The Visible Woman...August 2, 2003

People die, move away, just quit calling. Things are always changing that way. We always have people around, people we are socializing with, people we are thinking about. But change is constant.

We stopped by our friends' house today. The movers were starting to dismantle the piano. They were at the stage of packing where odd pieces of furniture and bikes and pianos have to be keyholed in. Our friends had asked people to stop and say bye. They posed by their matresses on their mover blanket-wrapped staircase. They'll be in Florida. We can go see them there, they'll be back. But, of course, it will be different.

I was lying in bed a day or two ago thinking of the place I used to work. Which place I avoid naming to avoid it coming up on searches. I was thinking of their hard times and threatened layoffs. I had trouble remembering the names of a couple of people but they came back to me. (One other guy's first name refuses to surface, pushed aside in my brain by a couple of celebrities with the same surname.) I was thinking of all the people who worked there when I arrived in the Austin office. A few are still there. One left and came back. One is an original employee from before the Austin satellite office started, well past retirement in my opinion but still at it after surviing a mild stroke a few years ago. One has the same silly staff position I walked away from and takes it seriously while he dreams of feeling he has enough money to walk away. (That's only my opinion, of course.)

There are a couple of women who did admin stuff and at least one is still there. I think there is another guy...one who was always gung-ho and flew under the radar...not being wildly successful but surviving. Another flies under the radar but is always bitching. Another seemed like a good guy but developed a habit of brown nosing that was at first annoying and then more than that when he turned on me directly on the behalf of some superior. (I was never one to pay much attention to the hierarchy except that, after having my say, I would follow orders to preserve order. Assuming it was moral and legal, of course.) He's still there, looking officious, adding little to the company's fortune, I suspect.

The rest? I think two other women are retired, not working, with their husbands still working. One followed her husband briefly to D.C. and then returned to Austin. Several went to other companies, moved on, tried their luck elsewhere or several elsewheres. One wrote a book I noticed on someone's desk the other day. One fellow, a sort of disagreeable guy who always had to be right, died of Lymphoma after a long struggle leaving a couple of small, cute boys. I went to his funeral to show his wife and family that he was remembered. There weren't many people there. My mother's memorial in Austin where she had lived a little over two years drew twice as many. That guy wasn't a social person...but I am and my mother was and people remembered.

Some of the people in that small office that grew and grew and is now shrinking went ignobly...one was fired I remember. Others were sued for leaving and allegedly violating some agreements. One guy left a few weeks after I arrived to go to another office and then left the company...he was the brother of one of the founders. I've heard that he helped the guy give away money or worked on his new ventures or something. There were a few others...tech writers who either changed jobs on a whim or were easy to lay off at some point.

Tonight we went to Jaston William's work-in-progress I'm Not Lying. It's like Jaston reading a book of memoir essays to you. It is only a little unpolished here and there and it was pretty funny but moving. He talks about the last thing he said to his son before he died. He talks about a friend he has lost. A lot of life is goodbyes, endings, new beginings. It's the punctuation in the sentence of life.

Saturday, August 2, 2003

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

. Jon and Marie, moving day	goodbyes Things are always changing but when someone moves away it's a signal event. People die, move away, just quit calling. Things are always changing that way. We always have people around, people we are socializing with, people we are thinking about. But change is constant. We stopped by our friends' house today. The movers were starting to dismantle the piano. They were at the stage of packing where odd pieces of furniture and bikes and pianos have to be keyholed in. Our friends had asked people to stop and say bye. They posed by their matresses on their mover blanket-wrapped staircase. They'll be in Florida. We can go see them there, they'll be back. But, of course, it will be different. I was lying in bed a day or two ago thinking of the place I used to work. Which place I avoid naming to avoid it coming up on searches. I was thinking of their hard times and threatened layoffs. I had trouble remembering the names of a couple of people but they came back to me. (One other guy's first name refuses to surface, pushed aside in my brain by a couple of celebrities with the same surname.) I was thinking of all the people who worked there when I arrived in the Austin office. A few are still there. One left and came back. One is an original employee from before the Austin satellite office started, well past retirement in my opinion but still at it after surviing a mild stroke a few years ago. One has the same silly staff position I walked away from and takes it seriously while he dreams of feeling he has enough money to walk away. (That's only my opinion, of course.) There are a couple of women who did admin stuff and at least one is still there. I think there is another guy...one who was always gung-ho and flew under the radar...not being wildly successful but surviving. Another flies under the radar but is always bitching. Another seemed like a good guy but developed a habit of brown nosing that was at first annoying and then more than that when he turned on me directly on the behalf of some superior. (I was never one to pay much attention to the hierarchy except that, after having my say, I would follow orders to preserve order. Assuming it was moral and legal, of course.) He's still there, looking officious, adding little to the company's fortune, I suspect. The rest? I think two other women are retired, not working, with their husbands still working. One followed her husband briefly to D.C. and then returned to Austin. Several went to other companies, moved on, tried their luck elsewhere or several elsewheres. One wrote a book I noticed on someone's desk the other day. One fellow, a sort of disagreeable guy who always had to be right, died of Lymphoma after a long struggle leaving a couple of small, cute boys. I went to his funeral to show his wife and family that he was remembered. There weren't many people there. My mother's memorial in Austin where she had lived a little over two years drew twice as many. That guy wasn't a social person...but I am and my mother was and people remembered. Some of the people in that small office that grew and grew and is now shrinking went ignobly...one was fired I remember. Others were sued for leaving and allegedly violating some agreements. One guy left a few weeks after I arrived to go to another office and then left the company...he was the brother of one of the founders. I've heard that he helped the guy give away money or worked on his new ventures or something. There were a few others...tech writers who either changed jobs on a whim or were easy to lay off at some point. Tonight we went to Jaston William's work-in-progress I'm Not Lying. It's like Jaston reading a book of memoir essays to you. It is only a little unpolished here and there and it was pretty funny but moving. He talks about the last thing he said to his son before he died. He talks about a friend he has lost. A lot of life is goodbyes, endings, new beginings. It's the punctuation in the sentence of life.
JUST TYPING What does it mean? To live here Or there? What does it mean? To be gone? How gone? Long gone? Gone away? Out of town? We are all on the move. But, ultimately, there is no there.
		Food Diary. We ate lunch at NXNW. About six little toasts with roasted garlic and some goat cheese and greens with balsalmic vinegar. An oriental chicken salad wth sprouts and cabbage and maybe four ounces of chicken? Three or four bites of FFP's carmelized onion mashed potatoes. (Those things oughta be illegal.) I just felt like a plate of nachos and a Shiner Bock. Bad, I know. One half of a banana. A bowl of cereal with Half and Half and a packet of sugar.
		Time flies.... I wasn't up early. I dawdled getting to the club. We went to pick up a DVD we'd ordered for in-store pickup and then wandered the store for over thirty minutes. We stood around talking to our friends as movers filled their moving van. We watched some of the DVD we bought (Kiss Me Kate with Kathryn Grayson). We were surprised to see in some of the supplementary material that the male lead, Howard Keel, was the second gray-haired patriarch on the old Dallas TV show...the one who showed up to court Momma after J.R.'s father died (I think Jim Davis inconveniently died in real life). All of which is merely to say that www.imdb.com can be a real time waster. Following all those links from movie or TV show to actor and so forth.

		Reading. Started Moliie & Other War Pieces by A.J. Leibling. A selection of his The New Yorker war writings. I figure I should immerse myself in French and WWII in preparation for next year's trip to the Normandy beaches for the 60th anniversary of D-Day. And, besides, this book was on top of a pile in my office. I read some of the newspaper, too.
		Perhaps if I give up writing I will accidentally do some. Perhaps I should give up writing about not writing.
		Exercise One hour on the bike to nowhere. Some ab and lower back work but not much.
		Physically feel good but emotionally a little melancholy. It seems I never get to the mood indicators above Fine and rarely there. On the other hand...I am rarely completely, totally down in the dumps either.