The Visible Woman...March 12, 2004

Friday, March 12, 2004

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

Austin explodes with art

Yeah, SXSW begins (film and interactive) and there is a 'made in Austin' ballet all weekend and I listened to SXSW radio all morning while updating WEB pages and accompanying graphics. And, I might add, FFP spent a few minutes between the gym and his desk doing abstract paintings in the garage.

Hey...I actually like some of the music I heard listening to SXSW radio. Maybe not as much as the standards I hear from Kevin Ahart. But, yeah, I could expand my horizons into some other kinds of music.

By the way, I'm sort of happy with the design of Kevin's WEB page graphically. Not entirely, of course. Never be satisfied. But I think I'm going somewhere with the pinstripe idea and the black tie theme harkening back to old movies.

FFP is satisfying his inner artist a little, too.

And I am going to go to some panel discussions (as well as films) in the SXSW film thing in the next few days. Nope, I won't be doind SXSW music. Except, like I said, the radio.

Tonight and Sunday we will see Ballet Austin doing Stephen Mills' Hamlet.

Austin Arts. That was the name of a bulletin board we started on Prodigy years ago. It is an arty town. I love it but I just can't keep up with everything there is to do here. The secret is to do what you can, with enthusiam and try to stay calm.

The bedspread rocks. The blank wall to the right may get some original abstracts by FFP himself.

One of our favorites, Doug Whitfield, contributed the two on the left of this picture.

JUST TYPING

Art.
Is where you find it.
Color, space, time, sound, light, words.
Or all of the above.

Food Diary.

breakfast

nothing

lunch

four crackers with bleu cheese
a 3/4 ounce Laughing Cow
four slices turkey bacon
a banana
some green onions

snacks

little crostini with some minty green stuff...delicious
several baby sweet potato empanadas
some thin ham and a bit of cheese
three plastic cups of wine

dinner

about four ounces of sauteed catfish
a salad with cheese and onions and carrots and tomatoes and dressing
some fritoes and spinach/artichoke dip (not too much)
three small rounds of hard salami

Today I
- tried to pay close attention to what I ate, maybe having a little less (yeah, right) as my weight seems stuck or going up.
- still had too much cheese and crackers and stuff like that.

Meta:
I feel like I need to reorganize the journal and its archives and such. When will I find the time? Especially if I keep adding sections to the daily page?

Time flies....

Igot up early enough. I made the bed and dressed for a workout. But at almost noon I'd been doing WEB stuff and helping FFP do that and listening to strange (well, to me) music. It was decision time: go for a workout or go directly downtown to get my SXSW badge. Well, I don't need the badge today because I'm not going to anything before tomorrow because of the ballet. (Nope, no midnight shows for this kid.)
So I decide in favor of the workout.

While I'm using the equipment at the club and looking out at the rain, I am thinking what an incredible life I lead if I can just enjoy it and not get too nervous about all the choices.

By three I'm done with the workout. I think I'll take a shower but the maid shows up to 'finish.' (Translated: she didn't get enough hours earlier in the week. Oh, in fairness, she cleans the bathrooms nicely and I hate scrubbing fixtures so that's cool. But as soon as she's gone I'll be messing up the one shower.

It's almost five, then, and I'm in my bathrobe, hair wet, checking e-mail, clipping my toenails. Time to finish my toilette and get ready for the evening. I do this very leisurely in our new master suite and it's quite fun.

We go to the ballet quite early to get a good parking place. It's raining a little. We listen to the pre-performance lecture. Then we have a drink, greet friends, sit. After the performance, we go back stage and eat and drink and visit with patrons, dancers, dancers' parents. Then we go home. It's late. We go to bed with reading and jazz.

Reading.

Newspapers.

The Life of Ernie Pyle by Lee G. Miller. I picked up three books and took them with me in the car to the gym. This one is a 1950 biography of Ernie. Another was a D-Day book from the 50's and another was a story of an escape from a prison camp in Moscow in 1941 and a long journey to freedom. I settled on this Pyle biography to actually read. I left the others in the car, queued up.

A short story in (amazingly enough) a recent copy of The New Yorker. By John Updike. Delicate Wives. Also an article about The L Word in the same magazine.

I started a 'Best Essays' collection in bed. From 1996. I can't figure out if I read it before or not.

nothing

Thinking about things.

Umbrellas.
We must have six or seven or more.
Some in the cars.
Some by the front door.
My favorite fish-handled one, my friend Deb gave me.
I don't take it inside the gym but choose a shabbier one.
I don't want to lose it.
When we go out, there are none in his car.
I've brought the fish-handled one.
I go back inside for a orange and white striped one for him.
The ungainly umbrellas.
Balance while having a drink before the ballet.
Under our seats.
Under the cater's table backstage.
But we remember them.
And it isn't raining when we leave.
Because
We have umbrellas.

(6)

Exercise

recumbent bike	40min
treadmill	20min
ergonomic rower
water aerobics
chest, shoulder, triceps
leg, back, bicep
lower back
ab exercises	x
stretches	x
walking
tennis

I felt, well, creative and kind of good today. Is it just the fact that no workmen were scheduled?

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

One year ago
"The process of diary resurrection...looking at notes and 'to do' lists...my life seems dead. I can't remember the weather, the sun, the wind, the little things people said."

Two years ago
"Observation: when I get up in the morning, I have energy and I feel great. Especially after a nice cup of coffee. I go to work and spend this great feeling on work, while on beautiful spring days sunshine exhausts itself into night making things bloom before your eyes. Isn't it really time to retire?"

153
I'm now weighing on a balance beam scale at the club with clothes (short, T-Shirt, tennies). This is a departure from weighing in the raw at home. There is still a variance, of course, depending on the time of day, amount of sweat (and whether it's still on the clothes!), whether I've eaten. But I'm not trying to monitor the pounds too closely. It would be nice to get a body fat number but, like cholesterol counts, I'm afraid to get the test!