The Visible Woman...October 13, 2003

Everyone has a reason to feel better off than someone. My friend can't drive or work right now. I feel good that I can drive and don't work but don't want to work. He feels glad to be alive and doing so well.

There is a line in that lovely little movie called My Life as a Dog where a boy battered by tragedy says, in a voice over, "you have to have things to compare to." Indeed.

My friend Charles has had his life turned upside down. But he's facing it down. He's seen his mortality up close and faced it down.

He seems amazed that I could retire willingly when his enforced absence from work is painful to him. He's worked at one company since he was out of college.

I am amazed at his lovely home and what he's done in remodeling and decoration. I don't envy him his illness, but his life seems pretty good. He may able to go back to work...nothing short of a miracle. He can do seven more years and retire. A real retirement with a pension or something. Not a retirement like mine. Which is really a quitting and saying you can support yourself on your investments completely until Social Security arrives and mostly after that. I say I retired. Because I didn't get another job. I didn't have a pension. Oh, the company funded some of that 401K I'm not touching. But it wouldn't support me.

I envy my friend in a way. He envies me somewhat, maybe. But mostly we are people who find our own path and get things from our friends as appropriate. And give them help and comfort willingly.

Monday, October 13, 2003

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

. the shaker collection in a bar that has to be moved	better off Everyone has a reason to feel better off than someone. My friend can't drive or work right now. I feel good that I can drive and don't work but don't want to work. He feels glad to be alive and doing so well. There is a line in that lovely little movie called My Life as a Dog where a boy battered by tragedy says, in a voice over, "you have to have things to compare to." Indeed. My friend Charles has had his life turned upside down. But he's facing it down. He's seen his mortality up close and faced it down. He seems amazed that I could retire willingly when his enforced absence from work is painful to him. He's worked at one company since he was out of college. I am amazed at his lovely home and what he's done in remodeling and decoration. I don't envy him his illness, but his life seems pretty good. He may able to go back to work...nothing short of a miracle. He can do seven more years and retire. A real retirement with a pension or something. Not a retirement like mine. Which is really a quitting and saying you can support yourself on your investments completely until Social Security arrives and mostly after that. I say I retired. Because I didn't get another job. I didn't have a pension. Oh, the company funded some of that 401K I'm not touching. But it wouldn't support me. I envy my friend in a way. He envies me somewhat, maybe. But mostly we are people who find our own path and get things from our friends as appropriate. And give them help and comfort willingly.
JUST TYPING A critical illness. Focuses us on what we know. Was inevitable anyway. In sorrow. We should remember. We must surely follow.
		Food Diary. *breakfast* Puffins with 2% milk and banana. lunch [Four Seasons] tuna spring rolls wilted spinach salad *snacks a couple of Fritos (late at night)cup of green tea with lemon and two teaspoons of sugar Jelly Bellies (maybe forty?) dinner* two Bratwurst, some sauerkraut and some cheddar cheese I felt like I ate way too much today. But...I didn't drink. Maybe that's because I saw a movie about an alcoholic.
		Time flies.... After water aerobics, I went to the gym. Between cleaning up and picking up my friend for a lunch, I didn't have time to accomplish much. After a long lunch, I went to Office Max to get some boxes to finish moving stuff around. It was nearly four before I did anything useful. We ate dinner early and went to a movie. We watched a new Third Watch and Vegas on tape and I tried to winnow the newspapers with little success.

		Reading. Living to Tell the Tale by Jane Taylor McDonnell is giving me ideas about how to do an essay I'd like to submit to a magazine. It's a quick little read and I'll have to pick something else. I may have mentioned that I read random newspaper and magazine snippets while eating or, ahem, in the bathroom. Plus I intentionally try to read all the papers here and there. In this way, I learn about bombings, the threat to the earth from meteors and comets, what companies are merging and having executives indicted. I am not totally uninformed. My reading is randow, though, and sometimes I miss things altogether or for a number of days. Or weeks.
		Maybe when the remodeling is started? Finished? A meteor strikes the earth?
		Exercise one hour water aerobics thirty minutes on recumbent bike. some abs and stretches fifteen minutes on bike
	.	no big complaints, no big euphoria