Sunday, October 27, 2002

every fence post a ghoul and a dog to beware of to boot

"With age and experience...growth becomes a conscious, recognized process. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all possibility, a new level of experience is about to be revealed."
Alice Walker

I'm sipping coffee and flipping the newspapers when SuRu calls and suggests we walk the dogs, drizzle or not.

It actually stays dry most of the time we are out. I don't like to walk with the hood up on my jacket. I don't like that feeling of restricted visibility. But it never rains very hard. I think it's supposed to lose steam in a day or two. At the end of the walk I'm getting a twinge around my hip. This happens sometimes. My lumbar pack was sort of hanging wrong maybe. SuRu suggest breakfast at Aranda's. FFP isn't up for that but we go. I have guacamole and chips, huevos rancheros. That place has such an authentic atmosphere...it could have been in yesterday's movie. (Real Women Have Curves.) I am stuffed when we leave.

I'm not quite sure what to do with the rest of my day. I decide to go work out and then get a shower. Maybe go by the camera store somewhere in there. I go do the workout. FFP goes, too, but in his own car. We don't leave here/leave the club more than a few minutes apart but who wants to be on someone else's schedule, huh? I forget about the camera store. On the way over and back I reset the clock in my car. I have to get the book out like I always do. How much energy was wasted today resetting clocks and watches? I really think we ought to do away with daylight savings time.

I brush my teeth but never take a shower. Retirement=sloth? Maybe. But I'm exercising more anyway.

The ball game is on but I care less about it than most anyone watching. I try to dispense with the old, unread papers that have piled up. This pile takes me back, back, back to a time when different things were attracting our attention. I am rethinking my relationship with the newspapers. I'd like to branch out and spend more reading time on books and magazines. Maybe actually write something besides this journal. The newspapers stand in my way. Also, I think the crosswords in the Statesman are history. They are dull. I think I'll stick to Monday through Wednesday ones in the Times. This will be important when I return from my week in Berlin to a pile of papers.

I am feeling the need to create something. Something entirely my own. I don't know what it is that I want to do but I'm feeling the need. Perhaps I'll create something from old newspapers.

And, when I get back from this trip, I'm going to get rid of stuff. Clean out all the closets and all that. Yes, I really am.

JUST TYPING
Small things move the plot.
How little things matter.
Little things matter.
Things matter little.