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Wednesday June 7, 2000
"La réalité ne se forme que dans la mémoire, les fleurs qu'on me montre aujourd'hui pour la première fois ne me semblent pas de vraies fleurs." "Reality takes shape only in memory: the flowers I am shown today for the first time do not seem true flowers to me" Marcel Proust, Du Côté de chez Swann (Swann's Way)
the mammogram place
Mopac traffic
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maintenance and memory Everything requires upkeep. Today I go for a teeth cleaning and a mammogram. And sandwich a trip to the bank between to get some signature guarantees. Just stuff you do. The errands of life are sometimes physical things you must do to keep up the body. Sometimes the ephemeral things of man's paperwork. Hearing about Liz's life yesterday distracted me from what day it was until Forrest mentioned 'what were you doing when you heard about D-Day?' She didn't seem to remember, but told a good story about hearing of FDR's death. "He was the only president we had known." But it reminded me. D-Day. So, I decided to dig out my diaries and pictures from last year's 55th anniversary and post a couple of 'journal entries after the fact.' I've threatened to do this before but it's difficult to go back even if you have pictures and notes. Just getting something written each day turns out to be rather more difficult than one might think. Especially if one trys to track down an appropriate quote and provide some picture or scanned souvenir. It does, however, elevate one's paltry life, giving it an entirely unwarranted importance in one's own mind. I am constantly looking for things that might liven up the old journal and scrapbook. The dentist. It's a little uncomfortable sitting there with all that junk in your mouth and getting the flossing lecture one more time. Oh, and the sales pitch for the porcelain teeth. And whitening. But you come out feeling good, confident you will get better marks on your flossing next time. The bank is next to the dentist so Forrest comes by and we do some signature guarantees on things we are changing for some accounts. There isn't time to go to work and then go to the mammogram appointment. So I work from home a bit and then head out there. The place is in a hospital and I always forget where and wander the whole place and I hate hospitals. But I'm there in plenty of time and do the paperwork and navigate the actual exam and get done by lunch. To reward myself for all this health maintenance, I go to Whole Foods and have a big salad with everything you can think of in it and lots of dressing. Work is meetings. Having a meeting is an accomplishment, sure, but you can't sell it to the customer. One guy cancels my meeting though. I don't really feel that sorry about it, truthfully. I head home at pretty much the regular hour and after getting through the annoying jam on Mopac, I get home and we go over to Westwood. Twenty minutes on the bicycle, a few Cybex machine reps (boy I'm weak!), a few more minutes on the bike, a quick shower, a few laps in the pool and a Chicken Caesar. The place is sort of kid-oriented. Especially now, summertime. When we walk by the pool to get into the exercise area, there are tables choc-a-bloc with towels and kids' gear and abandoned triangles of toasted cheese sandwiches. And there are kids screaming and splashing. When I try laps, the kids sometimes ignore the lanes and just play in your way. But, all in all, it's pleasant. Now to find someone to play tennis with me who won't laugh.
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