AUSTIN, Texas, Apr. 10, 2005 —I wake up early. I'm not feeling that good lying in the bed so I get up. It's around seven-thirty. I do the things FFP usually does because he is usually up first. I fire up the coffee machine, feed the dog and get the papers. We actually sit together in the breakfast room for a few minutes looking at the papers, drinking coffee. He eats some cereal. I don't even like to watch other people eat this time of the morning.

I go to my computer and spend a hour goofing around with my computer and talking to my dad.

Dad isn't doing so good. He says the pain has

traveled down his leg, but only hurts when he moves around. He says he has dressed and gone to the bathroom but hasn't gotten his paper or eaten. I worry about him, offer to go over there. I call a bit later and he says he has gotten his paper in and had cereal and coffee and is 'getting ready for his day while reading the funnies.' I wonder if it's cramps...if he's low on sodium but he says it doesn't hurt when he's still. Ah, well, what can I do? Worry, that's what.

Workout is also what I do. While reading the Book Review section of The New York Times. Reading about books about the total loss of privacy. Not that I have any privacy what with this journal. So why do I do it? It's interesting because I've been rolling around in my head an old idea I had for a novel. Normally I don't like things set in the future but this one is a utopia/dystopia thing where the loss of privacy is complete in certain areas but while the machine knows everything it also knows when someone who is looking at the information is not authorized to do so by position and circumstance. Oh, and this novel has, for some reason, at the heart a resurgence of interest in pinball. It is one of many fictional worlds I amuse myself with. But most of them are set in the present. (Some would say I live in one of them.)

I get back from the club, stuff my face, and finally change to old clothes and go out in the garage start working on sorting the stuff again. It is silly to spend so much time and attention on old junk, really. But you can't just toss it all without looking. It might be toxic and it won't all fit in the garbage. Besides, it might be worth something. (Not really.) I am not really into it. I examine paint cans. Find some dried out latex. (This can go in the garbage when there is room.) Find some good paint from recent projects and some questionable ones. I go through some other stuff. I find stuff that might have been used ages ago in the business, doing trade shows. My friend SuRu stops by and we talk, reinforcing my desultory efforts with advice and talk. Finally we go inside, look at the paper a bit. Some other friends are stopping by at five to go eat burgers. So, I go get a shower, FFP cleans up and the other friends show up and all five of us go to Billy's on Burnet and eat and watch the dramatic finish to the Masters. For some reason I'm for Tiger. Maybe he's the playing the underdog role after his drought.

Then we go back and watch some of Sixty Minutes and see how our taxpayer money is being squandered on underwater cameras (they used them to search for Lacy Peterson) and weapon of mass destruction containment units and Segways. (Actually I could see this. They were for the guys in heavy contamination proof suits to get around. Maybe they couldn't sit down in the suits so golf carts were out of the question? But, yeah, fun for the city workers of Santa Clara.) Our one set of friends leave because they are tired and SuRu because storms are reported moving our way.

We retire to watching such things as The L Word and Desperate Housewives. I'm not that interested in these shows. I read the paper and try in vain to make sense of the puzzles in The New York Times magazine. Then I go to sleep. We will see what the new week brings.