Watched the program. It has it's up and downs, but I like the Watson character or, at least, I like Lucy Liu who plays the Watson character, and in admitting this I totally betray all the canonical Sherlockian conventions. Went to bed after eleven, got to sleep, got up to turn off the alarm, awoke again at nine. Oh. Not enough time when you awake at nine for breakfast before going on to the guitar lesson. Oh.

Get up, shave, get ready, pack the guitar and then, well, email my instructor to say something has come up (feeling guilty). Left the guitar packed and ready to go sitting on its chair, headed out and walked to the morning café for a leisurely breakfast over the papers, detouring then up the hill on Mandana to leave off the check for my November's student fees in his mailbox at well past eleven.

OK, the sun is shining, it's a nice day, we'll walk home and see if we can get the motor started. Not quite everything seemed to have come together yet and maybe another nap would take care of the rest. Approaching Lake Merritt I met my guitar instructor who was walking in the opposite direction - “ha! you're playing hooky!” - and admitted to various derailing forces, we'll catch up with next Friday's lesson. I have a very understanding guitar teacher.

Back now having posted yesterday's entry just after noon, we'll think about that nap, but the head and the body seem to be better. Maybe unpack the guitar, approach the afternoon slowly, see if that nap remains waiting out there in the wings ready to re-enter. Hup! Or something. This day has had an odd beginning.

Later. No need for a nap, evidently, a bus ride downtown because that's evidently what I do unless I walk over to the morning restaurant instead. Exciting options for an early afternoon you'll have to admit.

Just stop.

True, true. Anyway, there was a group of people working on a chalk mural at the entrance to Frank Ogawa Plaza at 14th and Broadway. I was thinking there might be, as this was a first Friday of the month Art Murmur day and people would be out and about going through the galleries later. A bit too early to see what they were drawing, but a picture or two to set the mood and maybe return later.

I had a cup of coffee out in front of the bagel shop in the City Center remembering my comment from yesterday, my lack of courage in picking up the camera and taking a picture lest the nearby subject notice and start fuming. Well, more making me feel like some kind of voyeur rather than the fine, upstanding street photographer who is operating in the grand tradition. When you're rationalizing justifying your own actions, most people get up on their horse and take the higher road (and I'm no different).

Are you a voyeur?

Well, there must be a touch of that, but we don't get all icky over the pictures later, we just post the better ones up on our web sites.

Anyway, these being my thoughts, I finally raised the camera and took the picture that had been sitting right in front of me for the last ten minutes. She didn't notice and I like the results: the mood, the cell phone, the whatever.

I walked over to the farmers market on 9th as they were tearing it down and had a half sandwich out at a table on Washington. Again, had to talk to myself at length into eating something, which still strikes me as odd after a life of eating too much of pretty much anything (except cauliflower, of course - one must draw the line somewhere).

A walk then back by the mural, taking another couple of pictures to show their progress. If I do go downtown again for the Art Murmur later I'll start here at what should be by then completed mural. Ephemeral art for an ephemeral age.

Some time left before the next bus, so another cup of coffee (a caramel latte this time) in the Rotunda building before walking back by the mural people and then on to the bus stop.

Home now, the afternoon quite nice, sun with some clouds. We'll see about going out later. I thought of picking up another small bottle of whiskey on the way home, but decided against it. More for the fact if I woke up tomorrow feeling less than wonderful, I'd have to think the whiskey was a part of the problem and that thought seemed to trump any upside in clearing the sinuses (alcohol seems to help) and easing up on the various little aches and pains of the moment.

We'll do our picking exercises this evening (hup!), get in a good couple of hours. I owe my guitar teacher. Well, I owe myself, we are after all, learning to play this thing for my own edification.

Edification?

Enjoyment, pleasure, making the head feel better. And the toes, for all I knows.

Evening. Overcast now as it's approaching six, no way I'm going out later to participate/photograph the Art Murmur. We'll see what's coming up in the way of Italian police procedurals at six.

Did you think one day you'd be sitting, wondering which Italian police procedural might be coming up at six in your declining years?

I'd hate to see what was in store if I were a character in the first chapter of a novel. At least, as a character in a blog, anything is possible.