The Visible Woman...August 14, 2003

This day was blank on my calendar. Yesterday I signed on for a formatting task for one of FFP's clients. Last night I agreed to lunch.

I thought the day would be entirely mine to shape. It's never like that, though. And, often, I'm glad. Otherwise, too much responsibility. Sometimes we like to be told what to do and when.

So I didn't linger over the papers as long as I might have and I didn't linger at the club as long as I could have. And I thought: "why don't I set aside time to write and squeeze it in as fiercely as I find time for my exercise and my social occasions?" For the matter why aren't I as serious about getting writing done as I am about finding time for newspaper perusal. It's all bad news anyway.

I think I know the reason I don't write. Because if I set aside the time then I might expect results. Yep, results. I might have to weigh my dream of writing something I could be proud of against the actual output once I took the time.

Naturally this 'performance anxiety' exists for everything. I think people hesitate to exercise because they feel that they will still be fat, flabby and unhealthy. Then what? No hope!

So I spent time in the gym, socializing with my buddies and working on the thing I promised Forrest and another small graphics task he needed done. At ??? I finally said...what the heck...spend one hour writing.

Thursday, August 14, 2003

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

book for sale on ebay	what becomes of an empty day This day was blank on my calendar. Yesterday I signed on for a formatting task for one of FFP's clients. Last night I agreed to lunch. I thought the day would be entirely mine to shape. It's never like that, though. And, often, I'm glad. Otherwise, too much responsibility. Sometimes we like to be told what to do and when. So I didn't linger over the papers as long as I might have and I didn't linger at the club as long as I could have. And I thought: "why don't I set aside time to write and squeeze it in as fiercely as I find time for my exercise and my social occasions?" For the matter why aren't I as serious about getting writing done as I am about finding time for newspaper perusal. It's all bad news anyway. I think I know the reason I don't write. Because if I set aside the time then I might expect results. Yep, results. I might have to weigh my dream of writing something I could be proud of against the actual output once I took the time. Naturally this 'performance anxiety' exists for everything. I think people hesitate to exercise because they feel that they will still be fat, flabby and unhealthy. Then what? No hope! So I spent time in the gym, socializing with my buddies and working on the thing I promised Forrest and another small graphics task he needed done. At ??? I finally said...what the heck...spend one hour writing.
JUST TYPING Free time. Is it ever really? One must. One must eat. One must sleep. One must eliminate. One must groom. Go here and there. Time ticking. You may be free. But time?
		Food Diary. Lunch at Threadgill's: spinach casserole, creole cabbage and brocolli/rice casserole [a vegie plate that animals almost certainly died for] a jalapeno and probably cheese cornbread muffin, a yeast-rising roll and a pat of butter [I often forget the bread and butter part of my meal] *snack at five or so* One and a half slices of provolone cheese. *from the kitchen of LB & FFP...including leftover wine* some red wine Three fish tacos (tortilla, fish sauteed in oil (whiting), salsa fresca and green sauce some white wine [I need to eat a better diet...I know it!]
		Time flies.... I wanted to read the papers before I went to the gym and be at the gym by 8. Neither happened. I read most of the Austin American-Statesman. I got to the gym at around 8:30 and spent about an hour and a half there and had plenty of time to shower and such. I managed to waste the afternoon, concentrating on a formatting task for Forrest and reading the paper and sorting through old photos. I think I was concentrating on not writing. From my M.F.K Fisher book: "My pen is broken, and I have not written because of that, putting if off each day with a feelling of disappointment and relief." In the evening I watched some TV and, of course, watched the lights be off in a good swath of the east. That was boring because there wasn't really anything to report. It reminded me of the 1983 Austin outage except our radio and TV stations didn't stay on. That was a squirrel. (Or a squirrel that went on strike.) It lasted only maybe seven hours. We got a San Antonio radio station on a battery radio and it had been commandeered for Austin emergency. We cooked (with gas) by flashlight grey sole in bananas. Anyway...Texas is on a different grid. The old Lone Star State...we live and die by ourselves.

		Reading. From the Journals of M.F.K. Fisher got read on the bike. It turns out that there are essays, real journal entries and fiction. Some of the journal entries are no more literary than some online journals I read. (Some of which are extremely well-written.) But MFK (Mary Frances Kennedy) Fisher proved herself in a literary way and thus elevated her journals to another plane. The entries from 1933 and 1934 give a lot of insight into the depression. My dad just said the other day that these folks who were laid off now knew nothing about what it was like in '33 and '34 with no jobs available even at pennies an hour and little help available either. I read all the papers or at least turned the pages. A couple of times, too.
		Instead...I did anything else.
		Exercise Twenty-three minutes on recumbent bike. Lower body and arm exercises. Ab exercises. (25/20/20). Twenty-five minutes on bike.
		Physically no real complaints. In fact, I feel strong and feel like my posture is good. 120/68 75