Friday, December 6, 2002

a happy boy spins by on the zebra

"Time is very dangerous without a rigid routine. If you do the same thing every day at the same time for the same length of time, you'll save yourself from many a sink. Routine is a condition of survival."

Flannery O'Connor

I am going to finish the holiday mailers. I mean it. It takes longer than I think it will. There are breaks to print more sheets, to eat a microwave eggplant parmesan, to send some e-mails and answer some.

I am quite tired of this activity when I finally wind it up. Except for sending any additional ones later in response to some we get and cleaning up the mailing list. At the end of the activity, it hardly seems worth it. It does make me kind of eager to see what we receive in the way of holiday cards and which ones of these mailers, once mailed (I've yet to actually mail them) come back as undeliverable. My holiday preparations are just about done now that this if finished. I don't plan to give many gifts and I don't really plan to decorate the house either. I plan to work on projects unrelated to the (alleged) birth of Christ and whatever event the other religions are commemorating. It will sort of be the ritual clensing of the closet and filing cabinet time for me. The sacred cleaning of the hard drive. Not to make fun of the sacred season of shopping or anything.

So, all but finished with the mailers (I'll go through them and make sure they all have postage and are stuck together properly and then mail them), I decide to have my daily visit to the exercise room and head to the club.

Early afternoon on Friday is a quiet time at the club and there is no competition for any machine I want. The sun glistens of the lake. A handful of men and one young lady share the space. At one point, racquetball players come out for a moment and stand in front of the bank of TVs. I take them to be doctors but I can't really say why.

So, at home, what do I do? Well, a plan develops to meet Gayle for a movie (Frida) and SuRu is enlisted to go, too. That means I should probably shower up before the day is done. But first, I look over the mailers I've prepared and have a snack.

I shower and dress and SuRu picks us up. We go all the way to South Austin. At the movie theater, the young guy takes one look at me and FFP and sells us senior tickets. It is 55 and over, but still. I'm not even 55! I don't complain. It saves several dollars. But I thought retirement had made me look younger! Geez.

Frida is a great movie. It is great whether you like Frida Kahlo's art or Diego Riveria's art. It's great whether you sympathize with Trotsky and communism, pure or corrupted. It's just a visual wonder. It uncovers the soul of art as salvation and expression.

We stop by Schlotzsky's on the river and SuRu and I share a sandwich and FFP has a pizza. Then it's home to a bit of reading and sleep.

JUST TYPING
I am so lucky.
Can't believe my luck.
Set free.
To do what I will.
Burden?
Maybe.
But a smooth and silky one.