AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 19, 2005 — I'll celebrate just about anything. Like someone else getting a job. Last year we were celebrating my friend quitting her job to explore some artistic stuff. But we can celebrate getting a computer job again to earn a bit more. Sure.

But first I oversleep. I really forgot there was any reason not to do so. But if I'd remembered it was Wedneday and probably not too cold...I would have thought of my dad and water aerobics! As it is, I didn't even get up until 8:15 and I didn't remember it until FFP got home from the club and said he saw my dad there. Oh, well. Dad has trouble with any other exercise

like walking very far because his hips hurt. It's good if he gets in the pool but I can always do something else.

This morning was also weird because I awoke from a dream where things kept getting neater. Usually in my dreams things get more and more chaotic. Refrigerators are crammed with questionable food, there are messy rooms, piles of clothes but not the ones I need, toilets but no privat, functioning ones. (OK, the toilet dream is usually when I need to get up and relieve myself.) In this dream, this morning, though, I kept saying I needed to straighten something up and then I would go in to the room in question and it would be neat as a pin.

So I finally go to the club, stopping to say 'hi' to the class and my dad in the pool. But they are all involved in their own discussions and I don't think they hear my excuse. No matter. I go in and ride the bike for thirty minutes, drink a cup of coffee and do a few exercises.

My friend and I not only go to eat (at this Asian fast food place on Lamar called Banzai which I recommend) but we go shopping. First to Whole Earth Provision and Marco Polo on Lamar and then to a few places on South Congress. We have a drink at Jo's, too. I bought a couple of things. A toy on sale at Whole Earth for my great nephew and a pair of very unique bookends at Uncommon Objects. They are a one of a kind, I think. About ten inches high and lathed from some sort of wood (oak?) they are shaped like a face. There is a mother-of-pearl looking disk for eyes on all sides (buttons?) glued into drilled out holes. On the bottom of one it says: "Made in July 1-68 From Grandad to Rick." Then "Lumumba of South Africa, Member of the United Nation General Asembley." Sic on all counts. The face, on reflection could be African (large nose, lips protrude a little) but it's quite stylized and I doubt it looks like anyone really. Patrice Lumumba was a famous prime minister of the Congo and was famously assassinated. But I have a feeling this refers to some other person. Which is no matter except that it is interesting that someone made these bookends and almost forty years later they showed up in a junk shop. I like face motifs and I liked the size and heft of these big bookends to hold up some big, slick computer and reference books on my desk.

Home again I sort through the mail with FFP but there is nothing to add to the finanacial and tax stuff. I am a bit at a loss as to what to do with the rest of my day. This is dangerous.

I tell myself that I'm going to do some organization stuff...sorting out files and boxes and stuff like that. But I don't. I end up doing a few things on the computer and having a snack and watching some TV and reading the day's newspapers.

FFP goes out to a political thing to see what's up. I stay home. I am just watching and skipping through some TV on the DVR to get it cleaned up to record some stuff off PBS, I tell myself.

FFP comes home and we eat some leftovers and get interested in Sixty Minutes and such. Then we watch West Wing (we aren't even fans, really) and Law and Order. FFP is falling asleep so I watch some Australian Open tennis I recorded earlier in the day. There is a wonderful match between Federer and Suzuki. That was enough of a tennis match to hold me for some time. Federer's straight set numbers didn't begin to reveal how much fun that match was. It had everything: blind stabs, chasing down winners, a hit that went around the net. I'll continue recording some tennis but how much I'll watch is questionable. The DVR has created a small TV addiction. It always contains something I'd like to watch. So I stay up too late but finally get sleepy in my chair with the tennis and I've finished the day's papers and I do go to bed and start sleeping there.