Back from breakfast at the usual place, the Chronicle skimmed for about an hour, sitting here with the sky overcast and the temperature just fine if a big muggy. They're projecting ten and twenty degree drops in temperature over this next week and I'm up with that. Yesterday they said it reached ninety-six degrees, four degrees less than the day before. It felt that way, cooler, but life was not all that interesting away from a fan or an air conditioner. Today, well, we'll see. I'm thinking of attending a street fair being held on Telegraph next to the University. Take the one camera, the 50mm lens, maybe a 135 as a backup. Change lenses, if necessary, on the street. Radical stuff for this photographer.

I've been saying I've been losing weight at a rate of about a pound or two a month. That translates to eating less than, say, one or two hundred calories a day out of the two thousand it takes to maintain my current weight. Not all that much, easy enough to do. Except these last three mornings I've gotten on the scale and realized I've lost five pounds in the last four weeks. Whatever calculations I'm making are wrong. Five hundred calories a day short translates to five pounds in a month, in four weeks.

I don't want to overtly obsess about this weight thing. Easy enough to do. I wanted to get back to where I was about three years ago, a good weight, and I'm there, maybe a little lighter. Another five pounds and that should do it. I was five pounds lighter than even that in my thirties and remember, well, I was weighing less than I should. Not less than others thought I should, but less than I thought I should. Then in San Francisco, now here in Oakland.

Are we boasting? Crowing?

We have been around this block before. If it becomes a battle, you lose. Battles are by their very nature things that have ends, you can't battle on forever. Best to, you know, ease yourself in, crawl (if you have to) under the radar. Boasting, gloating is a bad sign of crashes to come. Diddle-dee-dum. Or dumb.

Later. Ms. T suggested the Eat Real Festival at Jack London Square today rather than the Berkeley Telegraph Avenue street fair and I thought, well, food. Food is good. Crowds are good when you're a street photographer. So I hopped a bus taking along a camera body with the 135mm lens attached (a favorite when I was shooting film) and the 50mm tucked in a pocket. And I shot some pictures with the 135mm and thought, well, this doesn't quite seem right and shifted to the 50mm and thought, well, am I getting anything of interest? I suspect that means I'm in a relatively good state, a state of confusion, a state of not being sure what I'm doing. A state from which good things can emerge. Or is this just me deciding to be upbeat when all is falling around me? Nah. I'm OK. The photography is holding my interest. Success.

Although warm today, the sun bright, the sky clear by about noon, it's not as warm as it was yesterday and they're projecting another ten degree drop tomorrow. Good. We've been saying “good” an awful lot these last few days. Again, an attempt to make a hopeless combination of crap seem better? I think not. Maybe some of both, none of neither. I have no complaints when I can write “none of neither” (with a straight face). So we'll see. September is coming, Minerva, queen of the weekend astrologers, is predicting a very good September building up to a mind blowing year in 2010. Good. (Oh dear.)

And the Eat Real Festival turned out pretty well. A whole lot of people spread out over a very large area with a couple of music stages and many many food vendors, so the whole lot of people wasn't all that much of a crush and you could find a place to sit if you wanted. Which I, after a while, wanted. Did I find anything I really liked? Did I, for example, try any of the goats milk ice cream? (This is a bit embarrassing from here on out.) I sat up on the Starbucks' patio on top of Border's and drank a coffee Frappachino (grande) with whipped cream. After about two hours of walking while looking for pictures it was wonderful. Truth be told. Sadly. Gladly. Who knows?