AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 2, 2005 — Sunday; stayed up too late last night; commitments; failure by fast food.

I know things are going to go badly for the year, I just know it. I couldn't get out of bed. And while I was making the bed I realized that we were committed for a basketball game and dinner with friends. And...yesterday I didn't write anything. Unless you count the essays and I said I wouldn't.

It is a relief, sort of, to accept failure so early in the year. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed in myself.

About nine-thirty I face the logistics. If we are going to be at the ball game at one then to park we really need to go earlier and so I better go to the gym. Yesterday they were closed. I did walk and walk some more. But I ate a burger and various fried things! And cheese and chips for dinner. Today the gym is open. No excuses!

But by the time I go to the gym and do some cardio and precious little weight work (two sets!) and rush home and shower we are off to the game. We are there way early and I'm hungry. I have a salad in the Fast Break Club and then chicken and fries and a Diet Coke. This is a horrible diet!

And when you look around you at these games it isn't just orange you see. It is, in too many case, orange in XXL. Sure there are skinny old folks and lithe Lesbians but an inordinate number of young and old alike are, well, plump. And you think...maybe if they went to the ballet or opera and just had gin and tonic. Well, downstairs in the Fast Break they can have that, too. But all those fried things! We all know my diet is horrible as it is. How fitting that because I was in the gym I didn't eat at home and so I was picking from all these fast foods.

The game is odd...the team (Lady Longhorn Basketball) is up eighteen points or so at the half but loses by four. Failure. I feel empathy.

At home, I try to get started on the family budget figures for December. But a friend stops by, my dad comes over and to make room to work on it I have to sort through the stuff piled in front of my monitor. Envelopes from Christmas cards to check addresses, scrawled e-mails on napkins, out-of-date coupons. This takes time, inspires an e-mail. Finally, I succeed but then it's time to go to dinner next door.

The folks next door moved there in 1981. They have sinced married, had two kids and now the oldest is graduating high school. So...we have a lot of history. They serve a fantastic meal and we enjoy the talk. The salad and the bouillabaisse and a wine-poached pear are a nice contrast to my awful diet of the last few meals.

When we go home we don't accomplish much. Watch a couple of things taped on the DVR, read some. Yep, I'm a failure. No real writing today. The food at the neighbors was more the stuff I should eat but I'm off to a fast food start to the year. Well, there's always tomorrow, isn't there? Until there isn't.