AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 13, 2005 — I didn't want to get up. I finally did but I didn't accomplish much before I had to be off to play tennis with my friends 'of a certain age.' I did get an e-mail written to my friend in SA. We played a set and most of another and one of the players had to go see about her mother. I think her mother is over a hundred! So I did a bit in the gym.

I go home and eat some leftovers and a banana and drink some more coffee and stick in for another hour of financial stuff. I'm checking prices and splits on a bunch of odd lots we got when a trust broke up and we didn't want to take the losses in all the stocks or something. I check a bunch of muni bonds against our records and start reworking our net worth statement.

The mail comes with our tax organizer and I start looking over that and looking at the day's market.

It's after three o'clock when I decide to put aside the finances. Where does the time go? Well I was at the club for over three hours and I've probably spent almost two on finances and interruptions like sorting the mail and talking to my dad and corresponding with a friend back and forth over e-mail, talking about this and that.

I decide to think about my short stories a little before (finally) getting showered and groomed because we are going out tonight.

The story I'm working on isn't working. I finally realize the reason: it doesn't have a purpose. I'm using real events but not in service of anything. So I quit working on it and go have a snack and realize that the purpose is to explore why people entertain us and to hang this little episode on a later one that is transforming for the protagonists. The problem with my fiction is exactly the problem with this journal. I find my dull life exciting but reading about it is probably not very exciting. I can't insert events like murder, war, intrigue, emotional instability that aren't real to me. These things drive a lot of good fiction. I have trouble making that stuff up.

Well, I tried to write. That's all I'm asking of myself. So I shower and watch some shows off the DVR and get ready to go out.

We see a movie at the Jewish Community Center called Master of the Game. It is an indie and it is very well done. The producer/director (Jeff Stolhand) is there and there is a Q&A. I'm amazed at what he's done.

We have met a couple at the movie and we all go to Mirabelle after. Forrest and I have wine and we all have a lot of food. I have bites of dumplings and a goat cheese tart that people have ordered, we all get a little salad and Forrest and I have a nice sea bass. I have one bite of a dessert FFP ordered, a dessert wine, coffee. Nice. FFP talks about Bloom's Day. We can't remember during the discussion Joyce's wife's name (Nora Barnacle) or the exact day (June 16). I hate that. And after all the reading I've done. Although I haven't read a word of the actual book!

At home, I read a couple of sections of newspaper, watch a couple of things off the DVR and turn off mid-episode of a Northern Exposure and go to sleep.