Friday, January 25, 2002

looking at what people have left as memorials at the WTC site

"What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me."

Robert Browning, Rabbi En Ezra

I dawdled at home, crafting the perfect answer to some business e-mail. Then it was a rush to get into the office for a meeting. But the other guy was late because he was driving in from Houston and was caught on 183. So I started work on my presentation again, took the meeting and before long it was lunch.

I went to Whole Foods and ate a pretty healthy salad. Then I went to the Sprint store to get a earpiece for my cell phone and ended up buying my mother a new phone.

I had one of those meetings where a manager explains the reorg and, although I understand it pretty well, I went to see what questions were asked. They had cookies there. I didn't succumb but there was a sugar cookie in front of me for an hour, calling out to me.

When I got home, FFP had some rotisserie chicken heating and we had some salad. Then we were off to campus.

We parked on San Jacinto and walked around the darkened Texas Memorial Museum to the PAC complex and the McCullough Theater. It was a performance for a contest that this French group puts on for comtemporary dance. (Rencontres Choreographiques Internationales de Seine-St. Denis.) There were six performances this night. Some pieces had dancers dancing with light, there was lots of atonal or marble dropping music, sound tracks of people talking, dancing with couches, creating desire and exhibiting horror. We sat by Stephen Mills and his friend Brent. There was a last minute question about his piece...bras or no bras. No bras won. Brent said that the Holly Williams piece would probably be "short and happy." It was long and was about death and shoes.

It was an interesting evening. Boy, we have lots of choices for art in this town. The symphony was playing next door at Bass, there was a museum opening down the street we were invited to, we had to switch Zach tix for Slut for Art to Sunday and the tremendous quartet we heard last night was playing somewhere on campus, too.

It was pretty late. We headed home.

I'm still feeling pretty productive. I felt I had good ideas for my presentation. Of course, I will probably feel differently next Wednesday when I give a dry run. It's fun but time-consuming going to see some show every night.

JUST TYPING
If you take joy.
In studying what your neighbor wears.
How they move.
And in observing that women wash their hands twice as fast as they use the toilet.
Life is always interesting.