Wednesday. We awoke two or three times last night to turn over, take a leak, deal with an oncoming foot cramp and so I guess that's a normal night for me anymore. Far from the end of the world, we can live with it, it does seem to end by my getting enough sleep. To bed before ten, up with the alarm and off to breakfast and back returning before eight, my guitar lesson coming up in another hour. Enough practice last night that a blister was starting to form on the side of my ring finger, a sign a proper callus is underway.

This either means I got in more than enough practice last night or that I've not been getting in enough practice daily as the almost blister has only now deigned to make an appearance. So. Let's just say it's another bit of knowledge learned along the road.

That chord change I've been working on now for this last month did start to come together. You think it's never going to happen and then you make a small step forward and the sun suddenly breaks through to the beat of a wailing rock band (chord changes down cold). Another bit of knowledge learned along the road.

Later. Well, hell. As long as my music teacher doesn't get discouraged, I'm not discouraged. We made progress, but I'm not sure it was noticeable given my performance. I became a little flustered when we were discussing three new chords that brought back memories of this last year, especially during that period when I wondered about my ability to drive a car after two minor fender bender incidents.

Things have been getting better, looking back on that period is now a look back into a darker time, but still, flustered over the three barre chords today and how they should be fingered, the brain shutting down in some kind of a senior moment. Barre chords. Their nomenclature. How they're fingered and where.

Which means?

Which means it went OK from a couple of important standpoints (progress, being one), but badly in others. The memories of a darker period were just thrown in as I've recently realized how things do seem to be going in a better direction. Complicated series of thoughts for a simple guitar lesson taken at ten on a Wednesday morning, but we tend to turn simple things into more complicated puzzles here in the journal. Gives us something to write about. Bitch about.

Which means? Which means?

Later still. A bus downtown around twelve-thirty to walk by the bank ATM on Broadway and then on to the Occupy area, the sun bright, the sky clear, the temperature fine. A walk once or twice or thrice around the area to photograph new tents and signs - it seems they were active last night - that resulted in a hundred or so pictures. Again, mostly signs, some clever, some not so clever, but that seems to be the model for the revolution here. Signs and an occasional interface with authority figures.

Everyone quiet, everyone laid back (it was only the noon hour, after all) visitors walking about taking pictures on their cameras and cell phones, TV people with video cameras coming and going to make their their various deadlines.

A crepe filled with a chicken Caesar salad in the City Center, a short walk then to the bus and a ride back home. An ice cream cone from the local 7-11 look-alike to fill out the meal. Maybe dig the guitar out of its case and do a quick run through those damned chords, see how this almost callus on the finger is holding up. A good day, so far, don't want to muck it up.

Later, later still. A run through the pictures, a total that will allow two more artandlife sections. Again, signs mostly, new tents and relocated tents with one or two pictures of people. Well, hell, what am I saying? That's what I'm there for, we'll get on with putting them together and getting them online. (hup, hup) We are so predictable. They do describe the noon hour today at Occupy, what struck me about it anyway, what I assuming I'm looking for with this effort.

Evening. OK, they're done and up, another day successfully completed. A little guitar now, to bed early, a trip to the supermarket later maybe before the day is done.