January 3, 2000

resolution

I haven't made any resolutions. Well, I haven't written any down, anyway. I have done that in the past. Written a nice list, even kept up with my progress. I think it helps me make small changes in my life, actually. Maybe all those resolutions to lose weight have kept the scale this side of two hundred pounds. Maybe I really do floss more. Maybe I've written more letters, read more books, kept up with friends better than I would have, sans a resolution. Or not.

Exercise more. There's a classic one. I've been getting low marks in this category for a long time. To be honest I've only gotten two forms of exericise in quite some time: eXtreme dog walking and fidgeting.

I read somewhere that some people get a modicum of exercise by just moving around more than others. I've been trying to consciously do this by doing little mini-exercises in my office chair and in my car.

Even though walking is maligned as exercise (or an eXtreme sport), I did find on my vacations last year that the sport had prepared me for trips. When I was walking all day and climbing to the top of things (a favorite activity of mine on trips), I found my muscles and joints did pretty well (no soreness) and my wind was fair. Today, my friend SuRu and her poodle and my Chalow (Chloe pronouned phonetically) and I did our workout in the neighborhood between Duval and Airport around 51st Street. We took a break for a drink at Flight Path. This coffee shop will, one day, have to explain its name to the next generation of slackers. A polite and efficient gal with an exploding dynamite tattoo served my cappuccino.

While we walk the various neighborhoods, reeling the dogs in and out and performing various manuevers around poles, cars and each other, we critique the yard art, architecture, landscaping and such. I'm so glad that colored paint has been rediscovered. Occasionally, I stop to photograph something interesting. The cat shown today seemed to have been chosen to complement the owner's color scheme. And that color scheme seems to have been chosen to complement the scheme of this page. Funny how that works.

Forrest bundled up notebooks on lots of radio markets today and mailed them to an account he resigned in order to devote more time to travels, new kinds of work and our investments. It was a signal action in this whole reordering thing.

We ate lunch at Houston's, sitting at the bar. They serve a rare Ahi tuna salad these days with mango and avocado. Forrest had their catfish which he adores.

We had dinner at our old favorite, Jeffrey's with a couple of friends. One we hadn't made a date with in a while. After agreeing on tonight at Jeffrey's we saw him yesterday at Central Market. He was brunching with other people and we decided not to eat there after the ordering process turned into a mess.

Dinner at Jeffrey's was good. Odd things I ordered, though. Spinach with Peanut Duck Soup? A venison that was made into a Wellington-like affair with foie gras instead of the ducelle. We had a nice visit. Our buddy Curtis went to A2K and he told us about the crowds and the feeling of the whole thing. He liked it a lot. But he's a decade younger (to be kind to us). We discussed lame joke e-mails and lame TV shows. And the use of 'tainted' celebrities for commercials. (Monica for Jenny Craig? What diet is she on??)

If I had made resolutions one would be to get organized. The problem is that I start getting organized, develop some scheme about filing or sorting everything and then forget the scheme by the time I start again. The only good news is that I occasionally get rid of something. I figured I'd make great progress in organizing my home office this weekend. But I didn't. I did make a couple of handmade 'thank you' notes (that was fun) and worked on my WEB page and read a bunch of newspapers and some of a South African novel, 'Disgrace.'

I'm going to try to keep this journal thing going. A resolution? Nah...

"Only two classes of books are of universal appeal: the very best and the very worst."

Ford Madox Ford