The Visible Woman...April 13, 2003

Got up 7:30. Writing yesterday's whiny journal entry made me realize that, to you dear readers, I probably look very self-indulgent. (Poor LB...Fat from eating cheese everything and not all that comfortable with the skinny, entitled moms of Tarrytown. In spite of being able to retire at 54 to be a lazy slob, to play tennis and hang around a nice club as much as she likes, still sniffling about her poor childhood and its legacy. In spite of having no kids to make her life miserable. Etc. Etc.)

My life is a dream come true, I've got to tell you, it really, really is. I'm not in Iraq, looting the local museum to try to peddle something to get something to eat. I'm not a kid trying to piece together worthless dinars in Iraq. (A picture I saw of dinar confetti and a smiling, I think he was smiling, kid was interesing.) Most of all I'm not a woman anywhere in the Arab world or, for that matter, coming of age in the 40's in the U.S.

I'm not even a reservist tantalized by 'extra money for weekend work' who has ended up dead or at least tired of sand and chemical suits in Iraq. I'm not just better off than people in other parts of the world. I'm better off than ninety-nine percent of the people in the U.S. of A. Better off than more than that if you count the fact that, really, who wants to be Michael Dell or Bill Gates? Heck I'm better off than you because if you are still reading, well, you know.

Michael. Yeah, Michael. He once configured a gray market PC to identify some extra memory chips for me, right here in this house in the room next door which used to be my office and is now a guest room. You always hear about Michael's dorm room business. I was never there. In his dorm room. But I was inside his condo over near campus. People all over town have their 'I knew Michael when' stories. Yeah, so what?

But I digress. Nope, I don't want to be that famous. I wouldn't mind having a bit of that money. Just to give away you understand. If I have a hundred million, I would:

Would I spend some of it on myself? Oh, I don't know, maybe. Mostly I'd give it away. When you reach the point where you can honestly say that, you must have enough money!

Sometimes I feel guilty about not working anymore. Not because I need the money or think Forrest or, really, anyone in my family needs more. But because I don't have the extra money to give away. I realize, though, that if I worked until I died I would probably never have enough money to do what old Michael could do easily. I'll never get above the 'chump change' level which, for me, is assets of ten million and below. This is the only thing about Michael's life that I envy, though. That's it. That's the truth. I wish I had that money to give away.

And if I had fifty million, hundred million, a billion in assets...I would still be that insecure kid, growing up on the farm, conflicted. Compensating for shyness and being raised in a lower middle class family with few opportunities for 'enrichment' like tennis lessons. That would be me, no matter what. And I'm OK with it. But sometimes I write honestly about all these feelings (like yesterday) because I feel this stuff and what you feel can be exorcised by writing. Especially in the harsh public glare of an online journal with, um, what is it...three or four readers!

Yep, I feel better and more at ease than yesterday. Maybe because we beat that one team 6-1, 6-1? Maybe because I wrote about it all. Maybe because I'm about the luckiest person alive? Something.

Now...aren't you sorry I caught up writing the journal so that I could write so much on one day's entry??? How do you like being subjected to such a stream of consciousness? Or unconsciousness?

Tennis. Yep. I got out there before anyone. I practiced my serve. Some other people came and we warmed up. I went to the bathroom. We started our match. I had a feeling this one would go to three sets. But I didn't say anything about that feeling to the others until we won the first, 7-5. Then I told them. Sure enough we lost the next one, 1-6. But we came back and won 6-3. By then we had an audience of a few folks who had found our match way back on the cracked courts in the forgotten part of the club where the peacocks from Mayfield Park answer any squeals of anguish or delight. A rainbow appeared around the sun. It got hot. But we won! And, hey, they gave us a $20 gift certificate for the pro shop. Cool.

Then it's time for a shower and putting together a 'black tie' outfit. I choose tuxedo pants, a silver turtleneck and a satin stripe boxy jacket. I have a pair of patent and smooth leather tuxedo 'look' shoes that I bought about five years ago in Chicago. Maybe more than five. A while. Oh, and silver socks. Just a touch outrageous. Yeah, I'm the fashion maven. Not.

We get there early so FFP can wrangle the photographers from the local rags that have 'society' pages to take pix of the committee members and such. The opera ball is probably one of the top 'see and be seen' balls but not the top. The Art Ball gets the Dell crowd, including the Dells, I think.

While FFP does his duty to his ball committee (he's the PR guy), I look at silent auction items. I bid on a few things...a gift certificate for a store where I want to buy some stainless at under value and some glasses for $15. I'm not in the mood to spend much. Someone will soon overbid me on these things.

I get a Jack Daniels and water which they pour into a tall glass. I won't need another. The party has a Texas theme (I didn't know this) and some people have bolos with their tuxedos, boots, etc. I'm glad I didn't know the theme or I would have had to think harder about what to wear. We get gonged to dinner and find we are sitting with a professor of biology and his wife, a nice black couple (she works for the opera), and a couple we know from opera stuff. Later FFP has a place set for one of the photographers. So, we eat. A nice black bean and roasted corn ravioli on a mushroom confit and then a Caesar. An OK steak (only the finest beef moves me) and asparagus and potatoes. While we eat The Hotcakes (our friend Craig's band) and Karen Kuykendall entertain.

Prior to dessert, they have the live auction. They announce Carol Channing and Stuart Moulton comes out as her. Some of the conservative opera crowd is amused, others thrilled. He sings a bit and then auctions the stuff off. The auction is pretty dead but with the Carol imitation and some help from a few people who still have money it goes OK. I bid on a party at someone's house but don't get it. I was more shilling, opening and then upping once to get the price up. Then I decide to bid in the silent auction on a trip to San Francisco to stay in Four Seasons for three nights. It includes airfare. I pay too much but it's only the minimum bid. The way I look at it...the opera gets the money but I get to fly out there and stay in a hotel I can't afford on a rational basis. If it's charity that gets the money, that's different.

Some of the young artists sing and the band kicks up and people dance. They serve dessert...some people get chocolate boots, others hats.

Yep, a boot. Very photogenic. I didn't eat any, though. Stuffed.

We dance, we check my bid on San Francisco. I can't remember anything else in the silent auction that I'm bidding on so we just pay for that when they close it and go gratefully home.

			sunblock to black tie Got up 7:30. Writing yesterday's whiny journal entry made me realize that, to you dear readers, I probably look very self-indulgent. (Poor LB...Fat from eating cheese everything and not all that comfortable with the skinny, entitled moms of Tarrytown. In spite of being able to retire at 54 to be a lazy slob, to play tennis and hang around a nice club as much as she likes, still sniffling about her poor childhood and its legacy. In spite of having no kids to make her life miserable. Etc. Etc.) Well, yes. My life is a dream come true, I've got to tell you, it really, really is. I'm not in Iraq, looting the local museum to try to peddle something to get something to eat. I'm not a kid trying to piece together worthless dinars in Iraq. (A picture I saw of dinar confetti and a smiling, I think he was smiling, kid was interesing.) Most of all I'm not a woman anywhere in the Arab world or, for that matter, coming of age in the 40's in the U.S. I'm not even a reservist tantalized by 'extra money for weekend work' who has ended up dead or at least tired of sand and chemical suits in Iraq. I'm not just better off than people in other parts of the world. I'm better off than ninety-nine percent of the people in the U.S. of A. Better off than more than that if you count the fact that, really, who wants to be Michael Dell or Bill Gates? Heck I'm better off than you because if you are still reading, well, you know. Michael. Yeah, Michael. He once configured a gray market PC to identify some extra memory chips for me, right here in this house in the room next door which used to be my office and is now a guest room. You always hear about Michael's dorm room business. I was never there. In his dorm room. But I was inside his condo over near campus. People all over town have their 'I knew Michael when' stories. Yeah, so what? But I digress. Nope, I don't want to be that famous. I wouldn't mind having a bit of that money. Just to give away you understand. If I have a hundred million, I would: Fund the building for Ballet Austin. Fund finishing the Long Center for the Performing Arts for Austin. Establish a foundation that gives artists sabbaticals to paint, draw, take pictures or write in exchange for the right to publish reproductions of their work in a magazine that would never turn a profit but would give another set of people a chance to make a slick, artsy magazine. Make generous donations to Safe Place, Christopher House, Aids Services Austin, Project Transitions and Austin Cabaret Theater. (There are probably others. Don't write. I don't really have this money!) Set up a foundation to continue funding projects in Austin and around the world for arts, cultural exchange, AIDS prevention and treatment, etc. Would I spend some of it on myself? Oh, I don't know, maybe. Mostly I'd give it away. When you reach the point where you can honestly say that, you must have enough money! Sometimes I feel guilty about not working anymore. Not because I need the money or think Forrest or, really, anyone in my family needs more. But because I don't have the extra money to give away. I realize, though, that if I worked until I died I would probably never have enough money to do what old Michael could do easily. I'll never get above the 'chump change' level which, for me, is assets of ten million and below. This is the only thing about Michael's life that I envy, though. That's it. That's the truth. I wish I had that money to give away. And if I had fifty million, hundred million, a billion in assets...I would still be that insecure kid, growing up on the farm, conflicted. Compensating for shyness and being raised in a lower middle class family with few opportunities for 'enrichment' like tennis lessons. That would be me, no matter what. And I'm OK with it. But sometimes I write honestly about all these feelings (like yesterday) because I feel this stuff and what you feel can be exorcised by writing. Especially in the harsh public glare of an online journal with, um, what is it...three or four readers! Yep, I feel better and more at ease than yesterday. Maybe because we beat that one team 6-1, 6-1? Maybe because I wrote about it all. Maybe because I'm about the luckiest person alive? Something. Now...aren't you sorry I caught up writing the journal so that I could write so much on one day's entry??? How do you like being subjected to such a stream of consciousness? Or unconsciousness? So, yeah, I read a little newspaper, drank coffee and wrote and wrote in my journal to bore you. I could have taken a dog walk this morning. There was time. But I told SuRu that I thought I'd skip and just laze around before tennis. Tennis. Yep. I got out there before anyone. I practiced my serve. Some other people came and we warmed up. I went to the bathroom. We started our match. I had a feeling this one would go to three sets. But I didn't say anything about that feeling to the others until we won the first, 7-5. Then I told them. Sure enough we lost the next one, 1-6. But we came back and won 6-3. By then we had an audience of a few folks who had found our match way back on the cracked courts in the forgotten part of the club where the peacocks from Mayfield Park answer any squeals of anguish or delight. A rainbow appeared around the sun. It got hot. But we won! And, hey, they gave us a $20 gift certificate for the pro shop. Cool. The evening is the opera ball. We have to get down there at 5:30 to wrangle photographers. FFP is the PR person on the ball committee or something. It's after three when I get home...hot, sweaty, a little prickly from the sun in spite of hat and 45 sunblock. I have had a Shiner Bock but no food. At home I read The New York Times magazine while eating some salad and leftover shrimp and rice. And drinking some water. Then it's time for a shower and putting together a 'black tie' outfit. I choose tuxedo pants, a silver turtleneck and a satin stripe boxy jacket. I have a pair of patent and smooth leather tuxedo 'look' shoes that I bought about five years ago in Chicago. Maybe more than five. A while. Oh, and silver socks. Just a touch outrageous. Yeah, I'm the fashion maven. Not. We get there early so FFP can wrangle the photographers from the local rags that have 'society' pages to take pix of the committee members and such. The opera ball is probably one of the top 'see and be seen' balls but not the top. The Art Ball gets the Dell crowd, including the Dells, I think. While FFP does his duty to his ball committee (he's the PR guy), I look at silent auction items. I bid on a few things...a gift certificate for a store where I want to buy some stainless at under value and some glasses for $15. I'm not in the mood to spend much. Someone will soon overbid me on these things. I get a Jack Daniels and water which they pour into a tall glass. I won't need another. The party has a Texas theme (I didn't know this) and some people have bolos with their tuxedos, boots, etc. I'm glad I didn't know the theme or I would have had to think harder about what to wear. We get gonged to dinner and find we are sitting with a professor of biology and his wife, a nice black couple (she works for the opera), and a couple we know from opera stuff. Later FFP has a place set for one of the photographers. So, we eat. A nice black bean and roasted corn ravioli on a mushroom confit and then a Caesar. An OK steak (only the finest beef moves me) and asparagus and potatoes. While we eat The Hotcakes (our friend Craig's band) and Karen Kuykendall entertain. Prior to dessert, they have the live auction. They announce Carol Channing and Stuart Moulton comes out as her. Some of the conservative opera crowd is amused, others thrilled. He sings a bit and then auctions the stuff off. The auction is pretty dead but with the Carol imitation and some help from a few people who still have money it goes OK. I bid on a party at someone's house but don't get it. I was more shilling, opening and then upping once to get the price up. Then I decide to bid in the silent auction on a trip to San Francisco to stay in Four Seasons for three nights. It includes airfare. I pay too much but it's only the minimum bid. The way I look at it...the opera gets the money but I get to fly out there and stay in a hotel I can't afford on a rational basis. If it's charity that gets the money, that's different. Some of the young artists sing and the band kicks up and people dance. They serve dessert...some people get chocolate boots, others hats. Yep, a boot. Very photogenic. I didn't eat any, though. Stuffed. We dance, we check my bid on San Francisco. I can't remember anything else in the silent auction that I'm bidding on so we just pay for that when they close it and go gratefully home. I read a bit in bed. I toss and turn. I got a small blister on a toe playing tennis, a little sun, too much food and drink???

	a proper form...on a higher ranked player Carol Channing aka Stuart Moulton with Karen Kuykendall in her Cher does Texas outfit FFP dances with the incomparable Karen K. "Be bold. If you're going to make an error, make a doozy, and don't be afraid to hit the ball." Billie Jean King
	JUST TYPING writing wildly Anything is theraputic it's proven except why are writers always tortured?

Sunday, April 13, 2003