journal features

a day on the road

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Kokubunji, 2023.01.14

Today I had to go to the clinic to get repeats on my migraine meds and the sleeping pills I some to need to get through the night. I'd taken about six weeks of migraine meds in two weeks while in Miyazaki. It's occurred to me that this might be because I didn't have my vitamin B and other daily supplements. In any case, I've now made it a week without taking any of the strong stuff (I had to cheat and take a Tylenol #1 on Thursday).

That done, I headed to Shinjuku to have my camera looked at. This was my follow-up on the terrible outcome where I lost the photo of The Girl catching her first fish last week while a whale breached in the background. It took me an hour at the store but I've managed to get them to send the camera away for a month to be looked at.

rand()m quote

If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be crazier than I've been on this trip. I know very few things I'd take seriously any more. I'd certainly be less hygenic... I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers, and I would watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd have many more of them, in fact I'd try not to have anything else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of my day. If I had it to do all over again, I'd travel lighter, much lighter than I have. I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and I'd stay that way later in the fall. And I would ride more merry-go-rounds, and catch more gold rings, and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more often. If I had it to do all over again - but you see, I don't.

—Jorge Luis Borges