Friday, October 25, 2002

a random excerpt from Austin pictures

"Wherever there is a flat surface, someone will find something to put on it."
Col. Lawrence Ballweg, Quoted in a Book on Borders Bargain Table that I didn't buy

I buzz around the house. I'm organizing stuff for my trip. Money and credit cards for the secret hiding places. Clothes and itineraries. Toiletries. Choosing to take, choosing to leave. I start some laundry to get all my favorite socks clean.

I decide to work out and go to the club. Twenty-five minutes on the bicycle, lower body exercises, twelve hundred meters of pretend rowing.

Back home I have a couple of eggs cooked in the microwave with cheese, crushed chips and hot sauce. I sort a few more things for the trip. Choosing clothes is always interesting. How many of this or that? Does everything go with everything else? Has one properly planned for layers? I usually pack faster. I usually have less time.

In the afternoon, I decide to make a spreadsheet to keep track of the budget. I used to do it on an old copy of Microsoft Money. I may end up putting it on Quick Books. But today I'm trying a spreadsheet. It goes pretty well since we've organized the receipts and notes about spending pretty well. It doesn't really matter if it's deadly accurate. I also scour the credit card bills on-line looking for stuff. We are just trying to make sure that we understand our spending so that we try to live within our means. In fact, we are trying to 'not spend the principal' although my feeling is that, eventually, we should just do that. In fact, we are trying to continue to save some of the income. On the surface, if all goes well, it looks like we can do it. I need to think more about our investments and finances. I promised I'd do that in retirement but I haven't done well yet.

I finish my packing. Except for putting in some film, a book, a map and a bottle of water, I'm done. There is a brief moment of elation followed by the feeling that it's all too, um, fat. However, without the burden of my laptop, my carryon is fat (it has in it, after all, an anorak; a sweater; clean socks, underwear and shirt; emergency stuff; stuff to entertain me on the plane including books and Palm and translator) but it is not heavy. I don't feel like I've packed all that much. I always imagine that I'll get very good at packing. I do change things a little every time. But I'm not sure I actually improve.

I am so ready to give up having so much stuff. Now to actually get rid of some of it. Perhaps this is from spending more hours a day at home. At home in the middle of my stuff. Perhaps this is all a part of change in focus in my life. Perhaps it's just getting old. Or growing up. It's never really happened to my sister. (The desire to downsize the piles of stuff.) And my mother was acquisitive until the end. Dad has always been a little suspicious of accumulating things. Although he did try to salvage and recycle everything everyone else discarded for a long while. That was the depression I think. And being a poor farmer. It rubbed off on us a little, too.

In the evening FFP goes to the grocery store. He has a baked sweet potato and I have a regular baked potato (with yogurt, onions, broccoli and cheese). I nibble on Goldfish Crackers. Didn't those used to taste better? Still, I eat too many.

I do some reading. I watch TV but can't find anything I really want to see so I 'watch' (rather listen) the jazz music channel.

JUST TYPING
You can track things.
Too closely.
Following pennies and wisps of smoke.
Missing the bigger picture.