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January 26, 2000
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home and the prospect of travel There was a time when I would eagerly take a job because it held the prospect of constant travel. I can't imagine doing that today. I'm still committed to adventure, but home holds such a sway that I want each bit of time away to be carefully constructed to contribute to my joy at home, not take away from it. From a pleasure trip I take my planning, my photos, my journal, my drinking in of far-away cities and countryside and build a little home movie in my head that enhances my home life. Business travel can have its moments but is mostly an interruption, merely tearing you away from fun at home to spend endless hours watching other travelers suffer while you suffer. You rarely have a moment for reflection or a nice afternoon sitting in a café. So I have to pack for a fun weekend in Houston. And a business trip. I have this standard, all-inclusive packing list. One merely starts with the base list, eliminates things not needed this time (no passport for Houston, no shorts and T-Shirt for a business trip to Europe during cold weather) and then prints the thing out in six point type on one page and packs away. Yeah, people who've known me forever must surely think I dissemble when I talk about not wanting to go on business trips to faraway places. But I'm not kidding. I really do not want to go. And yet I'll sacrifice a lot to get on that next train if it's for an adventure. I was sour on Bill Bryson's Neither Here Nor There by the end. Because he was basically getting paid to do the kind of travel I like to do. Put me in a snit. Now I'm listening to Norman Cousins Anatomy of An Illness. It's kind of old-fashioned, but interesting. The question that I'm coming up with is this: if you know the body can work for you, can you do it without placebos? The New York Times had an article about placebo surgery a couple of weekends ago. I'm not kidding. It's chilly outside, but not freezing. Used that as an excuse, though, not to do dog walks. I still used a picture from the neighborhood for today's page. Got home late. Was trying to wind up my presentation and send it to the conference folks. Wanted to practice with the tape recorder one more time, but I was too tired. Tomorrow is also a day. (That's a saying from Mags who hails from Edinburgh.) One tiny bit of good news amid a falling stock market and the usual routine...I do NOT have to go to Houston for a meeting next week. Small consolations. I do have to leave a week from Saturday on a week long trip. Missing one round trip to Houston will be nice, though. When I did get home from work, Forrest had heated some leftovers and made a salad. Salmon and vegies with spinach salad. Not all bad. I had lunch at P.F. Chang's with a colleague from Houston who wanted to go there. "Never again," I say. The food was just OK not warranting the huge crowd. People are such sheep. Our two top was positioned so that about two dozen servers walked by and bumped my chair. I complained. They moved the table a bit. It slowed, but didn't stop. The Moo Shu pancakes were dry. The server who put the things together broke a few and had to call for more. This place is so successful that the cars turning in are causing accidents on Jollyville. Go figure. I, for one, will be driving over to Old Balcones to the new Peony. Rick McGinnis has given us a new entry in his diary and taken on the AOL/Time-Warner merger. But more interesting to me was the monopoly analogy and the discussion of getting paid for his work as a small contract photographer. I disagree with the monopoly analogy. He thinks capitalism works like the board game, leaving everyone but the last person standing backrupt. But I believe capitalism leaves an enormous number of fairly well-off middle folks. Especially the slightly socialistic form of capitalism played out in his country (Canada) and mine. My empirical evidence? Myself. My parents. My in-laws. Oh, and in his comments on AOL et al, he comments on the internet revolution. I think I'd weigh in with my idea that the WEB has simply continued something that started with the proliferation of access to the means to reproduce media (cheap cameras, cheap video, copy machines, computers, VCRs, CD burners, public access TV, etc. etc.). Now there are so many ways into your brain that for one consumer (say, me) Rick McGinnis may be more important than any other source of information. If he had a banner ad, as he says he would if someone would pay him, I would read it. How are the big media going to deal with the endless disparate influences? Remember...I don't know the teams in the Super Bowl, but I do know about Rick McGinnis. People do want my business...look at all this junk mail! So advertise on Rick's page or I'm not listening! Millions for Super Bowl ads? Won't be there, dudes! Of course, my other new favorite is John Bailey who has emerged from illness with a drive into London. I'd take grammar exception to 'principle photographer' but since the guy writes me into a corner and back, I'll give him the dispensation provided for 'homophones flow out my fingers but I'm really a smart guy' and leave it at that. I LOVE this guy. Of course, 'principle photographer' could be a cool thing. Maybe Clinton could use one. My friend Bill takes pictures for Bush. Or did anyway. Laura is kind of one our 'circuit' in that she and her friends frequent Gardens, Fonda San Miguel and the 34th Street Deli. Soon, I suspect, she won't be our home girl, though! I have heard that should Bush the younger prevail that there would be a Fonda San Miguel event in the White House. Who knows? Did I mention that Forrest opened a nice Burgundy for dinner? A 1989 Jaffelin Aloxe-Corton. Best drunk today (I'm not sure it would have lived much longer), but yummy and I'm sorry it's empty. But if I'm a little weird now...well, there you go. Got a note from my Dad today. "Thought you would get a kick. Pa." That's all. Written on a give-away memo pad from 'The Shopping News, Your Neighborhood Newspaper." He enclosed a clipping from The Dallas Morning News. Of course, they picked it up from the Chicago Tribune, which is funny because it was about Kinky Friedman. Not his music nor his mysteries. But his 'Utopia Pet Ranch' which is right here in the state of Texas. Dad was sending me this because on Christmas Day 1998 we went to a party and the guy who gave the party...well his mother is married to Kinky's dad. If I'm not mistaken Kinky breezed by (mostly to get leftovers for his dogs). And Kinky's dad proudly played a tape of what one might call the 'lost Kinky Austin City Limits show.' It was too offensive for ACL back then and never aired. The hostess was embarrassed by it. My parents managed to go home with the tape! And my dad didn't forget a moment of the whole evening and carefully clipped this story for me. Which is a nice 'round the circle and the ends meet' story but what I like best is how my dad takes it all in and enjoys it. And remembers Kinky while scanning the paper in Dallas. Thanks to the First United Methodist Church in Mesquite for taking that picture. Honestly, he never dresses like that in front of me. Yeah..look at this one with my friend Mags. He wore a tie for my 50th birthday!
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"My heart is
warm with the friends I make, Edna St. Vincent Millay , Travel |
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store front in the neighborhod |
