrived in the mail. OK. Load Turbo Tax, wait on the various wage statements to arrive in January. The sensor dust elimination kit I ordered from B&H arrived by UPS. I've never had to clean one of the camera sensors, but now I have the necessary tools when I need them. I say when, not if, although I've shot digital now for something like five years and never had a problem. An antacid pill to counteract the effects of that salad. Why I had the salad I'm not sure. The appetite again, the interest in food. The no appetite, the no interest in food (except, perhaps, for breakfast). Life in the thin lane.

I am chalking this day up as another with the head buzzing (the good get out the door buzz instead of the foggy hide inside buzz), although I'm pretty tired after all that walking. Maybe some additional awe inspiring signs of actual participation in the world will appear late this afternoon or early this evening. We'll see. Either way a good day. I'm thinking.