Still, off to breakfast and back remembering I have a dental appointment at nine, sitting here now with fifteen minutes before I have to set out for Berkeley and the dentist's office. Raining, not too hard, didn't rain all that hard last night that I'm aware of (I wasn't aware of much), so the weather hasn't changed and I'm not looking forward to getting on the highway this close to the morning commute. But that's the current I talking, holding back from getting in the car and heading out. It all goes away once I'm behind the wheel. Maybe there'll come a day when it won't. And life will change again for the better or for the worse as is its wont.

Later. Raining, of course, but the drive was fine, not too much traffic, a straight shot to Albany (just south of Berkeley) and my dentist's office, arriving early as I'd allowed time for delays, only to wait twenty minutes after my appointment time at nine. Such is life for those who's particular affliction is arriving early.

Back now, the teeth thoroughly cleaned by the world's best young hygienist, feeling pretty good on a dark rainy morning. I'd say.

I picked up a copy of the Atlantic at the dentist's office and read a story on changes to the brain - tumors, chemical imbalances and such - which began by describing the fellow who went up into the tower at the University of Texas and shot some outlandish number of people: killing thirteen, wounding many more. A story I'm familiar with, a story everyone's familiar with who's over a certain age. I had a lady friend who was a student there hiding under a building overhang during the shooting, something you don't forget.

Anyway, what I hadn't known, was the content of the note the fellow had left behind. He was a thoroughly mild mannered fellow, a bright and conscientious student and husband from the testimony of friends, but he said in the note he'd been experiencing terrible compulsions that were becoming more frequent and asked they dissect his brain after to see if there were abnormalities inside. They discovered a large tumor growing in the area of the brain that mediates compulsions like these. The story went on to describe other changes to the area of the brain in question that can cause similarly bizarre and unexpected behavior in people that I didn't have time to finish.

Just the thing to read, not so much because it was after an ocular migraine, the one I had last night wasn't really noticeable or particularly potent except during the brief period I'd awakened from my nap, but for odd and strange changes in general. As you get older you gain experience in the effects prescription and non-prescription drugs can have, at least when you're younger. Nothing like our fellow in the tower, thank the gods, no urges to search out small children or male companions or such (all consequences detailed in the story), just the slightest skipping along the surface that gives you a glimpse, a hint, a hint of a hint, of what terrors might reside.

And just the thing, more to the point, to read at my age when you're growing older and understand things may indeed at some point go wrong in unexpected and colorful ways. One hopes not a brain tumor (the various recent MRI's are comforting with that), but various chemical changes that can, say, make you a little testy when you're delayed in a line. Someone like me? Diddle-dee-dee?

You weren't testy with your hygienist?

No way, Jose. Didn't I mention she's nature's perfect hygienist? Just, um, noting the lay of the land, contemplating the uncomfortable, inflating an aversion to getting in the car to something more serious. Dicking around. Introspective people do such things. To excess, I suspect, coining a term of uncertain value to describe the condition as they have.

Later still. Still raining, but less heavily at the moment in my neighborhood now that it approaches six. Some time on the guitar (good), the various news programs I listen to rattling on in the background, too much time on the internet, too much time checking Facebook. So much for the afternoon.

I have another three bottles of that sake I drank last night (there was a good price when buying six, as good a rationalization as any for excess I'd guess), but I'm thinking after last night best not to partake. Try just one? Am I kidding? My assumption has always been it's the combination of the sharp cheddar cheese (high on the list of things to avoid) and the sake (stay away from alcohol, but particularly stay away from red wine) so maybe just the sake would, um, be OK?

You are kidding, of course.

Of course.