Engines all around me in the morning, revving recklessly at an intersection, dragging folks to and fro, sometimes even willingly but far too often not. Engines overhead in the sky roaring out tributes in exhaust, but then engines to take me off to meet new friends and feed them before going home.

Back at it, eating up what I find outchea, trying to beat the heat but bracing for the chill when it runs down my spine at my desk or in my car on the way home. I’m getting a sense of the tides in the affairs, and what that means for what I’m doing. Setting intentions? Yup, woo-woo but necessary.

I tried to make something happen, thinking I could just about thread the needle while racing traffic and the clock. Thanks to willingness to settle for at least one needle, curiosity and overheard kindness, I wound up threading two. I sure hope the folks who looked out for me get to thread theirs.

I did a thing I hadn’t for a while yet, even though I knew it would come. The sign-up went smoothly enough. How could it not? The tasks were a bit dispiriting and discomfiting, but about as uncannily Uranian and embarrassingly eldritch as expected. Someone I spoke to today called it IT. I wish.

An oddly musical day, but who knew how odd: smooth-jazz versions of Nineties quiet-storm R&B riding to the festival, where an official unofficial after-party flyer caught my eye. After the acts onstage in the park came a bus-ride tip from an unquotable and an algorithmic UK drum-and-bass serve.

If I treasure anything lately, it’s time. If I do things right with it, there’s enough left to fix an important thing at home, plan a couple more for next week, ride herd over how I spent it last month and nearly matched a key metric, knock out several more songs, and get ready for next month.

Inside a roadside restaurant outside of Rio Nido but not quite to Guerneville, there is a piano. On it is a sign that says: “Not a toy. Only play if you know how. Thank you.” That’s a contrast from so many rooms one walks into where musical instruments wait for hands of any or no talent.

Today was less of a workout and more of a wash, trying to make up for hoped-for beachery with a couple of laps around a local footbridge before heading over to a state park for quiet time tramping along redwood heavy trails and imagining how the creekbed alongside handled trains earlier this year.

Some folks nearby are doing their best to embrace a good time, and I can hear them through a hotel wall, putting Wednesday night through its paces, seesawing from Tina Turner to what’s definitely the B-52s, Eminem and Lil’ Troy. Me, I’ll stick to a shower, snacks and some eventual sleep.