AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 24, 2005 — I get up pretty early. Today I think that I've gotten enough sleep and yet I'm on NY time so it doesn't feel so early. I go to the club but I only have time to do a little over thirty minutes on the bike if I want to get home and have a leisurely shower and breakfast before my dad comes by. I'm taking him for his XRay near here. So I go right home and shower and dress and I'm having my cereal and yogurt when he comes. The good news is he feels better. The bad news is that he has to have this test.

We are early because we are going to a place we've never been where they do this special XRay. But they don't make us fill out anything. He just has to sign a couple of papers without reading them. (Be honest...that's what we all do.) So I read my Jonathan Lethem book. Fortress of Solitude. Because I've finished the Paul Auster. Auster is austere. Lethem is riotous. I read Motherless Brooklyn and marveled at how rich it was but this one is better and has more going on even though there is no one in it with Tourette Syndrome. I'm hooked on this book. They call Dad in and take rather a long time but he is cheerful when he gets back and we only wait a couple of minutes for the film which he is to take with him.

At home, I show Dad my digital pictures of New York and some my niece sent of my great nephew's birthday party. He goes home. There are many things I should do but what I do is update my journal, sort mail and newspapers. FFP cooks salmon and I make a Provencal sauce and cook chicken to eat later. Then we get ready and go out to a couple of receptions.

First we head to the Governor's Mansion where a young people's group that is an offshoot of the Heritage Society is having a reception. We talk to people including the docents explaining the mansion. We've been there before. All I ever remember is the architect's name. Abner Cook. Sadly, I get my Texas history all mixed up. No excuse for it. After an hour there we go to the new City Hall. It's the first time I've been inside. They are having an art show. We see people we know here, of course. The expected: the mayor wearing one of those currently very fashionable bright stripe ties and the unexpected, the athletic manager from the club.

We head home and get out of our clothes and have some of the kitchen. Then we watch TV and I nibble. When trying to get a peppermint stick out of a can in the pantry I dump some on the floor. And then I do it the second time! Earlier climbing some steps in the walk near the Governor's mansion, I almost fell down. I'm having a real physical low. I've been having a stomach problem off and on since the weekend. Hasn't stopped me but has made me think twice. It's something I sometimes get that is related to scar tissue. I think tension feeds it. Felt perfect after exercising hard on the bike the last two days. Then it came back. So, um, need to relax. I drink some Jack Daniels and water. It doesn't work that well probably but I do go peacefully to sleep. Unfortunately the last thing I watched on TV was an ER. My dreams are full of illness...there is someone with a bad case of hives. Fortunately my subconscious ignored the amputations in this show.