AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 3, 2005 — The rain thwarted my tennis. I was supposed to have a meal out with friends.

The drizzle won, turning the clay courts to sponge. Dad did the water aerobics but I was watching the weather. I finally did some recumbent biking (about twenty-five minutes) and situps and lower back stuff and a couple of other sets of weight things. I broke a sweat, I'll say that.

I ate a big and early lunch (six pork tamales with cheese, onions and hot sauce) and tackled the family budget.

Entering all the receipts for an entire month at once is a pain. I also did some figuring on the last six months as a whole. This exercise is supposed to help us control spending and give us confidence that our money won't run out before we do. Does it succeed? Not sure.

It was two-thirty when I'd finished that budget exercise and scheduled some activities and gotten them on our calendar. I spend almost an hour after that doing some thank you notes and notes to send with pictures to my aunts.

I'd left a message to make a reservation for dinner with friends. But I called back to get a live person. I kept trying to get my dad to fill him in on the plan which involved a couple of the friends picking him up. Then one friend, the guest of honor as it were since she was visiting from California and we wanted to see her before she left so it was kind of driving us to do it. Around 4:30 she called and said she had to go to the emergency room to have something looked at before she flies away. I decided to cancel the whole plan. I called back the restaurant the third time (I'm sure they think I'm a crank at this point). I call another friend who was going to meet us. My dad finally calls back and I tell him and he says he will eat some of his black-eyed peas. Forrest comes back from an interview and I tell him we aren't going to do it. He wants to go to Fonda San Miguel, just the two of us.

It's silly but I was exhausted from trying to put together a simple dinner. I'm getting to be somewhat of a weeny. I hope my friend is OK.

So, yeah we did go to Fonda, Early. Had my old favorites a cup of corn soup and stuffed zucchini and way too many chips. (I think I am going to, gulp, have to start watching what I eat.)

We had plenty of time, in any case, to settle down and watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Jim Carrie is not my favorite actor and I'd always thought the trailers made it look a little silly with the collander on his head and all. But some people are putting this on their 'best of 2004' lists. And I am a fan of Charlie Kaufman fan. Well a fan of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation anyway. There are things to like in this movie. I do see that. It's different. People aren't really looking for different, most of them, but critics sometimes like it when they see it.

I woke up this morning amidst some odd dreams. I was in a play or maybe an opera. Only I didn't know any lines. "Maybe we should have a script back here," I said casually. And "What's my first line?" Then, at an intermission which must have been quite long, we were in a parking lot. Only the car looked like a grand piano decorated for a carnival with icing-like flourishes and had been ticketed and chained to the ground. "But I paid the ticket!" my friend said. I went inside to argue this point with a maitre d' and when I came out there were clowns around.

You know how I vowed to write something that wasn't this journal? Well, I've decided it is going to be a cycle of short stories. Two characters, both women, will appear in each. But don't expect to see this soon. This wouldn't be the first time I've decided on the rough structure of a piece of fiction or non-fiction and never written a solid word.