The Visible Woman...January 10, 2004

So yesterday I was thinking the solution was to concentrate. But how do I deal with distractions? The world and circumstances always have a different agenda.

Computer stuff can distract me big time. I never learn in this regard. Other distractions come because we live with others who have a different agenda. Or we remodel.

I realized that I had lost track of one of the files that I used to create my links page. I realized this when I was cleaning out e-mail and I wanted to add a link to it. I spent a lot of time today looking for the file in old backups and I booted the flaky old machine from a floppy and prowled its ailing hard drive with DOS, too. Finally I decided to recreate it but that meant remembering how to do the stuff and that wasn't easy either. But I couldn't give up on it once I stuck into it.

The trim carpenter working is distracting to me, too. Yep, he's was working on Saturday.

And FFP had his own agenda: cars washed, grocery store, his workout, bank, shopping for accessories for the new room, going to the tailor to get pants taken up.

None of this should make a difference to me and my concentration, right?

But I was drifting through all this and various other tangents different events led me to follow. While eating snacks I read the obits and had to write an email to a friend to say that the old guy who used to bus tables at Whole Foods had died. Another time while snacking and reading the papers, I had to stop and work the puzzles. I know, I know. And in the mail was one of the 'come ons' trying to get you to transfer a domain. They gave a false (early) expiration for it. That led to checking the actual expirations on a bunch of domain names we own which meant getting through a miasma on one of the sites where we have stuff registered.

Well, my links are redone. But I got almost nothing else done today. Must concentrate. Must master distractions.

	distractions So yesterday I was thinking the solution was to concentrate. But how do I deal with distractions? The world and circumstances always have a different agenda. Computer stuff can distract me big time. I never learn in this regard. Other distractions come because we live with others who have a different agenda. Or we remodel. I realized that I had lost track of one of the files that I used to create my links page. I realized this when I was cleaning out e-mail and I wanted to add a link to it. I spent a lot of time today looking for the file in old backups and I booted the flaky old machine from a floppy and prowled its ailing hard drive with DOS, too. Finally I decided to recreate it but that meant remembering how to do the stuff and that wasn't easy either. But I couldn't give up on it once I stuck into it. The trim carpenter working is distracting to me, too. Yep, he's was working on Saturday. And FFP had his own agenda: cars washed, grocery store, his workout, bank, shopping for accessories for the new room, going to the tailor to get pants taken up. None of this should make a difference to me and my concentration, right? But I was drifting through all this and various other tangents different events led me to follow. While eating snacks I read the obits and had to write an email to a friend to say that the old guy who used to bus tables at Whole Foods had died. Another time while snacking and reading the papers, I had to stop and work the puzzles. I know, I know. And in the mail was one of the 'come ons' trying to get you to transfer a domain. They gave a false (early) expiration for it. That led to checking the actual expirations on a bunch of domain names we own which meant getting through a miasma on one of the sites where we have stuff registered. Well, my links are redone. But I got almost nothing else done today. Must concentrate. Must master distractions.
oops...drain was in wrong place so the plumbers moved it...did the trim carpenter cover up the sheet rock gap with the vanity?...We'll never know, I guess.
JUST TYPING Concentration applied. Broken. Choosing what to do. Or being sucked into a vortex. And swimming there. Do we really have a choice?
		Food Diary. *breakfast* nothing *lunch* nothing *snacks* a little package of weird Japanese savory snacks two servings of tuna fish salad some cheese and tortilla chips *dinner* beaucoup white wine salad of beets, red beans, shredded stuff with a homemade dressing olive or two beaucoup cheese fondue and baguette cubes some 15-year-old Calvados very small piece of fruit tart from Central Market even smaller piece of dark chocolate Today I - didn't eat at any proscribed time until dinner with my friends which was, of course, too much.
		Time flies.... I get up and get coffee and sit in front of the computer. I'm going to wait for FFP to go work out so we will be here when a workman shows up. I start cleaning out my e-mail. I find a link that I want to add to my links page. But I can't find all the artifacts that I used to create the rollover menus and such. So I spend time prowling around on my old machine and trying to figure out stuff. The whole day seemed to be one useless tangent and then it was after four and I hadn't showered and I'd promised to be somewhere at six. I think anyway. I check the e-mail I sent confirming. Yeah, six. I shower and look at some of my France maps and it's time to go. We discuss plans (who is going, who isn't, where we will meet, who is driving cars) for our trip in the summer. We discuss other trips, they show me Paris hotel brochures they just brought back. I'm excited about the trip except that I have the responsibility for planning it for FFP. I'm thinking of not doing too much time in Paris this trip since we are going out in the countryside anyway...why not do the countryside some justice and, if FFP likes it, go back for 'just Paris.' Ah, decisions! I find out one guy is going to Normandy two nights earlier than the rest because he is arriving earlier. Hmm...maybe we should go directly to Normandy rather than spending a night in Paris. Too many options! But that allows us to pick up a car at the airport and not unpack twice. Hmm. It would allow us to maybe see some monuments before the crowds descend.

		Reading. Newspapers. I'm reading that book of letters Eisenhower wrote to Marshall during the war. So, I can appreciate that some people had more trouble planning a trip to Normandy!
		nothing
		Exercise fifty minutes on recumbent bike ab exercises and stretches
	. .	I am not in a real good mood but there are sparks here and there. Physically I'm fine.
	It's a Tangled Web we weave...these days of our lives.	One year ago "Honestly, cleaning the guest room was like going into the best secondhand bookstore I've every found and finding a section labelled 'LB and FFP will find these intriguing.'" Two years ago "Some days I can only look far, far ahead. The now seems not to matter."