Not So Fast

I'm not feeling up to my life right now. Out playing tennis in the wind yesterday, I made a lot of mistakes. And when I did something right it didn't seem to matter to me.

Today's photo is a shop window reflection of a yoga place that was dressed up for the Marathon the other weekend. I don't run. Twenty-six anything? I don't think so.

Right now I don't have an injury. No excuse. No strained knee. No strained toe. No strained lower back. I was a little allergy dizzy yesterday morning but it was gone when I was playing tennis.

I've worked on my taxes. That's depressing. But I've almost got everything together for the CPA. Two partnerships haven't shipped K1-s. I have swithered over whether to bother to claim some non-cash donations. (What did you pay for the little antique table you gave to the Settlement Home? Why $200 I think, or so, there was still a tag on it. What is it worth? Who knows? And the wine the ballet and symphony auctioned off? It makes me tired.) Although in the post-Obama-appointee-we-will-vet-and-yet-what?-I owed taxes? climate I'm a little more cavalier than ever about taxes. And, oh, by the way, I'm sure that they will find a way to make me pay more taxes.

I'm feeling slow. And lazy. And useless. Probably because I am. I need to straighten and clean. I need to exercise. I need to get my car washed. I don't know why I threw that in, but that is one thing about our parking here which is open to the wind...cars get very dirty. I'd like to be reading and writing but I'm blogging.

Last night we had a real downtown stroll in the cold wind. We walked to a party room at Whole Foods for the release of the new issue of L Style/G Style and then to the Paramount to see Lily Tomlin. (Hmm...was it just me or was that sort of boring.) We wanted to get into the Elephant Room to see Jeff Lofton do a Miles Davis tribute but there were a couple of dozen people waiting on the cold sidewalk at 10PM. So we walked to Taste and ordered some sweetbreads and foie gras. Allegedly the chef saw the offal order and said "Is that Linda and Forrest?" He came out and talked to us. We enjoyed the organ meats. I had a little Montrachet and FFP had some Mouvedre which I also tasted. We were tired and we came home. And this morning we slept in until almost eight.

I sit here watching Face the Nation, having already watched most of Sunday Morning. I have the good life. No demands except the ones I'm making on myself to clean, organize, read, write, exercise. Well, the demands of the IRS loom but I'm on the case. So can I relax and enjoy my freedom and leisure? We'll see. I tried to work the Sunday NY Times magazine crossword but it completely eludes me today.

When I called my dad today he said a friend of his had died and services were Wednesday. I volunteered to take him. Next week is not a bad week with some expected and unexpected free time, time to get things done. But then things heat up with some social stuff and SXSW film fest and some promised relative visiting.

I Am So Forgetful

[Wiggy's Wine and Liquor seems to have the Elephant as a mascot of sorts and this is a reflection of their window. Elephants are supposed to have good memories, right? 'Remember to pick up booze on the way home....']

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and forget what I did last night. No, not blackouts or anything. Days just run together. When did this happen? That? What's on the schedule for today?

Which is why I should keep a detailed journal. Lately I haven't been doing it. I haven't been revealing all here on the blog nor writing a journal document on my computer every day. I wish I would. Otherwise I may forget doing some things, thinking some things completely. And that would be a shame. Or would it?

A lot of times I remember that I have been somewhere before, seen someone before. But the circumstances elude me. And the time frames? Forget it. This morning my dad felt like making conversation during my morning call to him.

"I was going through my pocket knife drawer. I found the one you bought me on that first trip to Europe, the Swiss Army Knife."

"That was 1972." I do remember momentous years in my life and therefore 1972, the year I quit a good job and tramped around Europe, sticks in my mind.

"I thought I'd give it to Forrest, but I thought...he probably doesn't carry a knife."

"No, Dad. I always pack one in the checked luggage when we travel. Then he asks me, 'Do you have any scissors?' or 'Do you have a knife?'"

The only reason I don't forget to pack the knife is that it is on a master list that I maintain and modify for each trip.

Well, I'm off to play tennis. During tennis I will forget, occasionally, what happened on the points that have just been played. This forgetting is sometimes a blessing.

The Art of the Walk

Today I made a choice. OK, several choices. But one of them was to not go to the gym and really get up a sweat, maybe finishing reading Molly Bloom's soliloquy on the bike, lifting some weights. And instead to go down to the Hike and Bike trail with FFP and breathe in the fresh air and look at the blue sky and see people, running and walking and biking and pushing strollers. People sweating or strolling. Talking to each other. We saw several people we know. We really enjoyed it. Maybe it wasn't the optimum exercise for the body (because we don't run, race walk or even walk fast...we stroll, stop to look, take pictures). But it really feeds me emotionally.

It is fun to see things from new directions, to see people out there enjoying Austin's amenities. We noticed all the adjacent parking lots were crammed. We felt good we didn't have to drive to get there.

Another choice I made this morning was to sit, drink coffee, watch Sunday morning TV and work the crossword. Ah, yes. Sunday. A day of great choices.

Why You Need Me

OK, maybe you think you don't need me. But you do, I promise. Otherwise who else would be:

• Not worrying about losing a job since I don't have one.
• Continuing to spend money eating out and drinking like there is no tomorrow. (I thought Obama said to do it, didn't he? Or was that Cheney telling me there was no tomorrow?)
• Taking pictures of reflections on bad hair days and digitally altering them to make them fraught with artistic flair and meaning.
• Not accumulating debt. Still not. No toxic loans. No anything loans.
• Driving an eight-year-old car. See one above.
• Moving downtown at 60 and trying to be an urbanite. (Why is suburbanite OK with Blogger spell check but urbanite not?)
• Questioning spelling.
  
• Blogging when she has nothing to say.
• Providing contrast to the size 0-4 bodies downtown.
• Still subscribing to magazines and newspapers.
• Making everyone else look productive.

Yeah, so, I haven't anything to say but I feel like blogging. I'm feeling celebratory that my computer works so much better after cleaning up the mess VMWare made of the Windows image.

Flânerie

Flânerie? Is it a kind of stone work as above? Just a squishy French word that the Blogger spell check doesn't recognize even though a good English dictionary will have a listing? Am I a flâneur? Is that a confession I should make on the Internet?

Got an e-mail a couple of days ago that Michael Barnes, the uber-social blogger and columnist over at the Austin American-Statesman, had posted a blurb about a book about walking. In it, says he, this Brit Geoff Nicholson talks about synonyms for walking. One of which is flânerie. Anyway my friend who alerted me to the post is a friend that I used to have lunch with monthly. We still have a monthly lunch but we add a stroll to it before and/or after. I have been familiar with flanerie for a long time. It's not really about walking. It's about the the kind of observation you can only usually do while walking. Or sitting in a public place. I like to walk around with my digital camera and, if I'm alone, perhaps with a notebook. Sure I'm motivating on my feet but, more importantly taking in images (whether actual ones or just mental observations) and ideas. The stone wall above is interesting. It's tucked away in a walkway behind Book People. Only walkers would probably ever see it.

I already own two books (one read, one unread) about Flânerie. This one and this one. Starting small book collections about an obscure subject and perhaps reading (or pretending to read) them in a cafe or sitting on a wall...that's very much in the spirit of the flâneur. It's all related in my mind to the dilettante. Something I've frequently written about. And even wrote a poem about.

Yesterday I had a walk and a lunch with my flânerie friend. It was random and fulfilling. As such things should be. And this morning this vain attempt to write about how I feel about these things I have wasted time that should have been devoted to cleaning, exercise, finances or, at least, some reading. But somehow that's OK with me. And what would we expect from a dilettante fan of flânerie. Now I' m thinking that since FFP has taken the dilettante mantle (he has 'Consulting Dilettante" on his business card) that I should make some new cards that say "Flâneur." (Right now mine say 'Pretending to Write but Really Just Blogging.' Much less pithy if funny and accurate.)

Stuff Happens

Boy I look fat. But then...I am fat. I look solemn but I was really feeling pretty good. Can you see the glass cowboy hat in the window?

We took a walk into old West Austin today. FFP went with me and we ate a sandwich at Portabla. Delicious. We could have lunch and dinner (breakfast, too, probably) at a different place without repeating for many weeks, all walking. It's awesome.

We planned a trip! To New York. For Bloomsday. I'm almost finished with Ulysses. Bloom is home, in bed, pondering it all.

I'm having some interesting computer issues. I'm doing a few chores, enjoying my life, reading papers. I'm not blogging anything of value. So it goes.

Ephemera, Ephemeral

This title (illustrated here with a collage of scanned paper ephemera) has been kicking around in my head for a day or two. Also this one: Words and pictures.

Life consists of nothing but millions of moments. Each marked from our perspective with ephemeral thoughts or actual ephemera (a ticket stub, disposibile drip catcher, label, a piece of currency). Even the most substantial things eventually flee us...or we them.

Moments are marked by ambient sounds (I happen to be listening to Jeff Lofton's jazz trumpet on his WEB site as I type this), the light, the disappearing coffee in your cup. If you follow something like Twitter or Facebook feeds you can follow the beat of your friends' moments. There's you, wasting a moment, watching others waste a moment. [I stopped here to get another coffee from my Capresso Jura E8. I also thought "I wonder if I'll mention that I heard Jeff Lofton's quartet at Belmont last night after getting some free premium Crown Royals at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse bar. I wonder if I'll remember what we did last night next year or even next week."]

Making it all add up, looking back (looking forward is so much harder) is the stuff of memoir. If I ever write a memoir, please consider it less than accurate. Because...

Yesterday I was reading scribbled notes in an old journal, trying to see if there was anything worth capturing before I did something with the journal. (It's a pretty one with lovely paper, made in Florence with scenes of that same city reproduced in a watercolor on the cover.) I immediately fell into a curiosity about what I was doing at the time I wrote the notes (six years ago, 2003). I could see that we were getting ready for a trip to New York. I was confused as to why. I was only slightly less confused after reading pieces of a pretty comprehensive online journal. All of which made me think that I wasn't writing enough journal entries of the type filled with 'then we did this, then I did that, then I showered and put on blue jeans.' Moments lost.

Besides minutes ago FFP came in from his Pilates class and dug around in the drawer for our tickets to a ballet tonight and a musical performance at the Paramount tomorrow night and I was thinking how much less attractive and interesting the computer-printed and bar-coded tickets were than some tickets I saved in my ephemera boxes. I was thinking I probably wouldn't save them nor write about seeing Ballet Austin's "Hamlet" and Ramsey Lewis and Ann Hampton-Calloway in any coherent way that I could ever find again and associate with this Valentine's weekend in 2009. And that made me a little sad but that's life. How many moments do we spend trying to recapture moments as we hurtle forward through another day, another 86,400 seconds (some spent sleeping...did I mention I had interesting dreams last night now forgotten and unrecorded?). We can collect ephermera, words and pictures. But the past is running away to a speck in the distance, each moment an emepheron, souvenirs of same notwithstanding.

I love this forward motion, but something in me wants to capture it even while understanding that I will never succeed. Hence words and pictures to recall if not recapture.

Who's In Charge?

[FFP and I saw this dog in a parked car along W. Fourth on Saturday. His parents were probably at the Farmer's Market. When we first stopped to marvel at the 'dogs pretend to drive' aspect there was a dog in the shotgun seat. Neither dog barked at us when we stopped but that one got into the back seat as if it expected one of us to take shotgun. Driver didn't budge and kept his eyes mostly on the road. Some foreign girls stopped to laugh.]

I've been thinking lately about the economy, about what BHO (my friend Eugene has started calling him this although, really, it doesn't have much of a ring to it) can do, what I can do, what you can do.

I figure, really, that the causes (housing bubbles, Ponzi schemes, derviatives, speculation, bad loans, the rest of it) just have to take their course.

I was thinking about all this talk of the government restructuring loans. Now if we as taxpayers buy these loans or the banks holding them and want to do that, I guess it's OK. But it started me thinking about the mortgages that I own, made on my own real property. What if the government unilaterally decided to retroactively change those agreements? I'm not saying anyone is suggesting that. Still, it gives you pause. What if a bank was solvent and the government decided to change loans it had made retroactively. That would be bad. I'm just saying.

Anyway, with all the flap over the stimulus plan I wonder what difference it will really make. I'm thinking Barack will have more influence as president over deployment of troops and the holding of terrorist suspects than the economy. Really and truly, world economies are very influenced by billions of consumers. This is especially true in the U.S. I know, I know. Jobs=spending. Hope=spending. Tax relief=spending. But I wonder.

So, what am I doing in the current economic crisis?

• I'm trying to shop in independent shops I want to help stay afloat.
  
• But thinking hard about every spending decision.
• And buying an expensive Lego for my great Nephew on Amazon because it is oh so easy. (Click the wish list, pick the toy, click the address of my niece, click my credit card, done.)
• But at least I spent some money on something.
• I'm trying to eat out at restaurants that I love and that are locally run.
• And buy wine as gifts for friends at local wine purveyors. (Because really you are spending money and people are enjoying it, it's gone and then repeat.)
• And buying gift certificates to restaurants as gifts, the same local ones.
• Driving my eight-year-old car less and making trips count. (Sorry, no new car. Sorry, reduced demand for gas. Or is that good? I did do a pretty major repair on it. And really I always drove cars into the ground and paid cash for new ones even when I was making great money.)
• Planning to buy things from Royal Blue Grocery's new location in my building rather than from bigger retailiers because a grocery store in your building...how cool is that? They may open within the week.
• Looking to buy a little storage cabinet for the second bathroom and still considering new digital cameras, a GPS and a netbook. I'm just saying: I might buy some stuff. I keep resisting, though.
• I'm thinking of planning trips to New York and maybe France.
  
• I'm staying in the uncounted unemployed. I have been 'retired' for six years. Which just means I quit my job to live on my investments. I'm too young for Social Security and I have no defined benefit pension. I don't count in the 7.6% and growing ranks of unemployed. I am not taking a job that someone else needs. (Note that Barack's wife left her job, too, and is probably in the uncounted unemployed. She had a good job, too. I'm just saying.)
• I'm spending money on my credit cards but paying everything off every month.
• I'm still giving to causes but taking a harder look at my budget for that. (See above about trips. Selfish, huh?)
  

It's all about a bunch of people doing their things, isn't it? One at a time. Until it becomes a trend. One guy getting a stupid upside down mortgage and onerous amounts of credit card debt is nothing. A bunch of you? That's something. (It's not me. It was never me!) When one company lays off people, too bad for those people. When every other article is about layoffs or furloughs? So goes the economy.

Let's hope the 'economic stimulus' can take a swipe at stalling or reversing these trends. Let's hope it isn't like that tax rebate last year. As my dad says, "I still have mine in the bank." Of course, soon he has to give much more than that to the tax man.

Between the Inevitable and the Immutable

I was not looking forward to going to Dad's today. I was getting out of the house to play tennis and so it made sense to go a bit further north and see after a few things for him though.

The other day I had to tell him his sister died. Not easy. Today I was just taking the obituary for him to read. (It had been sent as a scan via e-mail to me by a cousin.) Today I had to tell him how much he owed the tax man and how much he'd have to make in quarterly payments because he had an unusual bump in income. "I bet you get a refund next year if you live long enough." He allowed that he wouldn't pay the tax man until April. "Maybe I won't have to do it," he said. "Yeah, I'd have to do it." We joke like this all the time. We know that none of us live forever and none of us know when the time will come.

Death and taxes. The inevitable for us mortals. And even politicians have to die.

There was an old wives' tale that I always heard that your fingernails and toenails kept growing after you died. Then I read somewhere that it wasn't true. That the tissue around them shrank back and made it appear true. Whatever. I trimmed my dad's toenails for him. He'd soaked his feet to make it easier. He talked about the horse stepping on the one toe and how he'd had to stay off of it and so he had to stay inside and cook and wash dishes and strain milk, etc.

"I didn't have a crutch. Do you know what I did?"

I did, but I didn't say so.

"I used a straight chair and put my knee in it and moved around the house that way.

I gave my dad a book I bought for him about Iceland. He said he was going to spend the afternoon reading it. I also took him a bottle of champagne in a gift bag with a Valentine's Day Card signed from us and him. It is for his good friend Maja. She is from Iceland and, in fact, took my dad on a trip there. She gives him rides and meals. My sister and I call her 'the good daughter.'

While I was playing tennis and having a fine time on the muddy clay on a day the hard courts were dangerously slick when we started, I was kind of depressed about having to talk to my dad about death and taxes and trim his toenails because his back won't allow him to do it. (When he could still drive he went somewhere and got a pedicurist to do it. I think he went to a place he'd taken Mom for mani/pedi.) But when it was all done, I felt better. Dad wrote a check for the CPA cheerfully. He was pleased with his gift for Maja. And he was excited to have a new book that interested him to occupy his afternoon. (Actually it was only new to him. I bought it in the antiquarian book store on 12th Street.)

[Photo is a reflection in a shop on West Sixth. Thought of using it for the March theme day ('glass') for City Daily Photo, but I think I'll find another.]

Me and My Papers

Newspapers as we know them are dying. My friend over at Insomniactive has pulled a lot of info on this issue.

This has implications for all of us. Even those of you who, like the others on my hallway (see above) don't get newsprint versions, are relying on the reportage of newspapers even if you consume it online or secondhand. I guess. Unless you only read blogs for info. And just stupid ones like this instead of ones created by legitimate journalists who research things and know how to write. Not to denigrate reading blogs, but nothing beats guys and gals going out and getting stories for a living and bringing them back to us, coherent and thorough and allegedly without bias. (Although it helps to get several as we do, see above.) Reading blogs is a drill down into individual brains but newspaper reporters often bring us the more sweeping issues.

And yes, I know most of the content goes to the WEB for free, no trees involved.

The death of the clumps of paper with fresh news, pictures, charts and figures, delivered to our door is going to hurt me. Even though I'm drowning in papers and even though recycling is a pain and even though, yes, I can find it all on my computer I suppose.

The form isn't the same. Sitting over a meal with FFP (we almost always read at meals when it's just the two of us), or on the exercise bike, I turn the pages guided by the headlines. I pause at photos or maps. I even look at ads. The structure is predictable and comforting. Inside the front page section of The New York Times there is a summary of news (recently expanded to two pages for the age of ADD). There are also ads for luxury jewelry and watches and knick-knacks. Yes, still. On Tuesday there is Science Times. On Wednesday, Dining In Out. The Austin-American Statesman has XLent on Thursday. I skip Sports Sections, mostly, unless there is really big tennis news. I occasionally flip the Statesman Sports over to see if there is a Fry's ad. I look at Fry's ads in that paper and J&R and others in The Times mostly to see what gadgets are out there, what they are going for. I am tempted by the crosswords. So the leisure sections get pulled out. I like to read about plays, movies, books, dance, opera, etc, too. When I'm looking at a new section of newspaper I know it's fresh content. Well, sort of. If you read three newspapers then you may see the same story. It may even be exactly the same story.

FFP goes directly to the editorial and letters pages, I think. I don't usually read these. I would rather get opinion on blogs. We both peruse obituaries. The local ones to see if someone we know died. But all obits to see the fallen, how old they were and what got them. (In The New York Times obits the cause of death is usally paragraph two. After para one which tells you why the dead is newsworthy.) The obits in the local rag are mostly paid ads. Relatives pay hundreds or thousands to run some stuff for a few days. There are also short blurbs from funeral homes that are a 'public service' and, of course, news stories on the deaths of the locally famous or infamous.

There are so many predictable, wonderful things in my papers. Oh, they change things sometimes. I remember when the Times never used color. (I also remember when authors' names in The New Yorker were at the end of articles and they sometimes continued articles over multiple issues.)

Well, I have been trying to write this for two days. While newspapers piled up. And, shudder, we bought three books at Book People today and there two others I've been intending to start and...oh well. Enough of writing about newspapers. I'm going to go read.

Stories from Before My Memory

"I'm sure your mother told you this dozen of times," he said this morning. Well not that I remembered. "We went to a party at the Russell's over near the old highway at Wilson Creek. They were having kind of a rodeo party, people were riding their horses. Someone [he actually named the woman but I have forgotten it in the last hour] saw your mother and said, 'Dixie you should have brought a basket.' We got home and about two in the morning [he hesitated here and I thought he was going to say her water broke or something but he continued] we went to the hospital." I knew I was born around four in the morning. I never remember hearing about the party ala rodeo or the basket comment. And I guess I didn't realize my mom hadn't been at the hospital very long when I was born. That's me above, ten months old, in a picture my maternal granddad carried around in his wallet apparently.

When I call my dad, we have discussions that ramble on. Since I call every morning we have to talk about something. Somehow this morning we drifted onto his father. And onward from there to family and the fact that he only had two sisters left of five sisters and a brother. "My father served the purpose of a father. He loved his girls, but didn't give a damn for us boys. He thought he should retire at 55."

"He should have retired at 55 if we was going to get a retirement." My paternal granddad died a few months before I was born at 67.

"Yeah. He was out running the combine the week before he died. He never really did retire."

Family history. We think things are momentous. Historic. We snap pictures of our children. Of graduations and weddings. And then gradually things fade. I often riffle through old pictures for sale in junk shops and wonder at the people whose precious memories are now just another bit of detritus.

What the 'L?'

Every place on Second Street has a S-A-L-E and that's the L from Estilo (with LB in there somewhere). I've been missing since Saturday from this space, it seems. I've been doing things, though, really.

We saw Austin Lyric Opera's "Rigoletto." I enjoyed it immensely. Well, as much as I enjoy any opera which is to say as much as I'm equipped to enjoy it. A lot anyway. I especially liked the soprano. I think it's so difficult to get stabbed and stuck in a tow sack and still sing an aria. I'm just saying. Yeah, I'm opera stupid but I'm working on it. Great production in our lovely new Long Center.

I watched TOO MANY sports on Sunday. I'm sports weary. I watched the Aussie Open Final (Federer-Nadal), a UT women's basketball game and the Stupid Bowl. I'm giving up sports until the French Open. I think I saw Roddick practicing on the fake clay tonight. Maybe not.

I did Dad duty. I took him to lunch, to church, picked up prescriptions, worked on his taxes, shredded stuff, took and picked up shirts at the laundry, got his garbage and recycling out, took his picture with his monster amarylis. I told him his sister died. I have been to his house three days in a row this week. I was out there a few days last week. Somewhat of a record during a time when he is doing OK, really, pretty much, health-wise. On Tuesday during my every morning call to him he said "My horoscope says 'The methods that helped you get through the day yesterday won't carry you into the future.' So I will have to do things differently." I didn't know he read his horoscope. I also didn't know he watched a string of old M*A*S*H episodes in the afternoon, but I happened to be there to catch him at it this week. Or maybe it's something new. Maybe he's fallen out of love with Rachel Ray and FOX news commentators.

I went to a memorial for a former co-worker who died.

I ate a bag of those Necco conversation hearts they have at Valentine's. I'm a sucker for those. They are crack cocaine for me. But I was disappointed because they have no quality control and half of them had no saying or had it printed in an off-center or in a blurred fashion. So, never again.

I cleaned our bathroom and did a few other chores.

I attended a board meeting at my country club. I'm going to slide off the board. Three years is plenty.

I played tennis. Yeah, of course. But I'm taking a break until next Tuesday and hope my strained back improves.

I attended an education thing about Ballet Austin's upcoming production of Stephen Mill's "Hamlet." I love this production. I loved the education thing where we saw some of the dance and heard about it. I bought the Phillip Glass music for it for the iPod. I like that there is an iTunes mix on the WEB so I can just buy the music. I never have enough time to listen to music. I also became a fan of Jeff Lofton and downloaded a CD his wife gave FFP. He's not on iTunes yet. He played a tune at Austin Cabaret Theater's open mike production with Jim Caruso and Billy Stritch. (Cast Party.) We are now lining up to hear more from him.

FFP and I walked down to South Congress and came back stopping at Vespaio, Cissi's Market and Taste and having some food and a glass of wine at each one. That was Tuesday.

I've been busy. Yep. I caught up most of the financial stuff for now although my taxes loom. I'm behind on reading. I think I'll go read some now. Just as soon as I see how many labels I can attach to this post.

The Fire Next Time...

No, not a fire. But this sunrise in the chilled water steam looks more like a fire than the last post, even, huh?

I don't have anything coherent to say today. (My friend Jette said on Facebook that she was 'impressed by her own incoherence.' I thought she said 'imprisoned' which I get. Impressed am I, too, by mine.) I think I'll just dash off a bunch of random stuff. Follow along if you wish. Otherwise, see you later. (I have posted another couple of amusing, well to me, Journal of Unintended Consequences posts if you are looking for alleged coherence.)

So, random things. Not random things about me necessarily which a lot of people are doing twenty-five of lately (but not me, so far I'm resisting or maybe editing my batch in my head). But anyway random stuff.

That chilled water from that plant? Expensive to use it turns out. We thought it would be an efficient cooling option. But it costs $14 a month to have access to the chilled water to cool and it is decidedly expensive to actually divert some across your fan. Ah, well. Maybe it's better for the environment? Don't know. For the last month or more, we haven't turned on either heat or A.C. but we have to pay $14 bucks in case we do. A person can do Netflix for that. Oh, well. Still haven't had to use the heater in this place which is electric so you know that wouldn't be efficient. The bad news is that the place is being heated by computers and TVs and computer peripherals. So yeah. Wasted electricity.

My 98-year-old father-in-law just called me to remind me he gets an extra deduction for being blind. I figured out they didn't owe any income taxes, but he also figured that out. With a magnifying glass no doubt.

Reading list: I finished Bénabou's book as I think I mentioned. I started another small, light book suitable for carrying around when I go somewhere with just FFP and we take books to read while we eat, wait for a performance to start, etc. It is Milan Kundera's Slowness. What do I like about Milan? That he is not afraid to write fiction and he doesn't impose unnecessary rules on himself, it doesn't seem, and just plunges in and if characters or scenes get in the way, to hell with characters and scenes. Which makes me wonder several things. Should I buy (and maybe even read) his book on writing novels. Would it help me with my problematic novel project or would it just become another book I haven't read. Which, if I can be allowed to digress, leads me to another little side project which is how to use technology to present the novel being accidentally and haphazardly written here as a whole. This caused me to do some brief, futile searches of some techie sites. I'm always assaulted with just the information I do not want to read. And I'm reminded that, even for the little HTML I know I constantly forget actual syntax.

But back to reading. I'm falling behind on my newspapers. That's because I've spent too much time working crosswords, trying to get further into the week in The New York Times and working the unsatisfying but still tempting ones in the Austin American-Statesman. This reduces the input I have for The Journal of Unintended Consequences. And I have an outstanding (and in my mind's eye coherent) essay for this space on newspapers to complete as well. One reason I'm behind on the paper's is that I haven't been riding the recumbent bike as much and the couple of times I've done it I have been reading Ulysses. I'm determined to get through to page 933 of the edition I'm working on before I book my trip to New York for Bloomsday this year. I purchased this edition in Dublin in 2004. It was the hundredth anniversary of Bloom's Day but I was there after the fact, in September not June. Anyway, I'm on page 758. Bloom and Stephen are in the livery stand having something like coffee. This will be my first complete trip through any edition. Joyce was not afraid to write a novel either. Stream of consciousness and unconsciousness and all that.

Other books (and magazines) lie neglected, partly finished. A book of conversations with Woody Allen. Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I recently purchased two books from Amazon. Covers are stiff and uncracked. I was well into E.J. Kahn, Jr.'s Year of Change when somehow I put it aside. Really good book. E.J. Kahn in 1994 died after a car accident. (I sometimes wonder when reading a decades-old book what happened to the person who wrote it in the interim. So I looked up his NY Times obit a few weeks ago.) Reading Kahn's book made me wonder if I owned The New Yorker and Me. Which was Kahn's first book about his relationship with that venerable rag. Did I mention that I own The Complete New Yorker and that, recently, I printed out the Salinger story "Hapworth 16, 1924" from the June 19, 1965 edition and read it. FFP was going to read it, too, but I don't think he has. We read an article about Salinger in the NY Times on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday which mentioned the story. Salinger is not dead, but he's a recluse.

So, not doing as much reading as I'd like. We are quicker to recycle papers and magazines these days, but they are still building up too much. And I secreted a large pile in a storage thing by my my chair and I really need to clean those out so I can store other things in there. (These are from, I'm afraid, last summer when we were in the deep throes of moving.)

I've been watching some of the Australian Open. I am especially interested in the Federer/Nadal match that will occur tonight. I may watch it live. Or not. I'm much more interested in that than the Stupid Bowl. Who is playing again?

Did I mention that I hurt my back playing tennis? That I just keep playing anyway. I need to do a good 'core' exercise program when it heals. Assuming it will. I always assume such things. If it's broke, it will heal. With our bodies this isn't always a correct assumption but it's a helpful one.

It's a nice day for a walk. I think I'll take one. We are going to see Austin Lyric Opera's "Rigoletto" tonight. We will walk to the Long Center, too, I think. Did I mention how glorious the weather has been. It has. Although everyone, myself included, seems to have had a cycle of cedar fever.

FFP is listening to opera and making himself vegetarian barbecue for lunch. I think I'll have some. (OK, did that. Had a Chimay with it. So sue me.)

So, yeah, random stuff. Not going much of anywhere. Sort of like my life. Next time, though. The fire.

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.

Not What I Imagined

I had things in mind when I retired. Ideas about how my life would go along and ideas about what would happen in the rest of the world, too. These visions don't usually add up to reality, though, do they?

I saw myself getting everything in my (old) house organized and working to a fault. I saw myself fit and active and achieving things, doing things for others. I thought my financial life would be organized and I'd have learned lots of new things. Of course, there were those books that I was going to write and entertaining and informative WEB sites that I was going to design.

I don't know when the vision shifted to downtown living. When I retired in 2002, downsizing was on my mind but the idea of living in 1200 square feet or so was not really something I'd considered.

I wanted to travel. FFP was still working full time running his agency and wasn't ready to do much traveling. However, not too many weeks after I retired I was off to Colorado with my dad and then off to Berlin. Dad was doing better then. He could travel, drive even. My in-laws had quit driving but could still walk around the neighborhood and take cabs to go places. Intellectually I knew that they would become more feeble and have more needs. (Although their current needs are surprisingly low for their ages.) I imagined that I'd keep traveling a lot. That I'd go back to South Africa and other places. Oh, I did get back to South Africa, had a trip to Dublin, a driving trip or two with FFP, trips to New York, two trips to France with FFP. It sounds like a lot but it's been seven years and we didn't go anywhere in the last twelve months except for a short trip to New York, a night in San Antonio and a couple of nights at Lake Austin Spa. I feel like a stay-at-home. I know I'm making too much of keeping up with the old folks. If they do as well as they are right now, it would be easy enough to get a little help and, um, abandon them for a bit. I am planning to plan a trip to New York. Oh and maybe back to Europe. Of course, the expenses of moving and the economic downturn have put a little damper on spending.

I guess after 9/11 and a closer reading of the newspapers about world affairs, I didn't hold out much hope for the mess in the world. I haven't been disappointed but I have been a little surprised by the scope of the agony. (And amazed that we are still as lucky as we are.)

I guess things are always different than in your mind's eye. I wonder if the Democrats swarming the White House are finding it like they expected it to be. I'll bet, to some degree, not.

Contradiction

I have been on facebook more than I'd like to admit lately. Why, after all, do we need to be that in touch with friends? When we went to see "The Wrestler" and we were leaving we saw a friend who was first in line for the next show, smart phone in hand. "I knew you were here!" she said. And, indeed, I'd said I was off to see the movie a few hours before. This is what the kids have been doing for a while, starting with their voice calls "Where are you? Oh, I see you..." and ending up texting a continuous stream to one another and now, with Twitter and facebook, to everyone they know. I'm not sure I'm happy with it. I don't use the phone that much and I tend to pull back eventually from chat streams to write entire paragraphs for you to read (or ignore) at your leisure. I'm tantalized by the immediacy of things and by all these smart phones in the hands of my smart friends. But I resist as well. (I have a stupid phone. It does text messages but don't send me one. I don't know how to read it.) This is typical of my contradictory nature.

People (including FFP) have been writing notes on facebook with "Twenty-five random things about me." They are fascinating, but I haven't done one myself in spite of being "tagged." I don't take to tags or tagging others. If I inspire someone to write or comment, fine. Otherwise I'm on my own spouting nonsense, usually here. (Or, you know, one blog or the other.) These lists, though, are conduits of contradiction as people find themselves writing that they are one way but act another or desire some other path.

The above photo is a house in Old West Austin. Dramatically modern and different from its neighbors it would be patina-less but for the winter-stripped tree in the yard. I love patina, actually, but I find the house and its modern, sterile aesthetic appealing, too. We adopted a very modern look for our condo decoration albeit softened with art and books and some whimsical toys and collectibles. We left the concrete pillars and ceilings with their patina of seams, nail marks, wood grain from the forms. We used wood which has its endless swirls of grain but we have some sleek glass and chrome, too.

My personality is full of contradictions. I like to go places and see people but I'm shy and have spent a lot of effort over the years trying to get comfortable in social situations especially with strangers. Yeah, I'm the person who will invite fifty people to a party and then be exhausted, not by the effort to entertain them but by the effort to interact with them. (Of course, we won't be throwing parties for fifty in our new digs. Maybe twenty tops.)

I'm constantly yo-yoing between getting out among folks and retreating to my recluse mode.

I like to talk and I like to be listened to, but social situations still feel like work.

My love of patina extends to art where I'm a fan of abstract or the slightly fantastical realism (but nothing too fantastical, mythical or comic-like). I love collage and found object sculpture and assemblage and well, whatever you choose to call it. Mixed media. I love clean modern lines, glass and chrome. But take some paper ephemera, arrange it artistically and it grabs me. Rusty junk? Priceless.

I'm a bundle of contradiction. We all are, I guess. Collage appeals because we see ourselves in the complexity.

It Dawned On Me

That's this morning's sunrise, captured by himself, FFP.

Lots of random things occur to me (and happen to me) that don't get recorded because, in spite of having three blogs, they don't fit into a coherent (yeah, right) whole to slip in anywhere. Well, today, I'm just going to catch up with a few random threads.

I actually finished a book. Marcel Bénabou's "Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books." If anyone else finds it amusing that I managed to finish that (short) non-book (according to its author) while several other books lurk (half-finished, half-started, bought recently but not cracked open) then go on, laugh. And I'm not doing a good job of keeping up with newspapers either.

One book I bought is Diana Athill's "Somewhere Towards the End." It's about growing old, approaching death. I hope I finish it before I die. I keep thinking the title should be "Somewhere Toward the End." Yeah, I can't stop trying to edit myself or others.

That's really a problem, the constant editing. I sometimes even spend a bunch of time writing and re-writing an e-mail. Today FFP wrote a draft of an e-mail, sent it to me for editing then sent it. Sometimes editing gets in the way of writing.

Last night we went to a very hip opening of a very hip show at Arthouse at Jones Center. This British artist Matt Stokes created a film about punk rock and collected a bunch of Austin punk rock ephemera to display with it. I realized that, while I am not (and probably never will be) a punk rock fan that I loved the exhibit and the people at the opening. The film was a very santized way to experience the art of punk and art made from punk. Cool. I talked to a venture capitial biggie who is a friend of mine and told him I read his blog. He said he read mine, too. (Yikes.)

After the opening we went to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. I had a glass of Pinot Noir and the very excellent carpaccio.

Today I played tennis. The cold swirling wind lessened my enjoyment and I made too many mistakes but I enjoyed it. We got out in the wind again to go to Whole Foods and buy limes, mango sorbet (some mango margaritas are in the offing), yogurt, bananas, vegetarian barbecue, hot tofu dip, green onions and a tomato. A few groceries and not so much we couldn't easily carry it home. It was cold and windy, though, and we decided that even though we had said we'd go to a cocktail party at Long Center that the sniffles would win out...we are staying in the rest of the day. And...I'm going to get some things done even if it's just read the newspapers or even a book!

Dawn of a New Day---Retirement

No, it's not me retiring. Long time readers may be surprised to wake up and realize that I have been retired over six years.

No, George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the U.S., has retired after serving the maximum term for a president. And, since I have now spent ten percent of my life retired, I thought I'd give him some advice. Oh, sure, you are saying, "He could ask his daddy." In fact, this morning I asked my daddy what advice he'd give George and he said that he'd never been that good at managing other people.

So, it's up to me, I guess.

Piece of advice number one: ignore the critics. Yeah, you pretended for eight years to ignore them or maybe you actually did ignore them. But maybe it stung a bit. Sometimes. I got a pleasant send-off from my last job although I'm sure there were people happy to see me go. (In fact, I later realized the event organizer was probably one of these!) But, dude, living well is the best revenge! You get a salary, a staff. You'd already saved for retirement, huh? You can do whatever you want, within limits. Wake up each day and dig the freedom. Who cares if the people back at the workplace are altering your code (er, executive orders in your case)?

Piece of advice number two: don't fall into being your father's keeper. Yeah, your dad is eight years younger than my dad and he's still got your mom, the Secret Service, various other help. Still, make no mistake, it can be time-consuming to hover over them when they have problems. Try to get Jeb or the twins to do it. You still have your Mom, too. (People will say "You are so lucky to still have them." It's true, but it can interfere with your travel, fitness and time to follow some of the advice below.)

Piece of advice number three: wake up and smell the coffee. In fact, make the coffee. I think somewhere you said you'd enjoy making Laura a cup. Do that. Take yours outside and watch a beautiful sunrise, knowing that you don't have to do a thing you don't want to today.

More retirement advice? Yeah number four: just pretend to write the book. Books are hard, blogging is easy. Take it from me. Since you can get a lot of money for a book, do one. But get someone else to write it. Get Jenna to write it. She did her own book, yes? Let her ghost yours or co-write it. Get yourself a blog. Moderate the comments. You can delete the negative stuff and the spam selling drugs and weight loss. You can say whatever you want, edit it later and pretend you didn't and scoff at your critics. In fact, get a Facebook page. Not one someone else concocted but one of your own. Just collect your real friends here.

Am I done? No. We have number five: learn something new. I don't think you are as stupid as people would have us believe. Nevertheless, retirement is a time to learn new things. Since I retired I've practiced identifying the countries of Africa (harder than you might think: click here), learned a few new words. Left to your own devices with no earth-shaking work (literally in your case) you can research things like history and literature. You can read Ulysses. (Or maybe you can't. I haven't made it to page 700 yet.)

Is there more? You bet. I haven't wasted the last six plus years. (Well, that's disputable but still there's more advice.) Number six: do something at a weird time. Take Laura to a movie in the afternoon. Go to SXSW. Stay out as late as you want and sleep in some morning.

I know you love to exercise, Mr. ex-President, but number seven: change your routine. You have time to add water aerobics or Pilates. You can take up a new sport or one you haven't pursued in a while. Come down to Austin and play tennis with Rick Perry and Andy Roddick. (Well, actually I don't know if Rick plays tennis, but he looks like a player, doesn't he?)

And, number eight on the list is: downsize! I know you and Laura bought a really big house in Preston Hollow (nice timing on that) and you have the ranch. Seriously, though, it's very freeing to dump some of that junk. Do you really need all that space? After all, if it's something sentimental stick it in the library. I wish I'd had a museum to store my stuff in!

Number nine? Travel. Don't just talk about it. Do it. Go to Paris and eat stars. Make the Secret Service follow you and Laura on a driving trip around the U.S. and Canada. You might want to stay out of Mexico, though, especially border towns. Kinda dangerous just now.

And, number ten on the list of retirement wisdom? Spend more time on your finances. Your money was tucked away in a blind trust, but now you can track your own investments tanking and rising. You can struggle to figure out where to get a decent, safe interest rate return. You can worry about your taxes. The muni bond market is weird right now, by the way. But since you're a Texan you don't have to worry about state income tax. Wait until you see your property tax bill, though. But Dallas is better than Austin where we bear the burden of much un-taxed state property. You will be really glad you have a defined benefit pension, I promise. Even though you may think you bought that mansion at a low point you may find that you see comparables in your neighborhood decline in value. But honestly just get out and get into a condo and lower expenses. We have some nice 1200 square foot or so units here at our place.

You Are Included

There is much talk about how everyone is included in this new era in Washington. The picture is a mural on the side of Cheapo Discs. Like much of today's music, I don't get it except for guitar, banjo, maybe some black player?

People are criticizing Barack's speech but I thought it was fine. He included everyone (well, maybe not GLBT, but a gay bishop prayed somewhere). He gave a shout out to non-believers. (Maybe he will fight faith-based groups getting government funds?) He said, in so many words, "get off your butts at home and don't shoot at us."

I haven't heard one commentator mention non-believers. Interesting.

Remember the Republicans 'big tent?' Was that Bush the First?

Anyway, I like the picture. I am hopeful for the new government. Because you have to hope.

I haven't been too verbose lately. I do have an idea for a Journal of Unintended Consequences piece. In fact, everything seems to be an JUC piece these days although a novel keeps trying to sneak in here.

Also, I strained my back a little stabbing for someone's passing shot at tennis yesterday and cedar fever still has me sniffing a little. We have spent lots of time at home in the condo lately. In a way, I think we are finally settling in here and it's now a comfortable nest where we play with our toys. Today I have to get out and take care of a few things for Dad. I had a couple of meetings at the club today, but one is optional and one sort of optional so I'm skipping them, I think.

I expect things to be back to 'normal', um, never because I don't think I have a normal. One thing, though, I'm glad I'm not president.

As Others See Us

When I walked with a friend last week he shot this picture of me shooting a picture. I usually show you me as I see myself, a reflection or shadow. Boy I'm fat. Fortunately I don't see myself as fat. (Well, in the bathroom mirror after a shower, but other than that, no.) What do people see when they see you? (Or, um, me?) Very complex topic.

Austin's skyline is sure changing. You alter views when you build up a high, dense city.

I don't know how other people see me, really. I don't worry about it too much. I just try to be myself, to pay attention to other to gain their perspective and go forward. But I do have a me I see and imagine that I suspect is nothing like what anyone sees.

I think this imagined persona one has is often far from what others see. But this new president seems to be one of those people who knows what people see and who is in control of that. He even seems to really be that person.