A close of a blue dot patterned plastic bag containing a delivered item

Now, let’s see if I get as good a sleep time as I remember getting a couple of years ago. There’s nothing like when the right kind of technology arrives, landing outside your door on your way out to do something else. I’d say the price was right, but decent sleep is pretty much priceless.

A large light colored sport utility vehicle at an intersection

Start slow and you leave yourself at the mercy of other slow people in front of you, dawdling on the way to places they don’t want to go, and keeping you from places you do. Start faster so at least you can get up some momentum and traction toward people and places.

A crosswalked intersection at the top corner of an urban park with a city skyline stretching out beyond it

No matter how gentle the slope or how well manicured the neighborhood, every hill in this city feels like violence at speed, more the geologic time that formed it rather than the civilized society that trapped portions of it under tarmac and concrete.

A pair of garbage trucks crawl up a slow moving on-ramp in rainy mid morning cloudy weather

You won’t go from pillar to post every day, so you try to get things done while it’s still even if you don’t feel still. Make the calls, carry out the stretches, mutter under your breath and mark it a midweek.

Two people sit near a bicycle atop stone steps outside a church

I kept looking out the window on my way back from the neighborhood with my cab crawling through afternoon traffic and the sights slowly taking on significance with each lurch and rattle soundtracked by last year’s pop-radio hits.

An amber on black highway sign urges drivers feeling short of sleep to leave the highway and take a break

We’ll see if this is the start of something or not. It’ll probably take a few days to sort itself out. If I’m careful with the calendar and conscientious about the things I need to finish, something will come of it. I shouldn’t be coming with days, but a day like today will make that happen.

A stretch of sidewalk beside several food trucks at a farmers market in a small urban park with palm trees and tents in the distance

Coming back to one of the old neighborhoods is no longer a nostalgic exercise. It’s more abstract, and oddly more sensitive to other nuances. This is what the People Who Live Here Now are like; I don’t think I was like them even when I was still here. They’re not so different from me, except for the obvious ways. They’re committed to the bit. While visiting, I asked how I was, if I ever was. I think maybe I found a new bit, or a different stage, or both. Still me, though?

Partly sunny sky with slightly dramatic clouds and a bit of bare tree branches visible at right

I wanted to be out in the world, but I needed to stay put and bug the cat and rest and read, so that’s what I did. I put in a little time on guitar, but not long enough to be silly about it, changing one from open D to DADGAD tuning. Tomorrow: more time off, and let’s see what that brings.

A light rail car a block away waits at a light stop rain soaked empty streets in an early morning cityscape

I don’t know if I’m going to keep up getting up a half hour earlier than usual on Wednesdays, but it’s made getting in on time more fun and interesting. Figuring out getting where I need to be becomes weirder with every street empty and dark and often either about to rain or just done. Some are pretty much autopilot, and some are no pilot.