Tuesday

March 27, 2001

toys on the rampage--is it Tokyo? London? Berlin? Paris?
This is about the only bendy left in my office.

I awake to a dream. I'm with a number of people in a huge building, as large as an airplane hanger. There is this corridor looking thing hanging above our heads, suspended from the side. It is sort of like a jetway and has an extension at the end of glass. It's dark inside. I hear an alarm. (Yes, I sat an alarm on this day.) A light goes on in the glass part and it's obviously a bedroom. Someone rises from bed, retreats out of the glass part and it retracts.

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At work, I'm trying to listen in to a meeting occurring in the UK somewhere. We can only catch a word or two. We hang on to answer questions but none come. My colleagues and I work on other things until they give up.

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At lunch, it is pouring down rain. I visit the parents. They are settled in to stay out of the weather although Dad went out to get salad makings for them and got rained on. Mom has potato salad, chicken, spinach casserole and salad. Mom says Dad says 'he's starving.'

"A man my age who has a good appetite and someone to tell him what to do will be all right," he says.

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I'm looking at Mom's computer, trying to figure out how she went awry sending e-mail and trying to teach her to use her address book so she doesn't mess up the TO: line. I see she has Paint up and there is a line drawing of a building, trees and people. It's very abstract (i.e. shaky) but it has a nice balance. I make her print it out and take it to work for my bulletin board. She protests that she isn't done...she wants to put some color on it. I think it's perfect. Art is knowing where to start and when to stop.

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I weigh too much and I'm trying to not succumb to chips and such but I end up having, of all things, an ice cream sandwich in the afternoon.

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FFP makes molé enchiladas with cheese and chicken. It's nice having someone cook. I drink a beer. I prefer richer, darker beers but I drink a Miller Lite because I have it in the frig. Later, I nibble some chips but stop short of finishing what's in the bag. That's resolve.

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I meant to do something useful when I got home. Learn something new about Fireworks or get a little closer to organized in this room. But it doesn't happen. I sit in my chair and almost finish the NY Times crossword. (Because it's Tuesday and I can.) Five clues are 'black and white.' Crosswords are a waste of time. But I love words.

The Emma Thompson Wit comes on and we watch it. It is every bit as good as the stage version we saw in Houston. I said then:

Oddly, I found the wordplay as interesting as the emotional exposé of cancer and its treatment and research vs. compassion.

The movie version made the cancer treatment a little more real but the wordplay was still the hook for me. Living for words, dying with words.

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