3:21 p.m. Yup -- it's still the day time. The kids next door are running around their gerbil track as if they actually have somewhere to go and the sun is shining and I am stealing a little time away to be here, in my favorite place.

I even have a nice, daytime photo. In this one, you are right there, right in the middle of the famous Ventura Boulevard -- famous for cruising ever since American Graffiti -- and the sky on the particular day I took this was a heavy dun metal as the clouds raced towards the mountains, which are just in front of the bus.

It was almost sundown and although it didn't rain or thunder, this overhang would, in this part of the world, constitute weather. And I've never stopped getting a kick out of the palm trees -- I still think they are quite festive. They're even on the back of the bus.

The soccer photo is for my two favorite soccer fans -- you know who you are.

9:33 p.m. Well, that was as far as I got today with the old creativity attempt. Phone rang.

And I've been thinking, as I run ragged and dry and try to steal a few minutes to write here each day -- I've been thinking about why why why oh why do I think I have to do this every day? And I will tell you why.

It's all about potatoes. As in -- potato sizing. You see, I once heard about a real-life job that would drive me absolutely crazy: sorting potatoes into small, medium, and large. They wobble by on a conveyer belt and your task is to grab 'em and throw 'em into the appropriate bins.

You can probably see the problem, right off the bat. Small-medium? Largish? Small, considering the rest that have rolled by in the last half hour, but definitely larger than the ones earlier this morning?

And it would be the same with this journal, were I to choose to do it only when I felt I had something to write about. Good enough? Better than the stuff I wrote three days ago? Not nearly as good as a month ago? How do you decide when you're "ready" to write?

I never am; I always am.

Given the chance to slack, I make pudding. Then I cover it with whipped cream and eat it standing up and then I feel guilty.

 11:09 p.m. A little more work, a little more printing out of said work ... and a chance to go go bed early tonight if what I've already written here is ... good enough.

Yes, I know it's small potatoes in the greater scheme of things. Well, maybe medium-smallish.