The Visible Woman...October 4, 2003

Saturday is all about a different rhythm, a fun feel, football in the fall, your neighbors are home, garage sales.

"I should get up," himself said.

"But it's Saturday," said I.

He got up anyway. I stayed in bed a while. Then I got up and fooled with my journal and online stuff. Not feeling rushed at all. Just because it's Saturday.

FFP and I go outside briefly to observe that the neighbor who sold their house is having a garage sale. We talk to the neighbor next door. It's Saturday. She's home. Her youngest had a sleepover.

When the dog wants out, I go outside and check on the ponds and water a few plants. Admire the day that's shaping up. FFP goes off to the club but I know he will watch football on TV in the afternoon. I have plenty of time.

I talk to Dad and he says he may come over this afternoon. He wants to look at the neighbor's garden. He's probably lonely. We have a performance to see, but it doesn't start until 8:30. No problems, I say.

FFP admits he knocked over a shoe box in my office when I wasn't here. It is labelled 'house fluff and stuff.' It is filled with little stuff that I've found in the street (little toys and parts of things and a single perfect child's Mary Jane) or yard (feathers, rocks) or little things I picked up somewhere or stuff like ticket stubs and wine corks, buttons and pins. I have saved it all as an illustration of the kind of junk that accumulates and to shoot photos of it...like the one today. Silly, I know. It is part of my ongoing desire to control the stuff floating around me by cataloging it and disposing of it and it also dovetails with a little writing project I have in mind called Traveling Light, which is an exploration of the relationship on a person and things, particularly when one must carry what one needs. He seems sheepish and amazed at the box and its contents. It's is pretty inane, no doubt. I have a theory, though, that if you keep sorting and sifting, you can reduce. I could toss this whole box in the trash, no problem. I know that. Underneath it is a box (another shoe box) labelled 'souvenirs.' I'm less willing to part with the contents of this one. But nothing in it is very valuable. In fact, a bunch of it is small foreign coins and intentionally cheap souvenirs that I and others have collected. There are also a few old pieces of type.

So...what was the point of that digression. Nothing. It's Saturday and I can wax eloquent (ha) about nothing. Or boxes of nothing. So there.

I don't rush through my workout although I figure my dad will be there when I get back. I linger, doing my exercises just as I please. It feels good.

My dad is there when we get back. He shows me stuff he's brought over. He's had lunch at home and he's talked to the neighbor and he's going to watch the game with Forrest. I don't try to entertain him. I fix my lunch, mess around with my mess, read.

Then while the game goes on (and on), I clean out stuff in our bathroom. It's amazing what I find. I toss a large amount of stuff and rearrange things like first aid, extra toiletries in the other bathroom. I'm not going to say we hadn't cleaned out any of these things in the last twenty-six years. That's not entirely true. But still.

It was a good job to attack on a Saturday when my dad and FFP were watching football. I watched a few key points in the game and as it winds up (favorably for the Horns) I heat up some sauerkraut, field peas and chicken sausage and we all eat an early supper.

The performance we are going to starts late (8:30) and we have lots of time for showering and getting ready and I feel so much better than yesterday and I really groove on the performance...and I don't even drink!

Saturday, October 4, 2003

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

a collage of things in a shoe box in my office	truly Saturday Saturday is all about a different rhythm, a fun feel, football in the fall, your neighbors are home, garage sales. "I should get up," himself said. "But it's Saturday," said I. He got up anyway. I stayed in bed a while. Then I got up and fooled with my journal and online stuff. Not feeling rushed at all. Just because it's Saturday. FFP and I go outside briefly to observe that the neighbor who sold their house is having a garage sale. We talk to the neighbor next door. It's Saturday. She's home. Her youngest had a sleepover. When the dog wants out, I go outside and check on the ponds and water a few plants. Admire the day that's shaping up. FFP goes off to the club but I know he will watch football on TV in the afternoon. I have plenty of time. I talk to Dad and he says he may come over this afternoon. He wants to look at the neighbor's garden. He's probably lonely. We have a performance to see, but it doesn't start until 8:30. No problems, I say. FFP admits he knocked over a shoe box in my office when I wasn't here. It is labelled 'house fluff and stuff.' It is filled with little stuff that I've found in the street (little toys and parts of things and a single perfect child's Mary Jane) or yard (feathers, rocks) or little things I picked up somewhere or stuff like ticket stubs and wine corks, buttons and pins. I have saved it all as an illustration of the kind of junk that accumulates and to shoot photos of it...like the one today. Silly, I know. It is part of my ongoing desire to control the stuff floating around me by cataloging it and disposing of it and it also dovetails with a little writing project I have in mind called Traveling Light, which is an exploration of the relationship on a person and things, particularly when one must carry what one needs. He seems sheepish and amazed at the box and its contents. It's is pretty inane, no doubt. I have a theory, though, that if you keep sorting and sifting, you can reduce. I could toss this whole box in the trash, no problem. I know that. Underneath it is a box (another shoe box) labelled 'souvenirs.' I'm less willing to part with the contents of this one. But nothing in it is very valuable. In fact, a bunch of it is small foreign coins and intentionally cheap souvenirs that I and others have collected. There are also a few old pieces of type. So...what was the point of that digression. Nothing. It's Saturday and I can wax eloquent (ha) about nothing. Or boxes of nothing. So there. I don't rush through my workout although I figure my dad will be there when I get back. I linger, doing my exercises just as I please. It feels good. My dad is there when we get back. He shows me stuff he's brought over. He's had lunch at home and he's talked to the neighbor and he's going to watch the game with Forrest. I don't try to entertain him. I fix my lunch, mess around with my mess, read. Then while the game goes on (and on), I clean out stuff in our bathroom. It's amazing what I find. I toss a large amount of stuff and rearrange things like first aid, extra toiletries in the other bathroom. I'm not going to say we hadn't cleaned out any of these things in the last twenty-six years. That's not entirely true. But still. It was a good job to attack on a Saturday when my dad and FFP were watching football. I watched a few key points in the game and as it winds up (favorably for the Horns) I heat up some sauerkraut, field peas and chicken sausage and we all eat an early supper. The performance we are going to starts late (8:30) and we have lots of time for showering and getting ready and I feel so much better than yesterday and I really groove on the performance...and I don't even drink!
JUST TYPING Box it up. Put it in a box. Together it's different. The Saturday box. Has different stuff. Even if you are retired.
		Food Diary. *breakfast* nothing...is not eating breakfast a bad thing...I'm not usually hungry *lunch* a bunch of salad as follows: spinach, zuchinni, broccoli, green onions, carrots, sunflower sprouts, cottage cheese, shredded cheddar, Martin Brother's Garlic Ranch *snacks late night I had a couple of bowls of Puffins cereal with 2% milk and a slice of American cheese. I know. I don't want to hear it. dinner* two chicken jalapeno sausage links sauerkraut mustard field peas I didn't drink! No glass of wine, shot of whiskey, no beer, no coke!!! Just water. And coffee, black, of course. That puts my drink count at about five since Thursday.
		Time flies.... I wasted the morning, no doubt. But I don't care. I left the house for the club at eleven and didn't return until nearly one. Cleaning out stuff in that back bathroom was incredibly tedious. Especially since some of the stuff was FFP's. I left him a cache of products to see if he actually used any of them.

		Reading. Two Sides of the Beach by Edmund Blandford. One thing that you don't get in the movies that you get from these first person accounts is the noise. In a movie there needs to be time when the noise abates and you have a story. These guys talk abou the constant noise that went on for very long periods. That and the state of the bodies...of people and animals...and the smell.
		Nothing. Well, this journal, of course. I pounded on it quite a bit. I was thinking about the old 'why the journal?' thing. I have, in fact, signed up for a conference of journalers, the Web Writer's Weekend. However, I have decided that I don't do the journal to be read by others. No, I like the journal because it allows me to save ideas, words, images and my food diary in a manageable offline storage. Sure, I could probably do that without posting it on the World Wide Web. But what could be a better way of preserving it than doing that? Even if I quit paying for the space and lose my local copies, someone may preserve it for me. It's weird, I know. Writing is supposed to be for readers. But mine really isn't. Go on, get out of here! I thought about rewriting my bio that goes with this page, but I reread it and decided I liked it just as it was.
		Exercise thirty minutes on recumbent bike lower body weight workout some abs and stretches and a lower back thing twenty minutes on recumbent bike
	.	131/71 65 Somehow I just feel fine today in spite of all the BS, in spite of a lingering digestion problem from my not so perfect yesterday, just in spite of everything. For one thing, my new trainer didn't manage to make me sore in the triceps or chest. My forearm and elbow were a tiny bit sore from tennis but that went away and I just physically feel fine. I feel like things will work out, things will happen for me. It's funny what difference a day makes.