AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 3, 2005 — While the day was hardly productive, it included the 'old' me. The retirement me, anyway. The me that can defocus a stomach ache or a twinge in the hip and look beyond it to appreciate our wildly complicated modern nuanced life and how lucky I am in it.

Did I mention that I woke up yesterday (I think it was yesterday) out of a dream or semi-conscious reverie and thought 'what about these words: lurid, allure and lurk?' Now, that's what I like about my brain. It was so pleased with itself somehow to just combine these words and not even into the (obvious) phrase: a lurid allure lurks.

Yeah, so, I woke up and knew I had a tennis date at nine. I got up and fumbled around, got into my clothes, sat at the computer with some coffee. I felt a little better than yesterday. No, a lot. Almost perfect. Just a little bleary from waking up admidst dreams.

I got off to the club to arrive almost at nine. It is OK with these ladies to be a little late because they never start exactly on time. I found one of them in the pro shop signing in. I tried to get my tickets for the Grand Slam Jam tonight from them but they said they couldn't find them. I was thinking 'well if they didn't get me tickets then I could blow it off and that would be fine.' We gathered on the clay court (only a little late as predicted). We played three sets in each possible configuration and one gal had to go play Bridge. I found this amusing because I used to say I wanted to retire and play Bridge and tennis. I haven't even learned how to play Bridge, of course. (Or maybe I was going to keep working and play Bridge and tennis until they noticed. Anyway.)

Playing with these ladies is amusing and, I must say, fun although not a lot of exercise. One chases a lot of things down, one stands mostly in one spot (but has great hands and is a tall woman without lots of reach from that spot), one has fairly weak shots and a side-armed serve that is wimpy and can be taken advantage of even by me and yet she gets off some shots. I was on the winning team each time. A matter of hitting a few more balls, chasing a few things down. This will be me in ten or twenty years, playing with these ladies and having my own foibles. (Not that I make every shot now, of course. But I'll just develop a 'style' around further deterioration on top of my natural inabilities.)

I went to the gym after the tennis. I did thirty minutes on the bike and some tricep and chest exercises and some dead lifts. Not much but at least I did something more than the tennis. I started a new book: Mary Gaitskill's Because They Wanted To. A book of short stories. Because, as faithful readers know, I've been recently toying with some short stories of my own. And because it came to hand in my hurry to get out of the house. I noted that it was published in 1997 and that it contains this inscription: "Hey Forrest; Mary Gaitskill" in a confident but undramatic hand. I try to remember FFP going to a reading. I remember he liked this author and I convince myself that I vaguely remember him going to the reading. But do I? In 1997, I went on three vacations without him (surely a record). I went to South Africa, Russia and points in Europe. I probably was out of town in Houston or on other business trips here and there. So I could have completely missed him going to a reading and buying this book and waiting in line to get it signed and, maybe, saying he liked one of her other books. FFP likes women writers. Oh, he reads a lot of other things, too, but he's an Anne Tyler fan and buys lots of novels and short stories by women. Literary women.

The fact is: I am thinking more, of late, about working on my self-help book Traveling Light. I think the reason is that I felt I had an epiphany about all my stuff over the last few weeks. Or perhaps by constantly changing priorities I can forgive myself for never getting anything done!

I went back and checked on tickets for the Grand Slam Jam. They had them. Sigh. I probably shouldn't have gotten them. I was even surer of that later when FFP expressed a desire to skip it.

At home I kept thinking I'd get in the shower, get ready for the evening, accomplish something. I got distracted by eating (FFP had cooked salmon and I ate that with some simple greens with carrots and onions); e-mail; updating my journal; cleaning up stuff on my computer. Then I sat down to sew a button on some pants for FFP (the one and only textile art I can do). I turned the TV on while peering at the needle, threading it and getting the job done and ended up watching a couple of things off the DVR and then letting a Northern Exposure episode play while I did get a shower and groom myself.

There were things I should have done. We got a 1099 from our broker and another 1099 and I could have extracted info for the taxes. My dad had dropped his tax information off and I needed to review that before I sent it to the CPA. I needed to think about the trips I'm going to take, work on some other financial spreadsheets. Oh, yes, there are always many things to do. I didn't do any of them. I fooled around on my computer. I sent e-mail to a friend to see if she wanted to go with me to the Grand Slam Jam tonight since FFP didn't. She said she did and would be by around six. By then it was almost five. So, of course, I decided to eat some more! But first I wrote a card to my ailing aunt and then my friend called and said she'd be here a bit earlier and so I decided not to eat. Then I changed my mind and had a banana and some cheese and chips.

Which was too bad (the eating that is) because my friend got here early enough for us to go to Brick Oven and have a salad and share a pizza so then I was stuffed. There is a Brick Oven on Red River near the Erwin Center.

The Grand Slam Jam was kind of fun. This youngster (Donald Young) played Jim Courier. He beat him in a pro set. Then Roddick beat Taylor Dent. Then Jim and Andy teamed up with Ray Benson and Lance Armstrong respectively. Which was funny. Especially before the match when Jim pulled Lance's shorts down. Lance didn't know how to play tennis but he was learning after a bit. Ray tried to play with a guitar for a bit. It was fun, I guess, and it was for charity so it's all good.

My friend brought me home (by inviting her I talked her into driving...yea) and I watched some TV and finished the papers and didn't worry too much about not being more productive. FFP was napping when I got home but went back to work and then napped while I cycled through the evening's crime shows and Jeopardy on the DVR. It was after midnight when I went to sleep. Which is the reason that I can't get up in the morning dead early like FFP.