Strangers in My Pictures

AUSTIN, Texas, August 31, 2004 — A lot of the pictures I take don't have people in them at all. Or maybe just my reflection.

But when you take pictures with people in them, sometimes they are strangers. Maybe you will never see them again in your life. Probably wouldn't remember them if you did. But they live on in some snapshot. For some reason that really makes me think. It's even weirder than the people in the abandoned snapshots for sale in the junk shop. It's weird enough when you capture a stranger in your home town painting the monkey. (Quit sniggering you.)

But when you are thousands of miles from home it is even weirder to me. Who are all these people? Where are they now?

 

Your Precious Data

AUSTIN, Texas, August 30, 2004 — When you can't get to your computer, you start to think about all the stuff you will have to reinstall, recover, recreate. It's mind-boggling. Even if you have backups.

While FFP's machine was misbehaving, I brought our laptop up, got his address book, bookmarks, inbox from last night and put those on that machine. I ask him what he was working on. When we got up in safe mode, I got some ZIPs and started fooling around with copying off things he'd created today. He'd finished some WEB pages so I downloaded those from the WEB to the laptop. I started thinking of little things...backup software over the Internet (where'd I put the keys), the scripts for the intra-WAN backups that run from that machine, where is the disk for the Office software. (I'd already found the still shrink-wrapped WIN2K Pro disk and gone through booting up that and worrying about doing a new installation and tried to repair the installation. I'm not sure if this worked in any way. But I'd found the disk.) I found the disk for the WEB editing software. (Two actually since we had upgraded and you have to install the old and upgrade to get back to ground zero. Sigh.)

Yeah, when you create your own little world on a computer with your own set of software and data, it's a complex subtle world. You can never actually recreate it very well. I'm glad I didn't have to actually tackle that for FFP today. Because his world came back to life after some coaxing.

One Little Thing

AUSTIN, Texas, August 29, 2004 — It just takes one little thing to sort of irritate you and take the fun edge off things. I try not to be bothered by small, non-cosmic things but it is hard, isn't it?

Today it was a stopped up kitchen sink. Generally that old sink responds to a bit of the Drano or such product. It seemed to clear it but then it stopped up again. I went out for another container of the stuff and I even stayed up late to try to flush it with hot water when it cleared. Miraculously, I almost worked the New York Times Sunday Magazine crossword puzzle while staying up. It did clear but then was slow and stopped up again.

It's a tiny thing and we will get a plumber to figure it out tomorrow. We have money for the plumber. Around the world people are without potable water, starving and riff with disease. Plus they have no books!

It's only a little thing and my goal is to simplify my life and get used to putting things in proper perspective. So, yeah, it's only a sink.

Anniversaries

AUSTIN, Texas, August 28, 2004 — My mother died two years ago today. It's an aunt's birthday. FFP's high school class finished high school forty years ago in May.

Events are remembered arbitrarily by anniversaries. This habit probably gives you a reprieve, allowing you not to think about losing someone or getting older or the indignities of high school for the rest of the year.

I feel like I've discussed the arbitrariness of anniversaries before. But I can't remember when and I don't care to look it up.

Connections

AUSTIN, Texas, August 27, 2004 — When I think or read or ponder, I am always going off on tangents. You know the drill. A movie has an actor in it that makes you think of another movie he was in. Or a book is set in, say, Paris and you wonder about the locations. When I read a book that is factual (memoir, history, biography, travel guide) then the connections of all that (more or less) real stuff with everything else fires off all kinds of connections. The book I recently finished (Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein and Company by James R. Mellow) was especially rich fodder for this tendency. So much so that I drew a chart in my notebook of just some of these connections that occurred to me. It isn't really very interesting or artistic but it is amusing. (Click on the detail below for a full image of this scrawl.) While reading this book I thought about where Gertrude's apartments on the left bank were located exactly and, when I read that she and Alice were buried in Père Lachaise, I wondered where and wished I'd gone by there when we visited that cemetery in June. I ended up looking up this info on maps I have. That's pretty innocuous. More dangerous is the inspiration to study and read things that would be far more time-consuming. I wanted to buy and read a book by Mildred Aldrich, a friend of theirs who wrote about living virtually amidst the first world war. Naturally I thought about reading everything Gertrude wrote, obtuse and not, punctuated ot not. (I like punctuation for the record. However, I read Paris France once on a trip to Paris, France. Not this last one, though.) I thought about reading or rereading everything written by the other writers mentioned: Hemingway, Joyce. It's bad enough I was sent to the dictionary to look up the words hermetic and enceinte. I also was moved to want to rewatch The Moderns (understandable) and The Sheltering Sky (less understandable but...there was one small mention of Paul Bowles who wrote the book that the movie was based on and briefly appeared in the movie). Naturally I thought about how much more I needed to read about both World Wars. And how much more I'd really like to know about the painters mentioned.

It's a disease, really. You read one book and think you've accomplished something but it just makes you want to study and read scores more things. And it makes you want to travel to the places mentioned and walk in the steps of the people you are reading about. One never gets done, does one?

Just what DO I do With my Time?

AUSTIN, Texas, August 26, 2004 — Especially on days when I don't make it to the gym, I wonder what I really actually do with my time. My chronology nonwithstanding (does it tell all?) where does the time go?

On this day I: emailed about an article I'm writing and the accompanying picture, proofed and edited the picture; I considered trying to talk FFP into a trip down the Danube next year, reviewing the 2005 brochure from Viking cruises; I went through the mail, checking bills and statements and reading through stuff including a very confusing offer on some muni-bonds that are apparently teetering in a threat of bankruptcy and checking if we had the proper amount in the budget for cable TV; I discussed the bond offer with FFP; of course, of course, I typed what you are reading; I read a couple of on-line journals and commented on one through the Haloscan service; I considered whether I should add a comments button to this site; I reviewed some of the domain and WEB space services I use and some other WEB pages to give advice to the friend I had lunch with; I had lunch with that friend and discussed his medical problems and his technical questions; I read...newspapers and my book; I tried to call my dad and, when I couldn't reach him, called his friend Maja which meant a discussion with her about how he did on his trip and when she will have pictures and such. Whew! I am busy, huh?

I also reviewed my Netflix queue and added some films I found recommended recently. I watched part of a U.S. vs. Brazil in a gold medal soccer match. Finally my dad called and a discussion ensued about a number of things: whether his answering machine was working, whether my friend SuRu would help his friend with her yard sale, etc. etc.

Oh, you know, I worried over some of our restaurant clients, too. Both current and one that fired us. Writing up some ideas for the one paying us. Critiquing the WEB work for the one that fired us and pointing out some old info on their new (and very attractive) page.

Things fill my day. I see snippets of Olympics (the U.S. women celebrating their soccer victory, field hockey), I fumble with the junk in my office closet, stuff like that.

I am really quite busy doing nothing.

 

Irrational Glee

AUSTIN, Texas, August 25, 2004 — I felt upbeat, capable, in love with life today. Part of the day anyway. Most of it sort of.

No reason for it, really. I couldn't maintain my dedication in the gym today (even though I went twice), I didn't do anything too productive. I did cook a tiny bit. I didn't attack the mess that awaits disposal in the guest room after cleaning out some closets. I didn't get any of my goals done really. And in less than two weeks I'm going on a trip which of course means packing and then being away and falling further behind on things like the journal.

But I was watching movies and reading and thinking about cooking and how I'd made the frig more tidy and thinking about how lucky I am to have time to fret over this and that and do this journal and spend time making a database of my books, for heaven's sake.

It would be good if I could be in this mood more often. Maybe it was not having anything scheduled to do. At the very end of the day I didn't feel too good. But, oddly, I was still in a pretty good mood.

I need a Schedule

AUSTIN, Texas, August 24, 2004 — I really need to have a schedule. Otherwise I'm a loose cannon.

Oh, sure, I think that 'free' time will give me time to take care of the things I never seem to get to. (Especially the 'organization' of my 'stuff' and the taking control of my financial affairs.) But it never seems to work that way. It's almost as if the blank days on the calendar disappear more profoundly than those wasted waiting in waiting rooms or running errands or going to social events.

Still, when I see an empty slot or when something falls off the calendar (we decide not to go, someone else can't make it) I feel a sense of relief that is pretty profound.

I'm sure I need some kind of self-imposed schedule. But unless I just tell myself 'do it every day' it doesn't get done. Not every day and not ever. That's why I get the bed made every day. And that's why, almost every day, I get some exercise and write this journal. Every day is the only kind of scheduling I seem to respond to.

I wonder if I could just put things on my calendar like 'study French 8-9AM' or 'catalog books 9-10PM' or 'do personal budget 7-8AM?'

Nah...that wouldn't work. I'd rebel against myself right away. Things go better when I do them when I 'feel' like it, don't they? Even the exercise and the journal get done when the spirit is willing, although as the day winds on there is an urgency.

It looks like, at age 56, that I would understand how to motivate myself and get things handled, doesn't it? And, I guess, I do since my life isn't a shambles and I am gradually getting more fit and learning more things and even, dare I say it?, getting organized.

Crazy Goals

AUSTIN, Texas, August 23, 2004 — It's not enough that I have trouble concentrating my effort and producing against my goals. No, I have to have these crazy goals.

Some of my goals are sensible, reasonable ones. Get my financial life in better order or learn to do this or that. Maybe my attempt to organize my 'stuff' is even reasonable but perhaps it is unreasonable to move it around and agonize over it for months or years and then give a pile away on a whim.

It is probably reasonable to want to travel more but my weird travel goals are mostly without any sound basis of pleasure or education. They are just sort of geography games. I'd like to go to all the Tennis Grand Slam tournaments. I'm not sure if this needs to be in the same year or just over a period of years. I'm sure these are better perused on TV at home. I have actually sat at center court at Wimbledon (1984) but for the purpose of this goal I have to go back there. Even if the goal allows for different years. Then there is the desire to follow the Danube from the source in the Black Forest to the Black Sea. (Hey...I just realized the Black to Black thing.) Actually I've been to the source but the other 1770 miles beckon. There has been some strife over the years toward the east, too. Certainly the trips to accomplish these goals would be pleasurable and educational. But still...weird goals.

Of course, my 1995 introduction to a 'live' Christo (the wrapping of the Reichstag) has made me want to be on hand for others. I envy friends who saw the Pont Neuf or wrapped islands or umbrellas. I have my tickets and hotel room to see the Central Park gates project. Fortunately he can't get a project mounted every year.

Some of my organization goals are realistic and some aren't. I want all my three thousand books in my database. And I'd like to have my movie (DVD and LD and VHS) database up to date as well. I want clean surfaces and downsized spaces but I have trouble giving up collections and stuff I 'might use some day.' Things pile up. Including the artifacts of my attempts at organization (files and file holders, racks, drawers, various albums and holders for photos, shelves). A flat surface acquires piles of magazines, books and papers and house 'fluff' (pens, gadgets, etc.).

Then there are all the WEB pages that I want to make. Not really to make money but just because I can. This journal and its daily updating speaks for itself as a silly goal. But I also hope to do this map project where there are interactive maps of Austin with links to pictures taken at different times. Then there is an Austin 'props and places' that is sort of related but also shows interiors and artifacts available for rental. Then there is the task of making a WEB page of all the articles and pictures from FFP's West Austin News column. He's written over an hundred of these so transforming them into a WEB site becomes a bigger task every week.

There are writing projects: ideas for a screenplay or two and a novel or two and at least one self-help book. I think about these but I don't do much about them.

Another extremely weird goal (well, maybe it's not so weird) is to put together a complete document for 'after we die.' We aren't so concerned about if one of us dies because we think the other one will be able to figure out and find everything. But if a truck ran over both of us, well, we worry that our lawyer and bookkeeper would be able to handle it all without head scratching.

Then there is the matter of movies. I want to learn to use a digital video camera I already own and I want to make a documentary and edit it. I never seem to get around to even charging the batteries, though.

I've had this idea for about two years of putting together address labels for all the family members and mailing sets to people. Of course, first I have to get all the info correct. And I wanted e-mail addresses and phone numbers and the like. Sort of related to this is the goal to one day actually mail all my aunts, uncles, cousins (and their kids) cards for their special days.

 

 

The Benefits of Knowing Different People

AUSTIN, Texas, August 22, 2004 — Knowing and caring about different people, socializing with them, conversing with them...those are the things that really teach us about the world.

We have a wonderful meal with someone who lives in a small apartment and we enjoy going to palatial homes that we woudn't own if you gave them to us where caterers take over the large kitchen and seats can be found for scores of diners. (And it's not just because we couldn't pay the taxes and utilities that we don't want to own those homes!)

We like knowing young people and old people, gay and straight. We like it if people have lots of different interests and opinions and come from a variety of places.

We can't do and be everything ourselves. We can only sort of know how other people live by knowing them. And see more of the world through others' eyes. A friend is in Florida helping with Red Cross relief for the hurricane victims. Her tales will be more interesting than the televised ones, I bet.

Meditation

AUSTIN, Texas, August 21, 2004 — Before I can really do something, a lot of times anyway, I have to think about it. Turn it over in my mind. Look at it from a few directions. I also need time to 'just think' and absorb and such.

However, I can't just meditate. Just sit, thinking. That's why the time in the gym and time driving is so valuable. While I read books on the bicycle and treadmill and between sets and listen to French tapes or CDs in the car, I still find time in these situations to think things over, think up projects, mull over the why and how.

I wish I could just sit still and think without doing something else. But I can't. I am a natural multi-tasker. Perhaps I'd be more serene if I could concentrate on one thing. Perhaps I should make myself swim laps or use the rowing machine where I can't read and watch four screens of TV at the same time. (The rowing machine is too far away from the TVs at the gym.) Maybe I could just meditate then. Except for the physical movement, of course.

The photos and souvenirs and journals I have accumulated over the years call out to me, too. They beg to be organized, transcribed, photographed, scanned. Photos beg to be backed up and uploaded to Snapfish and shared.

Then there are all the goals related to organizing my computing environment: replacing my old scanner, refining the backups that I do, taking old machines out of service, getting new spiffier equipment, learning to use software and hardware or learning to use it in new ways. And, of course, I had thought of doing some programming in my retirement.

Many silly little goals. That constantly taunt me as a failure, day by day.

Mastery and Concentration

AUSTIN, Texas, August 20, 2004 — I am interested in a lot of things. Too many to list but some of them are: computers and programming, WEB design, photography, collage art, art history, history (especially the twentieth century), music, ballet, film (history, making it), tennis, mathematics, French, German, travel, writing, food and cooking, exercise and nutrition, geography, how the brain and body works, wine, beer, gardening. The problem is that I never master anything. Gee, I wonder why with all these interests?

I don't know any solution or how to concentrate my efforts to produce mastery somewhere. So I guess I'll just keep brushing the surface of my interests, buying more books than I read, dancing from one interest to another..

I've thought of various ideas to concentrate some effort. Like assigning a few hours a day to intentionally concentrate. I wonder if that would work. Could I create a 'tangent-free' hour or even half hour and use it to read uninterrupted, research one thing or create something? The structure of this online journal exercise forces some of that concentration. Well sort of, anyway.

Excuse me now...I need to do something else.

Gossip

AUSTIN, Texas, August 19, 2004 — Part of the fun of all the people you met in your working life was talking about them behind their backs. Whether you really loved them or otherwise.

I met so many people in the business that I can still have nice gossips about them with buddies when we go out to lunch. (If I can remember their names, of course. I'm getting so old.)

Today I talked to an old work buddy about wonderful people and weird people and psychotic people and how people who were now working together might not get along. We talked about a 'dream team' we had working with us one time and some of the foibles of those people. We trashed someone who works for a company we never worked for but have had to work with just because of his voice.

Gossip. Yeah, we all do it. FFP and I talk about people we meet. It's not all bad. We rave about how much we like people or how talented they are at something, how beautiful, how fun. And we gossip about what we heard on the grapevine...who's doing what, who quit where, who can't get along.

Yeah, we all do it. Admit it. You do it, too.

Ups and Downs

AUSTIN, Texas, August 18, 2004 — You see the Olympics and realize that we like sports because it compresses lifes joys and sorrows, ups and downs into moments and minutes. By getting behind a person, a team, a country we project ourselves into these roles.

I used to project myself onto others' victories and defeats more than I do now. Seeing a Paul Hamm somehow pull off a victory after an embarrassing fall off the vault...I would have leaped to my feat and yelled 'U!S!A!' and all that. Now I see that I'm not Paul. I apprecriate his courage, the routines that worked. I feel for his competitors who had slips of their own. I mostly enjoy watching the athletes execute their sports. I don't take Roddick's defeat at the hands of a hard hitter who was 'on' today personally. Heck, I don't even take my own constant defeats at tennis personally!

Flying Along

AUSTIN, Texas, August 17, 2004 — When I'm making one of those big trips home...getting to an airport, going through one or more plane changes, getting through immigration and customs and such, I'm usually pretty calm about it all. But when it's someone else, especially my eighty-seven-year old dad, flying, I'm all nerves. I'm tracking the flight on flight tracker, looking at the illustration of progress.

I even check the elevation and speed of the plane they allege. Sure I'm trying to figure out when they will land but part of me is just nervous about it all and trying to hang on to facts of progress to calm myself down.

Photographs

AUSTIN, Texas, August 16, 2004 — I found this somewhere and scanned it today (click on it for bigger image):

As I said in today's chron, almost nothing in this picture is still mine. The dog is dead, the shoes long since worn out and discarded, the chair went somewhere (good riddance?. Even the wall and floor are covered, torn up or gone, I think. All that remains is the picture and the pillowcase.

That's the magic of photos. You capture the living things that won't live forever, the bulky furniture that ended up who knows where. You can keep this tiny flat thing. And let the stuff go. Keeping up with the pictures is hard enough. Keeping up with the stuff an impossibility.

Reminds me that, in cleaning out, I should just take a photo then give up the stuff.

What Gets Included

AUSTIN, Texas, August 14, 2004 — I read another journal writer who, like me, has an obsession with writing an entry for every single day. This leads to the need for the mundane or "grocery list" type writing and he talks about this here.

Yes, occasionally, like yesterday, I actually recount what goes into the grocery cart. Except sometimes I forget stuff. I forgot to note that I bought some packages of dolmas. And I forgot to serve them, too! FFP discovered them last night. So the dolmas got left out of the journal and art imitated life. (Of course, the fact that I forgot I bought them meant I forgot to mention I bought them and forgot to serve them.)

It's hard to know what to put in, what to leave out. And as my buntsign.com buddy says, "I'm always conscious as I go through the day that I need to come up with something to write about." That is quite true. Knowing that I'll do the journal and do it each and every day means that I look at things and think I may write about them. I have a kernel of an idea for an essay. Maybe I just think of a phrase that becomes an essay title like the "temporary enthusiams" of a few days ago.

I think this urge to look at the world as something to be observed and recorded is a beneficial fallout of the journal. Whether it outweighs the wasted time typing and formatting and uploading, I'm not so sure. Certainly, when Alzheimer's sets in, if I can remember the dolmas long enough to write them down in the journal, maybe I can remember to serve them. Did I say when?

A Certain Lonely

AUSTIN, Texas, August 13, 2004 — I haven't really been lonely during retirement. I live with someone, after all. I spend time playing tennis, with Dad, with other relatives, doing social things with friends.

But I have become sort of reclusive and I do lead sort of an alone life.

I spend a lot of time at my computer, writing this very drivel. (I think that I produce so much of it that no one really reads much of it. I know I have trouble finding time to read journals, even succinct and fascinating ones. And this is OK with me because this public writing is really a solitary activity, too.)

I spend some time in classes or tennis activities at the club. But I spend a lot of time alone on the bike or treadmill, reading. Or staring at myself in a mirror doing bicep curls. I drive around town alone, go shopping alone. Oh I'm with FFP a lot. Sometimes we even eat meals during the day together although not often.

I like this aloneness, really. And yet I'm compelled to 'socialize.' I feel the need to get together with friends. To plan lunches or invite them to dinner or invite them over. I dream of introducing this friend or acquaintance to that one. My alone self and my social self engage in a little constant tug of war. The social self has a checklist of people I need to see, talk to, listen to, break bread with. My alone self sees blank days on the calendar and revels in them.

One Man's Trash

AUSTIN, Texas, August 12, 2004 — Yeah, they say it's another man's treasure. That's surely true. I've been monitoring the Austin Freecyle Network watching people give away good stuff and trash. A lot of it seems to be taken. A lot of people posting their desire for new or good quality free stuff are probably disappointed, I'd say.

When I was a kid and I was 'stuff deprived' (no, really, I was) I collected stuff that was really trash...old bits of plastic or spools, empty boxes, scraps of this and that. It was something rather than nothing. I clung to my stuff.

My first real 'cleaning out' occurred when I graduated from high school and my parents moved. I was away on a trip when my mother packed us to move and she got rid of some things, thankfully. (Although I still wish she hadn't gotten rid of my world globe with Disney characters.)

Being in college, I was limited by space as to how much stuff I could collect. And by money, of course. It didn't really get out of hand although the stuff my mother moved of mine did get in her way and we eventually had to winnow it out. When I moved to Austin, I had so little stuff that it didn't fill a one bedroom apartment. I'd had a (mostly) furnished apartment in Dallas. I actually made a complete list of everything I moved. Every piece of clothing and geegaw almost.

When I moved in with FFP, we had a house with less than eight hundred square feet. We were a little cramped with my things because I'd purchased a couch and love seat and a few things for the apartment. But we squeezed it in.

When we moved to the current house, it was probably twice as big as the old one. (We have added square feet in remodels.) Our stuff was initially a little lost in it but gradually we built up our possessions. When we added square feet we added furniture and accessories. I decorated my offices when I worked and so brought home piles of stuff when I no longer worked that had to go somewhere.

I think we have reached the point where I need to figure out a way to simplify. To forget the sentiment and get rid of stuff. Hopefully by sending it on to a better more productive life. By giving it to someone directly or to the Thrift store.

During downsizing, though, you will acquire stuff. Books especially. When we want to read something, we like to own an acceptable copy. Maybe we will both read it. Then we have trouble getting rid of it.

Sometimes what I really regret is how many times I handle things before I eventually eject them. This seems wasteful. This is why the organization management people tell you to handle papers and mail one time, get them discarded, filed or dealt with. My problem is that with papers I start different organization schemes and then abandon or even forget the scheme. The same with physical stuff. I decide to keep it and then I decide where to put it and then I decide that all over again on the next round, perhaps without using it. I decide that stuff may have to go and then leave it piled up or in a bag or box pending the actual decision.

I just have to remember, when I buy something, that apart from giving me some pleasure, it is going to require this stewardship until I eject it from my life.

Old Friends

AUSTIN, Texas, August 11, 2004 — I really haven't missed my job. Next month it will be two years. I can't say as I am proud of my paltry accomplishments. But I don't miss too many things about work.

Except. There were occasional pleasant moments of accomplishment. Often shared with co-workers. These were nice. They were sometimes offset by failures. Bad quarters for the finances, bugs that caused customers problems. But when things went right and we all made some money, it was nice. Plus a lot of these people were fun and intellectual and just talking to them was a pleasure.

I miss that. But rather than missing being at work I wish all my friends were retired and we met occasionally to talk about the world.

So I'll keep having lunches and dinners with people who catch me up on corporate life and, unfortunately, have to return to it.

An Accumulation of Unreality

AUSTIN, Texas, August 10, 2004 — I have been watching so many movies (both previewing for the festival and Netflix and cable, not too many at the theater) that little scenes and characters keep popping up in my head from many of them. It gives reality (driving down the street, working out, communicating with read people) this odd edge.

Even some of the worst of these movies leave something in your head. The characters can be wooden, the plot trite or incomprehensible. And still they add images to my brain, blotting out the real with the fictional. Blotting out those in my real life with documentary interviews.

Perhaps I'm spending too much time 'alone in the dark.'

Lucky

AUSTIN, Texas, August 9, 2004 — I have been so lucky. I don't win the lottery because I've already been so lucky I don't deserve it. (Note: I really don't think that's true. I don't win the lottery because (a) I rarely play; and (b) the odds are long. I could just as easily win if I played as anyone.)

But still. I'm lucky.

Oh, I didn't have a leg up growing up. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I did have supportive parents who loved me and a grandmother who loved me and took care of me and other kind relatives.

But I was just lucky after that. I managed to avoid anything too awful happening to me and managed to take advantage of a break or two. By being profligate but not profligate beyond my means, by getting debt-free and having those breaks, I managed to get into a comfortable financial situation. We had bad debts (in the business) and bad investments but we plugged along and saved and we do all right. Having a break or two helped. Times when we made more than our wildest dreams. Given that we had no reason to dream too wildly.

Bad things happen to people, too. They have disabled children. (So maybe I'm lucky to have no children.) They lose their jobs. I always quit mine. They get terrible, painful, debilitating and sometimes fatal illnesses. They are on the wrong plane or driving down the wrong street at just the wrong time.

If I was superstitious I'd say that it was bad luck to talk about, let allow write about good luck. But I am not superstitious. I think a lot of it is the merest chance. Chaos. Luck. And sometimes it runs out. Eventually we all disappear. In between, some of us are luckier than others. And, really, there is no rhyme or reason to it!

Feeling Better

AUSTIN, Texas, August 8, 2004 — I've been ailing a bit for several days. Today I was better, much better. In order to get better, to fight off a not quite but could be full-blown urinary track infection, I've been drinkng water, cranberry juice and seriously curtailing coffee. And no alcohol, no sodas. And taking a bit of Echinecea. All this has flushed my system out to the point that I feel better but feel in need of vice. Now, of course I'm only guessing about the source of my troubles. But, you know, these things start with a particular set of symptoms and if you change what you're drinking and they go away, well, there you go.

Now, you could say that, having given up alcohol, soda and excesses of coffee for several days that I could do myself a favor and leave it off for good. But you know I won't. As my dad says: "I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they get up in the morning, that's the best they are going to feel all day long."

Feeling good is in contrast to not. I feel stronger and more flexible and lighter these days than, say, two years ago. But I'm starting to forget how good it is because I'm forgetting how bad it was. If you know what I mean. As the kid says in My Life as a Dog: "You have to have things to compare to."

A Lot of it Isn't Worth Watching or Reading

AUSTIN, Texas, August 7, 2004 — The world is full of entertainment options. Some is great and inspiring. Even life-changing. I think art is essential to civilization. Even primitive societies have rhythm, dancing, music, decoration. Man craves it. Once fed and sheltered, he entertains himself.

But we can't always agree on what's entertaining. Screening films for AFF has yielded some that were not just pointless and not entertaining, but offensive. But, having said that, some of the fare I find channel surfing my digital cable offerings are similarly offensive to me. Or not entertaining. But other folks may feel differently.

I've been reading on the rim of Ulysses by James Joyce. (Not actually reading the book but reading about it, reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, reading criticism of the book, reading a translation of Homer's Odyssey.) Entertainment? Great Art? A debate has raged around this work forever.

It's part of art that some is inspiring and some insipid. And that the difference is in the eye of the beholder.

Temporary Enthusiams

AUSTIN, Texas, August 6, 2004 — I have been writing (endlessly) here about books. Today, though, the essay is only sort of about books.

I probably have attention deficit disorder. Or dyslexia. Or both. They didn't exist when I was a kid. As an adult, I deal with my problems, hesitant to diagnose them into permanence.

It popped into my head on the way back from the club that today's theme, headline, topic, lead-in should be 'temporary enthusiams.'

That's the story of my life, really.

Hence the trail of books. Each enthusiam requires its purchases: sports equipment, computer gear, cameras, special clothes. But, most of all, books. Every new interest comes with its canon, its how-to, its 101 books and the more advanced.

I have had many enthusiams of various temporality. Literature and certain popular writers. Many computer topics (languages, networking, design, operating systems). I have taken an interest in certain eras (WWII and other eras of the 20th century especially). I have waxed enthusiastic about places I did/planned to/wanted to visit. I'm a sucker for reference books: dictionaries, word usage, foreign dictionaries, quote colletions. A passing fancy for artificial intelligence and the workings of mind and brain littered the shelves with tomes about these topics. An ongoing interest in book collecting and books and their influence has sent a shower of volumes into the house with titles like Book Lust.

I think real life is infinitely more interesting than fiction. Sometimes. Memoirs, collections of letters, essays, biographies (especially of the auto-) variety tempt and get taken home.

I've considered becoming a collector of many things. Usually I just become a collector of books on collecting. Which does take up less room. But I have stacks of books on collectable toys and collecting deco. I have a small stack of books about pinball machines. But I only collected three. One was an old 50's child's toy and it was moderately big and I gave it to the thrift store because there was no place to display it. One was a small child's toy that got broken and discarded. In between was a child's toy that sits in the guest room and entertains kids who visit occasionally. I've never become a serious collector of anything. I have a few old and new construction toys but several books on collecting them.

I constantly imagine that I'm going to write (something more than this journal). But there is no trail of manuscripts. Nope. Just a trail of books on how to write. How to write memoirs, screenplays, fiction. How to break the writer's block.

We've considered and evened dabbled in cooking. Leaving a trail of cookbooks. We aren't too into self help but some betterment projects resulted in books.

Sometimes books are purchased just because they have fabulous titles. Like the tome purchased (still with a dust jacket though worn) at a South Austin junk shop: Learn to Lose Your Mind.

Temporary enthusiams seem to leave a book trail long after all enthusiasm is gone. A book is a thing wrought with significance for me. There is lots of evidence of my desire to learn (or relearn) mathematics and there are accounting and statistics books that show evidence of trying to learn some new things after college. (In fact, after my BA in Math and French, a accidental degree, I dabbled with course work for a Master's in Math, an MBA, and course work to qualify for CPA work. I never came close to completing any of this.)

So...if I could just concentrate. Pin down an enthusiam and pursue it excluding all others. I could winnow down the books. And the other stuff, too.

Reading Habits Yet Again

AUSTIN, Texas, August 5, 2004 — When I reread something the words and sentences resonate even if, absent rereading it, I wouldn't remember it. Yes, I've read that sentence before, I'll think. So, even if I can't remember much about a book and pick it up and start reading again, it will seem familiar. More or less, depending on how long since I read it. I may remember topics, but I'll recognize sentences. Rereading is interesting. It upsets me if I pick up a book thinking it unread and I've already read it. But it's nice and comforting to do it intentionally.

Our newspaper reading is interesting, too, as a family. We both try to read the front page section (war, death, natural disasters, famous people die, politics) and the business sections (Enron, Martha Stewart) but we each have parts of the paper we are actually eager to read. We both scour through the arts and living sections. Looking for arts events and movies and things that we might be interested in. We check out dining reviews both in the local paper and in The New York Times. We might even clip the ones in The Times that sound really good for our next visit. (We go to NYC about once a year.)

FFP reads the Sports Pages. I rarely. I like to flip through technology sections, living sections. FFP reads the editorials and, in particular, letters to the editor. Sometimes he writes one. The Austin American-Statesman has a rule you can only be published every thirty days. Once he wrote one about adverstising on public transportation property and vehicles. They published one from some guy in response who made what we thought was a personal attack. We thought that was a foul because it was a personal attack and because you can't respond because of the rules. Last night when the drummer was introduced, FFP recognized his unusual name. Yes, it was the letter writer. On break FFP introduced himself and believes he saw a flash of recognition. The local transportation guys decided bus ads were a good idea a long time ago. (Although they still suck money out of every dollar we spend to run buses empty, apparently where people can't avail themselves easily of them while their board dreams of light rail.) At the time, I thought it was silly to consider public transportation ads unseemly. We have a vintage French poster from the 30's. Yes, even then Paris was decorated with ads. Many great cities had bus ads long ago. In Berlin whole buses were made to be ads. (As they are in Austin today. Some are very nifty to look at.)

But I digress. Both of us have written letters to the editor. But FFP is the one who usually reads them. Sometimes, for some reason, I read the ones in The New York Times magazine. Which, by the way, I like to read. They have interesting feature articles and regular columns from time to time. And, no, I can't work the crossword. I attack the crossword in the Monday and Tuesday Times, sometimes Wednesday. By Thursday, I'm out of the game.

Reading is very important in this house. It's been in no way replaced by online services or the TV (certainly not the TV) although we read stuff online and watch TV. We are not one of those families that haughtily puts down TV. No, we watch it. Sometimes we watch real crap. But we also read. Maybe at the same time.

Reading Habits Redux

AUSTIN, Texas, August 4, 2004 — Does one ever reread books? In this family we do. FFP, in certain moods, has to return to Billy Brammer's The Gay Place and John Kennedy O'Toole's The Confederacy of Dunces. I return to Nabokov novels myself. FFP also has certain marketing and sociology sort of books he returns to occasionally.

FFP will read a book about socio-economic or marketing theory. He'll read conspiracy theories. And true crime. Both of us love biography and memoirs. Short stories and essay collections rank high, too. I like the occasional popular scientific book like an Oliver Saks or something about how brain and mind work. I have read piles of histories and first-person accounts of D-Day and WWII. I like accounts of the Paris between the wars and of the early era of The New Yorker. I like travel essays.

Both of us will occasionally return (or dip into for the first time) some tome of alleged literature.

All of this ecletic reading leaves a trail of volumes. Some will have a bookmark (an actual one or a receipt or ticket stub or business card or magazine insert) showing that the book was put aside mid-reading. FFP dog ears. I don't. I tolerate his dog ears and the faint diagonal trace where the page was smoothed again marks his tracks through books. I never dog ear, though.

Some books are full of memories. Of the place and time they were read. We still have some volumes from our college days, now many years in the past. Some books carry memories of the place where they were purchased. Used and new book stores all over the country, airports. We buy used and remaindered books so they sometimes carry other people's names or a stain or a streak of marker or 50 percent off tags. We don't really collect books, we read them and fondle them. Today's edition of The New York Times says that the Gotham Book Store is moving from 47th Street to 46th. At least it's still going to be in business. So many book stores we loved are gone.

I guess when we downsize we will have to somehow control this assembly of some three thousand or more volumes. Or maybe rent a storage unit.

Maybe I'll stay on this theme for a while. It's a rich one.

Reading Habits

AUSTIN, Texas, August 3, 2004 — As a family (well, only FFP and I read, Chalow never) we have reading habits governed by our individual interests, income and consideration for others as well as chaos.

We buy books. When we get home with them, they sometimes sit around in the kitchen on top of a microwave until someone starts reading them or we tidy up. All around the house there are bookshelves. I have three large ones in my office. There are two in the living room plus two built-ins with a cabinet below. (One has mostly books. The other a collection of martini glasses and other stuff with only one shelf of books...that Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant, someone's thesis and a couple of other things. And no I haven't read either. I intend to do it, though.) There are built-in shelves in the media room and some have books. There are books on a rolling cart and in some end tables there, too. There are more bookshelves in the guest room, the hall, FFP's office. Other surfaces have books as well. Some are boxed up in storage. A bunch of technical and textbooks are in the guest room closet.

Years ago (probably eight or more) we got a high school student to catalog the collection. I have actually added a few since and I use the database (which I converted from something called Paradox, I think, to Access) to find books sometimes or see if we own them. The locations are in the database but this is not always accurate as you might expect after years of cleaning, rearranging and reading.

There is a round table in a room between the bedroom and the kitchen. There has always been a round table here although the actual table has changed from time to time. It becomes sort of a staging area for new books, books finished, books pulled out to sort of queue them up. Before the remodel and rearrange the old table there was piled high with books.

People who visit who are bibliophiles sometimes become lost in our collection and ask to borrow books. Usually we let them. Sometimes we even get them back.

There are usually magazines and newspapers strewn about as well.

And, of course, like many lovers of reading...there is usually reading material in the bathroom. (A friend writes or her remodel that she ordered the towel rack and such and the magazine rack for her bathroom. Yes, we have magazine holders in the bathrooms.)

So, sure there is reading material everywhere. But do you read, Ms. Ball? Well, yes. I even keep track of it. Sort of, anyway.

I read the papers (Austin, The New York Times, two or three or four local weeklies, The Wall Street Journal). Well, I flip through them. I read them while I eat, at night with one eye maybe on the TV.

I refer to my reference books (dictionaries, quote books, giant French dictionary, old grammar book from college) that are strewn about my office. (I usually use an online dictionary now and/or The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language on a CD. But there are several dictionaries around including several editions of that one. I'll never forget the first edition. Great dictionary. My boss in college gave it to me as a graduation present, I think.)

I read books when I go out to meals (alone or with FFP; if we have guests we don't take books!), at stop lights, on the exercise bike and treadmill, between sets of weight work. On trips I read in airports, planes, trains and at night to fall asleep.

I occasionally get to a magazine lying around. Usually The New Yorker. It comes weekly and they do pile up. I've found decades old ones lying around. Every time I cleaned I saw something in the issue I wanted to read and put it aside.

There is usually an extra, emergency book or two in my car. Oh, and I listen to French tapes and books on tape in my car, too. I mean, you can't read if you are driving.

FFP reads faster and often seems to be reading several books at once. Maybe one on the elliptical and one in his chair and one when we go out to eat. He's reading the 9/11 commission report, a book on punctuation called Eats Shoots and Leaves and several others, I think. We are reading the same book (Stuart Gilbert's 1930's explication of James Joyce's Ulysses) in the bathroom. When he reads the papers (morning) or I finish them (evening) we often point out something for the other one to read.

How do people live without books? They are life in this house. Tomorrow...where do we buy all these books? And where are they going when we downsize?

What I Forget

AUSTIN, Texas, August 2, 2004 — I've always had the ability to lose track of how to do stuff, of words, names and information. Things I thought were lodged in my brain disappear. Especially obscure computer language stuff or foreign words when exposure is limited. I guess it's amazing there is anything in our brains.

Oh, of course, we know how to do thousands of things and know tons of information.

We can find our car keys and go outside and start the thing and find reverse and back out and find our way on our errands. We employ lots of skills doing that.

Heck, right now I'm typing. Touch typing. I'm doing it while I watch TV. I can think of what to type, type it and get the little pixels to show up while looking at the evidence on this TV show up above my desk instead of the evidence on my screen. Mostly without typos or spelling errors.

Yep, our minds are amazing. We find, watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, that we know lots of trivial stuff. (And have no idea about lots of the harder questions. I played the online game as 'research' for this piece. I got to take a shot at $500,000 once with those smart audiences and 'phone a friends.')

But I have to look up absence every time I want to spell it to see if it ends in 'ce' or 'se.' I might forget your name although I once knew it as well as my own. (I usually remember my own.) I have forgotten a lot of the mathematics I once knew and I forget my logons and passwords and, worse, all the places I've registered logons and passwords.

I can't always remember when things happened. I see people I know that I know but I cannot for the life of me remember from where.

I forget the plot of movies I've seen. I may not remember tomorrow what movie I watched on cable today without some prompting.

Some forgetting is good, I think. Eliminates brain clutter, gets some bad stuff out of the way so it doesn't make you crazy. But I definitely do too much of it.

The Life of the Mind

AUSTIN, Texas, August 1, 2004 — I'm never bored. Not when I'm at home and have a computer, books, newspapers and all my artifacts around. I'm usually not bored when I'm out in the world either. I'm either doing something that occupies me or I've armed myself with a book, magazine, newspaper or a puzzle.

Boredom is a failure of neural activity, to me. Certainly one could get bored if they had no books or computers or television and were cut off from the world. Particularly if they had no pen and paper. Such is not my fate. (Oscar Wilde was deprived of most reading material and not allowed to write except an occasional letter while in Reading jail.)

I can't imagine being bored. Hot, tired, uncomfortable, cranky, angry. But never bored. But I need stimuli, too, so hell for me would be an environment with nothing to inspire thoughts, especially being cut off from books.