A good breakfast, an hour or so to read the papers, back home now getting ready to finish the various batches of photographs I owe the world. Owe my sister and cousins. By the dozens.

I find I become a bit testy when I head out in the car, take a trip to the supermarket, drive through the city on a sake run. Driving on the open road, not too much traffic, I'm OK. Driving in the city, evidently not. I'm aggressive when I drive, but not that aggressive. I'm usually aware of my state, reminding myself I should lay back, don't be so irritable.

I have memories of “little old men” I've run across in my life, “little old men” with looks of naked frustrated anger on their faces that reveal a lack of, um, sanity. Don't want to see that in my mirror. Little old angry man me. Just a thought, an observation. No need to panic, but it can't hurt to keep this in mind as things begin to unwind, check the rear view mirror for my own reflection, now and again, when I'm driving.

Or standing in line at the supermarket?

I don't know why that's pushing my envelope. Not just the standing in line, but the whole experience: driving down the road to Safeway, driving back, shopping. Why doing something this simple should get my goat is hard to figure. I've never been good at waiting in lines, it's only now with time on my hands, maybe, that I notice. Hence, I guess, my comment on the anger and frustration I've seen in some (little) old men (older, I hope, than I).

Later. Not so bad, the temperature sixty-five, the humidity, unfortunately, in the high sixties, the sun poking itself through the clouds now that it's after two in the afternoon. A trip to Safeway, where I bought many necessary items that I've been putting off for a while, my attitude good and temper just fine after my admitting to old fart supermarket testiness.

Some puttering around the apartment, moving piles of this to piles of that, paying bills. Nothing so serious as cleaning, but I'm considering it now that I've cleaned Ms. Emmy's litter box. She's a good little cat about her litter box. Cats don't seem to worry about carpets or litter boxes that need cleaning (although there are litter box limits) which, I suppose, is one of the things that makes her a good companion.

You'd live like this if you were, say, living with a significant other?

Oh, no. I suggest things are a real mess around here and they are, but there are messes and there are messes and I'd rather keep a clean house than live a life arguing with someone important over things of no importance. I'm getting to be a cranky old guy (standing in lines), but I'm not that stupid. Yet.