The Visible Woman...January 23, 2004

You plot, you plan, you schedule, you choose. But at the end of the day you have had the unplanned, the poor choises or the interruptions.

I knew I'd wait for the tile guys while FFP worked out. Then I figured I'd go to the club, maybe catch a few errands. But FFP said I should help with the choices. They didn't get here until 10:30. They 'got lost.' Gives you pause.

We made choices: pattern, grout, where to tile. Choices we will surely live to regret somehow. Choices that will be misinterpreted...maybe for the best.

And FFP had a lunch date. We wanted someone to be around. So I wait some more. I answered questions. Some felt momentous.

The tile guys want to tile around the shower fixture and when they pull it away from the wall, it leaks. They can't get the plumber until 'this afternoon' so they turn the water in the house off. They can't find the drain fixture to mud it in properly either. It doesn't give me a high level of confidence. The contractor says that he likes jobs like this rather than the $250,000 and $500,000 ones he is doing elsewhere. "We can get in and get out," he says. Hmmm, I'm thinking, "How's that...been here since before Thanksgiving." Then he says, "We will be on those all year." Sigh.

I speak with my dad today and his brother has been hospitalized. He is 90 and was living in a nursing home and living what one might see as a pretty marginalized life but my dad is still upset and would go see him except he has company expected and a doctor's appointment on Monday.

I have some errands I'd like to run, I'd like to work out and take a shower before evening. Which I could do at the club but I don't want to leave the tile guys. So I wait. I hover around the work. I let the dog out. I eat. I fret. I work on the journal.

FFP comes home with one of his West Austin News interviewees in tow with a college yearbook and an old snapshot that he wants digitized. I try to do that with mixed results.

He says he will stay here waiting for the plumber, supervising the tile guys (right!!!). I decide to go to the club and clean up there. But...I get a call about some seats I'm trying to reserve for us and friends to go to a show. I finally get off.

FFP calls...to tell me the water is back, to tell me about an invitation we received, to tell me the tile guys have 'gone astray.' He has them change it but it still isn't what I'd ask for but it will be OK. Won't it? Sure. Maybe better I hope. When the workmen are leaving they say something about using gray 'in the shower.' No, on the floor. The walls of the shower will be white with black accents. Sigh.

Having workmen clomping around all the time makes one nervous. The maid is here, too, when I get home, changing for a night out in the bathroom. I thought she finished on Tuesday. But she apparently didn't. Of course, I can't tell what she did today either. Except change clothes. She's ready for a night on the town, clearly.

And so am I. (Although my jenas and old shirt wouldn't indicate it. So I throw on a blue blazer.) FFP is going to a birthday party for the owner of Fonda San Miguel. And I'm going to celebrate the 'retirement' of a friend with some drinks or dinner and a movie.

I feel tense and stressed from the choices, the mess, the people always around. But it will be pass...and it will be something else. Right now I have to stop myself from saying 'if these people weren't in my house, everything would be all right.' Yep, sometimes I wish they'd go away even if it isn't finished. I'd sleep on the pullout and live in the mess...just to have some peace. I know it isn't true, of course. I'll be fine, the job will be finished, I won't like everything but I'll get used to it, even learn to like it. It will be the only way I can remember things being after a while. And more serious problems than dust and assortments of workmen will eclipse it all.

	it's always something You plot, you plan, you schedule, you choose. But at the end of the day you have had the unplanned, the poor choises or the interruptions. I knew I'd wait for the tile guys while FFP worked out. Then I figured I'd go to the club, maybe catch a few errands. But FFP said I should help with the choices. They didn't get here until 10:30. They 'got lost.' Gives you pause. We made choices: pattern, grout, where to tile. Choices we will surely live to regret somehow. Choices that will be misinterpreted...maybe for the best. And FFP had a lunch date. We wanted someone to be around. So I wait some more. I answered questions. Some felt momentous. The tile guys want to tile around the shower fixture and when they pull it away from the wall, it leaks. They can't get the plumber until 'this afternoon' so they turn the water in the house off. They can't find the drain fixture to mud it in properly either. It doesn't give me a high level of confidence. The contractor says that he likes jobs like this rather than the $250,000 and $500,000 ones he is doing elsewhere. "We can get in and get out," he says. Hmmm, I'm thinking, "How's that...been here since before Thanksgiving." Then he says, "We will be on those all year." Sigh. I speak with my dad today and his brother has been hospitalized. He is 90 and was living in a nursing home and living what one might see as a pretty marginalized life but my dad is still upset and would go see him except he has company expected and a doctor's appointment on Monday. I have some errands I'd like to run, I'd like to work out and take a shower before evening. Which I could do at the club but I don't want to leave the tile guys. So I wait. I hover around the work. I let the dog out. I eat. I fret. I work on the journal. FFP comes home with one of his West Austin News interviewees in tow with a college yearbook and an old snapshot that he wants digitized. I try to do that with mixed results. He says he will stay here waiting for the plumber, supervising the tile guys (right!!!). I decide to go to the club and clean up there. But...I get a call about some seats I'm trying to reserve for us and friends to go to a show. I finally get off. FFP calls...to tell me the water is back, to tell me about an invitation we received, to tell me the tile guys have 'gone astray.' He has them change it but it still isn't what I'd ask for but it will be OK. Won't it? Sure. Maybe better I hope. When the workmen are leaving they say something about using gray 'in the shower.' No, on the floor. The walls of the shower will be white with black accents. Sigh. Having workmen clomping around all the time makes one nervous. The maid is here, too, when I get home, changing for a night out in the bathroom. I thought she finished on Tuesday. But she apparently didn't. Of course, I can't tell what she did today either. Except change clothes. She's ready for a night on the town, clearly. And so am I. (Although my jenas and old shirt wouldn't indicate it. So I throw on a blue blazer.) FFP is going to a birthday party for the owner of Fonda San Miguel. And I'm going to celebrate the 'retirement' of a friend with some drinks or dinner and a movie. I feel tense and stressed from the choices, the mess, the people always around. But it will be pass...and it will be something else. Right now I have to stop myself from saying 'if these people weren't in my house, everything would be all right.' Yep, sometimes I wish they'd go away even if it isn't finished. I'd sleep on the pullout and live in the mess...just to have some peace. I know it isn't true, of course. I'll be fine, the job will be finished, I won't like everything but I'll get used to it, even learn to like it. It will be the only way I can remember things being after a while. And more serious problems than dust and assortments of workmen will eclipse it all.
the ultimate space is beginning to be hinted at...actually some tile appeared in there today
JUST TYPING No calm. Calls, choices, people tramping around, dirt, mess, dust. No plan works. On other peoples' time.
		Food Diary. *breakfast* two cups of coffee *lunch* 2 3/4 ounce Laughing Cow 1 large slice smoked turkey plate of nachos with onions and jalapenos *snacks* some Snickers 'popables' at the movie dinner [Manuels] 1/2 of a queso appetizer 1/2 of a marinated fish appetizer 1 1/2 glasses of Zinfandel Today I - really felt those nachos when I was trying to work out.
		Time flies.... My day goes as the essay recounts until the evening. Then my friend and I go buy tickets for Big Fish and go to Manuel's and eat some food and have a drink in the bar. After the movie she brings me back. FFP isn't home. I finish up the journal and go to bed with a book.

		Reading. Newspapers. Best Essays of 2003 edited by Anne Fadiman. People earnestly pump their ideas in an essay...but will it change anyone else's mind? Enough to act? The Conquerers by Michael Beschloss.
		nothing
		Exercise thirty-five minutes on recumbent bike leg, back and bicep exercises fifteen minutes on the treadmill
	. .	I don't do as well exercising after eating. My mood is weird. Low but in an accepting way as in 'yeah, I'm sad and upset about some things but that's just the way things are.'
	It's a Tangled Web we weave...these days of our lives.	One year ago "But still I'm not in the best of moods. And my knees hurt. It's just the usual aches and strains of old age, I'm sure." Two years ago "Lately I seem to be my usual unfocused self, flitting from one thing to the next. But, in the meantime, I do concentrate on one thing in a way that I haven't been able to do in a while. With energy and interest. Things are fun. Everything. Even things that should be a bore. It's weird."