Travel and Writing

What am I? Six years old? It seems I need a picture and then I can write about it like a kid in first grade. (Or in my case that would have been third or fourth when I finally learned to read, let alone write.)

I had a long walk through Old West Austin with a friend yesterday. We didn't really get to the part I call Clarksville. I've explored this neighborhood many times. (We used to drive here and then walk when we lived further away.) I always find out something new or find something that has changed, however. This picture was actually taken of a shop on West Sixth. I didn't take it on yesterday's walk. I think it was Friday's walk. Walking with a friend you find he has landmarks, too.

I have always been fascinated by maps and globes and, of course, travel. My walking buddy yesterday is a writer. A playwright to be specific. (He has completed plays and had some produced. He tried his hand at a novel, but it didn't work to his satisfaction.) We were talking about writing and he ask if I was working on the novel. I made many excuses (some aloud and some silent). I may have mentioned that I needed to do some traveling to get certain parts of the thing just right, detail-wise. Later, when I was talking about how we enjoy being sidewalk superintendents for all the construction downtown, he suggested that I just write about that and not have to go anywhere. But what would the fun of that be? It did kind of nudge me, though, about the book. I asserted that maybe the entire book was set in Austin and that the other stuff was just background. But important to me all the same. It made me think that maybe if I ever got the protagonist out of the airport (have to decide what season it is first) that I would send him into my very condo tower.

The phone rang once and was answered.

"Where are you?"

"On the concourse."

"Come out the middle exit and we are right here."

He recognized Jilly's voice. He had no idea who else was waiting.

When he walked past the stairs and escalator and out of the secure area there was Jilly and his busy seatmate from the plane.

"Oh," said the woman.

"Did you guys meet on the plane?" Jilly asked impatiently.

"Well," he began...

"We were seatmates." the woman continued. "But he didn't look like the pictures I had of him and I thought he'd be in First Class."

"And I, for my part, was not looking for anyone at all. I'm Cliff. Cliff Pogonip."

"Of course, she knows, this is Rachel Cline. Your New York representative!" Jilly said, laughing now.

"In my defense, I never saw your picture I don't think."

"Why weren't you in First Class? I booked that myself." Rachel said, returning to duty it seemed.

"When I got to the airport there was a problem. This guy had gotten injured on an overseas flight. Something about a runaway service cart. They wanted to get him home to Austin and needed a First Class seat. Guy was in front of me in line at the airport in a wheelchair with an airport representative. The person behind the desk was trying to boot someone who'd upgraded and was having trouble with the system and it was a real mess. I started talking to the guy and he explained that his foot was gashed and they gotten him stitches but it was swelling. I said to them, look, just downgrade me to his seat, he had a seat, and let's go. I'll be fine. They gave me a wad of upgrades."

"We paid for that ticket! Most of those folks in First Class used upgrades," said Rachel, momentarily outraged. "But that was nice of you, I saw that guy and he looked miserable and you have to feel for the airlines after they injured him, in a way."

"We have to get going," said Jilly who had answered her phone while Pogonip talked to Rachel. "Jack is coming around with the car. No luggage, right?"

Rachel and Pogonip nodded.

They emerged into the perfect cool, sunny sixty degree weather. It was January in Austin and on any given day it could be like this. Pogonip left his overcoat draped over his left arm. As they waited on the curb for Jack and the car, Pogonip noticed someone else from the plane waiting. A young man whose clothes looked German to him...the soft lines of the shoes, the material and cut of the pants and the jacket with lots of pockets and buckles and snaps were his clues.

They climbed into the mini van after throwing their hand luggage in the back. He knew how he'd get along with so little luggage...he had everything he needed here... but he had no idea about Rachel. Maybe she wasn't staying long. Rachel and Cliff got in back, Jilly in front.

"Where to?" said Jack. Jack worked for Jilly most of the time although sometimes for other clients of hers, older people who needed rides to appointments and such as well as her management skills.

"Four Seasons or the condo?" asked Jilly glancing around at Cliff.

Pogonip thought the Four Seasons would be nice. He might could be alone with his thoughts there a bit better. But he knew that everything he needed that he hadn't brought along would be easier to come by at the condo. Actually there were two separate condos although he didn't know what the arrangements for Rachel would be or even why she had come to Austin.

"The condo for me," he said diplomatically, giving, he thought, Rachel her choice.

"Rachel is going to stay at Four Seasons," Jilly said. "She's going to set up there and we are putting up some of the relatives there. You might want to stay there, too, but the condo might give you more peace and privacy really."

"Definitely. The condo. Drop Rachel off first, though, no hurry for me." He looked down at the carpet, feeling suddenly overwhelmingly sad and helpless. There was green dirt and a bit of yellow fuzz on the carpet.

Trying to shake off tears he said, "Been playing tennis?"

"What?" said Jilly. "Oh. Well, I've been taking Charlie to the club for lessons since you bought me the membership." She seemed nonplussed at how he might know this.

Cliff had bought the membership in her name because he could use it all he ever needed to as a non-resident guest. She seemed abashed that she'd used the club with Charlie, her son. Charlie was ten,or maybe it was nine, and he and Jilly were quite a team. Jilly had announced she was pregnant a decade ago and that was that. Nothing was ever said about a father. He'd never been involved with Jilly and he even thought maybe she'd used a sperm donor. He was with Celeste then. Celeste probably knew all the details but he'd never asked her. He liked the kid although his visits were not that frequent and he seemed to have grown a foot each time and exponentially more wise. Thinking of Charlie Kraft comforted him somehow and he shook off the sadness and moved back to resignation.

The van took the fork toward downtown and Pogonip looked up to marvel at the changes in the skyline.

"I've never been to Austin. I didn't think it would look so much...like a city." Rachel said, staring ahead and clutching her bag with the phones and probably other tools of organization on her knees.

Yeah...a few more paragraphs and we got the protagonist on the damn road to downtown. My walking buddy yesterday said, and I paraphrase here, that he didn't think he could ever finish his novel because of the impossibility of handling all the details. His novel was about (largely set in?) Viet Nam, too, so he'd have trouble going back and checking out the details. Even Viet Nam today wouldn't do of course.

Now I have to fly somewhere or pretend to fly somewhere and go out and drive from the airport to downtown. Damnable details. The last time I flew, I took the fork toward North Austin when going home from the airport. Anyway, there you go. My friend and I talked about how our fictions (his plays, my unwritten novels and short stories) are playing out in our heads even when not captured. We talked about taking people we knew and taking them forward in time. Or backward. Of course, I think the latter is what we always do...taking people we know and inventing or filling in the back story. How could we write about a character if we had no prototype? How about science fiction? Did you read Michael Cunningham's "Specimen Days"? Yeah, I could really get into the alien life forms in the third part of that one. I mean their emotions even. I listened to it on compact disks, I think.

Yeah, so I've written a little more of the novel. None of my readers (hi all five of you) have clamored to read more. I've introduced five people in the flesh and several by reference. I'm edited the three pieces that proceed this fragment (one, two and three) multiple times. I have made all these decisions about details and I'm lost in them. I told my friend yesterday that plays might seem easier but they consisted of the hardest part almost exclusively, dialog. He didn't disagree, really. But maybe I'm wrong!

Reflecting on Wasted Time

I find lots of ways to waste time. Yesterday I blogged (yeah, maybe that's a time waster, you think?) Yesterday I outlined the ways I thought I might use (or waste) my hours. I went on that walk I mentioned. It was long and fun. I stopped for a taco and coffee. I wrote the following as the umpteenth potential first sentences of one of my most ambitious unwritten novels (Pogonip) while sitting in front of a fancy convenience store on Barton Springs consuming same.

Pogonip slid out of his seat and flipped open the overhead, grabbing his overcoat and removing a soft-sided briefcase and a day pack and easily hefting them on one shoulder. He wasn't particularly eager to join the jostling crowd in the aisle or even to escape the plane, but the tall, slim woman in the window seat was halfway up, gripping the headrest in front of her, bent uncomfortably in a curve defined by the compartment above her. He edged into the crowd to give her room to slip out and stand nervously beside him, fishing in a shapeless cloth bag she'd had under the seat.

I was actually quite satisfied with this, but it didn't inspire me to continue. Instead I started thinking 'Why fiction? Is it because I know so little that is fact?"

Well, I did take the walk. I did stop for coffee and snack. I never worked out. Instead I went to the storage unit and fished around for some office supplies for FFP, got an AC filter for a friend, emptied the trash can I'd provided for the storage area (which others had filled with discarded things), walked to the Office Supply store nearby with FFP to get the supplies he needed (which, of course, I couldn't find in the storage unit), checked some financial things and read the papers (worked crosswords), showered, went to a political talk at the Headliners Club, drank Manhattans, ate, watched a CSI: New York.

Pogonip will have to wait to walk down the concourse. The woman sitting next to him will have to wait to fumble two cell phones out of that bag. Her place in his novel will pend revelation until another day. When he's walking down the concourse, he will see three newspaper dispensing boxes. Each paper (Austin, Dallas, Houston) will have a different photo from a terrorist attack. He may smell the Iron Works barbecue and hear Marcia Ball music over the loud speakers. Or not. The newspaper box thing relies on something that happened to me. I walked down that concourse and saw those boxes displaying different views of an airline crash. I wish I could remember when that happened. Maybe I should wait to write the novel until I have typed up all my old journals and hope that I wrote something down about it?

And so it goes. It's really no wonder that I can't really write a novel or much of anything else. Today I have wasted most of the day. I spent a lot of it at my club. First I played tennis. Then I ate, did a few exercises, sat through a long meeting where I didn't feel I contributed anything. And now? I'm blogging!

[Picture reflects the photographer in the reflecting balls embedded in the wall at Chuy's on Barton Springs.]

Pogonip Lives!

Not really. He's a fictional character in a novel I'm not writing.

But, this morning, I can't leave him hanging in the lobby of the Austin Four Seasons, looking across the table with the elaborate flower display at a distressed Jilly while an agent of the U.S. Government flashes a badge at him. I have to get that over with. It's not a thriller damn it.

But should it be FBI? Or Homeland Security? Oh. Well.

Inside the small business office downstairs from the lobby, Pogonip sat in chair. The agent who had brought him down and several other suits were crowded into the room.

"We'll be brief, sir. We know you knew the victims from Austin of this attack. We wonder if you know what they were doing in Berlin at this site."

Cliff wondered how best to put it. He paused and then said as confidently as he could. "Yes and no."

"What's that supposed to mean?" said another officer impatiently. The first guy held up his hand. He said, "Go on."

"Well, we were playing a travel game I set up for the guys. I gave them a hint that was supposed to take them to Paris, but I understand why they went off to Berlin. But as far as being at the Memorial...I guess they were just being tourists."

"Do you know why Carter Evans' wife was not with them?"

"I spoke with her. She was shopping. They went to look for clues and she didn't go."

"You said they were being tourists!" This was the aggressive guy again.

"Well," Clint continued, "My guess is that they went to the Reichstag and didn't find a clue and this memorial is nearby. I don't think they'd seen it. So...." He trailed off and the aggressive agent fidgeted.

Sputtering, the aggressive guy said, "They hadn't been there before?"

Clint looked at him. "Not that I know of. I think they were last in Berlin in 2002. I was with them. It wasn't built or not completed."

"You know a lot about it!" the menacing guy said, leaning toward him.

"Not really." He stopped. He thought to himself that he'd read about it when it was dedicated, thought of making a trip to Berlin. Why hadn't he done it?

The calmer suit said, "So you think it was the first time they were there? You think they were just accidentally there?"

"Yes."

"Well," the calmer guy continued, "Do you think they might have taken pictures there or even uploaded pictures before the explosions?"

Clint had not thought of this. But, of course, they might have. They had iPhones and cameras and they were constantly making updates to track their progress or lack there of on the silly quest. It all seemed quite frivolous now and he hated talking about it.

"Can't you get the records? Did you find cameras or phones or the memory cards?" Pogonip wanted to flip around to the computer in the room and start looking on the WEB. But he didn't even look toward the machine, put there for hotel guests he imagined.

They didn't seem inclined to answer. Clint took a small leather notebook from his pocket. He fetched out a card, flipped it over and wrote a URL and two twitter names on it.

"If anything got posted, this should help you find it. I haven't looked. I didn't even think of looking. Didn't Sally and Stuart give you this?" He was referring to the wife of Carter and the girlfriend of David. He got no answer.

The agent who seemed about to boil over twitched. And then said, "Did your friends have anti-Semitic leanings? Had they talked about, even casually, possible attacks?" He was almost shouting.

Clint and all the other suits stared at him.

"No. And no." Clint said. He didn't know if he should say that David was, in fact, Jewish. That his great-grandfather had perished in the Holocaust. He wished he had offered it as an explanation for the visit. "Just tourists?" he thought. "Crap." Too late now. Now it was an apology. And, of course, it wasn't like a quest for that was in David's mind. He would have had no idea where the adventure would take him and as far as Clint knew he hadn't focused on his family's history a lot.

"We might be in touch. Where are you staying? Here?" concluded the calm agent.

"No," Clint said as the other agent looked angry. "You have my phone number, I think."

"Where will you be staying?" the calmer one asked, less gently.

"The address is the Austin one on that card." Clint said. The agent flipped it, stared at the London, New York and Austin addresses.

Oddly, this concluded his business with the FBI, Homeland Security and all officials about the incident. He would never hear from any of them again and was not in fact sure who was represented in that room. Only the FBI guy in the lobby had shown a badge. Given what he found on the WEB, maybe it was not so odd that this ended the brush with authorities.

Clint walked out and started toward the stairs but the maitre-d stopped him. "Your friends are in the cafe," he said.

Fact and Fiction

I discovered Sunday while we wandered around East Austin taking in a couple of Artist's studios that mirror glass is being used for some interesting in-fills and remodels. That's me then reflected in the door beyond the interesting rusty iron and mesh fence.

Mirrors and reflections. Versions of images, versions of truth. I was riding the recumbent bike to nowhere across the hall in the condo gym this morning. As I knocked around on this free Friday, I'd been thinking about what to write in here and why I did it. Yada yada. I'd been considering moving my protagonist (one Cliff Pogonip) along that concourse outside into a warm August day. First he'd meet some folks and learn the identity of the harried woman. By the way, I changed that paragraph to say she scurried, putting harried and scurried into the same sentence which sounds silly but I'll leave it for now. Hmm...and that word harried. Interesting word. But I digress. Here we go, out into the August heat.

Pogonip wasn't tempted to buy the papers. Even if he had been he had no change to plug into the machines. He didn't think he had any U.S. dollars on him at all. In fact, nestled in a cardboard travel organizer delivered to his London apartment yesterday, there was a hundred dollar bill and several twenties and fifties. It had contained ticket info on a flight to New York, a ticket to fly to Austin and a thick itinerary with car services, dates, times. He'd dug into the stuff to see what time he was being picked up at the apartment and to find the ticket info. On the flight over yesterday he'd fumbled with the packet and found the car service information and already filled-in forms for entering the country ready to be signed. He'd been whisked by a car service to the apartment in New York that was his but was fully occupied by two aspiring artists, one a painter and one a playwright. He had slept fitfully in an alcove with a curtain that contained a bed, nightstand, chair. His tenants were out for the opening of an off-Broadway production soon after he arrived and asleep when he slipped out of bed, showered and went downstairs to catch his car. He'd plowed further into the folder to find the info on his morning car service and Austin flight. He supposed that somewhere in there it said who would meet him at the airport. He didn't look. Instead he pulled out his phone and powered it on. There was one new missed called. He didn't listen to messages but called the number of the missed call.

OK, I didn't get him outside. So sue me. It's fiction and it goes where it goes.

Speaking of which, it's fiction. In the paragraph prior to the one above, presented to you first on November 16th, I mention the newspaper headline about a terrorist attack. ("Two Austin Men Dead in Berlin Attack."). Did I feel a frisson of synchrony on the bike this morning when, on CNN on the little TV in front of me, the headline came on saying "Two Americans Killed in Mumbai." I did not. I felt a bit betrayed by fact trumping fiction. Sort of like the writers and producers of a "Numb3rs" episode must have felt when that California train wreck occurred after they had spent a boatload on an episode about a train collision. (They taped David Krumholtz talking about how it was a coincidence and they were sorry for the victims and showed it before the episode.) I didn't feel too bad though because my investment in my fictional terror attack is small, after all, and I don't believe it was predictive, psychic or any other phenomena.

Fact and fiction are all of a mix anyway. Oh, some things are real. All too real. There was one of those religious stampedes today where people get killed in the rush. Well, it was the religion of consumerism. And the guy had a heart attack, but people were hurt in the Wal-Mart rush to get some goods and maybe they trampled the guy. It reminded me of those pilgrim things where people die. But you can't make this stuff up because, if you do, it just seems ripped from the headlines. Every fiction is fact. Every fact appears from a certain angle, made-up.

Our Friday is not black. But it is bleak. The weather that is. We got out to take some cleaning and mail our holiday postcards and ended up eating at Pecan Street Cafe on East Sixth. They have been there since before we married and they are still there and still serving a lot of the same dishes. Like the spinach crêpe that I had. It was cloudy and threatening. Downtown wasn't it's usual bustling Friday self because of the holiday. It drizzled on us a bit on the way back. We decided that staying in and drinking coffee and reading would be a nice way to spend the evening. I have things that need doing. Neglected chores (clean the kitchen), neglected sorting and filing. But I feel lazy. I feel like letting myself think and read. Next week social events loom and a visit from relatives. Obligations.

Where am I not today? I am not at the mall. Or shopping at all. My e-mail in box was full of special on-line offers and I did look at some. But, no, not tempted. We are listening to that iPod I bought a while back. FFP wanted to create a Genius playlist and after fumbling a bit I figured out how to do that again. I was in the middle of writing my little novel paragraph above when he asked me about it. So I'm sure it is different from the paragraph I would have written without interruption. Now if I only knew if it would be better or worse. That's fact influencing fiction in the moment.

Pros and Cons, A Study in Yellow

Yellow is such a sunny color. Used judiciously, with some larger splashes of red, against a more muted butterscotch, white, gray and wood tones, it can add some decorating spark. One of the things I like about our new place, is that there is a sort of coherent decorator's touch throughout, not just in certain rooms like in our old house. [The picture above is a reflection in the window of the West Sixth Street store, ArtWorks, which I used because of the yellow and the glassware. Yes, glassware is part of our decorating scheme, in spite of the need for dusting!]

So, yeah, it's time to outline the pros and cons of living in our new condo as opposed to our old house. I'll not try to imagine living somewhere entirely different. That's too unrealistic. That's beyond my imagination skills, probably. Remember how much trouble I have with fiction after all!

Actually, rather than be negative and talk about pros and cons, I think I'll talk about pros and pros. First the pros of living here. Then some things we might miss from the old place.

So, yeah, here are the things that are nice about our current abode:

• We have achieved a complete 'look' throughout by bringing only certain furniture, buying new stuff, building in custom cabinets, etc.
• We have only 1200 square feet or so. This is good on many levels. It forces immediate consideration of where to put stuff and whether to keep it. It means there is less floor to clean, fewer things to clean in general. By trimming down the books and 'artifacts' (art, toys, old martini shakers, etc) to stuff we really love, we have created a look we enjoy and we can find some of our favorite books. Sometimes anyway. The small space made us trim our computer gear and make it wireless and it's pretty sleek. We ditched old TVs and got flat screens. Groovy.
• We were forced to get DirecTV. This turned out not to be a positive, though, in one way, because we got to see "Friday Night Lights" on their exclusive channel ahead of the network.
• Taking out the garbage is easy. No taking a big container to the street in the rain, no worrying that it will be too full, no worries about slide days. Just take the garbage out every time you fill a 13 gallon sack. Walk a dozen steps down the hall. Open the chute and drop. Things too big for the chute require an outing to the loading dock, but there you go. You don't have to get out in the rain. If, you know, it ever rains again.
• No yard to water here, though. People always asked us if we didn't love the yard. But when we were out there we saw ponds that needed cleaning, areas that needed weeding, trees that needed trimming, grass burning up during drought and water rationing, paths that needed remulching, etc. We don't maintain the plants on the pool deck. We see flora and fauna galore on the hike and bike and any maintenance is in our tax bill to the city.
• It's warm inside! We have not run the heater this winter except to test it. The window insulation must be pretty good and we are surrounded by other units. It's in the thirties this morning and the temperature a foot from the windows is 72 degrees. We did have to run the AC a fair amount during the hot times.
  
• You can walk! We can walk to Whole Foods, to a little grocery, to the dry cleaners (although they also pick up and deliver), to my new dentist, to Long Center, to the Paramount, to the University (that's a bit far afield but we've done it a few times), to the hike and bike (without crossing a street!), to Alamo Ritz and Alamo South Lamar. We have two, soon to be three, restaurants in the building. We will soon have a grocery in the building. We can walk to a half dozen or more coffee shops and none of them are Starbucks. We can walk to Starbucks if we are so inclined. We can walk to uncountable restaurants and bars. We can walk to gift shops, furniture stores, clothing stores. We set up an account with a nearby bank and our broker has an office we can walk to as well. We can walk to some interesting neighborhoods, to do weird shopping on South Congress (although it is becoming a little posh and weird is being pushed to South First and South Lamar but we can walk there, too).
  
• Since things are more dense, we have a lot of friends that we can meet on our feet. We have friends in the building, friends in the AMLI, the Monarch, Austin City Lofts, Nokonah.
  
• We are next door to Ballet Austin. When they have events in the Austin Ventures Studio Theater, we are right there.
• We are next door to the Austin Music Hall. Ditto on events there.
• We are next door to La Zona Rosa. Ditto on events there.
• We can walk to the Capitol. The lege is in session. Maybe we should go listen in.
• We can walk to City Hall. If we want to attend a meeting, no problem. Walk a couple of blocks, go through the metal detector.
• We can walk to the Courthouse. We vote there, whether early or on election day.
• Mail is delivered to a box so you can just go down and pick it up and not have to worry about it sitting on the porch. Packages are delivered to the concierge.
• Newspapers are delivered inside to your door. No soggy papers. No trip out into rain or cold to get them.
• The concierge is there 24/7. Sometimes they can help with issues.
• People can't knock on your door without getting into the building. Our friends in the building can get to our floor (it's an amenity floor), but they are mostly kind enough to call. So unexpected knocks have been minimal here. No solicitors.
• Exercise! All that walking plus to lift weights or ride the recumbent bike or walk the treadmill, I just walk a few dozen steps to the exercise room. I could go down the stairs and swim in summer although I didn't do that. I still drive to the club for tennis and occasionally work out there, but this is very convenient. I could take pilates or yoga at Ballet Austin if I were a class-taking sort. When I'm in the gym, I can take a break and go get a towel, go to the bathroom, switch out reading material, etc. in the condo and then go back. The gym was three plus miles away from the manse.
  
• Internet Access. The Internet Access in the building has been pretty reliable. I set up my own wireless router and it's easy to log in anywhere. At the manse, I had pretty good service, but I had to maintain some routers and wires and multiple wireless routers.
• It's only steps to anything. That's back to the 1200 square feet, but if you want a cup of coffee and you're at the computer, it's a dozen steps. Bathroom, right there. Back and forth from TV to laundry to office to kitchen, a few steps. I set up a DVR and DVD player and flat screen in the bedroom but we rarely watch there. The living room is steps away.
• I don't lose FFP as much. He can still wander off in the building or all of downtown, but if he's in the condo I can find him. Sometimes in the old manse I would literally go see if his car was in the garage before I knew if he was home. Even if he was home, he might have wandered outside. People who called laughed when I couldn't find him! I like bouncing things off of him in the office where we work back-to-back. I used to call or send him e-mail! OK, sometimes we still send e-mails. Shut up.
• If you have an event downtown at rush hour, you don't have to participate in rush hour!
• You can be in the midst of big deal downtown nights (Halloween, New Year's Eve, game night) but aloof, up in your tenth-story condo observing the madness without being part of it.
• If we go out of town (we haven't been able to do this much), we can just go and not worry too much about somebody watching the place. The concierge can hold the papers. Or we can get someone in the building to pick up mail and papers (if we don't stop them). Much easier to go out of town.
  

I could go on and on. As I often do. But let's just list some things I miss from the old house.

• Being able to crank up some music or WEB site with noise or something on TV in my office without disturbing FFP. The funny thing is, I didn't watch TV or listen to music in my office that often. Now I seem to itch to do it because it would disturb someone else! I listen to music or watch TV sometimes when he is gone.
• Being able to store stuff until you felt like dealing with it. I had closets, a storage room, vast linear feet of shelves in book cases, a commodious garage, scads of kitchen cabinets, a huge pantry, built-in drawers, shelves, media cabinets, two deco bars with storage, etc. The downside of this was the constant need to do a major cleanup that culminated in the great downsizing of 2007/2008. But back in the day I could freely start collections. I could buy things I found interesting and I'd be able to stow them away somewhere.
• Having the car readily at hand and protected from the elements. We had a large two car garage that held the cars, the garbage cans and lots of junk. The cars were protected from rain, dust, hail, cats, birds, floating pollen. Here we have a covered garage but there are open sections and we park near those. Also, if you leave something in the car, you have to go to the elevator, go down, walk forty or fifty feet. Makes bringing stuff up a challenge sometimes and really makes you regret leaving something in the car by accident. At the house, the cars were right there just outside the house proper.
• Having friends be able to come by and just pull into the drive and they are right there. No parking downtown, no elevators. There is a down side to this, though. See above.
• Having the parental units close(r). FFP's parents were a walkable distance away and Dad was ten or so minutes closer. This isn't a big deal, but I wish they were closer.
• I could walk, from the old house, to Fonda San Miguel, Billy's on Burnet, Pacha, Upper Crust, Jorge's, a library (OK, I could walk to the main library from here and I don't do that either). I miss some of the old neighborhood. And walking around it. I suppose I could do what I used to in other neighborhoods and drive there and then walk! Must go to Fonda soon. I miss that proximity a lot.
• We could entertain a bunch of people. We had lots of fabulous parties there. Of course, there is no reason we can't entertain in the condo club room or our private clubs. And we have fun entertaining small groups in the condo.

I did love my house. But I don't really miss it. I have to work to come up with the reasons it was better. There are always pros and cons, decisions and compromises. I love living here. (Right now FFP is playing something loud on his computer. But it's for work he is doing.)

Well, it's time for me to wrap up my morning writing and go exercise. Then, maybe, a walk. But, I'm thinking of, ahem, writing another paragraph or two of the novel. Or, you know, completely rewriting the first four (1, 2, 3, 4) parts! I pledge, however, not to change any facts in the fiction. I might add details or clarify the language or change clumsy stuff or fix typos or tense problems or mistakes, but you don't have to reread it. Cliff Pogonip's path is set. We are just following him along and filling in the back story. I won't go back into that plane and put him in the First Class cabin.

Dizzy Dame

This is a reflection of railings at a modern retail and lofts area on SoCo. I've heard some things about that place kind of being a disaster for tenants. Maybe it's always that way, huh?

I'm actually NOT dizzy this morning. I had a bit to drink last night, all wine actually. I had some interesting dreams, I think, but I've forgotten them.

I have a goal or two today, sort of unformed. We have an early evening event. It's cool and sunny outside so I think I should take a long walk and maybe have coffee and a snack somewhere and think. Then I think I should get a workout. And I think I should read. And write. (Not blog. Write. Really. I'm thinking of actually working on the Pogonip piece. Yeah, though, probably not.)

And so it goes. One day. Another day. The same, yet not. We may grow intellectually, we may get fatter, we definitely grow older. But we can take that first step on a walk. There you go.

What I should be doing

No, I shouldn't be out walking catching my reflection in the mirrored windows of the deco building at 8th and Nueces. Or maybe I should be. But I'm not. I'm inside and I'm just sort of reveling in the fact that I can stay home and do whatever I want. Yesterday, I canceled my tennis game and stayed inside the condo all day except for a trip to our parking level to help FFP in with some groceries. I'd reached the point in fighting my allergies (?) (cedar fever?) where I was feeling OK (Headache: no; Drippy nose: a bit; Sore throat: no;) but I was also feeling a little bleary from the decongestants. I don't take the non-drowsy kind because I did those once and they made me, um, too excitable. I prefer bleary and sleepy, thanks. But after some Advil and decons in the morning, I didn't take any thing else the rest of the day. I slept fine last night without the overnight cold medicine that took me through the night before.

We slept until almost nine o'clock yesterday. I'm blaming the medicine in my case. I think FFP got up and then just came back to bed to join me in Z's. We might have slept longer yesterday but FFP's mother called. They had decided their smoke alarm might not be working.

"Tot [my father-in-law's nickname] poked it with a broom stick and it didn't beep."

"I think I have some 9 volt batteries."

"I think you fixed it for us before."

So, we got up. We never sleep that late. The overnight drug got me some sleep at least. (This morning I was up much earlier.)

I did a few bits of financial stuff yesterday including getting three more bits of paperwork for the business ready to go to three different IRS addresses. [LB: That Geithner guy has me seething! If you are that big a fish, you have a CPA. If your CPA doesn't do better than that, you and he both should be locked up! The message is: you only have to follow the rules if you are a little punk like me. Ed Note: Save it for the Journal of Unintended Consequences.]

So I should be doing a lot of things, but, instead I'm blogging and reading the newspaper and surfing the WEB. So sue me.

I've thought a bit about the novel in the last couple of days. I had to tweak an earlier paragraph a tiny bit, but no biggie.

So here goes:

Cliff thought about playing a little tennis and how nice that would be. He played some in London or Paris or New York, but never in the winter. He pulled himself up short from thinking about maybe hitting some with young Charlie. "This shouldn't be a vacation," he thought. Rachel was looking down at a phone now so he pulled his out. He still hadn't responded to her comment about Austin's urban status. He looked at his e-mail, incoming texts, missed call numbers. He'd listened to a lot of voice mails from strangers and he didn't see any missed call numbers that inspired him to listen to any more. Some of this stuff, he'd eventually have to take care of, he guessed. He could avoid the journalists and the geeks but he figured he'd eventually have to talk to some of these law enforcement types. "When I get settled in and get some privacy," he thought, "I'll try to figure out how to talk to as few as possible and get them what they need from me." Which was, of course, going to be nothing of value. Even though he was responsible for the guys going to Berlin, he had been as surprised as anyone that they'd gone there until he re-examined his clues. An unfortunate ambiguity. And he certainly had no idea who had decided to do a multiple suicide attack on the memorial and take tourists out. And why they were there mystified him. Although he could see it. They'd reached a deadend and hadn't found the clue and so they were just being tourists while they thought about it.

It's at this point that I throw up my hands. The two friends need names, ages, back stories, girlfriends, wifes. Children? How did the Jilly character get a kid anyway? As a matter of fact how did she come to be named Jilly Kraft and how can I make sure that I remember everyone's name and backstory? Do I need to make a separate document for bios? And should I post it in my blog? You see the dilemma. I don't know how anyone writes a novel.

But I digress.

So, yeah, I stayed in yesterday and I have to say that I mostly wasted time. I ate some leftovers from the Clay Pit (where we went Friday night after seeing an IMAX movie "Space Station" and hearing Richard Garriott talk about his experiences going to space). I ate a grapefruit. I read newspapers, worked crosswords. I watched a movie, rented from Netflix, "Man on Wire." It was about the French entertainer and wire walker who walked between the WTC towers. The name of the movie came from the complaint written on the police report. That is a good movie. It's good to have weird dreams you share with weird friends. Pogonip sees that. He sees the humor of using the world as a giant game board, not for world domination, but just to eventually meet your friends for food and drink. I watched bits of old movies, too. "Paint Your Wagon." Caught the best parts of that one, I think.

Right now I'm sitting here feeling good that I'm not too congested and my nose isn't dripping too much. It's been twenty-four hours since I took something. I could go exericise a little. I could do something useful on my budget and finances. Being retired, you have to watch such things more closely. Being retired, you have the time.

Well, maybe another cup of coffee. And a bit more blogging.

My Unwritten Books

One reason I've never written any of my books, leaving them all unwritten is that I have a fear of plagiarism. Will I unwittingly think some sentence or phrase or idea is my own and fail to faithfully attribute it?

Of course, My Unwritten Books is a book by George Steiner so the title of this entry is itself a plagiarism. [How many people, do you think, can spell plagiarism without looking it up? Digression. That's another enemy of my book writing.]

I'm itching to buy Mr. Steiner's book from Amazon. So it could join all the other unread books around here.

Mr. Steiner is a polyglot and polymath, according to Wikipedia. That assertion makes me envious and makes me feel small as the speaker of 1.1 languages (I speak enough French to qualify as a backward toddler) and the master of virtually no field of endeavor.

I was moved to write about what I have not written by a couple of clippings I found in a box of photos that I was sorting. One, from a 2002 New York Times OP-ED page was by Joseph Epstein. Entitled "Think you have a book in you? Think Again" he argues to not, as he puts it "add to the schlock pile." (It should be noted that Mr. Epstein has himself contributed several books to the publishing stream. I have actually read one of them and I think it is somewhere in this condo.)

The other article, from the Book Review in that same paper from the very next day's issue, was a celebration by Bruce McCall of his brother-in-law, John Jerome, who wrote books that never brought him fame, but who celebrated and loved the writing itself. The non-fiction books, their titles at least, speak of mastery and research and care for details. (I haven't read any of them, but On Turing Sixty-Five sounds tempting since I'm now old enough to realize that I'll reach that age without writing a book!)

But, what have I failed to write?

• A novel (or a screenplay...it is such a nascent work it really doesn't matter) about a woman and the effect when this woman dies in a plane crash leaving behind a husband, elderly parents and in-laws and a trusted assistant, all dependent on her for one thing or another. She is a bit autobiographical but neatly avoids most or maybe all of my own failings. Called 'Hole in the Water' the novel refers to the site of the crash (the ocean) and to the woman's absence from a water aerobics class. The entire book (or screenplay) may or may not be set after the event. Or maybe it's a flashback.
• A novel called Pogonip. The eponymous title character has a surname that is actually an obscure word meaning ice fog. He has run from tragedy into wealth until he can maintain multiple homes around the world and spend lots of money sending friends on elaborate 'games' using the map of the earth as the playing board. He doesn't really engage thoroughly with people in person, but his arm's length approach to life is interrupted when several players go to Berlin instead of Paris in the midst of one of the games he has financed and invented and are the unwitting victims of a terrorist bombing. This piece has been hanging over my head, necessitating a trip to Berlin to see in person something that was constructed since I was last there. It has its roots in intentional encounters with friends in faraway places.
  
• A short story which grew into a novel because, you know, if you don't actually write something it keeps growing. It explores the nature of truth beginning with the chance witnessing of a hit and run accident by someone who is somewhere they are not, technically, supposed to be. A serious crime witnessed by someone committing a misdemeanor. This one didn't have a name, I didn't think. It was originally in a collection of unwritten short stories that included one about a stone wall, I knew that. I thought that they were mostly in my head, titles and ideas included. I've considered combining this one with the one above in a giant novel for the purposes of not writing. At some point, the protagonist and the victim of the hit and run were revealed to me as being natives of Odessa. Odessa, Texas that is. And I needed to take a trip there to lend authenticity to a couple of ideas. [It turns out that I'd actually saved a document containing proposed titles and blurbs about the stories in that original, unwritten collection. When I found it on my computer just now, I only vaguely remembered the other story ideas besides the two mentioned. The title of this one that has grown out of control in my head was to be "Behind the Screen." There was another story in there called "Avalanche" based on something that happened to me as a kid. Another called "No Load-Bearing Walls" was vaguely familiar. Another entitled "The Next Apartment" had this blurb: "On relationships and envy of same." Although one (you or I) can imagine the story, I remember not one thing about its potential structure.]
  
• A screenplay that is technically not mine but a friend's (I was just helping or hindering or encouraging with some tasks like organizing a time line and dialog bits). She doesn't want the plot revealed so enough said about that. I think the material is on a WEB page with a logon and password I've forgotten. As you see above, I'm not so squeamish about telling what I remember of unwritten plots and would say even more about the ones above but you would only laugh. Laugh more than you are already laughing. And I would be making stuff up on the fly that I don't really remember committing to in the ephemeral plot in my imagination.
  
• A self-help book about packing, traveling and divesting oneself of unnecessary things. Seriously, I thought I could help others in this regard. Ha.

There must be others. Can this really be a life's collection of unwritten works!? How sad there can't be more when actually writing them, let alone getting them published, isn't required. However, my restraint, it turns out, is admirable. Joseph Epstein says in the above-mentioned article:

Misjudging one's ability to knock out a book can only be a serious and time-consuming mistake. Save the typing, save the trees, save the high tax on your own vanity. Don't write that book, my advice is, don't even think about it. Keep it inside you, where it belongs.

Good advice, I think. I think I'll let my self-help advice be just that and let my characters continue to grow and mature and change inside my head. It'll save me a trip to Berlin not to mention Odessa.

[Today's photo was taken on W. Sixth using a gift shop there as a lens. One wonders how many shops selling what we call 'gee-gaws' will be shuttered in the current economic crisis.]

Lazy and Not Proud of It

Or am I? Proud of being lazy, that is?

I turned over the keys to the sprawling manse almost six months ago. (Well to me it was sprawling anyway...it wasn't that big and the property was only 2/3 acre or so and by the standards of today's robber barons and Ponzi scheme toppers it was nothing.) We struggled through getting things furnished and organized here and now we just have ongoing cleaning and such. (It's amazing how often that needs attending, but still.)

I'm into the tax season, but after I mail three more things today I will only have the personal 1040 and a State Franchise Tax form. (The latter isn't due until May which is a good thing because the state hasn't released the forms!) Oh, and I have to see to the parents' 1040's as well. Anyway, taxes and paperwork aren't weighing on me too much and I am caught up on budgets and bills and balancing checkbooks. I need to clean out files still, of course (things were moved in haste), but they are stuffed in drawers anyway. I need to invest some money, but every day that the market see-saws and the pundits pronounce pathetically I see my fence-sitting as a virtue. Or at least not much of a vice.

I have my 'duties' of course. Monday and Tuesday I had a couple of hours of Dad duty. Just some appointments and errands. Nothing too serious. Last Wednesday I had a few hours of Dad duty, too, and it made me miss a meeting at the club. (Fortunately I got someone else to chair that committee so now I'm a slouch about attending.) This week I have a meeting at the club and a board meeting next week. We are helping host a charity party weekend after next. I really need to clean today. (Did I mention that?) I 'have' to play tennis at times and exercise. What's an old lady to do? There are concerts and operas to attend, too.

But I really am in a position to be kind of lazy. There was a threat of nasty weather this morning. I didn't care. I didn't have to get out. Fact is we wanted to go out for a drink and snack last night and because of the cold and bitter wind we just ducked a few yards from the front door of the building to Mulberry, a small wine bar with some tasty food located on the ground floor of the building.

Yeah, I'm a lazy girl. I mean if you are in sweats and have bed head at 9:30 in the morning and haven't accomplished anything but blogging, well there you go.

I've also become a sort of amateur weather maven in my current lazy state. I have a remote sensor on the balcony getting a temp outside and I have thermometers inside (one a couple of feet from the window, one in the bathroom and, of course, the thermostat). I can also judge the outside temperature from the amount of steam off the chilled water plant. The direction the steam takes (see above) and the half dozen or so visible flags plus the wind sock at the old water treatment plant give me some idea of wind speed, direction and variability. The six story parking garage across the street allows me to see if rain is really falling as it puddles and pings on the flat surface.

I've been watching mindless TV including tennis (which, like golf I think, is only interesting to aficionados). Night before last, I made a test batch of the mango margaritas I plan to serve at the charity event I'm helping host (mentioned above). I drank some to 'test' it and I reblended and drank some more last night. Yeah, sometimes I drink too much I guess. Because it seems I had some wine in there the last two nights as well.

This lazy, purposeless existence makes me a little nervous. And, of course, I know just how to get back to doing something 'worthwhile.' I know I have a list of things to do that I consider worthwhile. But here I sit, enjoying the pondering of what to do next. I'm enjoying my second (is it my third?) cup of coffee. I'm enjoying the sun streaming in after yesterday's gloom. I'm thinking of working out and doing some chores. Not doing, just thinking. I'm even considering doing something radical like writing the next paragraph of my non-novel. Or plowing past page 700 and onward toward the end in my reading of Joyce's Ulysses. It's fun to sit here and think about being productive. FFP is working on writing a column. He turns out a (published) 800 or 900 words a week, minimum. I should take note.

The van pulled up in front of The Four Seasons. The bellman recognized Jilly when she popped out. She was instantly sorting the luggage in the rear, getting a roller board and another bag out for Rachel, leaving Cliff's small bags. Cliff wondered where they had come from since she hadn't been carrying them. Hegot out and said, "Let's get a coffee and snack." Jilly said something to the bellman and Jack got out, too. In the lobby, Rachel turned toward check-in like she'd been there before.

Cliff noticed a couple of Four Seasons security types (suits, wires in ears) but then saw another guy who looked sort of the same but somehow out of place. He glanced at a phone in his hand, glanced up and looked at Cliff for a few seconds.

"Mr. Pogonip?" the suit asked, knowing the answer, clearly. He retrieved a badge from his pocket. "FBI. Could you please come with me for a moment?"

"Now why would they wait for me here?" Cliff wondered. He looked around and a distressed-looking Jilly met his gaze.

"No problem," he said. And then he gave Jilly a little wave that said don't get involved, just wait for me.

What is the deal, here? I'm really not writing a thriller. I just want to get old Cliff through this unfortunate event so he can move on and examine his inner life. Why didn't I kill his friends in an air crash or train derailment? Of course, his parents died in a plane crash. (You didn't know that? Yeah, I hadn't mentioned it. Will I mention it in the actual book? Maybe I will, maybe I won't.)

But enough messing about. It's 10 o'clock now. I can't waste my life blogging. I'm going to go waste some time in the gym.