Friday. Back to sleep after getting up for a little over an hour at two this morning to finish my journal entry (you've got to do something when you're wide awake), so maybe nine or ten hours of sleep last night on top of the ten or twelve the night before. And I feel pretty good. No complaints, we'll leave it at that, no need to temp fate. I haven't been “out” with a camera in two days, time to make up for that, see what's happening downtown and around the lake. (hup! hup!)

Later. A walk out the door, camera in hand, the sky looking ominous, the cement streaked with wet. Looked OK, not raining until I reached the bottom of the hill when it started in earnest. OK, best it happened before I got out too far, a scoot back up the hill to sit down with the guitar. The guitar gods had evidently spoken: come back, young man, come back. So, the laundry in the wash (I remembered I'd decided to do it yesterday as I had to start wearing the older, but perfectly clean, jockey shorts). Not something you necessarily mention in company, polite or otherwise, but it's one of those things that drives you to whether or not you do the laundry. Whether or not I do the laundry.

So, the sun is now shining, the first two loads of laundry are in the wash, the first thirty minute session has been finished on the guitar, time now for a second. Two sessions before noon. I might catch up on yesterday, later this evening, if things keep going this way.

Otherwise I'm thinking of lying down for a while. Not for a nap, with laundry requiring that it be moved between machines every half an hour, but although I say the day is going better, better than yesterday, I'm still feeling effects. Makes me wonder about this inhaler. I blamed the allergy inhalers I was taking some time back for my last set of similar issues, going off them finally and then thinking I was feeling better. Too many things going on, was the thought, fix them one at a time, this supported by the allergy doctor. Now I'm wondering again. Anecdotal evidence, but we'll see. If this lasts I'm getting rid of the inhaler shit. The pills I'm taking are probably coconspirators too, but not much I can do about them at this late date. I'd guess. Depends. I'd guess.

Later still. At least the laundry is done. A very dry mouth, the precursor to all that I've been complaining about. Maybe too many carbohydrates. I think of my waffle with the bananas and strawberries in the morning as more fruit than carbohydrates, but I augmented it, as I did yesterday, with an order of toast. What's toast? Well, young man, it's a carbohydrate too. Doodle-dee-doo.

Sounds like steak and eggs for lunch.

Steak and eggs or steak and steak might be closer, although I'm fighting the idea of going out and getting it.

Even later still. Better. The dry mouth took its time to resolve/dissolve, but out the door at one to head downtown to see what I could see and to get some lunch. The weight was down this morning and I was hungry, thinking I could find something to eat other than carbohydrates. And chocolate. And alcohol.

I was surprised to see Zachary RunningWolf still up in his tree. He said he's been there now for six days, they hadn't taken a chance on bringing him down during the Occupy Wall Street sweep, although they have people posted just in case he comes down for a leak. No, I didn't ask him what he did about that, but I recognized one of the people from the encampment who was bringing him lunch. If he's still there tomorrow I too may buy him lunch. Why not? If only for the photographs. The guy's got balls. Maybe no brains, but certainly balls.

Otherwise a walk around the plaza taking the occasional picture to document the place, a group meeting off to the side where groups during the occupation had met in the past. So something is still happening. A little something, anyway, up here on the high desert plateau of Oakland, where power resides.

Are we getting political again?

Maybe we're just celebrating our feeling reasonably well again.

Speaking of which I went by Genji and had a cold chicken salad. Cold chicken strips without the skin on top of a green salad with an Asian dressing. Good. No carbohydrates, unless they were cleverly hidden in the dressing and there wasn't that much dressing. I'm thinking no potatoes or toast tomorrow morning for breakfast, see if the world gets back to some place I recognize from the past. Always good to recognize the world you're in, wherever you are.

I thought of that as a kind of metaphor for an ocular migraine. Suddenly you're not in Kansas anymore. Actually, you finally figure out you're still in Kansas, but it looks and acts like Oz, drills right through the barricades and into the brain. Sounds odd? A bit like the malady, only you have to add the dry mouth. I don't remember Dorothy or Toto mentioning a dry mouth.

Oh, and the Occupy vets were packed and gone when we passed the Veterans Memorial Building on Grand. Maybe they moved to another holdout park, maybe the vets inside the building weren't amused, maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about, but they're gone. We'll check again, though, tomorrow.

Evening. A good evening. We'll see. An apple or two for dinner. We'll have to find a way to get more calories in, can't do it all with apples, salad and chicken unless I eat a lot of chicken. A good session now on the guitar, another before the evening is over making a total of three. Two hours. Two hours is good. More than that there's a chord change that seems to be finally working. A small taste of sugar as the day flakes out.