AUSTIN, Texas, Mar. 21, 2005 — I see weather out in the Hill Country on the TV while I'm brushing my teeth, making the bed, after a quick shower for no reason (I'm supposed to play tennis). But I get into my tennis garb all the same. I've been tossing from a dream about being late to a tennis match, looking for my cell phone. But I'm up and ready plenty early. FFP leaves for the club and sets the phone service. I hear a strangled beep while I'm sitting at my computer, updating the journal. Too wet for tennis. It doesn't seem to be raining that much. I dither and decide to change to a swim suit. I throw my workout shoes and underwear in a bag and put my

shorts and Tshirt on over the suit and head to the club. At the moment I arrive in the parking lot the sky opens up with huge raindrops. I sit for a moment, shaking my head and then gather myself and pop up an umbrella and go inside. The water aerobics class people are staring at the rain and chatting. Dad is waiting for a break so he can go home. I finally go take off the suit, get in workout stuff. Treadmill, ab and lower back work, weight stuff, bike. A pretty good workout, but not great. Foiled twice, though, I did something.

I wanted to go to the store on the way home. But it was way too rainy. I just drove carefully into my garage. Nothing else on the schedule today. I can retreat into my house until things improve.

I have breakfast and decide that I should eliminate the piles of newspapers once and for all. Well, that's too strong, of course. I mean they just keep throwing them. Every single day.The Wall Street Journal is even starting later in the year to throw one on Saturday, for heaven's sake. But these piles lurking everywhere, unsorted and unread. It's insane.

So I start doing it. I go through them, glancing at the headlines. If it's a life style section (technology, arts, food) I take a closer look or put it in a pile to read. I stop for lunch (leftover salmon) and dinner (leftover chicken). There are so many papers! I won't tell you what the oldest ones are. Oh, OK, they are from October. Remember? When we didn't know who would win the election? At the end of the day I had only a six-inch pile of papers. Uh...unless you consider today's. I only read a couple of sections of today's papers. I feel overwhelmed by death and dismemberment. In Iraq. But also workplace killers and kidnapped children and pedestrians who wander onto the Interstate in the wee hours of the morning. And other car accidents. And cancer and heart attack. (OK, I read the obits.) Death is a big thing in newspapers. Oddly, I have few tsunami papers in this batch. That time period got read. There was stuff before and after. I also read about movies that were just released that are now on DVD. About Oscars before they were awarded. Why don't I just throw everything away? I don't know. I want to be informed. Well-read. If this occasionally means fighting my way through piles of paper, so be it. But does it really do anything. Am I learning something I can use? Why the big interest, in retirement in current events and movies? Why not, say mathematics? Or computer stuff? Oh, yeah, OK I'm interested in that, too.

We watch the UT Lady Longhorns lose a heartbreaker in which they never lead but, finally, get a shot at winning or overtime but don't execute it. FFP goes to the store at halftime. Then we watch a DVD.

Motorcycle Diaries. This movie got a lot of glowing press. I guess the thing I liked best about it was that it was a, more or less, true story and that Gael García Bernal was so good. The accidents and incidents that they escaped more or less unscathed from were a bit unbelievable. Running into ditches full of water, cows. The bike gives up and it becomes a hiking diary, of course. It's one of those movies that, when it was over, I wasn't sure I liked it but then I decided that I did. Maybe I'd even see it again. No, it made me want to read a translation of Che's diary.

Well, the piles of papers are somewhat tamed. And it's late. And I've put another movie under my belt. I watch a CSI: Miami that FFP says he's seen. I don't think I have, but as I have mentioned these shows are starting to irritate me. Well, sleep then.