Tuesday, January 20, 2004

A Journal from Austin, Texas.
A Project of LBFFP Stealth Publishing.

talk about things swelling up to fill the time

OK, I had a lunch date. And I'd agreed to procure a boned leg of lamb for my dad and to pick up some towels we liked at Sam's and to help load the pictures I wanted from my friend's office. Somehow my duties swelled to fill the day.

yes...work needs to be done on the office bookcases!

JUST TYPING

Like those sponges.
Thin looking, no substance.
A couple of appointments swell up and fill the space.

Food Diary.

breakfast

two cups of coffee

lunch
[NXNW]

salad with about four ounces of Salmon and green beans, cucumbers and spinach

snacks

two Clementines
3/4 ounce Laughing Cow Cheese

dinner
[Brick Oven]

two slices of a medium pizza with a salad with cheese and bleu cheese dressing (pizza has portobella mushrooms, sun-dried tomato, pancetta)

Today I
- didn't think much about eating one eay or the other.

Time flies....

I got off to the club in time to work out and go by the Meat Market by 11. They had said to pick up the leg of lamb 'any time.' Well, any time, should include 11. It wasn't boned when I got there. The owner called me on my way to the house and said they'd done it and I said I'd go back. But when I got inside to 'quickly check my mail' all the computers were booted and my main once hadn't come back. So some time slipped away and FFP agreed to go pick up the leg o' lamb and I called my dad and told him to pick it up. I got things working again and arrived for lunch at the same time as my lunch buddy. He's from Houston and he works for my old company. He reads the journal (yikes...that gives me pause). We had a nice lunch and talk about nothing in particular...kids and such. I decided to go to Sam's before calling my friend about helping with the pictures and then I decided to wander around Home Depot before that. When I called her from Sam's she couldn't do it until after work. I got the towels at Sam's and get a few other things (all purpose paper for copier/printers, Boursin cheese, some sliced turkey) and went home.

I spent time on the journal while dodging the maid and I try to clean up my office starting just picking up each thing and putting it away. This fills a lot of time without a lot of accomplishment. I burn time talking to my dad about a 'mass in the thorax' on the cat scan and looking up Paris stuff.

I go to the friend's office in rush hour and help her carry out the pictures and we have dinner at Brick Oven and she delivers the pictures to me.

I settle in to read when I get home. FFP watches a special on Martin Luther King rather than the state of the union. I doze, not getting much reading done.

Reading.

Newspapers.

Best Essays of 2003 edited by Anne Fadiman.

The Conquerers by Michael Beschloss.

nothing

Exercise

thirty minutes on bike

twenty minutes on treadmill

75 situps on inclined board

It's a Tangled
Web we weave...these
days of our lives.

One year ago
"I feel tired. In that pleasant way like when you were a kid and you swam all afternoon and really got tired and then had an appetite for your mom's dinner for a change and then curled up and fell asleep with your parents giving that look that says 'we wore her out this time.' '"

Two years ago
"Everyone should plan to die. Someday. Or be disabled. Or both. We have redone wills, powers of attorney, medical powers a few years ago. We are now working on 'instructions' and locators of important documents. So FFP and I spend some time on this. It is not depressing because it's abstract. You still don't believe it will happen to you. That's the way we are wired, I guess."