The Visible Woman...November 11, 2003

I don't rush things. I let things take their course. I stop and ponder. I take my time. In short, I'm lazy.

There are lots of ways to describe my retirement. But the short sweet word lazy would probably capture it best.

There are advantages to being lazy, though. You can accomplish things.

FFP exhibits a kind of unlaziness. (And, of course, he accomplishes more!) He gets up and gets after it. He is in the gym while I'm still asleep. He puts on a tie to inspire tidiness of mind. He makes appointments and keeps them. Comes home from an interview and writes an article. Meets his deadlines, takes care of ad approvals. Slips in a household chore here and there.

I drift. Oh...yeah...I make appointments and start WORD files that allege to be writing and swear that today I will clean this office or do the things on this 'to do' list. But I drift into surfing the WEB or flipping through my possessions. Things don't feel like accomplishments even when maybe they are. I am making a lunch date and it's for a friend's birthday and so I make a card. This means I have to surf the WEB for naked lady lamps.

My husband and I have a little joke. We repeat something his mother said once and laugh. "You wouldn't believe how many things I think about," she said. It is funny because her life is very circumscribed. We are making fun of her life of the mind, I guess, which exists in an environment stimulated by CNN and the local papers, mostly. It is not that my mother-in-law is lazy. Far from it. She does her own housework including hanging laundry on an outside line to dry. She gardens. She finds a way to make three meals a day for her and my father-in-law. She has no dishwasher. She keeps up with the bills, their medical needs. She organizes a taxi to and from stores and appointments. She is, in fact, busy. And she is eighty-three.

But our little laugh came to mind today as I pondered my pace, my possible laziness. Because I was thinking about a lot of things. I noticed a butterfly on the roses. I noticed a couple leaning out into the freeway to peer at the smashed side of their car after an accident. I thought how I used to drive to work thinking of all the things I would do at home if I didn't have to go to work. Cleaning out closets, organizing my computers, conquering the reading material led the list.

My sloth has brought fitness, though. How can this be? Well...when you have long, languorous workouts you get fit. I ride the bike or walk the treadmill, lost in reading. I am sweating, moving a little faster or with more resistance, bit by bit, each indolent day. I go through the weights without rushing. I move the weights with leisure. It turns out this is a better way. I am so much fitter and healthier. I almost never even take an Advil.

Because I'm lazy I read more. Take in things more deeply. Stop and smell the roses...or at least notice the butterfly lighting on one.

This dormancy feels active and busy. I'm thinking about many things.

lamp for sale on ebay "So in the end my ability to convey my experience of the sunrise would depend, first, on my having mastered an abstract language and, second, on someone else's having mastered it too." Anne Truit, Daybook: The Journal of an Artist	becoming lazy I don't rush things. I let things take their course. I stop and ponder. I take my time. In short, I'm lazy. There are lots of ways to describe my retirement. But the short sweet word lazy would probably capture it best. There are advantages to being lazy, though. You can accomplish things. FFP exhibits a kind of unlaziness. (And, of course, he accomplishes more!) He gets up and gets after it. He is in the gym while I'm still asleep. He puts on a tie to inspire tidiness of mind. He makes appointments and keeps them. Comes home from an interview and writes an article. Meets his deadlines, takes care of ad approvals. Slips in a household chore here and there. I drift. Oh...yeah...I make appointments and start WORD files that allege to be writing and swear that today I will clean this office or do the things on this 'to do' list. But I drift into surfing the WEB or flipping through my possessions. Things don't feel like accomplishments even when maybe they are. I am making a lunch date and it's for a friend's birthday and so I make a card. This means I have to surf the WEB for naked lady lamps. My husband and I have a little joke. We repeat something his mother said once and laugh. "You wouldn't believe how many things I think about," she said. It is funny because her life is very circumscribed. We are making fun of her life of the mind, I guess, which exists in an environment stimulated by CNN and the local papers, mostly. It is not that my mother-in-law is lazy. Far from it. She does her own housework including hanging laundry on an outside line to dry. She gardens. She finds a way to make three meals a day for her and my father-in-law. She has no dishwasher. She keeps up with the bills, their medical needs. She organizes a taxi to and from stores and appointments. She is, in fact, busy. And she is eighty-three. But our little laugh came to mind today as I pondered my pace, my possible laziness. Because I was thinking about a lot of things. I noticed a butterfly on the roses. I noticed a couple leaning out into the freeway to peer at the smashed side of their car after an accident. I thought how I used to drive to work thinking of all the things I would do at home if I didn't have to go to work. Cleaning out closets, organizing my computers, conquering the reading material led the list. My sloth has brought fitness, though. How can this be? Well...when you have long, languorous workouts you get fit. I ride the bike or walk the treadmill, lost in reading. I am sweating, moving a little faster or with more resistance, bit by bit, each indolent day. I go through the weights without rushing. I move the weights with leisure. It turns out this is a better way. I am so much fitter and healthier. I almost never even take an Advil. Because I'm lazy I read more. Take in things more deeply. Stop and smell the roses...or at least notice the butterfly lighting on one. This dormancy feels active and busy. I'm thinking about many things.
JUST TYPING Lazy. A little word. A lazy day sounds so sweet. Filled with little words. Like: Nap. Walk. Stroll, Stop. Look. Drift.
Meta: I haven't had a comment from a reader (few though they, intentionally, are) in a long time. I'm thinking that all the sections and meandering in them has put everyone to sleep. I can't decide if this is a good or bad thing. The journal serves its purpose. I found some really good prose for use elsewhere (so I say) today in an old entry. Then, of course, I lost track of it! Or maybe it just wasn't so wonderful when I reread the entries I'd been looking at.		Food Diary. *breakfast* nothing *lunch* two bowls of salad greens with Thousand Island dressing, carrots, green onions, cheddar cheese, some currants and dried cherries a baked potato (medium) with nonfat yogurt, cheese, green onions and garlic chips *snacks* a few cheese and crackers wine dinner [Mimosa] a nice miso and mushroom soup a nice seaweed and cucumber salad some awful fried seafood and tartar sauce wine Today I didn't - finish the horrible fried stuff - snack except when we had cocktails with friends before going out to dinner
		Time flies.... FFP decided not to go to the club this morning. The day spun a little differently. I didn't have anything on the calendar until the evening and this was a late-breaking casual dinner. The day yawned with possibility. I might have a long workout, I might get a haircut, I might get things on my list done. A little before nine, FFP left to do an interview and I finished yesterday's journal and set up today's. (I never talk much about the process, the clicks and edits and saves and ftps that make my days appear on the WEB. But everyday I do them. Some days when I start the page or when I am updating it, I take my blood pressure and pulse with a little gadget in my drawer that seems to give wildly different readings...or else I am at my very heart an erratic individual. I write these in the journal's health and mood section. I come to the computer a few times a day to complete the essay, edit a picture, put in links, record my food and exercise.) I was at the gym around 9:30 and wasn't back until 11:30. I talked to FFP and goofed around with eating and reading the newspaper. It crossed my mind to shower and try to get a haircut. But the maid walked in the door. I decided to do nothing but hide in my office. I made a card for my friend's birthday. I checked some of the WEB sites I like to keep up with. I read some. Before long it was time to shower and go out with some friends. Their house, by architect Charles Moore, was amazing. A great horned owl called out. Their Bouvier greeted us. I climbed on their roof to see a 360 degree view of Austin.

		Reading. Daybook, The Journal of an Artist by Anne Truitt at the gym. Today's Newspapers. Did you know over three hundred servicemen have been killed in our current war? It's a long way to catch up with Viet Nam, but I sometimes think we will make it.
		I took stuff from the aborted story and added some other images and tired to write a different story. It was too short and only images with no meaning or plot.
		Exercise thrity-one minutes on recumbent bike my chest, shoulders and triceps exercises ten minutes on rowing machine twenty minutes on treadmill
	. .	118/75 62 mood is better than it should be, given my sloth physically I rarely have a twinge
	It's a Tangled Web we weave...these days of our lives.	One year ago "Still clearning my one little corner of our property." Two years ago "Sirens roar out into the night, fire trucks screaming then groaning. There was a big dust up like this while I was in the yard this morning. What is going on? Finally, the quiet returns to the dark."