So How's That Going?

I didn't make resolutions other than to make some lists of things I 'never get around to doing' on Stickies. (Virtual ones in the Stickies app on Mac.) I told myself I'd occasionally spend 10 minutes, a half hour or an hour doing the things. That hasn't gone too far. Above is a picture I took of someone's resolutions that were offered up to burn when this went up in smoke on New Year's Eve.

If you made real resolutions instead of my slacker idea of promising to just spend time on things, then I bet some of yours were similar to Ruthie's. I do like one of hers very much, though: "Create daily." I don't feel very creative today, however. It is hot outside and I got sweaty on the tennis court earlier. I didn't enjoy the activity too much, really, because it was a play day with drills and made-up games and playing with various partners and a lot of people were better than I was. But, like I said, I got sweaty because it's hot and I've had to drink twenty or thirty ounces of water since I got home because one calf was cramping as I drove through my parking garage to park. Maybe if I took a shower I would feel creative. Ever since I got home from tennis (until, you know, a few minutes ago when I started blogging) I've been doing things I have to do, things to keep up with money and taxes and our schedule and dealing with e-mail. No points for doing things you know you will have to do. (Although Ruthie resolves to 'be current with chores and financial matters' I just don't see the point. Unless you've gotten hopelessly behind before and gotten in trouble. But I don't really do that.)

So did you make resolutions? And, a week in, how are you feeling about them?

Perspective

There are lots of state-wide associations in Austin. These organizations lobby the legislature on behalf of their members and put out newsletters and maybe vet members with some sort of credential. This one looks interesting in today's charged environment. Do you think the members of this group got a lot of business during the Enron debacle? Has everyone forgotten Enron in the wake of Madoff and bailouts? I haven't because I had one loan bond that the *&^%$ broker who sold it to me has to keep on the books at zero value because occasionally the powers that be send a few dollars or a few shares of stock in some company. I then have to explain these little poops of money to my CPA as return of principal on that bond. Assaulted by fraud and terrorized by bookkeeping. It was a tiny part of our portfolio and I'd have been glad to show the loss and move on but NO...couldn't even do that. A couple of failed munis have been similarly troubling. We diversify, though, so we try to just ignore this stuff. Piles of paperwork about restitution arrives. We recycle it. Can you imagine what paperwork the Madoff investors will receive and, if they want a chance at any of their money back, how much they will have to fill out? Ugh.

But I digress. I diversify and so these matters are not extreme to me. Not yet anyway. They are just little additional glitches to add to keeping up with different accounts, stocks, funds, bonds. But is interesting to think of the perspective of fraud investigators coming along, after the fact, looking at things knowing that the financial statements may be a crime scene.

I really wanted to return to the topic I touched on earlier, during Holidailies. Sadly, Holidailies is over now. Oh, it's a good thing really as most beginnings and endings are in a way. And that topic was perspective which I talked about in the entry entitled "Do You See What I See."

Did you look at Holidailies while I was participating? Did you actually arrive from Holidailies? I know some people read from there due to comments and some "Best of" designations. (Thanks, anonymous readers panel.) But beginning on a portal like that is like going to a giant outdoor concert with hundreds of stages with different bands playing around the clock only you can go back and forth in time. You can still never quite see it all and you will never experience it quite like any other visitor there.

The page is static now when you open it because folks are not allowed to post new entries because the fun ended 2009-01-06 23:59:59. Miraculously someone managed to post at the last minute. The happy result for us is that this entry is on top of the Holidailies page. And it is an amazing entry about projects and focus. That entry really hits home for me. I've written many times about the struggle for focus. But a never made an art project to represent it and then blogged about it. Yo! (An example here. Or search for 'focus' in my blog. Searching for a word in someone's blog is an interesting random walk.)

The penultimate (I just love that word, don't you?) entry recorded went with the writing prompt of epiphany (Epiphany) and has this great quote: "Anyway, you can imagine how the kings might feel about their holiday nowadays, latecomers to the party, bearing wine and snacks, not knowing that coffee has already been served, or worse, that the hostess is already hungover."

You see what I'm doing, right? I'm conducting you on a random walk through Holidailies. How long will you be able to follow along without succumbing to the temptation to just follow a link yourself?

Often when I went to the Holidailies page I'd use it to find Chip and Jette's entries to see if they'd updated because when they write they are very cool. I'd just search the page for 'Chip' or 'Jette' to find a link into their blogs (even, though, yeah I have them bookmarked and Chip's on syndication). Today this strategy runs me first to an entry where the excerpt mentions Chip and Jette. A delightful entry it is, too, with a 'Best of' designation which made me look at it and made me learn a new word, triolet, and marvel at someone's long-standing Holidailies production of one (a triolet is a certain form of poem in case you didn't follow that link). The next button in my search does lead to a new Chip entry, however, and I had to stop and read it. (He used the word penultimate. Sweet.) I had to comment, too. I'm back now.

So I searched for Jette and found a new entry. She posted a picture of this, only close up. And, oh...there is my building in the picture! After veering off to Jette, I for some reason I decided to go to the entry recorded just below hers. A rant about returning Christmas stuff. I'm not a returner. (The world is divided into those who return things and those who simply give them away. Or regift them.) But I, um, digress.

So you get the idea. We all take off on a tangent through life, seeing what we see, missing what others see, learning new words at 60 and not knowing some words ever until we die. Do you ever read an obituary of someone you knew slightly and find out about ton of things they did and knew and places they went and think "Hmmm...what a different life from mine they had." And also be amazed that what you knew of the person was a very different view.

Well, that's my random walk of the day. I'm going to exercise and do chores of the domestic variety as well as some financial chores. I may keep up blogging here after the Holidailies rhythm or I may drift into other pursuits. I have several ideas for the long-neglectd Journal of Unintended Consequences, for example.

I Don't Like Cupcakes

Holidailies is over! It's the last day. I wrote an entry for thirty-three days! (When I get this published, but actually I started before that.) Does this feel like an accomplishment? No. I have, some time in the past, written an entry for every day of the year. I did enjoy the structure, the occasional push that a writing prompt gave me and, of course, the gift of other people's writing and ideas. So thanks Jette, thanks Chip. Let's hope we find ourselves doing this again when holidays 2009 roll around.

I'll keep writing, of course. Perhaps with less frequency. I hope to find time to read a bunch of the contributions to Holidailies and give my few readers a few links to interesting things in other peoples' heads. I haven't found enough time to do this reading. And now it's, ugh, tax time and other obligations loom.

[Ed. Note: So what's with the title. And the picture. Cupcakes??? LB: I'm getting to that.]

Today's Holidailies writing prompt is 'Epiphany.' It is Epiphany, a Christian holiday having something to do with the manifestation of Christ in the person of the Magi. Since all the Holidailies writing prompts begin with an initial cap (the site is run by a writer and such things are not sloppily done) it is hard to say if the Christian meaning was intended. In fact, did Holidailies run to Jan. 6 just for this happy coincidence of this writing prompt? Anyway, the word epiphany, initial letter lower case, is where we are going today. To me it's a sudden feeling that makes something (or everything) clear.

I've had a few of these flashes. Hundreds. They are identifiable to me because from that moment forward these realizations changed my perceptions. They didn't necessarily change my behavior, they just provided a lens or filter through which certain things in the future would always be processed.

Cupcakes are all the rage. This happened outside Austin first. I read about cupcake shops in New York City. Then Austin got a cupcake trailer on South Congress and now there is a cupcake shop on Burnet Road. (Its giant cupcake is pictured above. The shop will probably be the Austin, Texas Daily Photo tomorrow.) I did not have an epiphany about cupcakes. Rather it was about a larger class of iced cakes. I don't really like cake. I don't care for a lot of desserts, really. One day I was at one of those office parties and there were some fine cakes, not just sheet cake with sugary icing, but Italian Cream Cake maybe. And as the pieces got passed around I just skipped it. Because I love dip, chips, cheese and a good cobbler. I like pure sugar candy like those little hearts you get at Valentine's with messages on them (like I DIG U). I like coffee ice cream although I don't usually want other flavors. Gelato with a shot of espresso? Yeah!! But one day I realized I didn't care for every dessert. So why eat them? I mean sometimes you are hungry and the only choice is a hamburger or something. But you never have to eat dessert becuase there isn't anything else. After that I usually passed up the cake at office birthday parties. Sometimes I went to the office kitchen and made nachos afterwards. So this isn't a story about beating calories or losing weight. It's a story of learning to embrace and trust what you like.

I've had other epiphanies, too. Most of my life I was trying to get things into this wonderful, impossible static state of neat organization and correctness. This goal did drive me to do things that were good, I suppose. I kept books for FFP's business by hand in ledger books for five years, balancing everything to the penny, for example, and I think that it did help us through those years. We knew what money we had. Back in those days, vendors would give you a discount to pay ten days from billing instead of thirty. We made our margins on these 2% discounts, but you had to keep a tight rein on all the money coming and going. But I digress. I agonized over every decision about how to account for something, every line on a tax return. One day I was working on something and I thought "Well, this could be the way it should be accounted for according to the IRS, I'm not really sure. It isn't a very material amount. Why don't I go with my best guess and, if they want to audit me, they can change it." This was very freeing. And, no, this isn't a story about how I went from there down a slippery slope to running a Ponzi scheme like Madoff. Nope, I just finally gained the perspective to understand that there was black and white but also gray areas. I would just do my best to do things correctly and follow rules. And understand that I might do it wrong. Similarly, I try to keep track of everything, but I realize that things will get lost and misplaced. So be it. I think I just realized that the world is messier and moving faster than I could control. Balancing a set of books to the penny, by hand, month after month, gives you the feeling that you could do everything just right. But it's a false notion.

My last epiphany was much more recent. It concerns my responses to certain people in my life. Not those closest to me, good friends, FFP, parental units. But some people outside that circle. People I'd felt obligations to that were silly. People who were more than capable of taking care of themselves (particularly financially) who imposed these obligations in my head. They weren't trying to control me or ask anything of me. Not really. But I had a flash one day, talking to one of them on the phone that I didn't have to really worry about them, that I was on my own and they would never be there for me in any non-trivial way but on the flip side, they could probably get along fine without my help and I should be worrying more about me and those close to me who did need and deserve my help. It was complicated but very freeing. It didn't really change anything I did. It just changed my feeling about it.

I guess I have these all the time. Flashes of perception that add another nuance to my approach to life. I think today's is this: things get done when the time is right. It was too wet to play tennis today and my plan was to go after tennis to my dad's to take care of some things. So I've blogged, drunk coffee and discussed some financial decisions and movies with FFP. Now it's time to move forward. Do things, however imperfectly, the best I can, when I can, concentrating on the people I should. And not eating cupcakes.

And I leave Holidailies with that, um, wisdom. Thanks for following along.

Feature Creature

Chip at Holidailies brings us today's writing prompt: "The one thing I want for Holidailies 2009 ...." I'm not really going to write about that. Rather I'm going to write about the danger of adding features. Or worse sometimes 'improving' them.

Holidailies is a portal that has code to present a changing view of a group of blogs as people register entries. Or, in the case of Holidailies at Home it is a list of blogs and a randomizer to scan through them. When Holidailies started it is unlikely that the participants were called blogs. But I digress. Chip has created a simple interface. You go there and there is a list of participants on the left, ordered by the number of entries they have made, descending. In the center is a list of entries registered with recent ones at the top. Along the right side is news, info, writing prompts and links to other info, contact and to login (when you do there's a link to post an entry). It's simple and anyone who comes here can set off on a blogland journey knowing they can find some new content.

You could make up new ways that this could work all day long. You could ask that the code automatically find your blog and see that it is updated. Our Austin, Texas daily photo participates in a portal like that (City Daily Photo). While it's nice not to have to post to the portal, posting gives you control over the blog entry presented and when it appears as well as letting you select an excerpt.

You could ask that the code grab picture or allow people to link to pictures and have them show on the portal. But this would interfere with the simplicity of the site and its celebration of words, words as a gift.

You could ask to be able to search the list or order it in different ways. (Fact is, Chip had some ordering options and they gave him trouble with his tools so he wisely simply ditched them.) But ordering by number of posts puts the real Holidailies hot shots near the top and a find on your browser takes care of the rest.

You could ask a lot of things, but be careful if you do. Because change and 'improvement' can slay efficiency and simpliciity.

Since I participate in another portal to blogs as I mentioned, City Daily Photo, I'll mention a bit about how it works. On that blog you don't have to post an entry. The code scans the sites and notes new entries, extracting the one picture (you are only supposed to put up one but really it will get the first in an entry). These can be displayed in the (reverse) order of update. It takes thirty minutes or so for your site to be noted in a regular scan. You can also choose favorites. This portal has been through lots of code changes and hiccups, but its coders have done an equally good job. While the portal behaves very differently it's appropriate to its mission and not too confusing. (That has improved over time.)

Things that are 'coded' are just static because we don't rewrite some lines and replace and integrate. It is so easy to change (not really always, but still) that the tendency is to change the code. Sometimes there are bugs. Sometimes they are very annoying. These things need to be fixed. But whenever we touch code we think we need to improve it. We especially think we need to add features. And sometimes those new features are very cool and useful. But sometimes they just get in the way. And even if a new interface is more 'intuitive' (in someone's opinion), it may be very unintuitive to someone who is used to the old and has the old interface pounded into muscle and visual memory. (We look for things where we expect them and push keys without thinking.) Moving things around is like getting in your car and finding that the controls work differently. Maybe reverse is up instead of down. (My car is a standard shift.) Whether that is better is one thing. Changing in mid-stream is hard.

Another interface I've used lately is Facebook. I keep being drawn in there because a lot of friends are there. They say it is a 'social networking site.' But really it's a portal, too, in the same sense as these others. But the thing seems jumbled to me and I have trouble figuring out what I'm doing. I like seeing things change as people put up statuses, but I think I prefer my dull blogs, completely under my control, which are then registered with portals in a rigorous way. I want to simplify my life, even in cyberspace.

[Today's photo is a reflection in the as-yet-unfinished chocolate shop on Second Street which has, obviously, a mirror inside.]

Nostalgia for a Camera

Yesterday I was writing about how we sometimes want everything new and refreshed if not replaced. But we have a strong nostalgia for the past way of doing things. People collect tintypes and old photos, even if they are of people or places they never knew. People collect LPs, swearing they sound different (or that changing the record is part of the charm or that the cover art and liner notes in that large size are incredible).

It's been all over the news that Polaroid is going to discontinue its instant film. There was a piece in The Times, I think, and one on CBS Sunday Morning today.

I don't even use film these days and I gave away, finally, my Polaroid Automatic 101 camera that I acquired in 1964 or so during the great downsizing of 2008. I used Freecycle to find a camera collector who took some old digital cameras and wrote me about working on them and then I offered that camera to him. He claimed in an e-mail (I never met him) that he fixed a pinhole in the bellows and worked on it.

But Polaroid film and the ownership of that camera (see above picture for one virtually identical being peddled by an ebay trader) had a great influence on my photography vision as well as my relationship to and desire for gadgetry.

Examples of the photography with that camera are in lots of albums I still have and I have scanned quite a few in the service of online journals and blogs like this. as well as to do various family projects. Today, though, I offer the example below. It is a picture of my brother-in-law in 1967. He is smoking a cigarette in my parents' home. He did not yet have children. He was a lieutenant in the Air Force, if I'm not mistaken. I do think there is a difference in the colors, the skin tones especially, in these old prints developed instantly with a package of emulsions given sixty seconds to do their work after being triggered by compression between stainless steel rollers.


That camera! It was top of the line (trimmed with leather and stainless steel). I had two lens adapters with gadgets to put over the viewfinder to make close-ups or portraits. I mostly took portraits of people. Especially after my brother-in-law and sister adopted a daughter in 1968 and my sister had her second daughter in 1970. I wanted the camera for months, maybe a year. I got it while I was still in high school, maybe Christmas 1964. My mother surprised me with it. I think it blew the Christmas budget. (I think it cost about $120 which was real money then.) I had been cadging Green Stamps (remember those) to try to get one. I had, I think, thirteen books of Green Stamps. I think it took forty or fifty to get one. That Christmas my mother convinced me I'd never get enough of these trading stamps. You got them from retailers, mostly the grocery store, and pasted them in books and there was a catalog of gifts you could get. Anyway, she convinced me it was futile and used the stamps to buy other Christmas presents. And she secretly found the money somewhere to give me the camera. I took so many pictures, finding the money somehow for film and those crazy exploding flash bulbs. (The gadgets I got had an extra plastic diffuser for the flash to soften the explosion for close-ups and portraits.)

I used that camera for a good decade, I think. And I knew all the ins and out. I knew to keep the stainless steel rollers clean and I could load film and pop in flash bulbs with my eyes closed. I pulled the film out with a firm, confident motion. I could count to a minute while taking another picture. I deftly folded the emulsion waste and discarded it. (Much later I would use this waste with an artist friend's help to make artsy transfer prints by using the film to take pictures of slides with a gadget that used a similar film.)

I knew that camera and its limitations and mine. I have had six digital cameras (maybe five, but, I think, six). Sure I know a bit about them and have learned to use some editing capabilities on the computer for the resultant pile of pixels. But I never learned all the ins and outs of those cameras. I never coveted owning them like I did that Polaroid 101. I'm not sure what that means, but I think it means that flat packs of magic film and exploding flashbulbs are things I experienced that the young folks can't begin to understand. I think they probably blow through gadgets before they really learn how to use them. Just as I do today. Time is compressed. But nothing can take that memory away and, now that I've floated my brother-in-law's image on the Internet (probably not for the first time) the Polaroid colors and his dream-like smoker's state take on a new life albeit in pixel-land.

[Ed. Note: Tomorrow is the penultimate day of Holidailies and the writing prompt today is "Your favorite Holidailies post(s) this year (yours or someone else's)." Which is a great prompt as is tomorrow's: "The One Thing I Want for Holidailies 2009" and the last day's, appropriately, "Epiphany." I hope that I can write about some of this in the coming days. I need to do some reading before declaring favorite(s) and I need to work on my idea for epipany to make it sound less, um, bitter. As to what I want for Holidailies 2009, well one always fears making a 'feature creature' out of a bit of programming that is pretty great the way it is.]

The Wasteland

This is a picture of a vacant lot in the Rainey Street neighborhood. A careful look (maybe blow it up) shows our building in the distance. There are vacant lots near us, of course. Although about the only one not turned into parking is the one the Feds own for a federal courthouse project, the former site of the infamous Intel Shell. (Your government can hold property, off city tax roles, your money invested without trying to get revenue for you to help pay the national debt. Maybe Obama will build the courthouse as part of his works projects. Maybe he will just build a parking lot and give someone a job running it. But I digress.)

All I'm saying is that the wide sidewalks and trendy shops and cafes in my neighborhood are still a beachhead. While the neighborhood with this debris-strewn lot has fancy condos and apartments and a new Mexican American Cultural Center, it has some unreconstructed, not-yet-gentrified areas including some run-down houses across the street from this lot. Our neighborhood has the decommissioned Seaholm Power Plant and Green Water Treatment Plant that are vacant, waiting a grand mix of homes, shops, hotel, etc. but which for now look like an abandoned industrial wasteland. Near Whole Foods, Book People, GSDM and the Noknonah Condos there is a single, old house with a trampoline and volleyball court out back. I think that is great myself. It is this jumble that makes a place livable to me. In our old neighborhood we had that. Sure, you sometimes wished your messier neighbors would clean up or that certain areas weren't zoned commercial, but then you enjoyed the patina of the neighborhood (and being able to walk to a seedy convenience store and a burger joint).

Cities evolve. Every time I'm in New York, Paris, London, Berlin, etc. I remark on the construction, destruction, the ebb and flow. I can see tall, new buildings rising outside my window but I can walk a few blocks and see a house built over a century ago. I like that.

Some people are saddened by any bit of blight, by anything that isn't brand new or a trendy reuse like Lambert's Fancy Barbecue in the old Schneider Store. That's not me, though. In any urban environment, any place not built from scratch by a developer (ugh), there are grubby bits, older houses or apartments or even vacant lots. Things to contrast with the trendy wide sidewalks of Second Street. (Which, by the way, I do love.) I'm happy, personally, to see things torn down, rebuilt, renewed or, sometimes, just happily decaying, waiting for another day. We have this tendency to think that nothing should ever change, that it should be spruced up or bought new and then remain that way.

The truth is that I even like the look of the wasted lot and the dead tree in its own way.

By the way, yesterday's 'Home Alone' entry was annointed as a 'Best of Holidailies.' I feel very honored since I already received recognition for 'A Long Way from There to Here.' Holidailies has been a good ride of writing for me, I think. Maybe I've cleared some cobwebs and can do some real writing. Or not.

Home Alone

This dark image where I'm barely seen, sort of presented (and protected?) by a mannequin was, I thought, appropriate for the Holidailies writing prompt: "Home Alone".

I haven't spent many holidays alone. I have spent quite a bit of time otherwise alone. Mostly before I married or, during our marriage, on business trips or pleasure trips where I spent some time with friends and some time alone.

But there was one Christmas before I married. I hadn't moved to Austin yet and I lived in an apartment on Abbott Street in Highland Park, a city surrounded by the city of Dallas. It is a fancy pants place to live only I lived in the slums part of it, near a railroad track. (If you are reading this today and know the area and are saying 'huh?' then I'll say the tracks are a hike and bike trail now.)

Anyway, I didn't have vacation to get away with my folks to go see my sister and her small children in Colorado. I think I must have just moved into the apartment. It was furnished so it had a sofa, a dining table and chairs and a bed and dresser. I added some stuff of my own which included at the time, if I'm not mistaken, a desk made from cubes with drawers and open spaces and a large white top. (The cubes have mostly survived and some are storing things in the storage cage here and we painted a few black for incidental uses in the condo.) I mention the desk for later reference. My mom had gone with me to buy it.

So my parents were going to leave and I had to stay and work. I worked a few blocks from the apartment (on McKinney Avenue) and it was a little neighborhood with a grocery store, drug store, bars, a cafeteria, an ice cream store, a furniture store, an army surplus store and a secondhand book store. The year was before 1975 (moved to Austin before Thanksgiving that year) but after 1972. I think I was unemployed the Christmas of 1972, having only recently returned from a vagabond trip to Europe that lasted from Labor Day until the first week of December when, with cold setting in and my Eurailpass expired and the money running out (I'd spent maybe two thousand dollars in three months!), I decided to return. I eventually got a job at a credit insurance company doing programming and after living in a different apartment in the Cedar Springs neighborhood and then with my parents, I'd gotten the apartment on Abbott. So this could have been Christmas 1973. Only ten months on the job, not much vacation.

My parents left town, like I said. I had two aunts who lived in Oak Cliff (a suburb across the Trinity to the south), but they went to West Texas to visit their sisters.

I'm sure I worked most of the days except the actual holiday so it wasn't like I was that alone. My parents and sister had given me presents and said I should open them Christmas morning and call them. I'm sure I'd never been alone on Christmas morning in my life.

I don't remember all the presents, but I remember liking them. Several were on the theme of the 'home office' inspired by me putting together that desk in the apartment. I got a pencil sharpener that you could attach to a surface with a lever-operated suction cup. Remember pencils? Anyway, I liked my presents. Maybe I got a book or two. I remember making a pot of coffee (I used a percolator then) and I had the newspaper (I might have subscribed to the Dallas Morning News at the time). I opened my presents. Gushed about them over the phone to my folks in Colorado. (I don't remember much about the conversation. They were probably caught up in the kids' Christmas becasuse my nieces were five and three that year.)

It felt delicious. I had some new things. This was back when a present could add something to my life. I didn't have that many things yet. I had coffee, the newspaper to read, no demands. I read every word in that edition of the paper, I think. Maybe I sharpened some pencils and wrote something. (If so it is either lost or buried in a box of paper journals I've yet to uncover.)

I don't think I've ever been alone for an entire Thanksgiving or Christmas Day since. I'm not sure about Thanksgiving 1972, but they don't celebrate in Europe in any case and I did have friends there although I also traveled alone quite a lot.

Would I ever want to spend a day entirely alone again? Not really. FFP and I were commenting yesterday about how nice it is to have someone else around. Even if we do things on our own during the day (errands, workout, walk, our obligations to boards and meetings and his interviews) and even if sometimes we are in the condo but on different tracks (he is cooking eggs for himself and I'm blogging right now) there is the feeling that you have someone around and it is nice.

My dad spends whole days alone these days. (Although we'd never let him be entirely alone on a holiday.) He says he doesn't mind it. However, today he found a ride to church to play games and asked me to pick him up after. He's been home alone since Tuesday, I think, when I stopped by to do a couple of things for him.

There are people who prefer to be alone, for sure. I spent many nights alone before and after I married in hotel rooms (or before marriage in apartments), but usually I had some interaction with people during the day. A few times I was by myself among strangers for a few days. But, really, I've rarely been home alone. And I'm not looking forward to a time when that would be a regular thing. But that one Christmas, that one day, with my loved ones far away but represented by presents and their voices? With the coffee and the newspaper and the quiet? That was sort of delicious.

What a Way to Start

The good news about the New Year's Eve celebrations is they are just festive with no gift exchange and religious overtones. The bad news is: what a way to begin a year...with a bang, yes, but drinking and staying up late and then you start the first day of the year getting up late, sort of behind. And then you realize: yikes I can't start the new year on the books without taking care of a couple of things on 2008 and saving some info for the CPA. And then you realize that you have to start taxes and that is so depressing. A friend called to say Happy New Year and said I should be glad I had money to count. Can't you imagine going into tax season as a Madoff investor? You would have horrible tax issues and no money. Or even as Bernie himself. He had to turn over a list of his assets by yesterday to the court. When did you last update your own list of assets? Does it include yachts? Still, it's an excellent exercise.

I wrote the above paragraph earlier. I had some breakfast, read some of the paper. Then I set a timer on my Mac desktop and started working on some year end and month end bookkeeping. I spent about three hours on it. I still have several things I need to do. I wrote them on a little 'to do' list on a Sticky and decided I would do my blog. Holidailies lasts another four days, I believe. So I have to do it. Yeah, not really, but doesn't it make you feel better to know you can do something every day even if it's kind of indulgent? FFP is taking a nap. We slept in this morning a little (9 o'clock it was almost when we finally got up and stayed up). But we were up very, very late. FFP took the picture above on the pool deck last night at midnight when the fireworks over Lady Bird Lake were erupting. We stayed up a while after that visiting with friends. We stayed up a while longer reading. I probably drank too much. Wine and champagne it was.

So, here we are. 2009. I've made the stickies for my promised New Year's Resolution. Which is to spend some time each day doing things that I never get around to. The three hours I spend today on bookkeeping? Doesn't count. It is stuff that eventually gets done and doesn't get shunted aside indefinitely.

I feel like I should go to the gym or go for a walk. I don't think we will go out to eat or go to a movie today. FFP has some writing he has to get done. But we may get cabin fever. (Would that be condo fever?) A walk would probably cure it. Going to the gym doesn't do the trick since it's just across the hall. (Can't go to the club today, even if I thought starting the car was a good idea, because it is closed.) But right now I'm listening to iTunes execute a play list of jazz tunesI made with "Genius" starting with a Roy Hargrove track. I still bridle when Apple uses Genius for people or software, but that's me. (Did anyone see the Simpson's Mapple episode? Loved, loved it. But I digress. But you know me...I think digression is the better part of valor.)

While I was goofing off, FFP got up from his nap. I wish I could nap. I'm not good at it. FFP can doze well in his chair or (as in this case) go to bed and catch some winks. Maybe I'll take a nap today. That would be different.

Well, before I continue too far down the digression path...I want to make a beginning of 2009 comment. I may expand on this in my other blog, The Journal of Unintended Consequences (which has fallen into disuse because it was overwhelmed with material). But I just want to make a list of the things that the press keeps telling me I did in 2008 and prior to that that I did not do.

• I did not run up credit card debt I had no hope of repaying. In fact, I paid cash or charged for thirty days only all year and for lots of years before.
  
• I didn't ignore that I might lose my job and health insurance. Rather I prepared financially to quit my job and buy insurance.
• I did not invest in things that 'looked too good to be true.' (Well, maybe a couple of times, but I knew the risk and it was usually some financial advisor dispensing and drinking the Koolaid.)
• I did not buy a house I couldn't afford with a toxic mortgage with zero down at adjustible rates I didn't understand and then blame someone else when I lost 'my' house. (If I had, though, I would realize it wasn't ever mine! Hell, you don't even own a house you own unless you can pay the tax collector thousands of dollars a year.)
• I did not assume real estate would always go up and buy property to flip.
• I did not gain two pounds. (I have done that, on average, sometimes in the past. I'm pretty sure that I'm pretty much the same as I was last year. Yes, I still could use to lose ten or twenty pounds. Shut up.)
• I did not buy an iPhone or any other smart phone. My phone doesn't take photos even. It is seven (more?) years old. But it works and the (original) battery still takes a charge and has good life.
• I did not cut back on eating out. And, contrary to the wisdom I heard on TV today I'm not going to start packing a lunch to go to work because I don't work. On the other hand I won't be saving money by not buying lattes. I don't buy lattes. I drink coffee out sometimes, but it's usually a brew, French press or an Americana or espresso. Mostly I drink many cups from my expensive Capresso machine at home.
  

I often look at the world and wonder what kind of place it would be if everyone were a little more like me. It isn't a pretty picture, in some cases. But it would be a world without Golden Arches. Or Starbucks. I'm just saying. And there wouldn't be an ARM.

So I'm tired of hearing 'it's our own fault' and stuff like that. Speak for yourself, journalist person.

Well, that's all. I'm going to the gym. Then I'm having a shower. Maybe a walk after that. Maybe I'll read a book. Hope you have a nice holiday and that your hangover yields as easily as mine did if you have one.

Wrapping Things Up

It's the last day of the year. I need to take care of the resolution thing. I need to talk about the movies I've seen. That way, tomorrow, I can start fresh. Maybe I'll write another paragraph of the novel tomorrow. I just reread the first three paragraphs (buried in those entries) and see clumsy writing that needs some tuning. I have decided what time of year it is, though. It is October. It is October because, in my head, another character appeared and he needed to have a certain kind of jacket. In Austin, in October, there's a good chance you wouldn't need one but in New York or Germany maybe so. I don't know what this character is doing. Maybe just satisfying my need to articulate my perception of the way certain people dress in Europe.

The Resolution Thing
What are resolutions, after all, except a commitment to concentrate some of your precious time on something that you care about? We do that every day (spend our time) whether it's by taking care of domestic chores for our family, going out to exercise, shooting pictures, preparing a healthy meal, reading, writing, etc. What I seem to do is (1) fritter away time without knowing where it goes; and (2) leave some things hanging that I care about, never spending time on them. So a couple of days ago I thought "I'm going to resolve to spend thirty minutes a day on things around here that I want to work on and two hours a week on stuff at Dad's to help him and straighten out things around his house." I'm not counting the things that have to be done. Taxes, accounting tasks, making the bed, general everyday tidying up (as opposed to, you know, actually cleaning the bathroom or something). Although I'm swithering about whether to include cleaning (as opposed to cleaning out as in "I cleaned out the closet.")

Anyway, I'm thinking that I'll keep some Stickie notes (probably virtual ones on my computer) and I'll put things I want to do on there, things I want to spend time on. I might have a ten minute list, a thirty minute list, an hour list. (See my 'system' always goes from simple to very complicated in a heartbeat. I hate that.)

After I thought this up I was flipping through an advertising magazine Costco sends which has some trumped up content to go with the selling. The title of an article was "Instant Resolutions Improve your life, in 1o minutes or less." Yeah, ahem. The idea is that it doesn't take that much time to move toward your goals. The ideas center around things that you can do that take ten minutes or less and help you with resolutions like save money (take ten minutes to make a lunch), go green (if it takes less than ten minutes on foot, walk) and get organized (leave everything a little better than you find it...straighten a drawer when you open it).

Yeah, well just thinking about the resolution thing has made me tired and harried and saying to myself "you (me) can't tell me what to do!"

Anyway, we'll see. I'll probably create the Stickie notes and then lose track of them. They will have dull-sounding tasks.

The Movies
I'm not much of a movie critic. Sometimes I don't even know if I like a movie until later. Sometimes I have to see a movie a couple of times to appreciate aspects of it. Maybe I should resolve to become a better movie critic. I know, I know, I volunteer to screen films for a festival but, really, at the level where I work it is really "sucks majorly," "interesting," and "wow, this one really, really doesn't suck." And not many fall into the third pile. I mean I'm just a 'screener' which means lay eyes on it, rate it in some categories, see if the disk works, etc.

Anyway, we saw "Milk." Now here's what those of us who remember Harvey Milk at all who aren't gay activists of a certain age and locale probably remember: He was a gay supervisor (sort of like a councilman in other cities, I think) and another supervisor, Dan White, shot and killed him and the mayor. Oh, and Dan was high on Twinkies according to his brilliant lawyer who mitigated his charges with that defense. That was me anyway. So how to tell the story? Acknowledge that straightaway. Then give us the story of Harvey and those around him and show us why it is more important than the Twinkie defense. Show how he got to that point and what it means. Oh, and get Sean Penn to channel the guy completely and convincingly. (I also thought that the other characters really looked like their real-life counterparts although whether they were portraying them as accurately as Sean seemed to be doing for Milk is hard to say. There are more images of Milk. And, really, maybe I digress, but maybe Sean wasn't really that much like the real Harvey Milk, but he convinced us that he was. And digressing further, don't you think that Sean and Philip Seymour Hoffman should just flip for the Oscar every year for a while?)

So, yes, they wound the story back to Harvey deciding, influenced by a young lover, to come to California. And they show him opening a camera store, trying to be a good neighbor, an activist. Then they show him losing like a dozen elections. Well, maybe three or four or something. Losing, losing, losing. They spend a lot of time on Prop 6. Think Prop 8, but instead of not being allowed to marry, you will be ferreted out and your job will be taken away. Only they can't explain what the 'test' for homosexuality will be. Think we haven't come a long way? (And, yes, there's a long way to go.) That fight is won, however. There are some new district lines. (Gerrymandering? Accident?) Maybe some new rules. (Austin elects council members at large with a 'Gentlemen's' (and ladies) agreement to put only Hispanics up for one and only black for another. I'm totally serious. It's bizarre. But I digress.) Anyway, Milk finally wins office. He's trying to be political, court Dan White but not sell his vote on stupid things. Dan White resigns. (I didn't know that. He resigned. He wanted to rescind it. Moscone wasn't going to let him.) So, he shoots Moscone and Milk. Dan White was a psycho. He's was played perfectly by Josh Brolin who did, in my humble opinion, a so-so job of George W. in "W," Oliver Stone's ridiculous biopic reviewed earlier in this space.

I haven't captured how good this movie is, really. It carefully peoples Milk's world with his lovers (who help show both his strengths and weakness) and co-activists and ordinary other folkds and articulates his influence in a convincing and careful way. It captures an era as well as a man. Go see it.

We also saw "Slumdog Millionaire." This movie is about the joy of overcoming adversity and the embarrassingly random things in life that surround our sordid world. You all have probably heard that the protagonist is on this Indian version of "Who Wants to be A Millionaire." That is the hook to tell his story. The questions and answers relate to his life in that way that makes things seem ordained. But you aren't meant to really buy into the game, particularly. You are meant to see the slums of India, roaming orphans, terrible gangsters, the power of love. When it ends, you are meant to wink a little, shed a tear and dance like a Bollywooder. It was fun although tragic. Not everything will be lovely in life and few slumdogs will win a quiz show, let alone get on one in the first place. Never mind. Love and the indefatigable human spirit triumph.

See both the above movies. Regardless of my weird reviews. (Hope their weren't any spoilers in that last one. It's impossible to spoiler a biopic, isn't it?)

Last night we saw "The Wizard of Oz" at the Alamo only the sound track was Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon. " Dark Side of the Rainbow, they call it. Supposedly the music makes a good sound track for the movie with a lot of synchronicity. (Like "Listen son, said the man with gun..." Scarecrow has a gun.) I didn't drink or drug while watching. It was a trip, though.

I still want to see "Gran Torino" and "Doubt." Maybe "Benjamin Button." Probably "Frost/Nixon." Don't know when I'll get around to all that. We have tix to see a documentary Sunday called "Trinidad" about the town in Colorado that became a major center for transgender surgery.

It is time, however, to do something with my day besides blog. To do something besides think about what I've done and what I'm going to do.

Resolution Revolution

This time of year (meaning the time between Christmas and New Year's Day) my mind turns to resolutions. I'm often energized by this, thinking how resolving and then keeping the resolutions faithfully can make positive changes for me. Other times I think about resolutions past, kept briefly and flung aside. The truth is that I prefer to do things when I'm good and ready or not at all.

So I wrote the paragraph above and then drifted off into old journals looking at old resolution lists and comments about same. I'm none the wiser on the matter, but I have wasted an hour. Well, maybe I stopped to read some other people's journals. Anyway.

I've made lots of resolutions in the past although last year I bailed and said that the year was going to make its own demands for downsizing, organizing, moving. And it did. The year before I recycled resolutions past. Just like stars sometimes coincidentally line up, sometimes you make a resolution and voilà success is thine. I point to the last day of 2002. I weighed 177 pounds. (I recorded my weight at the bottom of my journal then so as not to attract notice but make a record for myself.) I was off of my peak weight by about five pounds since I'd retired a few months before. Topping a long list of resolutions was this: "Lose five pounds. [This is an easy goal, it would seem. The spam says '32 pounds in three weeks' or '12.5 pounds in three days' but, no, my goal is to lose five more pounds and stay there.]" On May 21 of 2003, I reported "I'm at about 165. So I continue to hear lower weights from the scale. Ever so slowly. Maybe I can at least keep off these fifteen pounds I've lost over the last eight months. More importantly I'm feeling better and my joints are feeling much better." After I wrote that, I continued to lose weight then bounced up some and settled in to a weight just below 165 where I remain today. But it was a miracle. I'd resolved to lose five pounds, exercise and eat more healthily time and again. The resolving didn't have anything to do with it. Rather it was a confluence of a real desire to exercise and the time to do it.

Yes, I've made many resolutions. From drinking more water to standbys like writing, organizing, cleaning. From the puzzling (learn to play Bridge, ride the bus and write about it) to the altruistic (find an appropriate volunteer activity) to the boring (learn more about photography, read more books, learn Windows programming). But what good have they done me? Not much.

So, I think I'll take a different approach this year. I'm still formulating it, but it's going to take the form of a general commitment and a protean list. More tomorrow.

[I'll not be making a resolution about doing more shop window pictures nor doing more to make them an 'art.' They take care of themselves, don't they? Today's was taken in the shopping center with Alamo South at a place called, I think, Let's Dish. They have great windows. We walked down there to see a movie. "Slumdog Millionaire" to be exact. I'll do a movie review entry before Holidailies is over. Really.]

Vaguely Understood

Today we attacked a couple of issues around the house. Just little things. We accomplished nothing, made things worse and pissed ourselves and others off. We only vaguely understand how mechanical things and such work, sadly. Customer service is dead in America. Billing is all that people understand. Other than that I think we are going to have a great day. We are going to see a movie. We are walking to the movies. I think I'm going to work out first. Just a short bit of the bike and weights. But only if I hurry and do this entry and do that and get a shower. So...that's all folks!

Looking for Dad

This is my mom and dad. They are looking out over Grand Canyon, I think. (Only they are looking back at the camera.) I don't think I was with them. I think my sister and I saw the Grand Canyon, alone, perhaps this same summer. Not really sure, however. I think my dad is around fifty here, maybe.

This morning I got up a little late, around eight. I made my morning call to him. No answer. Tried again a few times. No answer.

My dad has a Lifeline button. I shouldn't worry. Maybe someone took him to early church service. He doesn't have a car because, if you are a close reader, his was totaled a couple of weeks ago.

One can't help worrying even though one knows it's nothing. One knows there is a 99.9% chance someone drove him to church. Still.

FFP says we should go out there and check. We do. We don't rush but we get dressed and drive out there. He isn't home, of course. His Sunday paper is arrayed around his chair. He hadn't written today's date on his drug list in the bathroom, but, yes, obviously he has gotten a ride and gone to church. In fact, maybe he has the date wrong and did write in there.

We went to Waterloo Ice House on Burnet and had breakfast. In order to make use of having gotten the car out, we called FFP's mom and got a grocery list and went to the store and got here some stuff and bought bananas, coffee, yogurt and laundry soap for ourselves.

I knew I could have ignored not getting to talk to him this morning, but we are a little paranoid about that after the 2006 death of one of our friends after she lay alone in her house for days after a massive stroke. We take our charge to check up on people seriously now.

I think the picture is funny with Dad barely captured by whoever took the picture. Dad was always disappearing. He worked weird hours and then, when he retired, piddled with a flea market stand and helping some guy who bought and sold cars. My whole life as a youngster, my mom was wondering where Dad was. He'd go off with friends on some errand after work. Maybe he was off drinking or just helping fix a car. Often he was doing a favor for a friend. But he never felt obligated to let folks know where he was, particularly, and it made my mother crazy. And it bugged us if we were hoping he'd come home for some reason. (He always seemed to take a shift at the hospital where he was an attendant on Christmas Day and we'd have to wait until he came home to open presents.) Now I have to worry about him, but he can't get far away. I have to be more responsible than he sometimes was and remember his appointments and see that he gets what he needs. He still wants to be the independent, capable middle-aged man in this picture. But he is not. Indeed, I'm about fifteen years older than my mother was in this picture if I'm not mistaken. In ways he is more responsible than when he was younger perhaps because he has to be.

Just before posting this I looked to see what the Holidailies writing prompt was. "Never mind your chronological age: how old do you feel?" Ah, yes. Am I sixty? Am I sixteen? Am I drug up (or it that down) to the parental level...do I really feel like ninety? Hard to say. Maybe I should make a New Year's Resolution to feel younger.

Every Day Brings Its Surprise

On the day before Christmas Eve, I went to bed late and didn't sleep well. So Christmas Eve morning at seven I was still slugging the bed (a family term around here for doing pillow time when it's light and other people are up) and FFP said I should look at the sky. It did look a bit strange. I got up and FFP shot some pictures of it with me directing him to some settings on the point and shoot that might help. It was a strange sky indeed. And that day's little surprise. Right now, as I type this sentence the wind whips up and the sky darkens as a new front moves through. The pundits (the weathermen that is) thought it would be here a bit earlier. I wasn't confident I'd get to play tennis but I did as the sky was covered and uncovered with clouds and the wind whipped through then lay back. I enjoyed playing. No suprise there. Although I was playing with a sore toe. Stubbed it last night on something. It's not swollen though, but it's tender. It surprised me when I stubbed it and I almost feel down landing instead in my chair. Yes, I'd had a few drinks. Shut up.

On Christmas Eve, it didn't feel festive. The annual Christmas party at the Headliners Club (our first one), almost picked me up the day before. I wore my decades-old red blazer and red socks. I posed FFP with Christmas decor in the building. I drank two Bloody Marys (the drinks are free at their annual party, no wonder it's so popular). I was going to go out by myself in the evening, but I ended up driving FFP to the Long Center for Mother Ginger wrangling and then I thought I shouldn't drink so I could go pick him up if needed. (He walked home, though.) And I started doing laundry and watching TV and just stayed home. But staying home in my undecorated house was not festive.

We went out with our friends on Christmas Eve. It was a long, fun evening. I met some new people including a young lady about to graduate and go to medical school and a teacher who was trying to teach her dog to skateboard. We had a New Zealand dinner, complete with wines. Someone bought champagne and cheese plates to kick it off. We had crackers (those popping novelties with toys inside that British people like) and tried to play with the toys inside and wore the paper hats, too. Then we all went to a large apartment near our building and had a White Elephant (Yankee Exchange/Chinese Exchange) of wrapped Christmas ornaments. And drank champagne and had more desserts. The place was decorated, but at the end of the evening my festive quotient still was a little low.

Our Christmas was very slow. We took FFP's parents to Threadgill's which was beyond packed. We got there early enough to get a table and got them fed, though, and went back and unwrapped presents with them. They had money in cards for us but had temporarily forgotten where they put them. Finally FFP said "Did you put them in a drawer?" His mother went to the bedroom and found where she'd stashed them. Because my dad didn't feel like getting out we took him his presents and visited with him a short time. I called in a prescription for him to the automated renewal thing. He was feeling better but we didn't stick around long. The outing with FFP's parents wore us out. We went back to the condo and I don't think we left except maybe to go across the hall to the gym. We washed towels and we watched a DVD from Netflix and sports on TV. I liked the movie ("Heights" with Glenn Close but written and directed by this guy Chris Terrio whom I never heard of). I enjoyed sitting around reading the papers and drinking coffee. I worked some crosswords since FFP gave me some puzzle books for Christmas.

We spent a good part of the day after Christmas doing stuff for my dad. He wanted to be driven to church to play games and to a friend's house for leftovers. We picked up his prescription and we took him to do the paperwork and turn in stuff to get a check from his insurance company for his van that got totaled. I wasn't going to burden FFP with it, but he went along with it. We got his car washed and wandered Barnes and Noble and such while Dad was playing games at church. In the evening we had a dinner date but it got canceled, so we went to Taste and had snacks and drinks and then went to the Alamo Ritz and saw "Milk." (Wow. Good movie.) It's been so long since we found time and actually got ourselves off to see a movie that it kind of surprised me that we were doing it. But the canceled dinner date pushed me and I bought the tickets online so as to push myself a bit more. We don't even get that many Netflix watched.

So, here I am, rambling to say something so I'll have another Holidailies entry. I'm cool so far with the count. Why is it that I can resolve to do something like blog every day and actually do it, but when it comes to more important things, no? I am going to make two and only two resolutions for 2009. (More on that later in another entry.)

You've Got Mail!

So one thing I do like about the holidays...is???? Exchanging cards. Even if it's just a note in a e-mail (no e-cards, please, and not a 2M file in my in box either) that you donated to the Heifer fund and verifying your contact info, I think the annual 'ping' to say "We're here, how 'bout you?" is an excellent thing.

In the past I've done extensive 'research' into the cards we received. (That's ours for this year above even though I showed it in a prior entry. There aren't many rules here in Visible Woman land.)

This year, though, I've just made three stacks on my desk after pickiing up today's mail. (Which did include a few late entries. I'm sure a few more will straggle in and some will claim New Year's Day or even Chinese New Year.)

Anyway. Pile 1. Photos of the family. Twenty-seven. Kids, grandkids, dogs, vacation shots, sports shots. Babies looking cute. And two prize fish and a cow. (The latter because the lady of the house got a bovine pericardial valve.) One of our brokers sent his annual picture of him on the phone at various locales. Which is funny, because that guy is hard to get off the phone. Enjoyed them.

Pile 2. Cards. Forty-nine. Animals, snowmen, trees, ornaments, doves, other birds, earth upon which peace is wished; Santa, holly, flamingo with Santa hat; cats, dogs; wreaths, a martini glass full of cherries or is it holly berries?; an Ansel Adams tree in the snow. No dups this year. Lots of fun variety. Top five honors to (5) Jody Conradt silhouetted with a Texas Tower and fireworks (although since I recognized the back of her head...maybe this should have been in the photos pile); (4) Santa golfing, but really a winner because inside was an actual almost letter in long hand, remember longhand? from a friend in South Africa and the two pretty fish and the elephant on the stamps...that's the only envelope I saved after database update; (3) Santa holding a string of lights that you can push a button and light up x times (it's still working...I've been judicious pushing though); (2) the martini glass with the...maybe they are holly berries, a winner because it's such a cheery card emphasizing drinking and it made good use of silver embossing to make it look like a glass with liquid and because it was from new friends who really know how to throw a party; and the number one card (1) , winning because of the total audacity of it....the Last Supper with a bubble with Jesus saying 'You're All Fired.' I'm so thrilled I know someone who would send that to me!

Pile 3. A letter to all reprising your year. Ten. My favorite is always from an old work buddy who has some pretty cool kids and a wonderful, interesting wife and a way of making this annual wrap-up amusing, but he was given a run for his money by friends in Vancouver, WA. Yeah, I usually read all these to the end. Noticed that there were invitations to visit Hawaii and Omaha. Do people drop these invites figuring no one is still reading at the end?

Anyway, there you have it. I enjoyed sending cards and all the cards, letters and photos received. Sure, they are going to have to get tossed shortly (no room to save them for years like I sometimes did in the house). But it was fun and the best part of the holiday for me. So if you sent something or wrote an e-mail for an update, thanks a bunch. If you didn't, that's fine, too. If I sent you a card, you're welcome. If I didn't, sorry you aren't in the database.

Happy Holidays!

Enough With the Holidays

OK, it's Christmas. I'm resurrecting an entry I started last Friday (the 19th) and abandoned because it was too down. When I was writing the paragraphs below Christmas was less than a week away.

So here we go. This is what I wrote last Friday. I'll quote it and then continue.

A lot of the writing prompts at Holidailies have been about, well, the Holidays. Understandable, I suppose given its seasonal nature.

Enough with the holidays, though. Christmas is less than a week away. Yes, next Thursday is Christmas. And then there is New Year's Eve. We don't have a plan yet for New Year's Eve. We may watch the downtown festivities from our tenth floor balcony.

Today's reflection, showing me still in sweats from a tennis game in the cold and holding a bundle (Texas pecans bought at the Farmer's market) makes me look like a homeless person. The reflection is in a design shop called Kirk (only one or more letters is reversed or something) and the white things are rubber trinkets on a tree. The peace symbol. Yeah. The guns and bombs? (I'm assuming, the bomb like thing could also be something else.) Those aren't so festive.

I'm not homeless. Far, far from it. It must be pretty horrible to face the holidays without necessities like a roof, let alone money for festivity. And here I sit, with two Action packers full of decoration (one entirely filled with bendable, posable figures of Santas and such) locked away in the storage cage. I'm not feeling it, I have to tell you.

Today I'm going to buy a few presents. Perhaps. I'm going to exercise, read the paper, get outside and walk. I have a pretty free day and I'm retired and we may survive the financial crisis. The old folks are snug at home. My dad had a great adventure with a friend who was visiting yesterday and may have to 'rest up.' FFP stocked his parents' pantry yesterday. All should be right with them for a day. I can spend the day however I like.

Why don't I feel more excited about it? What is dragging me down?

Well, it's nothing I can put my finger on so I'm going to just blast on through it and embrace the day. The fog is burning off outside and maybe it will burn off in my brain soon enough.

And here are some more paragraphs I ditched yesterday (and started a completely new entry):

It's Christmas Eve. It doesn't feel like it to me. I have a few presents piled on the desk in the living room, no other decorations. I've been taking FFP's picture in front of decorations at other places. Yesterday we went to the annual party at the Headliners Club. I posed him in front of one of their trees and in front of the tree in the lobby of the Chase building. I haven't co-oped any Christmas spirit, however.

A few things are bothering me. I could articulate them in this space, but I'd rather not. Because by the time I did then the things bothering me would morph, I think. It's those sorts of things.

We are going out tonight with friends and spending tomorrow with our parents. The friends are going to be festive, I think. Most of them. It's a large group. Our parents will not make me feel more festive. Entertaining them isn't too bad, but it makes me feel old. I have been telling people that when we get together with them the average age is 80. It's true, too. The total age among us is 400 exactly at this moment.

When people ask us what we are going to do for Christmas, I say we are taking our parents to Threadgill's for a meal. Some are shocked. Some think it's a great idea. I mention what a production it is to get them all in and out of cars and into the restaurant and get the food ordered. Often they say, "But you are so lucky to still have them."

Perhaps these people are missing their own parents. If they saw their parents suffer old age, time has softened that. I have one friend, fifteen years older than I am, whose mother is still alive. She is 106. She is in a nursing home. I think she is officially on hospice care. Perhaps has been for years. My friend is still in good health (plays tennis amazingly well) although she has some complaints. Occasionally the doctors think her mother is at the end of her life. Then she rallies. Perhaps, after all, living well isn't the best revenge. Perhaps living long is the best revenge. But you have to have some children (preferably daughters or daughters-in-law statistically) to exact the revenge from!

Yeah, so. I haven't been feeling the holidays. My old relatives filter it for me and, while they (or us as people would have it) are lucky to be doing as well as they are, life with them is covered with a constant layer of infirmity. Their minds are sharp, but they still repeat themselves. My dad can't quite deliver the punch lines of his many jokes like he once could. The things they are interested in and capable of doing are boring for us. This morning my dad informed me that his blood pressure took a drop and it took him a while before he was able to go to the curb for his paper. (He takes medicine to lower the blood pressure and sometimes it works too well.) He doesn't want to go on an outing today to lunch. He recently had a car accident and the insurance company has decided to total the car. He wants me to help with the paperwork. He also wants to buy another car. But he has already restricted his driving to day time and certain places. I think cabs and/or paying someone to drive him is more reasonable. I will be driving him more places, at least in the short term.

When people say how lucky we are to still have parents, I think of how I miss my mother sometimes and agree. But sometimes I think, "Well, you can take a turn doing their errands and explaining things in our modern world to them and worrying about their future. No problem. We'll spread the luck around." I think I know how people with children feel. How our own parents were feeling when we were young, needed help. But they had the hope that we would grow up. The only thing we can hope for is that we stay healthy enough to help them and that they stay reasonably happy and pain-free until the end.

Yeah, it's hard to be festive and that's why stuff like the above accumulates in my unpublished blog entries. But I must shower. Because I think that FFP's parents still want to go out to lunch. And I don't think we've gotten them out of the house since Thanksgiving. And I need to take my dad his presents. And see about the paperwork on his car wreck. And see whether his episode this morning is anything to worry about.

I'll leave it to you, dear readers, especially those who still have kids who are visited by Mr. Claus and those who have sincere religious feelings for the day, to feel festive.

In Case of Christmas Emergency-Break Glass

I'm not in the spirit of the season. Today's Holidailies prompt is "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."

Yeah, so how do you fight it off? I've started another entry with a photo of the morning sky and devolved into such a funk that I ditched it, picture and all. (I'll get back to that.) I took this picture on the Capitol Metro train the other day. It's one of those escape tools, behind glass.

So, what's bothering me?

And how to break out of it?

Some would say I should go help others. But I know that I don't do well in direct contact with those in need. It's hard enough for me to help the parental units and friends in person. My money will have to suffice.

Some would say I just need to be thankful for what I have. A nice place to live; plenty of money for the lifestyle we lead (moderate to profligate); parental units still (somewhat) able to go it alone and cognizant of what is going on. I have my health, a good Internet connection and plenty to read. Yeah, I'm thankful. So?

Some would say I need to embrace (their) religion. Easier said than done.

Some would say I need to 'get professional help.'

My experience, however, is that one just keeps on getting up, doing stuff and pretending to be festive and the mood will change. Maybe I won't feel festive for the actual holidays. Maybe my mood will improve for...President's Day and the tax season. That could be useful.

Seeking the Cinnamon Roll

These cinnamon rolls were at the Farmer's Market on Saturday. They looked close enough to my grandmother's that I bought one. The guy helping me at the empanada stall that sold them ask if I wanted frosting. "No, I thought, we never had frosting." "No," I said. I heated the thing up in my microwave and ate it. It was good. It was closer to Deedy's (that was our nickname for my maternal grandmother) than, say, store-bought one or the ones that Upper Crust (I love them, but not for this) purvey around town that somehow contain so much butter or something that we call them 'gut bombs.'

But this one, enjoyable though it was, was not like my grandmother's offerings. Maybe it was all in the dough recipe. She made these transcendental homemade rolls for holidays. She made a traditional yeast rising dough. (Left to warm and rise on the part of the stove where the pilot light was, remember those? With a dish towel over the bowl.) And she made dozens and dozens of rolls from the dough. They tasted sweet themselves as yeast rolls will. (Come to think of it, no one comes close to her recipe on those either, not even Threadgill's whose giant yeast rolls have to be seen to be believed and taste sweet in that yeasty way.)

I think my grandmother made rolls often, eschewing the 'brown and serve' ones at the store that my busy mother resorted to serving. (Not that Deedy wasn't busy. She had her elderly husband to care for, her chickens, babysitting us, babysitting other peoples' kids, making clothes for half the town, all that scratch cooking to do for all of us.)

But at holidays? She set aside some dough. Put butter, sugar and cinnamon between layers and rolled out cinnamon rolls that came out as big flat wheels of delight, just cooked enough, just doughy enough, especially in the center. We ate so many (and the rolls, too, sopping the homemade turkey giblet gravy off our plates) that I don't know how we arrived at adulthood as fairly skinny kids. (Yeah, later I gained weight easily. I'm wearing one of the rolls above now!)

I remember one Christmas when my cousins and I were watching her make the cinnamon rolls and clamoring for more of the butter, sugar and cinnamon. But she just smiled and ignored us.

One year I decided I would learn to make these rolls from the master. I never did, of course. Baking is the worst of cooking for me because of the accuracy required. I don't have the patience and concentration. From this session when I tried to learn, I remember only one thing. When she added the yeast to the warm water she 'hid' it. She almost filled a measuring cup with some flour and then put the yeast there and put a bit more flour in. This she added to the warm water.

"Why do you hide the yeast in the flour?" I asked.

"My mother always did," she said.

Of course, yeast is delicate. If the water was too warm, it would kill it before it could do its work. The flour coat meant that there was more margin for error in the warm water, I think. The science of baking is interesting. But like I said, I didn't and don't have the patience.

My mom and my sister both actually made rolls and cinnamon rolls and used the time-honored recipe from Deedy for a while. Then I think they switched to something easier. And they stopped making the cinnamon rolls. And then Mom died and my sister became disabled and I doubt she attempts it now. And, really, it was good but never quite the same.

During holidays of old, the presents sometimes were a disappointment and sometimes Dad wasn't there because he was working, but Deedy usually cooked the perfect meal that was everything I wanted. Turkey (I was a white meat kid, then), homemade cornbread dressing, homemade giblet gravy, those rolls, those cinnamon rolls. I'm sure there was an array of things I avoided like green beans or cranberry sauce or salads, too. (I was a picky eater as a child.)

Oh, those cinnamon rolls. Never to be duplicated. Even if the same recipe was scrupulously followed by someone, it would, of course, never be the same.

It's a Wonderful Life

Did I mention that I saw this radio play of "It's a Wonderful Life" over at the theater at Penn Field (Austin Playhouse King Stage) Saturday night? It is the story of George Bailey but done as if six actors were performing it as a radio play in the 1940's. They took on multiple characters (Mr. Potter is also one of George Bailey's kids, not to mention the head Angel, helping Clarence!) The cast did the sound effects like on old radio. Its run is finished now so this isn't a review. (In fact, it wasn't on my radar until one of the gals I was going out with on Saturday suggested it and found that they did have a few tickets for that performance.)

Anyway, I like that story because I'm rather fascinated by the way chance and actions conspire to make life what it is. The premise of "It's a Wonderful Life" is not that George Bailey has a great life. He really doesn't. His dreams were thwarted. (Oh, you might count the wife and kids in the drafty house as a great life, but that's you.) No, to me, the fascinating premise is that George gets to see the world with him erased, as if nothing changed except that one little thing never happened: the accident of his father's particular sperm and his mother's particular egg getting joined. He doesn't see the aftermath if he succeeds in jumping off the bridge and drowning. No. He gets to see the world truly without him.

Just as an aside, before I continue, there was an article in The New York Times this week about the movie and one man's experience with it. There is a funny bit in there theorizing that maybe life would have been more wonderful without George.

So. Have you ever thought about that? What if you hadn't been conceived? You weren't an aborted fetus or a baby or child killed in a tragic accident. You just were not there, never thought of, literally never conceived.

It does change things, doesn't it? Maybe my parents wouldn't have had a second child. If my sister was their only child, things would have been different all along the way. Maybe my mother would have gone back to school four or five years earlier when my sister started school instead of when I did. They could have given my sister more things and avoiding sending a second kid to college, gotten financially solvent sooner.

When my parents grew old, however, and their support system in North Texas was disappearing, they wouldn't have moved to Austin to be near the baby child and get some help from her. They might have moved to be near my sister in Colorado, but I doubt it. My sister had a cerebral aneurysm rupture in 1998. At that point I bet they would still have hoped that my brother-in-law would retire and he and my sister would move to Texas. My sister had a long recovery and many set-backs. She can do many things but she is handicapped by the hemorrhagic stroke and the other strokes that followed. The first time my parents visited her, in March 1999 in rehab in Denver, I took them there, worried about them being in the snow and ice. They might have tried to move there all the same. My sister had children and, starting in 2000, grandchildren there. My mother would still have had Multiple Myeloma, I suppose, and I suppose it would have been eventually diagnosed. Certainly she would probably still have died in 2002. Although one never knows.

So I see my Dad. Alone in that house in the Dallas suburb? Moved to Colorado where the thin air bothered his breathing after a few weeks? But, who knows, maybe better off. Maybe without the burden of another kid, my parents would be strong and vigorous and both still alive. Who's to say?

The other close to home thing is wondering what my husband of thirty-plus years would be doing. He says if he hadn't found me he would have never married. But I wonder. He might not have started his business less than a year after we married if he hadn't had a partner to pay bills. He might not have been there to take a call from a young man at UT selling gray market IBM PCs and do advertising for him as his business morphed into a build-to-order and sell direct PC firm. I'm betting that he wouldn't have bought a bigger house that same year he started the business. He might not have purchased a building to run his agency during the Dell era. The doctor who now owns that building and the house we bought that year would probably have put his practice some other place.

I wonder if the man who never met me because I didn't exist would have ended up in a condo downtown. My bet is that he would have married someone else who was smart and driven but wanted children and ended up in Tarrytown with some way too intelligent smart ass kids that he nevertheless loved unmercifully. Or maybe he would have left the company where we met, but not started an ad agency in Austin and, instead, moved to some other city. As an only child he would be looking back to Austin at his very elderly parents and trying to see that they were all right from a distance.

Then there are the jobs I had. I wouldn't have been there to write certain lines of code, to create certain bugs and avoid or fix others. I wouldn't have been there to think up software ideas or squash others' visions. It would have been different. Better? Worse? Barely noticeable? Hard to say.

I don't really think the world would be that different without me especially once you move out of a pretty tight circle around me. But little things would be different. There would be one less site on Holidailies. (Or more spookily someone else doing a site called Visible Woman! But that would be an entirely different site anyway.)

Well, um, that was an instructive line of thought. But since I do exist I have to clean the condo and go have lunch and dinner with friends who would be doing something else today. In fact, one of them would probably not live in Austin if we hadn't met forty years ago or so. So they'd be doing something someplace else. We are having lunch with Dad who wouldn't live in Austin. Whoa, it's just too weird.

Do You See What I See?

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Of course not. Beyond the obvious religious implications (only a certain number of people acknowledge the star of Bethlehem, the Christ child and such), we don't see or hear (or for that matter know, as in the third verse of that carol) what others do. We are in a different spot with different sensory tools. Our brains are wired to interpret things in certain ways.

This shop window reflection looks almost bucolic because some growing thing (I'm not sure if it was a tree inside or on the sidewalk) imposes its random pattern. But it was taken on the decidedly industrial turned bar Fourth Street in the Warehouse District. The Christmas Balls (and the sign which says 'Please Present ID on Entry') are at Oil Can Harry's bar, one of the most venerable gay bars around.

I see me, hiding behind a camera and a pink cap. Has it occurred to anyone else that these images of me, reflected in reverse and often obscured remind one of identifying bank robbers in disguises. (I almost said in 'costumes.' Isn't it interesting that costumes and disguises can be the same thing, with different intention?)

Anyway. I digress. This isn't about crimes or even me and my reflection. Except to say that not everyone is seeing, hearing and knowing the same thing.

Living downtown has reminded me over and over of the mathematical reality that a very large building can completely disappear behind a shorter, closer building. This phenomena of disappearing and reappearing makes walking and driving around a city so interesting and, let's face it, a bit disorienting. I can be very close to a forty story building but not be able to see it because of my distance and position from a much shorter building. Yeah, every fifth grader knows this. Still, the fact of it is shocking sometimes.

Another interesting perspective is how two people can sit in the same room and experience completely different things. Of course, if they are reading a book or newspaper, there is that. Worse, if they are both reading and writing on the vast plain of cyberspace, they can be in a different world. FFP reads the Drudge Report and sends pictures of Mother Ginger VIPs to people while I write to you, dear readers, and look up the mathematics of perspective and prowl Holidailies for new thoughts. I've been over here trying to fix little problems in my Windows XP under VMware. I'm surfing a different wave.

We think we have a shared experience. But, depending on where we are standing, it can be very different. It's amazing that media assault can inform a large number of us on Madoff, Caylee and Caroline Kennedy, given that we are all looking in different directions with different obstacles between us and the tall buildings (or the big stories). It's also fairly amazing that so many people, after two thousand years, think they see a 'child shivering in the cold.' Who's to say they are wrong? And it is a nice song.