The Visible Woman...July 18, 2003

My life, my files, my closet are all a mess. But, to some outsiders, I may appear organized.

I made a checklist for the guy who runs the group we are giving this benefit for next week. I started by making a standard 'party list' then adapting it to this party, then putting comments in, then making a list with only stuff he or his board might be concerned about which I gave to him. I have packing lists like this....a master list then I create one for each trip (and one for FFP if he's going). I appear so organized. But, then, I can't find stuff. I have a list but I can't find it.

So, yeah, it's a big illusion. (Easily a shattered illusion if you peek around my office with the piles and boxes.) I have a hundred filing systems half-started so I can't find anything. FFP and I have places that we keep things so we can find them. (Coupons, tickets to events, receipts, bills to pay, checks to deposit, etc.) But then sometimes we forget or something. And they aren't there so they could be anywhere. And...we have too much stuff.

I scribble little lists and sometimes leave the house with them clutched liked talismans of productivity. Like this one:

What I get done often bears no resemblance to these lists. Later these lists sometimes mystify me. Just as the contents of the grocery bag often does contain fish (without the ?) but may also hold cheese of some sort or a jar of grapefruit sections or SuperFood or a random attractive condiment. Just grocery store stuff that I pick up because of some whim of desire or a desire for health and nutrition.

Sometime I will see something that just must be done next. And it will take a long time.

Today I decided I had to corral all the old newspapers piled around even if I just moved the mess to my office to hide it...because people were coming over, I realized, at five o'clock. So I sorted papers. Some were piled by my chair in the media room. Some were in the pantry (FFP saved the ones from my vacation to Colorado there). Some were piled around the kitchen. Some were already piled in my office. My routine here is to 'sort' the papers. Get all the ads and classifieds and sports sections (hi, Lance, hi Serena, hi, Tiger) thrown away. (Not really thrown away, of course, but rather placed in brown paper bags for recycling.) Glance through the boring sections and discard them. Boring is the wrong word, of course. Sections that are about hard business news and hard news in general. Front pages, weeks in review, the duller business sections. These repeat each other and, of course, anything real important...Middle East Uneasy Peace and Iraqi Unending War, for example, is repeated in paper after paper and day after day. I do glance at New York Times obits or other cool New York Times only features like Monday's Metropolitan Diary. There is nothing like a good obit in NYT. Hmm...Buddy Epsen died. I glance through business sections, too, trying to skip past sad pictures of a beleagured Martha Stewart to see sad news about companies I know about or own stock in and their successes, major faux pas and peccadillos.

I save sections I like to savor...life style, food, movies, decorating and even local business and metro with interesting articles about our fair capital city. These will be savored some time on a trip and then discarded.

The newspaper corraling is not really housework. It's part and parcel of my habit of not reading the papers in real time. FFP gets up in the morning and has some coffee and dry cereal and looks at the sections he is interested in. A bit of sports, articles of local interest, local obits, letters to the editor (I never read them myself). He may even point out an article and bring it to me or read it to me. Then he is pretty much done unless someone calls and points out something he's missed.

So I'm organizing and reading. It's just what I do. But it takes time. Sometimes I write an item on my list: 'newspapers.'

But I am oh so woefully disorganized. But I want to do better. I do. And I know in my heart the only way to do it is to GET RID OF SOME STUFF so that I can organize and see the important stuff.

Friday, July 18, 2003

A Journal from Austin, Texas. A Project of LBFFP Stealth Publishing.
food	reading	writing	time	exercise	health and mood

collage for sale on ebay	and I appear so organized My life, my files, my closet are all a mess. But, to some outsiders, I may appear organized. I made a checklist for the guy who runs the group we are giving this benefit for next week. I started by making a standard 'party list' then adapting it to this party, then putting comments in, then making a list with only stuff he or his board might be concerned about which I gave to him. I have packing lists like this....a master list then I create one for each trip (and one for FFP if he's going). I appear so organized. But, then, I can't find stuff. I have a list but I can't find it. So, yeah, it's a big illusion. (Easily a shattered illusion if you peek around my office with the piles and boxes.) I have a hundred filing systems half-started so I can't find anything. FFP and I have places that we keep things so we can find them. (Coupons, tickets to events, receipts, bills to pay, checks to deposit, etc.) But then sometimes we forget or something. And they aren't there so they could be anywhere. And...we have too much stuff. I scribble little lists and sometimes leave the house with them clutched liked talismans of productivity. Like this one: eggs salad stuff fish? plates with glass hangers something to hang clothes on Or this one: prescription light bulb for trombone Fiber One cereal clean up office (FFP) pay bills tennis reservation hoses weed-front What I get done often bears no resemblance to these lists. Later these lists sometimes mystify me. Just as the contents of the grocery bag often does contain fish (without the ?) but may also hold cheese of some sort or a jar of grapefruit sections or SuperFood or a random attractive condiment. Just grocery store stuff that I pick up because of some whim of desire or a desire for health and nutrition. Sometime I will see something that just must be done next. And it will take a long time. Today I decided I had to corral all the old newspapers piled around even if I just moved the mess to my office to hide it...because people were coming over, I realized, at five o'clock. So I sorted papers. Some were piled by my chair in the media room. Some were in the pantry (FFP saved the ones from my vacation to Colorado there). Some were piled around the kitchen. Some were already piled in my office. My routine here is to 'sort' the papers. Get all the ads and classifieds and sports sections (hi, Lance, hi Serena, hi, Tiger) thrown away. (Not really thrown away, of course, but rather placed in brown paper bags for recycling.) Glance through the boring sections and discard them. Boring is the wrong word, of course. Sections that are about hard business news and hard news in general. Front pages, weeks in review, the duller business sections. These repeat each other and, of course, anything real important...Middle East Uneasy Peace and Iraqi Unending War, for example, is repeated in paper after paper and day after day. I do glance at New York Times obits or other cool New York Times only features like Monday's Metropolitan Diary. There is nothing like a good obit in NYT. Hmm...Buddy Epsen died. I glance through business sections, too, trying to skip past sad pictures of a beleagured Martha Stewart to see sad news about companies I know about or own stock in and their successes, major faux pas and peccadillos. I save sections I like to savor...life style, food, movies, decorating and even local business and metro with interesting articles about our fair capital city. These will be savored some time on a trip and then discarded. But, as usual, I digress. The newspaper corraling is not really housework. It's part and parcel of my habit of not reading the papers in real time. FFP gets up in the morning and has some coffee and dry cereal and looks at the sections he is interested in. A bit of sports, articles of local interest, local obits, letters to the editor (I never read them myself). He may even point out an article and bring it to me or read it to me. Then he is pretty much done unless someone calls and points out something he's missed. So I'm organizing and reading. It's just what I do. But it takes time. Sometimes I write an item on my list: 'newspapers.' But I am oh so woefully disorganized. But I want to do better. I do. And I know in my heart the only way to do it is to GET RID OF SOME STUFF so that I can organize and see the important stuff.
JUST TYPING It takes too long To get organized. And leaves no time For deep thought Nor room For the heady surprise Of finding something Something lost Or something, even, You had no idea you owned.
		Food Diary. An ounce or two of ham. Two bowls of salad with spriing mix, shredded cheddar, carrots, green onions and Marie's bleu cheese viniagrette dressing. Some ham and cheese (a couple ounces of each) and some bacon and cheese wrapped around chicken. Chips, salsa, two beers and two enchiladas with timpacio sauce and a little rice and black beans.
		Time flies.... Light bulb changing (and seeking), garbage cans in, newspapers, newspapers, newspapers. Fix myself some salad, fix some food for guests. Talk to people about fund-raising, play tennis, eat Mex food with tennis buddies. The day evaporated.

		Reading. A French Affair: The Paris Beat, 1965-1998 by Mary Blume. I finished this. Now I need to: (1) read more about World War I; (2) watch a bunch of old French films; (3) go to an obscure museum/house in Paris; (4) relearn French. For my next book...I can't really decide. There are these novellas by Mary Gordon and memoirs by Cynthia Kaplan that I've started here and there.
		I've been displacing cleaning and stuff I need to do by writing in this silly journal. Why not just write something real? What is real anyway? Those Cynthia Kaplan memoirs remind me of a really good set of online journal pieces. Really good ones, mind you.
		Exercise Fifteen minutes on bike. Upper body exercises. (My upper body is wimpy. Even after all these exercises. I increased half a plate on the chest press and can't finish the second set.) Twenty minutes on bike.
	.	Physically I was fine in spite of probably too much alcohol yesterday.