The Visible Woman...March 17, 2002

.Sunday, March 17, 2002

blue is water, but the symbol??

"To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilisation."
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

what to do?

I am thinking about a morning walk. But FFP says it's drizzling out. I stay in bed until 8:30.

Then it doesn't really seem to be raining. And yet. I finally call SuRu around 10:30 and she isn't home. I'm kind of relieved. I wander outside to talk to FFP about his planting and landscaping. It is very damp, like 100% humidity, but not exactly raining. I make a mental and then an actual list of things that I could do with this day. Some items on one list or the other:

go work out at the club

surf the WEB to read journals or check out ebay

work crosswords

work on my own journal and WEB page

watch a movie called "Baraka" on TV that I've just stumbled across on cable (it seems to be scenes of people all over the world set to music)

read a piece on Charles Mingus in the New York Times magazine

go outside and help FFP with planting or pull some weeds or chop bamboo

learn more about Fireworks and Dreamweaver by reading some books I bought

do some backups on our computers and fix a script that fails on Forrest's machine

scan some old pictures

do one of the many straightening up jobs I'm always threatening to do like cleaning up the stacks of newspapers or cleaning out closets and drawers

make a card to go with a present we bought for a friend

actually go on a walk

eat something

read the newspaper

I end up reading the Mingus article, working one puzzle, going through a pile of papers, discarding most of them. FFP goes for some breakfast tacos. I consider cooking something (not on the list above). I look at the recipes in the NYT magazine. Both start with the ingredient 'half of a baby lamb' and I give up that idea. I make a pot of coffee instead.

In the process of flipping through papers, I'm aware of column inch after column inch of Enron and Arthur Andersen misconduct, priest sexual abuse scandals and Andrea Yates trial reports. (I think they should put the husband in jail for child endangerment, but that's just me.) . I also catch some interesting articles, though: an article and picture about a one-legged man dancing, an article and picture about National elephant day in Thailand, an article and picture about wind blowing scaffolding off a building in Chicago and killing several motorists on the ground. You just never know, do you?

I talk to my mother on the phone. And then SuRu. She and I decide to walk around 4 and stay out about an hour. Just in our neighborhood. The day is still cloudy, but I like getting out and the dogs love it, of course. We see a new house and decide it is an acceptable version of modern. We see a lot where one could build their own infill. They want $175,000 according to the 'take one.'

So I didn't accomplish much, on list or off. Like yesterday, though, I feel the day was worthwhile. Go figure.

I do watch King of the Hill and The Simpsons and Six Feet Under. I aimlessly snack my supper: salad, some Chex snack mix, a coke, black olives. I said it was aimless.

JUST TYPING
What to do?
Make a list.
And, do not one thing on it.
That's leisure.

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