Sunday,
February 10, 2002
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
. why would you paint your dog?
. your house, sure...
"Dans l'adversité de nos
meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque chose qui ne nous déplait
pas."
|
|
cold wind blows I am sleeping very, very hard but I struggle up around 8:15 and, when SuRu calls, I'm just about dressed. A little later FFP, Chalow and I climb into SuRu's CRV and head to the Bouldin Creek area of South Austin. We park on W. Elizabeth and weave and wind south to Oltorf and then over to S. 5th and back up. It's a neighborhood of wonders. It was once an area of run-down bungalows with chain-link fenced front yards populated with dogs to beware of. Now, those properties still exist. Next to rehabed houses with more welcoming entrances (except for the warning sign from a security service). Next to a completely rehabed house that must be a hundred years old, all redone except for the landscaping. It is next to a clump of run-down properties, including one with a stone fireplace and new studs aging in the elements. This group is protected by a high fence and a dog. It has had a 'take one' tube as if it were for sale. No brochures And these old bungalows are next to infills of all kinds including a few startling modern ones, no there are post-modern ones (whatever that means). Some of the houses are painted good, bold colors. And, I swear, some of the dogs, too.
Chalow finds a chicken bone and I have to quickly grab it from her with my gloved hand. The cold wind takes my Polartec cap off a couple of times and I'm glad I have on a sweatshirt and an anorak. And a muffler and gloves. It's a good walk, probably not long enough.At the end we go north a bit past Elizabeth and see three homeless guys sitting happily at a picnic table in the curious little vacant lot near the curious little triangle of green at James and 2nd.
At home, FFP decides that he needs a Mangia pizza. He goes and gets it and I have a piece. It seems like a good day to sit in my office, watch TV and work on various projects. I watch a little Olympics. But I also watch some great old flicks like Waiting on the Wind (I didn't know this one existed) and Catch-22 (I remember seeing this one with my pals in a theater in Denton, Texas). I need to get a DVD of the latter.
FFP gets a friend to come over and help move a dresser out of our bedroom and into what we call the bonus room. It's been in our bedroom for over twenty years. It's good to move some stuff around now and then. But I find it disconcerting every time there isn't a place to plunk down something in its old spot. I make a non-birthday present, 3D birthday card for my friend SuRu whose birthday is tomorrow. I don't like to do presents on command, because a certain day has arrived. And this really isn't a present. It's more a card with money in it in 3D. And even the money is a joke...a bag of dimes because she collects up dimes to save for travel and travel is what she really wants that I can't give her. I eat a couple of bowls of salad and later a beer and chesse and crackers and enjoy my day, doing exactly what I want to do.
I spend some time reading newpapers and watching TV in the evening. FFP watches Sex in the City and I watch along. I guess people are sad the new episodes are over but I like watching old movies just as well. We watch some Olympics but I have trouble relating to winter sports, something I attribute to never having tried them and seeing so little snow and ice growing up.
The journal and its future is on my mind. I'd been determined that I would edit everything since January 1 for typos and put out an e-mail to a select group of people identifying the new index. And I did work on this a little. But, at the end of the day, I both hadn't finished editing and was feeling like 'who would want to read this?' and 'how could I write an e-mail implying that people would want to. Of course, I could just make it public again, but the page has been saying that people should write to find out the fate of the journal. One person has actually done so, I think, and I've had a conversation over e-mail with another journaler (who kindly quit having any links to me when I became paranoid). Some people who used to read somewhat regularly didn't write and say 'what is up?' I suppose they might be checking back again and again but probably not and, even so, if they were actual friends, what would a little e-mail hurt? So at the end of all that, I decided to stay hiding in plain sight. It's all there, but will anyone find it without directions?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
176
JUST
TYPING