what I'm thinking is this....

I thought maybe when I was retired that I would be even more open in a journal. No employer or clients or co-workers to offend, no future employment to interfere with. Maybe I'd just pound out all my thoughts (mundane, deep, everthing in between). I'd record every bicep curl and morsel eaten and, what? Get redemption? Surely there would be time enough for it and everything else since I wouldn't be working.

I don't know. I'm feeling reclusive, obstreperous, at odds with myself. Or maybe I just feel like changing something.

I don't exactly feel like telling you that I ate a half of a grapefruit, a Clementine, some tortilla chips and aged cheddar cheese. That I did forty-seven minutes on the exercise bicycle and a few arm machines (yeah, bicep curls was one) but not all the upper body stuff I usually do. And I'm not all that willing to write down that I didn't immediately come home and shower.

I don't feel like telling you about a conversation with my dad (He's going to have some visitors. And he laughingly assured me that he didn't run into a building which he'd heard on the news that some old person had done). And who cares about me making dividers for notebooks for FFP for one of his client's trade shows? Or about the electrician coming by to look at outdoor lights that don't work but not having a tall enough ladder to get to one light, not having bulbs nor knowing where to get them. (We had some, but I still couldn't make the one he could reach work after he left.)

Who cares about me sitting here sorting books and photos and unread papers to clear a space in my office?

And furthermore, if I did something exciting and astounding (what would that be?) would I really want to mention it?

So, yeah, I'm thinking that the journal has maybe become a bad idea. We'll see. I think I'd definitely quit doing it except that it is the only way that I remember what I did and when I did it. Sad that. Of course, I could save the thing to a ZIP disk or my hard drive. The other dilemma is that the journal writing is writing. (Or, perhaps, as the sidebar has it 'just typing.')

Nah, I'm not interested in recording that Chalow barked in such a way as to make me think the postman was coming three times and then...no one outside. Or that once when I let her out back and there was a black cat who looked at her warily, she failed to see it and chase it. (This cat visits our yard a lot and often pays with a spirited chase from Chalow.) Nor am I interested in telling you that the next door neighbor's dog barked vocipherously at the electrician when he came around back. Or that the electrician believes his mother spoke to him after she died.

Who cares if I watched part of Surviving Picasso? (I like painter movies when they show the painting happening...I once saw the actual Picasso painting in a documentary and it was riveting.)

What if I discussed an investment with FFP? And then we committed to it?

Who cares that the evening found me with a yen for a plate of nachos so that was my dinner along with salad and some fruit? And a Diet Coke?

Are you really interested that I found nothing interesting on TV in the evening (shows that could be good but aren't my favorites were reruns and, furthermore, reruns I'd seen)? Are you interested that, not interested in TV, that I didn't really get that much reading done because I fell asleep? Do you care that I didn't read in bed because FFP had the light out and didn't read even when he decided to read later and turned the light on? Even though, at this point, I wasn't asleep? And wanted to finish my book?

Does anyone out there really need to know that I'm thinking about this writing project or that? That I'm thinking about plans for my trip to New York? (That, in fact, I made a stab at getting 'Hairspray' tickets? An abortive stab, it turns out, because they were a good deal but they weren't available.)