January 24, 2000

blue monday

I'm really enjoying other people's journals now and I'm not feeling so intimidated by them. Not that I'm all that impressed with mine. It just is what it is and I'm happy with it. I've added an e-mail link. As if. I also realize that some others are the work of people who write for a living. Or take photographs for a living. Of course, writing is a part of my job. Of all professional jobs. I mentored some Computer Science students at UT last semester. (And I use mentor loosely here.) I tried to convince them that writing English was as important as writing code. I don't think they were convinced. I'm not sure that I am convinced either.

My favorite recent diary discovery is John Bailey, Journal of a Writing Man. I discovered him because Rick McGinnis was being pressed by his girlfriend to visit John (or get married, or to travel in her style). I suppose being mentioned in other people's journals is really neat and increases your readership. However, I feel I'm writing this just for myself. It was disconcerting to hear from a friend of many, many years that she read in my journal that I was trying to move the parents down here. But there is somethig slightly risky and even potentially risqué about an online journal. I love other people's efforts and it almost seems wrong to not try one myself. The open dialog of hopes and fears, the use of nicknames for bosses that are less than complimentary all seems quite brave. I try to keep my diary honest but not so honest that I have to keep it a secret from too many people!

As for today's quote and picture: I did see Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" in London in October. The illustration is a ad card trumpeting Oscar's visit to the U.S. in the later part of that century before the one that just ended. (Be careful about 'last century' references.) I shamelessy copped the illustration from an ebay auction. I figure one day the ultimate coincidence will occur: someone selling something on ebay will recognize their picture of their item on my page.

So...I woke up with a stiff back. Which proves that eXtreme dog walking and bending over to hack dead things use different muscles. I had an all day meeting today. I could have just gone to parts of it, but I thought being there throughout was reasonably important. And it probably was. So except for a one hour break and other moments here and there, I was in a meeting. It wasn't intended to enlighten me. And it didn't. But the thing about meetings is this: you always think 'if I wasn't in this meeting, I would be getting lots of creative brilliant work done.' It is not, of course, true. Not always anyway.

So I worked (if you call it work, I don't) and came home. After some fits and starts on logistics, SuRu and I took the dogs around the neighborhood. I tried to walk off my stiff back, sore hips, other soreness here and there. I must be in terrible shape because I didn't do that much work in the yard to cause this. We walked to the corner of Burnet/Med Parkway/45th then back down Burnet to North Loop and looped back. Not that far.

I had great intentions for doing some WEB work and real work. Instead I read some newspapers. I worked the New York Times crossword. Yeah, I know, Monday is easy. They had several anagrams of Socrates. SAT score was one. OK, it was pretty easy.

Besides this diary, I try to write every day to my friend Mags in South Africa. She writes something almost every day, too. She lives near Cape Town. Almost every day I have a missive from a place far away in a different season. The fires are out, by the way. Bet you didn't even know about the fires, huh?

"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."

Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest