Tuesday

Sept. 25, 2001

take it as it comes

I sleep wonderfully. I wake up realizing I've been dreaming an innocuous dream. I'm in a three story building. We are looking for stuff but in a casual way as if it doesn't matter. The floors and stairwells and cabinets where we look are beautiful wood. It is crowded with people. They are eating. I keep trying to get something to a particular person, walking up and down the stairs.

I work. It is nice working today. The meeting I go to is low key. A buddy asks me questions and we have cool conversations. I read stuff about a customer I will visit.

It is a day when SuRu and I go to lunch but can't decide where. We take turns naming places.

Me
Cheap Chinese, Kyoto, Texas French Bread, Schlotzsky's, Thundercloud, Cheap Mexican, Ruby Tuesday's, Grady's, IHOP...
[Ed. Note: We never eat at some of these.]

SuRu
Does cheap Chinese always mean the one over there?

Me
Yeah, the other one is cheap Chinese buffet.

SuRu
Cheap Mexican sounds good but not Ala Carrera.

So we eat a La Morrito. Which means the traffic at Parmer and Mopac. It is vaguely dissatisfying. I have a kind of burrito. The chips aren't rancid but they are coated with grease in that not altogether pleasant way.

I get caught in traffic on the way home. I'm been sneezing all day I notice.

We go for a walk, the eXtreme team (FFP is at the club working out). We go down to 40th or so, weave around some, come back. I'm sneezing.

When I get home FFP and I go to Fonda. We have a bottle of Renaissance Syrah and some tortilla soup. I have a chile relleno and FFP some salpicon. (He's go good...and he's losing weight, too.)

The food is so good and wipes the cheap Mexican out of my mind. Tom the owner sits with us at a table near the pay phone and entrance to the restrooms in the bar. Jane Grieg goes by and the owners of Gardens. (We last saw one of them in Portland.) The place is busy and they hadn't expected it.

Some people still use pay phones. A guy calls his family on the one by my chair.

"When will I be home from Texas?" he says, obviously talking to a child.

"I'll be home Friday."

"How will I be coming home? On an airplane."

He then tells the story of the Three Bears to the child. I never remember how that one comes out but I already feel I've invaded his privacy and I try not to listen anymore.

At home, I read. Papers. I'm piles behind as always. I make my way through the Tuesday NY Times crossword. I have a small doubt about one corner.

The cable has black premium channels, a new feature that started last night. So I don't try to catch up with Band of Brothers. FFP spents a bunch of time booting all the boxes but it doesn't work. (Hint to cable troubleshooter: if all boxes are doing it then it's on your end. The guy thinks he can do something if we have all our boxes off. Of course, it doesn't work. He'll send someone Thursday. That's nice. He gives us five days credit. Whether or not I have HBO is the least of my worries. But it does seem fair not to pay for it.

You finally leave world events and crawl into your own selfish shell. Worry about that scratchy throat developing behind the sneeze. Worry about the dentist. Worry about you physically making the trip. One colleague cancelled. He was stranded on September 11. That added to his helpless feeling, I think. A European colleague uses the term 'threat of war.' We are always at war, really. What about the USS Cole?

I can't believe I'm going on this trip. Must stuff down Echinacea and make this threat of a cold a bad memory by Friday. Must get better. No choice.

Escape into sleep. Wake up and take more drugs.

food, nicely presented
(I'm not at all sure when or where but I found the picture in my camera. Zoot, Red Ribbon Dinner, night before Sept. 11 I expect. You remember red ribbons, don't you? Before red, white and blue ones?)

"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace..."

John Lennon, "Imagine"

Meta:
We'll just be keeping Lennon's radical lyrics here indefinitely. Occasionally I talk to some of you who read. And I can tell...you read the journal. And it's weird. A man shouted over a couple of heads at the event Sunday night, "Are you still writing your journal?" Sometimes I tell SuRu something and say, "Oh, yeah, since you don't read the journal..." and then I tell her something I allege is clever that I wrote. (Yeah, quit sniggering...I write some clever things. Don't I?)

JUST TYPING
War.
Military.
Bombs.
Guns.
Tanks.
Planes.
Ships.
Men.
Heroes.
Women, too.
----
Lives lost.
Buildings turned to dust.
Progeny that will never be.
We change our future.
Man, in control.
At last.
Yeah. Right.