AUSTIN, Texas, August 1, 2005 — Some days all the bustling about just seems pointless. You know that it isn't, not really, but the things you do don't really yield much or they are so mundane.

We get up early. I feel pretty good from the outset. We are at the car dealer at seven. FFP drops off the Honda to get a new computer. Supposedly it will be free. But we do have to take it in. Fortunately the dealer is only a few miles from our house.

FFP climbs back in my car after doing the handoff.

"Did you get your book and your head phones?" I ask. He has his phone in his hand. We are in workout clothes and I figure we will go directly to the club.

"Well, they are at home in my bag. I thought we'd stop back by the house."

No problem there. It's on the way. I drive back to our house and wait for him to get his stuff.

Then we go to the club. I don't usually get there this early. All the recumbent bikes are taken. There are three. One's seat adjustment doesn't work so it wouldn't work for me anyway but even it is taken. I get on a treadmill and do thirty-five minutes. I have to get off to go to the bathroom. Now all the bikes are empty so I finish up there. I've been reading The New York Review of Books and that's all I get read on the bike. This is the second issue and it's already stonlen time from my other paper piles and the books I want to read. Before I'm ready to go FFP is asking "how much longer I have." I agree that I'm done. This is why we usually go separately. We just can't comfortably agree on the coming and going.

I drive home since we are in my car.

"So you are doing the Balcones gambit," he says as I turn on that street. See, 45th Street (our major corridor) is a mess with construction and it's not a great hour to turn left on Shoal Creek from 35th.

"It's longer but the street isn't messed up and there isn't any traffic," I say, naviagating the winding hilly street.

He squirms. He is not used to me driving him around town. "We could stop at Russell's and get a pastry," he says. Did I mention that retirement sends the mind into the realm of coffee shop pastries? I know that he will probably squelch this idea before we reach the shop.

Sure enough, he says, about a minute later, "you don't have to stop. I need to lose weight."

"Entirely up to you."

"Don't do it. I need to lose weight. I ate all that junk food to stay awake on the trip."

"Now it's my fault."

"No, no, it's not your fault. I enjoyed the trip. I just ate all this sugar to stay awake."

I actually gained a pound or two on the trip myself. And in spite of the surface appeal of it, I don't have an appetite for pastry this early in the morning usually.

We drive past the bakery. No big deal. Do it all the time. But somehow it seems a shame to do it after the suggestion was hanging there in the air.

At home I have cereal and nonfat yogurt. I get a shower and put on reasonably nice clothes. We are going to Ballet Austin's future home to show one of Austin's leading citizens around. I'll be unnecessary as the Executive director and FFP will be there. But I'm going. After I get dressed and groomed I sit down at the computer to switch months on this journal. Not a very hard task but one I always manage to botch somehow. Just as I'm getting it organized it is time to go to the ballet building.

I drive. The clock in my car is fast and FFP initially thinks we are late even though he commented earlier on the clock being quite fast. But we are slightly early. However, the other folks are even earlier. We have a pleasant discussion of Austin, the arts, the Ballet, the building. We walk around visualizing where things are going to be. I've been through it before but I always learn something new. Still my presence seems a little pointless although I enjoy the visit.

We head home. I change clothes. We eat lunch. Salads with the leftover salmon. FFP gets out the chips and hot tofu dip. I have one bite. I eat a peach.

We get a phone call. Well, they 'got the wrong computer' for the Accord. So that whole exercise was useless. Good thing they aren't too far away. I drive FFP over there to get the car and come back by a gas station where I fill up the Civic with gas. Everything about the day seems pointless so far.

Time to get a few things done before my film team meeting tonight at AFF. I head into my office. I pick up the plastic organizer in which we collect receipts for the family budget. It has hanging folders for major expenditure areas, paper and pen for writing things down we don't have receipts for and once the entry process has begun a kraft folder for the entered receipts.

I fool around getting my journal organized, however, before I actually do anything 'useful.' I also email some friends to set up a social occasion and add the occasion to our calendar.

Finally I get serious about the budget. I've already entered a lot of the receipts for July. So I quickly have final numbers for the month which I print out on FFP's computer upstairs and he calls me on the phone to discuss. It really isn't strictly necessary to track our expenses so closely but it does let us be pretty confident about our ongoing living expenses and I think having to record or save the receipts causes us to restrain ourselves a little.

Having finished that I have a couple of hours and no pressing task. There is always the straightening up the office task. The never-ending one. I wander off to the bedroom to go to the bathroom and notice clothes to be folded. While I'm doing that my dad shows up. He's been to the dentist but drove over to see us, give us some money for his expenses. I give him some stuff people have e-mailed him including some long journal entries from his friend in Germany. Before I know it, it is nearly four. He rushes off to beat the rush hour. We have to exchange things now and then but his trip over here seemed wasted. Pointless even. I've been bad about going over there since I've been back. As he leaves I remind him of things that he should remember...that I'm planning a social event with him and friends who helped see about him while we were gone and that he should get a blood test this week for a doctor's appointment next week. He's capable of taking care of himself but I feel like I have to worry about his stuff, too. Probably shouldn't.

So now there isn't as much time before my meeting. I have to get there early to do my paperwork. FFP is going to have drinks with someone and talk about PR. I eat some snacks, struggle to get the DVR booted, just waste time. Soon it's time to go.

I'm not a very good film critic. Tonight my group (we divide into two groups) watches two shorts that I've already reviewed. I can't remember whether I said yes or no on them. I think I was on the fence maybe. I guess it's pointless to be watching these twice and then maybe they get into a shorts reel at the festival and I watch them again. Sometimes I wonder if I'm really interested in movies like I professed to be when I retired. Just like I wonder whether I'm really really interested in writing or just trying to prove that I'm interested in something besides eating. Oh. Well. You just have to keep sifting through stuff in life and see what works for you and what doesn't, in the end, seem, well pointless.

I leave the film thing with these shorts bouncing in my head. The equipment in the room where my group watched makes the video look 'hot' (whites are blazing, it's too bright) and I feel like a bunch of pointless stuff has seared into my brain and yet I can't remember much about the films, especially the ones rejected by the group.

I go home. I'm not good at driving at night but I know my paths around this part of Austin (downtown to my house) so well that my partial night blindness doesn't matter too much. I don't need to see the street signs. I dodge around the 45th construction and get home.

I fool around in my office for a while. I experiment with WEB sites where you can print your own T-Shirts and stuff. I'm trying to decide what gifts to take when I go to South Africa. This resulted in a lot of flailing around, looking at sites, wondering about trying to make things look good. And I turned on the TV and watched Lance Armstrong on Charlie Rose. For some reason I couldn't bring myself to turn it off although I knew he wouldn't say anything that I didn't already know he would say. So I go to sleep too late, after midnight and then I have trouble drifting off. And my day seems, well pointless.