Thursday,
January 16, 2003
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I just can't get anything done! I don't get up too late, but I don't do much. I write e-mail to people and I get wrapped up in surfing the WEB for New York stuff. The choices are overwhelming but, at the same time, you can't find certain types of things to do on Sunday night. I do catch up on my journal. I'm starting to question the time spent on it. Shouldn't I be doing something else? It's funny, though, when you write a journal. You feel that your life wasn't real until you record it. (I wish this were true for the meals I don't mention.) So before I know it, it's 11 and I head out to pick up SuRu for lunch. Before 11:30 we are sitting in Dan McClusky's. Haven't been here in ages. I have a Crab Louie salad which is nice and SuRu has a steak sandwich and a baked potato which she says is very tender. I don't know why we don't come here more often. Next door they seem to have torn down On the Border to build something else. After I take SuRu back to the office, I go shopping for a gift. I wander through the Barnes and Noble. The gift is for a very creative man celebrating his 60th birthday. A man who recenlty lost his job. What to buy? A pile of 'can do' self-help books from the remainder shelves? A book on travel or creativity? Nah.... So I go to Sharper Image and finally settle on some rechargable 'candles.' They seem nice for parties or soft, romantic lighting or power failures. They are such a weird choice that they might please. They are something he probably doesn't have but, if he did and liked them, why not more? Sharper Image doesn't gift wrap. Shouldn't they? Don't people mostly buy these gadgets for gifts? I put my purchase in the car and go to Restoration Hardware for the heck of it. I end up buying a half price children's Christmas book for sending to my great nephews next Christmas and two sets of porcelain cheese plates, also on sale. I can't decide whether I'm keeping the plates (I have a large collection of unique small plates to use to serve hors d'oeuvres) or using them as gifts. Or one set as a gift. At home, I decide both sets of plates will be gifts. (Not you. If you read this, no cheese plates for you.) I decide that for now anyway and put them in the gift closet. I put the book away. I hope I'll remember these gifts when needed. I start fiddling around with a gift sack and card for the gift which is for a party tomorrow. (If you read this journal and you are having your 60th birthday tomorrow and it's your gift...well, sorry to spoil the surprise.) But I need to work out. I finally head out when it's nearly five (where DID the day go?) and don't get back until after six. I do 45 minutes on the bike and my upper body exercises. I try to do them real slowly because I've read this article in FFP's Esquire that claims great results for slow reps of low weights to exhaustion once a week. Truthfully I can see results of my almost four months doing light weights. I'm pretty sure no one else can see a difference, however. When I get back, FFP is considering going to Four Seasons to meet some friends. So I shower. I usually wouldn't shower tonight since we have no place to go and I'm a slob. After my shower, he's decided we definitely won't go until we eat. He cooks chicken in tomato sauce with cheese and makes a salad. I eat, clean up the pans and stove. Then he's decided that the friends aren't staying that long at the bar so we aren't going. I put on my sweats (I've never dried my hair) and settle in to watch CSI and Without a Trace. I try to read the papers but only make it through The New York Times science section from Tuesday. I drink a scotch and have another snack of bread and cheese. I feel weary. Bed beckons. Supposedly the temperature is dropping outside.
Several times today, I felt as if I'd just awakened and found myself wherever I was. I felt weird and disconnected. I don't know if this is a result of having so few obligations and making the decisions about what to do with every minute. Is this a retirement 'effect?' I talked to Dad today. He called while I was at lunch and FFP called on my cell phone and told me. I called him back after lunch on my cell in my car while driving from SuRu's building to the Arboretum to shop. (Hey, I used the ear thing...I challenge you to drive a stick on city streets and hold a cell phone to your ear!) He had called a friend of his. Actually, she was married to my mother's cousin once. They lived close to the parents in Mesquite. Her husband (my mom's cousin) died of a brain tumor. When he was at home with hospice care, my dad went down there and helped. Anyway, his other neighbor there had asked after her. She lives in another town now with a man she married four years ago. (Who is really nice.) They were the visitors in this entry. So he called. And she said her husband had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. They don't know the prognosis yet. Dad sounded sad about it. That must be rough to lose one husband, find someone else and then get a diagnosis like that. I remember how nice the guy is, how he got Mom a wheelchair on the museum visit in that entry. It was another day of being largely unproductive. My office is a disaster area. I must start getting it in order. Soon! I have so much to do and so much time! I must get the two matched up somehow.
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I should have been making sense of this room!
It is not enough to be h |
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176
JUST
TYPING