Homebody

[FFP took this yesterday from our balcony, looking south at sunset. All the clouds were reflecting sunset in the east and south. I didn't look at the actual sunset, but FFP went to the pool deck on nine to take some pictures there, too.]

When I was in school or working, sometimes a sick day sounded like the best thing in the world. Bundled up in bed with some books or newspapers, watching mindless TV. Yeah. Even if a box of Kleenex was needed nearby and you were in a drug fog, it didn't sound so bad, staying home with your entertainments. As DVDs and cable TV came along, it sounded even better.

Truthfully, though, there never seemed to be a good day to be sick (or pretend to be). Always an important event at school, a customer visit at work or a critical deadline or bug to fix.

Yesterday I felt almost perfect. Not quite, one niggling problem but nothing that would keep me from doing just about anything. But...I'm retired. And, in what is really sort of a rare confluence of events, there was no errand, Dad duty, tennis, social event or really any good reason to leave the condo. I needed exercise, but there is a gym steps across the hall.

So I stayed on the tenth floor of the 360 condos for an entire day. Fact is it's been thirty-six hours now because a little rain nixed tennis this morning. Yesterday, Forrest interviewed someone in North Austin, worked out at Westwood, grocery shopped for his mom and us, went down to get the mail and later a package delivery, had lunch with someone at Garrido's downstairs, drove his lunch date home, went to the parking garage with a load of recycling and went to the pool deck to take pictures at sunset. Today, he's been to the dentist (on foot) and to the little grocery downstairs for banana bread.

Yesterday, I cleaned the master bedroom (change and wash linens, dust, vaccum, even the blinds). I took the time to ponder some of the books and objects in there. There are a lot of books I want to read, one I need to read and return to its owner. Today I'm working on some laundry. I have a plan to dust the office and vacuum in here when FFP is away on a lunch date. Maybe.

I watched "Pierrot Le Fou" off and on on a Netflix DVD. Godard's film is really a celebration of settings and objects in Cinemascope. "Life" as Godard said "in Scope. " That's what I thought while watching it. That's what he claimed in a quote I found later on imdb.com.

I read all the papers, did the daily puzzles. I read papers from Sunday and other old papers that I hadn't gotten around to reading.

I did some of the paper reading while glancing at CNN, listening to the iPod (Sonny Rollins, Chet Baker, etc.) and riding the exercise bike in the gym across the hall. I also listened to the iPod while cleaning while FFP was out, blasting it in all the apartment's speakers.

I wrote a blog entry (see below) that was much more coherent than this one.

I reviewed all our credit card and bank accounts and Dad's, too.

I watched the Dallas Cowboys play football while FFP slept in his chair. I would have watched a movie or TV but I kept thinking he would wake up and, besides, I was reading papers and working puzzles. Actually, it was sort of an interesting game.

I stepped out on our balcony from time to time to check on construction and de-construction: the Austonian, the W, the courthouse, the decommissioning of the Tom Green Water Treatment plant and some noisy street destruction by the city. (They are putting in a water line to Seaholm track that necessitates tearing up the street every other day.) I watched the sunset reflected in the non-west sky.

I ate yogurt, cereal, a banana, nachos, some hummus. I drank a lot of coffee and, in the evening, a couple of glasses of a rosé FFP opened.

It was just like those pretend sick days in my dreams. Listening to music, TV, DVDs, papers, little chores. Just staying home. Being home when others are out and about. Reveling in all the entertainments and catching up.

But, now, well, I've got a bit of cabin fever. I feel I need to go get on the elevator and go to another floor at least. I'm not sure I'm cut out to be a recluse.

Stuff and Nonsense

There are big things in life: major illnesses, major events, momentous duties. There are things that cost a lot of money and things that, rightfully, take a lot of time. But mostly life is a drifting sea of puny ideas, passing moments, and meaningless flotsam and jetsam. I've always liked the concept of flotsam and jetsam. The former is the stuff left adrift after a shipwreck or, more generally, the stuff left adrift by our lives. Jetsam is stuff tossed at sea to lighten the load, to stay afloat or, generally, the things we eject from our lives. More intentional but just about the same at the end of the day.

Yesterday as I tried to bring a little order and less counter clutter to the kitchen I was sorting through bottles of liquor and liqueur. I decided to leave some whiskey, blended Scotch and vodka out at the ready and to stow away some things like tequila liqueur, some single malt Scotches and such. I wondered when we'd acquired some of this stuff and when, if ever, we or our guests would get around to sipping it. Last night when we got home from seeing an art film, I decided to have a drink or two. (Full disclosure: I had a beer at Roaring Fork before the show) I picked a single Malt that was out on a small bar cabinet we have in the dining area. The truth is that we usually drink outside the house and when we drink at home, my usual is wine (if FFP opens something), beer or a Manhattan (expertly mixed by FFP). Usually the lack of limes stops me from making a vodka tonic or gimlet I might otherwise mix. In any case, this ragged history of serving alcohol and drinking at home has left us with a number of artifacts. Some bottles are unopened and may never be. Yet, there is no beer and there was no chardonnay so FFP bought a bottle at Royal Blue last night.

When I was doing the kitchen puzzle, I found a coffee grinder. Funny, because, when our machine with the built-in grinder went to the shop, we went out and bought one because I swore we had divested of every one we owned in the move. Now the infamous and much-worshiped at this house, Capresso Jura Empressa E8, is back and seems to be functioning, grinding, tamping and brewing one precious cup of la crema coffee at a time. So the drip coffee maker and the new grinder and are tucked away in the cabinet. The old grinder? I put it in our storage cage. Why, I don't know. I suspect I'll never use it again. There was much incentive to toss things last spring and summer when we knew it just wouldn't all fit. Now, if there is a square inch in that storage cage or some cabinet, there is a foolish tendency to hang on to things.

It is all trivial, I understand that. Equally nonsensical is the way we spend our time. Last night I had my doubts about the art film we'd signed up to see: "Rape of the Sabine Women." But I must say, the lyrical choreography, the weird settings and strange score combined to make me happy and curious...that feeling I get when art stirs me. I'd been in a particularly low mood. It did pick me up. It made me want to study the telling of this tale in painting and myth and it made me want to think about the issues raised by the context of Eve Sussman's film (the '60's). (Most unlike her vision would be the Rubens painting I found on the National Gallery web site! Those '60's figures in bright, tight shift dresses looked very different than Rubens', um, rubenesque figures.)

Tonight we will go to an event. It involves a fashion show. Inexplicably I enjoy fashion shows. (Longtime readers know that I'm a living, breathing fashion emergency.) We chose the event over a meeting to plan another event. That event needs ticket sales and hype just now and we find the best way to generate that is to go to other events and find people who are interested in our other cause.

My entire life feels trivial. My regular Tuesday tennis date was rained out. Dad appeared self-sufficient during my morning welfare call. So I read the Science section of the NY Times while riding the recumbent bike for 55 minutes. I intended to lift some weights. But FFP made lunch (salad and tortellini) and I felt like sitting and reading. And so my days go...full of stuff and nonsense. I'm not thinking great thoughts, but rather I'm bothered and irritated then thrilled and enthralled by small things. Euphoria has been in short supply but it has been interesting inside my head anyway. As I type this, I'm listening to a play list on the iPod created from the Leonard Cohen song "Hallelujah" sung by k.d. lang. This is the only thing Apple calls Genius that is genius. It included Elvis, ABBA, Cream, Cheryl Crow and the Dixie Chicks, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Pink Floyd. Now there is music trivia in my head.

[A note on the photo: it is the side of a wine box that got stored in the move last year. From the looks of it, this one didn't have anything especially stellar in it. However, the photo with the box decoration and scribbling reflects my stuff and nonsense mood.]

Not What I Expected

I expected to feel rushed and blurry about now. We went out last night and ate an old school steakhouse meal. I had promised my dad I'd pick him up after his games day at church for a late lunch. Next week (well and the weekend, too) is packed with events in the evening. But I got up without complaint around seven, having slept through the night without getting up for some Advil and/or stomach relief. (I find Aloe Vera gel caps a mild way to relief the sin of overeating and drinking and then lying down.)

Yeah, in fact, I'm not feeling rushed or anything. I called my dad, confirmed our plans. I've posted an entry to Austin Daily Photo. (I just stepped out on the balcony and took a picture of Auditorium Shores where the Star of Texas Fair and Rodeo cowboy breakfast is taking place.) I admit I'm often inordinately proud (a phrase I love) of keeping up with ADP. (I'm not into numbers or anything but my dashboard says I'm made 666 posts. The devil is in ADP today!)

I've had a couple of leisurely cups of coffee. I edited a story for FFP. I made his recalcitrant wireless USB mouse work again. Himself went across the street for Pilates at Ballet Austin. It's quiet and calm. I can hear myself think. (Did you ever wonder about that phrase? "I can't hear myself think?" Mom would say. What does that sound like?)

Yeah, I'm just sitting here riffing on my life. Wondering what I should be doing. Maybe continuing the discouraging filing I started yesterday, going over to the gym to sweat a little. Life will catch up with me soon enough and it will be time to go pick up Dad and meet a friend of ours for a deli lunch.

I have lots of things on my 'to do' list, of course. All kinds of straightening and organizing things. I need to do some of that at Dad's house, too. But there seems to be time enough for everything. Don't rush it. I wasn't expecting to feel this way today.

If you had told me back in the summer or in September that I would be looking at a Dow below 7000 and calmly figuring out how to keep the old retirement going and wondering what was going to happen to all us retired folks as the world sputtered to some possible ignomious end, I would have expected it. But I really wouldn't have expected to be so adaptable about it. I guess I'm not surprised that we just keep embracing fun. Why not when the world is in such turmoil. Oh, I know people sometimes hesitate in this environment to spend and I have, too, but mostly on things, on stuff and only because after downsizing the impact of stuff gets my attention.

You get up in the morning and things are familiar but in another way not what you would have expected or predicted. I think that's what keeps us going, going around the corner to see what's next.

I was thinking last night that I might go dark (see picture above, taken at Blackmail on South Congress for illustration, but really I mean go quiet, go dark is a theater term, but I digress) with blogging and facebook and all of it. I just sound so stupid and whiny to myself. But here I am blogging away. It's a disease.

The Trees Are Always There

One minute you are floating free, tethered only by a little string. The next you are caught on one of life's waiting limbs. So it goes.

Yeah, trying to wring metaphor out of this kite festival picture. The only surprise was that there were so few kites in trees given all the ones aloft and the ones being launched.

I'm sitting here displacing from doing one or all of the following: exercise, cleaning the kitchen, doing some personal and business accounting, reviewing information for tomorrow's board meeting of my club, taking a walk. I'd rather blog and edit pictures. And drink coffee. Oh...and I also should be processing some updates to my Apple and to my VMware XP image on it. But then I couldn't sit here using the machine to blog and look at Facebook and watch the Dow plunge, could I?

My life is either absolutely and totally the best or a mess. I'm voting for the former, really, but sometimes I don't know.

I am really pleased by the relative simplicity of living downtown in a 1200 square foot apartment. I'm doing my own cleaning and not using a service. And while this is a pain on days when I actually do cleaning, it means that strangers aren't poking about at inconvenient times and I'm not having to supervise them. There isn't a lot of area to cover. When I vacuum I don't even have to plug and unplug the old Electrolux I borrow from upstairs too many times. (I do have to go get it and return it and that's a pain. I'd get my own vacuum but I haven't figured out where to store it.) I do have a storage cage which needs to be thoroughly cleaned out since during move-in we kind of tossed things in there. Ditto the spare closet. Anyway, basically living here is charmed. I haven't started my car since Saturday. (Tennis was cancelled today. If I could walk to my country club, I would indeed have a charmed life. But it's too far.)

My parental units (my dad, FFP's parents) seem to be rocking along, doing pretty darn well in their houses in spite of their age (average=93) and our responsibilities for them are more anticipatory than any real hardship at the moment. Oh, we complain when running errands and such but it could be so much more.

Having made the move last year, we are trying to plan some trips for this year. We have plane tickets for NYC booked. We are looking longingly at France. It is good to be able to consider doing trips even in the current economic climate. (Although watching the market, who knows how long that will last? Makes one glad some of the portfolio is in Muni bonds.)

I'm not writing, only blogging. But whose fault is that. There's time enough and more. Obviously I'm doing what I want with it and I'd rather mess with finances, blog, edit pictures for a picture blog, read newspapers, read books.

Speaking of books: did I mention that I finished Joyce's Ulysses.? Yes, I laid eyes on every word, understood or not. I pulled out a book of essays on it we purchased in Paris in 2004 (the centenary of Bloomsday) and started it. My bookmark is a boarding pass stub from that trip. Woo-hoo. Cheers me somehow. In New York in June we plan to go to a reading of Ulysses at Symphony Space.

I'm not exercising enough but I'm walking a lot so if I travel I'll be up to the sort of flânerie I'd expect to do on trips. I could be exercising now but I'm blogging.

Financially, things could be better. We could have saved more and given the results lately on stocks and bonds, we could have invested more wisely. (See above about muni bonds, though.) However, we seem to still be living within our means while still reserving profligate amounts for eating and drinking, charity and, to a lesser degree, travel. So, yeah, things could be much, much worse. We don't have jobs to lose unless you could FFP's 'job' doing writing assignments through our wholly-owned Sub S. We probably bought our condo at a bad time (can't imagine it's worth what we have in it) but we also sold our house and if it wasn't the highest price we could have gotten, it was certainly reasonable. I fear that when the entire economy is in collapse it can't help but affect us (and our parents), but one is helpless to change these things. It wasn't our behavior that brought about the bubble or its bursting. So. Whatever.

Life is good, right? Until you tangle with a tree limb.

Is anyone else bored with my whiny blogs? Oh. Well. Off to exercise. Or clean the kitchen. Or, you know, do something useful.

Get Serious

Yeah, I won't be buying the little red dress in the shop window of Estilo on Second Street. Get serious. (And yes photographer LB does seem to be positioned, camera in face, to make a shot that I won't call by name for fear of attracting the wrong WEB searches.)

Yeah, I'll continue to wear blazers and slacks (pants suits they are quaintly called for women) and dressier tops and slacks and sweats and shorts and jeans.

I need to get serious, really, about something which is why I gave this title today. Picking the photo was just a matter of randomly picking one I took yesterday and had edited. But I need to get serious about my photography if I'm going to do it. If it's going to be shop windows with my reflection, then fine, but I need to stop using years-old point and shoots and old software (which I haven't learned that well anyway) and get fancy equipment and wait for the right lighting and I need to call it art and make an artist's statement and make quality prints and frame them in shadow boxes surrounded by found objects and mirrors and reflective things and put high price tags on them. I need to nod indulgently when people are attracted to them but repulsed by the prices. Because really, just snapping these eccentric pictures isn't a worthy endeavor without all that.

I need to get serious about organizing my space and my files and my finances. It isn't good enough to shrug my shoulders and act like I don't know WTF to do about investing my retirement funds. I need to be confident like the guys on TV who just know what stocks are beaten down to a low from which they will ascend without setback or scandal or obsolescence of their product. I need to be a serious investor who reads prospectuses and studies financial sheets. Have you ever seen a prospectus that wasn't a yawner from the get-go? And you know all those pretty people pimping the investments aren't capable of interpreting them either. This new Madoff scandal is amazing. I don't believe any of my investments are affected, but it gives you pause, huh? Yeah, I must get more serious about investment.

I need to get serious about exercise, too. There have been times when I actually kept exercise logs. Online. When I seriously thought about how much I was doing and when. Similarly, with diet. I have been known to at least write down all the junk I ate in a vain (but serious) attempt to reform.

I need to get serious about writing, too. It is not good enough to make up jokey business cards that say "Pretending to Write but Really Just Blogging." Either take it seriously or don't do it, right?

But retirement for me just doesn't seem seroius. It is this frivolous 'becoming something soon' time like childhood. All the serious decisions are somewhere in the future when you will be smarter and more in tune with your body, feelings and talents. Maybe it is a second childhood after all. And what could be serious about that?

In The Pink

I dug around in old pictures and this one from last March gave me the title of this post. Now. What words am I going to put with it? The Holidailies prompt today is another about Holiday celebration. ("Tell us about your unique/beloved holiday traditions in your part of the world"). Yesterday, while trying to 'celebrate' my in-laws 70th wedding anniversary, I suggested where we might go for lunch on Christmas. It seemed to overwhelm them a bit, but they were game. Anyway, no more entries about holidays for a few days.

I guess I am "in the pink." I don't have much pain or discomfort. Little aches and pains and afflictions I suffer from...I have learned to put up with them. Best not mention them or they will get worse. When I see the old folks, when I see them complaining about their back and knee pain, I feel young and strong. That fades when I leave them and I am around my young friends while I ponder what will happen to me in my seventh decade.

I'm behind with things I should be doing and I should have lots of time for things now, really. I got through the move. I got this place fixed up so that workmen are no longer having to be called, cajoled and accommodated. But the paperwork, tidying, organization, etc. I promised myself I'd do "when there was time" is languishing. Oh, I'm getting to the things that have to be done. One does that. And I'm spending a bit of time reflecting over coffee and editing pictures and typing into blogs.

But where is the organized and manageable existence I promised myself when I owned one less house and this one was the way I wanted it? Where is the time to tidy cabinets, get the files organized, catalog the books (let alone read those four I'm in the middle of), get control of the piles of newspapers and get a proper amount of exercise?

I don't know. But this minute I'm going to get up, dress in some sweats and go with FFP to the club. I should work out here because the trip to the club will waste thirty minutes, he will be done exercising before I am ready and, if I didn't go, he'd make the emergency trip by the Randall's to get yogurt and coffee by himself. Leaving me some time to...to what? To get my stuff organized? Write? Read? Yeah, right.

One wonders how when I worked I managed to get anything done except for showing up there and doing that. But I did. Sometimes it seems like I got more accomplished outside work. But. I was younger.

Unfinished Business

I don't know where my time goes. Yes, blogging. But yesterday, save a brief entry in Austin Daily Photo, I didn't blog. (You missed me, right?) I also didn't type in a private journal or write on old-fashioned paper. So, where did the time go?

I didn't clean the kitchen. Several times I set a deadline to get in there and get after it. Oh, we cleaned up after our meals and such, washed dishes. But it's been a while since I cleaned off the counters thoroughly, dusted the bottles of booze on the counter, etc.

We got up a little late, but I think we were out of the bed and had it made by 8 o'clock. We watched CBS Sunday Morning. Drank coffee. Talked about taking a walk. Which we never really did. Rather we walked to Whole Foods and ate at the fish bar (I had trout with kale and some grain dish and a Ginger Beer). We bought a few things of prepared food. FFP took the groceries home and I took some pictures in the neighborhood for Austin Daily Photo. (When I say we didn't 'take a walk' I mean we didn't go far enough for exercise. The round trip to Whole Foods, even with my detour, isn't much more than a mile.)

When we got back, I got stuck into updating financial spreadsheets and Quick Books, doing end-of-month for the business, checking accounts and credit cards, paying some stuff, recording muni bonds we bought. Simple as our life is, this kind of stuff takes some time and then, the next day, there is more to do.

Finally, I took a break with the New York Times magazine crossword which I found unsatisfying for some reason. I read some other parts of the newspaper. I decided at one point that I'd clean the kitchen in one hour. Instead, when the time was up, I went to the gym across the hall. I just rode the recumbent bike until I was all sweaty. I took a shower. FFP and I ate dinner, each separately making a salad and eating some other stuff. I had a little wine from the bottle we'd opened the night before. I went through all the Sunday papers and read some sections from other days that I hadn't read. We watched a movie on DVD about a crackhead teacher and coach and a little girl who befriended each other. ("Half Nelson.") We rent this stuff from NetFlix and I dont' know when it got in our queue or why. We happened on "Slingblade" on IFC and watched the end of that. We can watch that movie over and over for some reason. Then we just watched IFC and they showed another movie called "Love and Sex" and then some doc about nudity and other censored acts and references in movies. I just left it on this channel while I read until it was late. I didn't get any of my books read, just papers. And the papers are so depressing. So I do this every night and go to bed depressed.

This morning I have to take my dad to the eye doctor. It is the most bizarre parking thing. They have about six or seven handicapped places for this medical office complex next to a hospital. If you don't get one, you have to park in the hospital lot, taking your chances for a place remotely close to the office where you are going. He could take himself (although they may dilate his eyes, so you know, better not to drive I guess), but he could end up walking a block or two with his walker and that isn't good. Whatever. I'll drive out there and take him. I'll take some reading material for the waiting part.

So, when I wonder where this day went and why I didn't get things done, I'll know. I blogged about getting nothing done. Then I did an errand for my dad. Heck, though, maybe I'll clean the kitchen today. You never know.

Cocooning

Today we did some cocooning, just hanging around our place. We did walk about three miles this morning, over to Caffe Medici on W. Lynn with our friend and our God Dog. The dog walked further, detouring up walks and chasing a few squirrels.

Since we have a gym across the hall, it counts as part of the cocoon, although it's a public area. I did forty-five minutes on the bike. I had to use my iPod to pipe Ella Fitzgerald and such into my ears to avoid listening to rap music on an audio source that couldn't be cut off. (I know I said I wouldn't use my iPod in this way. It was an emergency.)

I confess to some depression today. In part it's because my computer setup had a glitch and that always makes me feel bad because I feel so dependent on it which is stupid, I suppose. Fortunately one of my backup schemes saved me. All is well for the moment. Also, the ongoing meltdown of the world makes me depressed and my condo needs cleaning and I have other chores I don't feel like doing. So I worked as much of the NY Times Sunday Magazine crossword as I could (with a couple of Internet cheats and asking FFP some sports questions) and then logged onto this cool site that has the solution and discusses it. I ate the food FFP prepared (because left to my own devices I eat cheese from the frig although I also had a bagel and cream cheese at the coffee shop).

Instead of doing what I should be doing, I downloaded CDs to iTunes. I read some newspapers while displacing from the things I should have been doing, too. I read that Billy Graham was too old and sick to advise Barak Obama. In fact, Barak has yet to get to meet him although Biily would like to 'pray with him.' This is news, my friends, in the era of evangelical politics.

When I was all sweaty from my workout, I got a call from Lifeline Systems that my dad's system had gone off and they couldn't communicate with him. We were halfway out there when they called to say that he was OK and had simply "spilled a beer on his phone device." We continued out there and, sure enough, I think the beer may have disabled the phone. They'll replace it. I wasn't all that worried. Real emergencies don't follow predictable patterns, I find. It did make us get out of the house. We even thought of grabbing dinner out on the way home, but instead came home, relied on FFP's cooking again and watched "Sunset Boulevard" and some football. We drank some delicious wine, too. Cocooning can be a good thing if you don't take it too far.

Taking Time to Notice

One really needs to take time to notice one's luck. To remind oneself that even when a day seems filled with things that don't work and make one angry that those things are trivial. One also needs to observe how one's fortune far exceeds that of most everyone else. Most of our friends have faced or are facing much more serious health problems or they are struggling more for money. A lot of people still have to work. (How does anyone find time for that?)

It's also important to take note of what's going on around one's own little nest. Sometimes I think I notice TOO much around here and not enough outside. I've been fretting over some cosmetic things FFP says don't matter much, that he wouldn't notice if I didn't notice.

I took this picture from the Long Center Terrace. I photographed the 360 from over there plenty of times. Our building really wants to be noticed from other there, set apart from the tall buildings on Congress.

Most of all one needs to notice when one is happy, take heed of what one is doing when there is that sought-after peaceful, satisfied feeling. Then repeat those moments. I spent a few hours at my club on Tuesday. I thought I was going to play tennis but there weren't enough folks for doubles and the one other lady didn't want to play singles. I went to the gym and had a long ride on the bike to nowhere finishing up a book I'd wanted to finish reading for a while. Then I had a coffee/yogurt smoothie and a breakfast taco and then I lifted weights and did sit-ups and stuff. Very slow and leisurely. Then I went to the locker room in the pro shop which I had completely to myself for a shower and grooming. I took my laptop to the club house to wait for a meeting and popped it open and read my e-mail. Someone came by and said the meeting would be in the pro shop so I went over there and ordered some food. I met with a sub-committee I'm on and then we walked the construction site. I felt peaceful and unstressed. (In spite of the worries about the construction project.) I realized that I really enjoy exercising, reading, relaxing. Yeah, of course. But sometimes I do forget.

This morning (which started off cool and sunny, almost but not quite fall) I played tennis and while I was playing I so enjoyed it. I even enjoyed the feeling when I got back to the condo and I was moving stuff around and cleaning up the place a little and then taking a shower. I felt I should go visit with my sister, but when I called Dad he said my sister and my brother-in-law were not back from going off somewhere to visit friends. I felt I had a little reprieve from trying to go out and compete with traffic for the ACL festival and the UT game. I like it when people entertain themselves.

Yesterday was a bad day, mostly, although I made myself stop, breathe and appreciate more than once to get through it. I must remember to repeat the things I love, over and over, as long as they give me that pleasurable feeling.

A Bizarre Feeling

I took this shop window reflection a year ago January on SoCo. While I was goofing off and finding and editing this old picture I noted that there are more entries in this blog labeled downsizing than shop windows or reflections (although not by much). I also wondered if I'd used this image here before and I think the answer is: not exactly. I used an image here that I shot a moment later. I am feeling bizarre and disconnected. I have a thousand tasks to do to sift, sort, trash, recycle, give away, catalog and generally contain my stuff. I have things I want to do, too. Some writing and reading. I've found I go slightly nutty if I don't do a few things I love. So I spent all morning at the club. First a couple of sets of tennis doubles and then a stationary bike ride for over forty minutes while catching up on some old newspapers.

But now I really must do some good, make some progress, handle some stuff.

Dizzy Me

I have rocked and will rock again but today I'm mostly dizzy-style rocking. Allergic to oak pollen I'd guess. Yesterday I saw an actual green cloud of the pollen, like a West Texas dust storm, only green as grass. The fine pollen is covering everything. I guess it got in my head and caused some sinus irritation. So far no sneezing but just dizzy especially when I first get up. I've taken two generic allergy pills from Costco and hoping to be able to function properly soon.

I had to talk to the hospital pharmacist about Dad's drugs to prepare for his surgery and fortunately they could pull it up from his last one less than two months ago because I was feeling less than confident in spite of a printed list sitting in front of me.

Well, it's time to deal with financial stuff. I hope I'm competent to do that! My downsizing is stymied at the moment by a need to carry some full boxes around and bending over and picking up heavy things makes my head spin. Ditto going to the gym to lift weights although I've got to get around to that today.

The picture was taken in SoCo. Blackmail was the shop. Maybe. I think.

Just Don't Stop

In 2000, in a walk around our neighborhood I shot this picture of a vehicle that had sat, inoperable, long enough that nature was beginning to absorb it.

Yesterday, I was thinking "don't stop doing the things that are working!" Sure there are a thousand details I need to attend to vis-a-vis the big move and all the attendant duties and decisions. Sure I need to find more time for my dad and more time for writing. But since I retired I have managed to improve my health by exercising. Just don't stop.

I played tennis. We played for over an hour and a half, but it was doubles and, although I ran for a few balls, it wasn't much real exercise. Maybe just some stretching and movement. Not bad, but not cardio or weight-lifting. So. After the tennis I worked up a sweat and elevated my heart rate on the recumbent bike. And I did some ab work and a few weight things.

Only then (after doing the thing that has been most beneficial to me in retirement) did I go to my dad's house and deal with some issues with his Life Line and cell phone and then run an errand. (Returning one of our set top boxes to the cable company. Score one for downsizing.)

I wasn't very productive the rest of the day. I did juggle some financial stuff. And find some more books to propose for elimination with FFP. I took out garbage, folded some clothes FFP washed. In the evening my friend came over and we went for some dinner while FFP did yard work and made himself fish tacos. Then we went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and looked at various things but bought nothing. She rejected some bar stools they had as cheap in price but too cheaply made. I couldn't find the exact replacement pan I was trying to buy (although I should go to the outlet mall for it). I considered buying some new containers to store sweaters but decided to swither more about it. There is a sort of step stool I want to buy but they didn't have one. So we wasted gas but spent no money.

But you can't stop. You have to keep going forward. Otherwise, the ivy grows right over you. As it will do one day anyway.

Nothing Coherent to Say

I haven't given myself too much Visible Woman time this morning. We don't have a schedule, but there are things I want to get done. I didn't have a tennis match this morning. (The ladies I play with couldn't get enough people together. Which is OK because I did a workout yesterday with a team much better than I. Thursday was a washout but I did play Tuesday and, as I mentioned in passing, it was truly glorious.)

This picture is of FFP in New York with the section of Berlin wall that is somewhere on 53rd Street (I think). It's a thing I do: take pictures of sections of the Berlin Wall where I find them. Has this one been further tagged in New York? Don't know. I took a picture here long ago but I would be hard-pressed to find it.

I'm a little worried about the downsizing projects. They seem to have slowed down. But I think that is only because I was immersed in taxes and such for a few days. In any case, time to get serious. Monday we are moving some furniture to our other house and to my in-laws' house. I do realize that it isn't exactly like getting rid of it, but feel free to point that out!

First, though, I think I'll get a workout and ponder how to get moving on the downsizing thing. I fear that in some realms we've reached the point where getting rid of more stuff is hard. We keep applying a finer and finer screen until what has survived seems precious. That's not completely true, of course. I think there are things we haven't even looked at yet, to be honest. But it does look like we will touch everything seventeen times (or some prime number of times) before we decide its fate.

Big Changes, Small Changes

This was taken a little over a week ago, peeking into the hole for the new Austonian condos. (Much fun has been made of the name since we call ourselves Austinites, but I figure its their hundreds of millions, you know.) Change is happening fast downtown and once ground is broken and hole is dug then before long up it will go. (We hope. Intel shell fiascoes would be bad for high rises.)

Our situation is changing, too, as we prepare in tiny small steps to change residences. We are going to buy new things, pick and choose from our old things, move things.

I like the changes small, really, but occasionally you have to make the big change. In 2000, we put my parents through it by having them decommission a house they'd been in for over thirty years and be homeless for a few weeks and move into a totally new place. My dad is settled into that new situation now and loath to change. FFP's mom and dad are dug into their home of over sixty years. They aren't even accepting of our change. FFP's mom wants to capture some furniture we are getting rid of for the move.

I was thinking yesterday about the subtle difference that small changes can make...in reading habits, writing, exercising. I'm always bellyaching about not accomplishing anything in retirement. But that's just because it's been the small things. Reading more. Becoming more informed. Writing more if only journals and blogs. Exercising and improving the quality of that very slowly.

I've learned where Gambia is located.

I've built up to the point that I used twelve pound weights for my bicep curls.

I've started James Joyce's Ulysses if not finished it.

I've taken the time to turn a single word over in my mind, making sure of the spelling and the dictionary definition. For example, dilettante. It's hard to remember which letter is double in that kind of word. And it's such a powerful word, too. Encompassing both a love for arts and the concept of being a dabbler. FFP says that when our move precipitates a need for new business cards that we will put on them, for a title, that single word. Dilettante. I love it.

Yesterday I was in the gym and I was thinking about sorting through the stuff, collage art and digital photography and a poem I wrote and a list I started of 'everything I owned.' I thought it would be funny to fuse photos of stuff and that list in a digital collage. Ha. I know I'll get that done. Well I went so far as to locate my poem again:

Dabbler, Babbler, Dilettante
Flitting about
Cannot stop.
Focus Free
Excuse me,
I must hop!

And I found my random list of stuff composed over several weeks or months in 2004. Happily or sadly a bunch of that stuff is gone. But not enough of it.

Life's Equations

Yesterday I was pedaling away on the exercise bike while flipping through some old newspaper sections. While I didn't make any resolutions, I made a pact with myself that I would throw out more magazines and newspapers every week than arrived at the PB Manse. The natural result of this, over time, is that at some point the magazine and newspaper count would probably reach zero at least for a moment. Your holdings increase/decrease by X-Y where X is what you acquire and Y is what you divest yourself of.

It occurred to me that so much in life is like this simple bit of math. Your weight increases/decreases by X-Y where X is the energy acquired from food and Y is the energy expended. Your net worth increases/decreases by X-Y where X is your income and Y is your spending. (We won't talk about the ups and downs of your assets.)

X-Y=Z is one of the simplest equations imaginable and even those who shirked Algebra usually comprehend it. And yet so many of life's seemingly hard dilemmas can be reduced to that.

Well, no resolutions, but here's hoping it's a year of negative Z for possessions and weight change and positive Z for net worth. It's just simple math after all.

Why I 'Diblog'

I just coined this word, 'diblog', as a combination of 'diary' and 'blog.' (I'm sure someone else already coined a word for this or thinks blog is sufficient or thinks, as I once did, that you should just call it a journal and journaling.)

You see, I want to write. I do. But all I do is write journals, diaries, scribbles, blogs, online journals, whatever. As it says in the blurb to the right: "Pretending to write but really just blogging."

But what I do isn't exactly blogging. Depending on what you mean by blogging. Sure I provide links and take the occasional stand on the issues of the day or write what would pass for an essay now and then. But mostly this venue is really personal. Sometimes it is very much in the spirit of 'what I did today.' Like a diary. My writing outside this venue, offline, in notebooks and Word documents on my computer is very much in that diary vein. I do have what I consider a real blog (The Journal Of Unintended Consequences) but it doesn't get updated nearly as often as this space. I have a picture blog, too, that gets updated every day (Austin, Texas Daily Photo) but the writing is secondary if often voluminous. It's about the pictures or is supposed to be.

Visible Woman and my writing offline has always been diary-like for the most part. Or it's a journal if you will. I cannot seem to complete a book, article, essay. I have completed a few (unpublished) short stories. And yet this year I have written thousands of words of 'diblog' here and over two hundred pages in offline Word documents.

Why do I do whatever you call this? Well, I think I know.

One of the main reasons is that everything is more easily dealt with once it's translated into words and put down on paper or in pixels.

Another reason is because I want to have my say and not really be edited by anyone. I get comments, but I can moderate them. I can accept edits sent in although they rarely are. FFP will point out typos and mistakes and I can edit them if I wish. No editor is trying to keep me on point, trying to puff things up or slim them down.

And yet I love to edit myself. With my online musings and my Word docs I can edit anything at any time. I was just pondering writing this and I went back and looked at an almost eight-year-old entry on my old WEB site and I wanted to remove a single period. So I did. What power! Once you write a book it's nice to see the permanence of it...but wouldn't you be itching to edit it?

And finally I 'diblog' because I want to remember what I did today and yesterday and I seriously will completely forget if I don't write or type it down somewhere. See those old paper journals above? I was glancing through one of them and I was writing about having our Old English Sheepdog put down. In 1991. Of course, this is something I remember doing and even the approximate time. But the other things going on at the same time, forgotten. Except I wrote in that book.

So yeah that's why I'm here (or over there or inside my own computer) writing what I do. Because I want to deal with my demons, be heard, avoid editors but always be able to edit and, years from now, remember where I was and what I was thinking. I'm not here trying to influence anyone else or become famous. I'm not seeking readers. So, no I'm not sure why I join things like Holidailies because I'm not really seeking readers which is one purpose of portals. Fact is, for a long time I purposely did NOT join portals. I even went to a conference for online journal writers (JournalCon they called it) one year before the word was 'blog' and listed my name in the program without a WEB site!

By the way...I spent my morning at my club playing tennis and then working out a little. I drank an espresso smoothie at the club. This afternoon I ate a chicken sandwich. I changed the filter on my coffee machine. We considered going to a movie but decided to stay home and watch the bowl game with the Texas Longhorns playing. I plan to read, do some things on my 'to do' list and maybe watch a DVD. Just in case I forget later what was up with me on December 27, 2007.

Diet and Exercise

No I didn't eat the Migas in the foreground. Nope. I ate the Eggs Chorizo in the background! That was Sunday at Aranda's Taqueria #3, near our house. We had this day that was deliciously free of anything on the calendar although we had noted that Top Drawer Thrift store, also in our neighborhood, was having a tent sale with bands. But why go see them reselling all the junk we hauled out of this house? Would that be sad- or glad-making? So, really, no obligations.

As sometimes happens we took the 'no obligations' to heart and went off to eat a totally unhealthy, cheap breakfast answering 'yes' a couple of times when the waitress said 'mas café?' Yeah, big white endless mugs of black coffee. And reading some part of the Sunday papers. FFP was reading an article in the Statesman about Earl Campbell and I was reading the New York Times magazine which had its 'Year in Ideas' article.

It's so fun to do something like that, but then, belly full of that, can you really do anything? Can you really stay awake even with all that caffeine? Especially with really good football games to watch? (How about them Cowboys?) I'm not a football fan, really, but it can be entertaining while reading and dozing.

But I just checked in on the game now and then on a little 30-year-old TV in our kitchen. I wrapped the few presents that I'd purchased for the parental units and friends. In the process, I decided I'd clean out a closet that used to hold (before we owned the house) the hot water heater. We'd installed some metal shelves and for years called it the 'sports closet.' We kept bowling balls, tennis rackets, softball stuff and the like in there. The family is down to one sport (me playing tennis) and all my gear is in the tennis bag in the car. Gradually the closet became the 'gift closet.' We put things we might give as gifts, wrapping paper, gift sacks, bows, empty boxes, bubble wrap, party decor, empty sacks and costume things in there and I usually clean it out when I wrap the few Christmas presents we wrap ourselves.

So I wrapped the presents. I sat aside a few Christmas gift bags, tags, a little wrapping paper, some other occasion sacks and wrap and the bubble wrap and sorted out most everything else to give away. I actually found two gift-wrapped gifts (with cheaper tags on the bottom) that I had left over from last year and forgot. Some rubber chickens went in the thrift store pile, old calendars to the pile for the neighbor to give to kids in art class, empty boxes ditto. Books, picture frames and other things we'd saved for emergency gifts to the thrift store. I think I queued up nine or ten cubic feet of stuff to be outta here. I cleaned the shelves, swept the floor and put the few surviving things back in there. Not bad after a Mexican Breakfast!

The Cowboys won (I got the final score on that little TV in the kitchen while washing up some dishes) and I talked to a friend about her health issues and plans for the holidays and our plan to get together for a meal when another friend came to town.

At that point, it would have been easy to say: "You accomplished something!" and just settle in front of the TV and snooze. FFP had steamed squash and onions with dill and I had some with a little grated cheese along the way. You know, to round out eggs, chorizo, potatoes, beans and guacamole. I have a balanced diet!

But I didn't slide into my stylish red chair in the bedroom with the Times and another cuppa. No. I went to the gym. I read newspapers while peddling to nowhere on a recumbent bike for fifty minutes and then doing some weight work on my arms, chest, shoulders and back. I would have once considered this a stellar workout. But now it's an ordinary one for me. That's the vicious thing about exercise. The more you do, the more your body demands to offset the same unhealthy breakfast.

I went home and, of course, I finally slid into that chair. I ate something more. Maybe a couple of Clementines (the fruit component of the diet). Maybe some tofu dip and pita chips and a glass of Guinness. Maybe a little bit of cheese. Yeah, probably all of that.

Because that's the secret to life, eh? Diet and exercise.

Memories

I'm going through photos and this one is a 2004 photo taking of a French shop window. It's funny what evokes memories. Little guessing game for readers: where was this picture taken, i.e. what region?

Is it hard to write something every day here? Not really. It's about as hard as it is to "fill my days" now that I'm retired. Take yesterday: I stumbled out of bed around seven. I worked at my computer a while doing 'important things' like posting to blogs and looking at finances (and other people's journals). I made my welfare call to my dad. I went to my club and played tennis for two hours. I was hungry when I finished so I ate an egg salad sandwich and some fruit while reading the newspaper in the pro shop grill. Then I went to the gym and did a little aerobic and weight work. It was noon before I got home.

I did some proofreading for Forrest, talked to friends on the phone, walked around my front yard trying to figure out where the water from the leaking main was making caverns and channels. I talked to some young people who dropped by to take a piece of furniture (downsizing, yes!). I finally showered and during my shower and grooming I watched part of the first half of the football game between UT and Texas Tech. At half time we went downtown, found a parking place, went to the bar at Ruth's Chris to watch the rest of the game while we ate and drank. Then we went to see "Tuna Does Vegas." See how the days fill up? See how the blog fills up? OK, tomorrow I'll try to write a pithy essay.

Spiraling into the Rabbit Hole

Yesterday, Sunday, had a delicious free quality to it. We had a little social event in the evening and one that didn't elicit a fashion emergency at that. This was the first day in a few weeks where there weren't daytime commitments as well as evening ones. Don't get me wrong...it was all fun or self-improving stuff for the most part. Still I'd been busy. Here was a nice time to maybe catch up on the downsizing or get something tidied up around here. Or just relax and read. So how did I waste my time?

I decided to run virus and spyware scans on one computer and watched them run part of the time. I tried to work The New York Times magazine crossword on the computer and later tried to fill it in in the actual magazine. (No joy until today when I could unlock the key and get help. Clever puns in this one.)

At one point I thought I'd attack a pile of magazines that had survived other attempts to move them toward recycling. I managed to discard a few. In one I just had to read a piece before letting it go. Most of the ones I looked at got saved. A Harper's because of a piece by Jonathan Lethem about plagiarism that was completely plagiarized. (I later read this on the exercise bike but still saved it because I hadn't completely read his notes about where he extracted everything.) I saved a Summer Fiction edition of The New Yorker from 2004 even though I have it on DVD because you never know when it would be handy to take along to read. I saved another Harper's because of an article about Werner Herzog. I saved a June issue of The New York Times magazine not to work the puzzle (which looks quite hard) or to read the serialized novel (I haven't been able to get into any of these and this is chapter five of the last one they did). No, it was a bunch of articles about the rich getting richer and the poor...you know. I'm still trying to figure out which I am much less the whys and wherefores and politics of that economic idea. So...interesting and maybe I should read it.

Then there was The New Yorker issue (too new to be on DVD yet) which had a review of the Edith Piaf movie I missed at the theaters. I saved a Harper's because of an essay on the virtues of idleness. The irony was not lost on me.

I saved another issue of The New Yorker because of an article about the Queen Mary 2. The issue is on the DVD collection. But I'd really like to read it. If I ever get downsized and escape real estate hades, I'd like to go on that ship. I've been on the QE 2. But I digress.

Another issue of The New Yorker survived because of an article about neurosurgery and a Woody Allen casual. And another because of an article about mathematics. So sue me. I must confess that there is a 2005 issue in one of the bathrooms because of an article about Angela Merkel.

So the result of all that activity was that one pile had become two, reduced by three or four magazines that will make the recycling truck on Friday.

During my bout with the magazines, FFP arrived in my office with a 'home for sale' brochure from a house in the neighborhood. We spent a bit of time looking the place up in the database of the local tax collector and calculating a price per square foot.

I sorted through some current newspapers and tossed some ads in recycling. I glanced at Marilyn Vos Savant's column in Parade. She had an interesting puzzle. I didn't try to work it out but when I read the solution I thought it was amazing and wrote a small proof about why it worked. Seriously.

I managed to get to my gym for some exercise (mostly riding the recumbent bike while reading the Jonathan Lethem piece). I thought briefly about a trip to New York, too. Because in New York once, in the Village somewhere, we found a mystery book store while waiting for time for a jazz performance at the Vanguard. And I bought Motherless Brooklyn because it seemed interesting, I wanted to support the store and it was set in Brooklyn. I later bought Fortress of Solitude because I liked Lethem.

Yeah, those were the kinds of "accomplishments" and reveries I managed on this day of little obligation. Oh, and I put together a letter about my great nephew Jack's Flat Stanley's adventures in Austin and ordered and picked up prints of pictures of his (F. Stanley's) visit here and wrote on postcards and put the whole thing (along with Mr. F. Stanley with arms and legs folded) in a package to mail back to Jack's teacher.

I wanted to accomplish things in my retirement. I didn't anticipate how much my adult attention deficit disorder would affect idle times. And my greatest accomplishment seems to be becoming a dilettante. And learning to spell dilettante!

Yeah, I'm Here

Before the rain we walked to the coffee shop (Pacha) today and I took this picture of one of the Rosedale denizens idea of yart art. Our own junk left by the SUV load today. I would have snapped a picture but a lady representing the venerable Settlement Home garage sale came by and we loaded her up with what was, to be honest, a bunch of so-so stuff. It was stuff however. And it's gone. Oh, some of it was interesting. But still. Gone.

If you miss me when I fail to come over here, by the way, I've been pretty assiduous at Austin Daily Photo. Not as interesting, of course, as downsizing. Or is it?

Pretty slow day at the ranch today. Watching tennis from New York. (Nice weather there.) Watching it rain. Managed a trip to the gym for sweatification.