Friday, December 13, 2002

the year is 1999...do I look younger?

"Because it came and went, I never settled in with my psoriasis, never adopted it as, inevitably, part of myself. It was temporary and in a way illusionary, like my being poor, and obscure, and (once we moved to the farm) lonely---a spell that had been put upon me, a test, as in a fairy story or sone of those divinely imposed ordeals in the Bible."

John Updike, At War with My Skin

My daily routine is drifting to 'stay up late and get up late.' I don't worry about it but just start around eight, messing with my computer (scanning pictures for a project, writing e-mails), reading the newspaper, watching CNBC, sending in an 'Afrcian memory' to the Austin American-Statesman for a travel section they are doing. Several friends have told me that, given more freedom, their days drifted around as if taking more than twenty-four hours. It's not like I'm staying abed for days or anything.

The day outside is beautiful. SuRu remarks on this when I call her to say, "I think we went to the Loire in 1994." It was a question I called her with last night. I'm not sure how I came up with this answer, but I did. I'm not sure why I cared about the answer either. On the phone we discuss the other places we visited (Paris, Monet's Giverney, Rouen, Chartres). We should remember our trips thoroughly. I write journals and take pictures. But you have to be able to find that stuff when a question arises.

The nice weather outside makes me anxious. Actually I'm already anxious. What should I be doing with my precious free time? Am I using it wisely?

Finally, I decide to take Chalow for a walk. The dynamic of a walk on a weekday and without Zoey and SuRu is totally different. If they'd been along, I'd have gone for a snack somewhere like Upper Crust. I'm also dodging garbage trucks and garbage cans. Something we don't usually encounter on weekends. Inexplicably, I walk on Shoal Creek more than usual in spite of the fact that it's busier than usual. Chalow seems to be more of a bother, going off in odd directions and stopping to sniff and pee than she is when this behavior entangles her with the rest of the eXtreme dog walking team. In any case the walk settles me down somewhat.

I am hungry when I get back and sit down to stuff in some sausage, cheese and an apple. I was going to read the paper but end up reading a review of The Sopranos in The New Yorker that FFP left sitting open on the dishwasher. I find the article much more interesting than the actual show. I need to find time to read The New Yorker every week.

So then it's time to work out for real. I almost have the place to myself. There is one college age guy in a fraternity TShirt pushing too much weight who is almost, but not quite, in my way. He is using some arm machines but I'm able to jump around on the machines I use and not be delayed. And a young girl is using free weights who just spoils my fantasy that I own the place. Which isn't a very strong fantasy anyway. I might have once imagined owning a big gym, a pool, tennis courts and a sport court (where a lone guy shoots baskets) all overlooking a pretty lake scene and with minnions running around keeping things in working order. (The pool is all torn up being refurbished. At this dull time there seem to be more people cleaning, working, taking care of the grounds than using the club.)

No, I no longer dream of owning a huge home like a country club where friends and relatives would come and visit. Now, if I had that kind of money, I'd leave a lot of it in nice hotels or resorts around the world or find interesting ways to give it away. In any case, I just about owned the gym this particular afternoon.

What kind of club is this, you ask? The kind of club where they close the pool, empty it and are running jack hammers and heavy equipment and yet, in spite of signs to the contrary, you can still take a shortcut across the pool apron to get to the gym. The kind of club where when they do things to the grounds and need a wall or barrier that it is made with native stone by not-so-native stone masons to look like the original old structure I'm told was a house. The kind of club that, despite fantasies about owning such a place, I doubted I'd ever belong to. I wonder how different it is for the young people I see coming home from college and claiming their rightful place in the gym and tennis courts and the grill. How different to expect to belong to such a place.

I give myself the privilege of driving up Mount Bonnell and seeing the view as you crest on that road heading roughly north. I consider climbing up to the overlook but don't do it. I continue to my dad's and get in a stack of mail which includes, I think, yesterday's and today's. I saw a mailman in the neighborhood.

Home again, I work some more on my projects, visit with a friend who stops by, read and look at the market recap. The Dow and the NASDAQ are sharply down. It is Friday the Thirteenth after all. I just realize that. It can't explain my day, though, which was perfectly nice.

For a while as we went to each year's performance of The Nutcracker, I found it a little boring. But now I look forward to it. It's really a fun piece with beautiful music and it's a tradition I really embrace. I have no tree, am buying few presents but I'm going to see the Christmas ballet. I like looking for things that are different than prior performances. One of my favorite parts are the dancers being life-size dolls. In this production, I enjoy the maid who uses her tray of glasses as a prop to pretend to being slightly off balance as she scurries about. I like the mice and rats, too. And the snow scenes. And all the dancers in the second part competing for attention it seems. Mother Ginger is played by Pat Green, a country singer from Waco. He is very funny, too. The bon bon dancers emerging from his skirt struggle to compete with his antics atop the huge apparatus.

There is a good crowd and FFP is pleased. Everything is down in town...donations, ticket sales. The nutcrackers seem to be selling well, too. I see several children with ones half their height.

Home again we have a snack and I read papers for a while. I'm reading the day's papers in real time now, pretty much. But there is still a stack to be dealt with from before.

JUST TYPING
The sun draws me out of the house.
I'm out, why aren't you?
And yet rain depresses me.
Because I have to get wet.
Or stay home.
Always something.
To be anxious about.