The Visible Woman...April 6, 2003

Sunday, rainy Sunday turns to heat

It is overcast but not raining. An hour has been sucked away into a fold and will be released around Halloween. SuRu doesn't call at eight. But I finally get up, get dressed, have some coffee. She does call. She's still in bed.

Eventually though we are off to Hyde Park. We walk a good way and then stop at Julio's, pleased to discover that it is open on Sundays now. We have coffee and tacos. It's hot and humid. It starts to rain. We get somewhat wet on the way back to Avenue B and SuRu's CR/V. It rains a bit harder.

I work on a network backup problem on FFP's machine. Work on the journal (in more or less real time...writing about yesterday and even today, although a bunch of stuff is unposted and unedited, in a shambles really). I think about going to the club, but my dad calls and wants to come over and bring me some wire frame shelves I had in his closet that Mom had purses and stuff on. He doesn't need them...all that stuff is gone. I have a bunch of these anyway, from my old office. So I don't have a use for them now...although perhaps if I cleaned out my garage and storage rooms.... Anyway, he likes to feel he is cleaning stuff out and getting it into its rightful place.

So, instead of going to the club, I make tuna salad.

Dad comes. He loans me some books he thinks I should read. And puts the wire cubes in my garage. And we talk and he has a beer. Then he's off again.

I go to the club. I've only time for a sweaty forty minutes on the recumbent bike reading short stories by Lorrie Moore (Self-Help).

Home again I shower up quickly and go pick up SuRu.

We go to Neverlandia. It is in South Austin and it is a whimsical house and studio and tower. The folks giving the tour and a couple attending it have forgotten daylight savings time. But we get our tour and it is quite interesting. The house is still changing and I suspect it always will. The view from the tower shows the hotel and high rise going up downtown. The tower, though, violated guidelines for height itself and had to get a variance. (This couple wants to 'leave a small footprint' but the tower does infringe on neighbors in a way and that's why there are codes. But I guess the neighbors didn't object, even like it. Still, it's humorous.) There is a bridge between the tower and the third level of the house. There are also ladder stairs and fire poles. There is color everywhere and tiles and fabrics. There are all sorts of ideas at work. There is a voice tube running around the house carrying voices through simple PVC. That's a great idea. FFP and I need that. (We use our phones for an intercom.)

SuRu and I go back to the north side and eat at Chez Zee. I have a gorgonzola pizza with chicken and jalapenos and a Caesar salad.

At home we watch the Lady Longhorns lose by two points in the semis of the National Championship. I think they got robbed on one charging foul. But I don't get too invested. Once, when I followed them religiously, we were lying in bed listening to a game on the radio. I don't remember who they were playing or what was at stake. They lost by something like 94-92. I was so invested in it. In some young girls' success with a ball going into a net with no bottom. I suddenly realized how silly that was and decided never to be that invested in something as patently trivial again. And I'm sure that I haven't kept that promise, but it did seem like a turning point. A point when I said...some things are important but a score in a sporting event almost never is. Not in a forever, life-altering way. Especially if you aren't even playing the game.

Is the journal important? Why have I even been working on it when there are so many other things that I need and want to be doing? I'm not sure. But it is slowly slipping from my computer into cyberspace. With something like a life of its own.

a very imaginative house in SoCo

"I was born into the upper middle class in 1943, and one of the strange turns my life has taken is this: I was taught by my parents to believe that the traditional manners of the high bourgeoise, properly acquired, would give me a certain dignity, which would protect me from embarrassment. It has turned out that I am able to do almost anything but act according to those modes--this because I deeply believe that those modes are suffused with an embarrassment so powerful that it can kill."

George W.S. Trow, Within the Context of No Context

JUST TYPING
Neverlandia.
A house with ideas.
Little A.C.
Ladders, fire poles, bridges.
Lofts.
Studios.
A dreamy place, a place to dream.

			Sunday, rainy Sunday turns to heat It is overcast but not raining. An hour has been sucked away into a fold and will be released around Halloween. SuRu doesn't call at eight. But I finally get up, get dressed, have some coffee. She does call. She's still in bed. Eventually though we are off to Hyde Park. We walk a good way and then stop at Julio's, pleased to discover that it is open on Sundays now. We have coffee and tacos. It's hot and humid. It starts to rain. We get somewhat wet on the way back to Avenue B and SuRu's CR/V. It rains a bit harder. I work on a network backup problem on FFP's machine. Work on the journal (in more or less real time...writing about yesterday and even today, although a bunch of stuff is unposted and unedited, in a shambles really). I think about going to the club, but my dad calls and wants to come over and bring me some wire frame shelves I had in his closet that Mom had purses and stuff on. He doesn't need them...all that stuff is gone. I have a bunch of these anyway, from my old office. So I don't have a use for them now...although perhaps if I cleaned out my garage and storage rooms.... Anyway, he likes to feel he is cleaning stuff out and getting it into its rightful place. So, instead of going to the club, I make tuna salad. Dad comes. He loans me some books he thinks I should read. And puts the wire cubes in my garage. And we talk and he has a beer. Then he's off again. I go to the club. I've only time for a sweaty forty minutes on the recumbent bike reading short stories by Lorrie Moore (Self-Help). Home again I shower up quickly and go pick up SuRu. We go to Neverlandia. It is in South Austin and it is a whimsical house and studio and tower. The folks giving the tour and a couple attending it have forgotten daylight savings time. But we get our tour and it is quite interesting. The house is still changing and I suspect it always will. The view from the tower shows the hotel and high rise going up downtown. The tower, though, violated guidelines for height itself and had to get a variance. (This couple wants to 'leave a small footprint' but the tower does infringe on neighbors in a way and that's why there are codes. But I guess the neighbors didn't object, even like it. Still, it's humorous.) There is a bridge between the tower and the third level of the house. There are also ladder stairs and fire poles. There is color everywhere and tiles and fabrics. There are all sorts of ideas at work. There is a voice tube running around the house carrying voices through simple PVC. That's a great idea. FFP and I need that. (We use our phones for an intercom.) SuRu and I go back to the north side and eat at Chez Zee. I have a gorgonzola pizza with chicken and jalapenos and a Caesar salad. At home we watch the Lady Longhorns lose by two points in the semis of the National Championship. I think they got robbed on one charging foul. But I don't get too invested. Once, when I followed them religiously, we were lying in bed listening to a game on the radio. I don't remember who they were playing or what was at stake. They lost by something like 94-92. I was so invested in it. In some young girls' success with a ball going into a net with no bottom. I suddenly realized how silly that was and decided never to be that invested in something as patently trivial again. And I'm sure that I haven't kept that promise, but it did seem like a turning point. A point when I said...some things are important but a score in a sporting event almost never is. Not in a forever, life-altering way. Especially if you aren't even playing the game. Is the journal important? Why have I even been working on it when there are so many other things that I need and want to be doing? I'm not sure. But it is slowly slipping from my computer into cyberspace. With something like a life of its own.

	a very imaginative house in SoCo "I was born into the upper middle class in 1943, and one of the strange turns my life has taken is this: I was taught by my parents to believe that the traditional manners of the high bourgeoise, properly acquired, would give me a certain dignity, which would protect me from embarrassment. It has turned out that I am able to do almost anything but act according to those modes--this because I deeply believe that those modes are suffused with an embarrassment so powerful that it can kill." George W.S. Trow, Within the Context of No Context
	JUST TYPING Neverlandia. A house with ideas. Little A.C. Ladders, fire poles, bridges. Lofts. Studios. A dreamy place, a place to dream.

Sunday, April 6, 2003