AUSTIN, Texas, May 10, 2005 — The whole shyness thing is still on my mind today. I don't feel like telling anyone anything for some reason. Which makes my compulsion to write an online journal all the more intriguing I suppose.

But life goes on. I've promised to substitute in a tennis match and several other ladies have subs. I hope I recognize someone.

I get up and have coffee. I work on yesterday's journal, still having trouble talking about the way I felt yesterday. I write to my friend the playwright in answer to an e-mail.

I get to the club right at nine. Part of my

shyness thing, I think, is I never like to be late. I usually get to things too early. Which is not good either because it makes me nervous waiting for people. Today it's perfect because when I park I see someone who is part of this foursome. A third shows up, a sub, but someone I've seen before. The fourth doesn't show up for fifteen or twenty minutes. We warm up, the three of us, me on the single side.

We play a couple of sets, changing partners once. It's fun. I realize, given the thinking of the last couple of days about shyness and all, that one thing I like about tennis is that once you start playing there are rules about everything, even what you say. More or less.

The tennis didn't seem like exercise. But when I go down to the gym and ride the bike to nowhere for thirty minutes it feels a little harder than my usual, longer ride. I do some static lunges, some bicep curls, a few other exercises. I go home. I'm quite sweaty and feel like I've exercised.

AT home I grab some breakfast. Nonfat yogurt and cereal. Not long after FFP makes some packaged food for lunch. Some spicy pork and rice. I eat a little. I get a shower and head to my dad's for the usual small duties.

At Dad's I sit and talk to him, work the crossword in his American-Statesman. (He likes the paper and the comics but never does the puzzles. Mom liked to try.) I get out the garbage, get in the mail. He gets a CD my cousin's family produced and he has me put it on in his office on the CD player I bought my mother when they moved to Austin. He sits a while in the office and listens until he gets tired of sitting on the new walker gadget. I pull staples from old prescription records and shred them. Dad has cleaned the kitchen pretty well himself. There isn't much else to do. So I go home. On the way, I get a call from FFP. He says if I come home he won't be there. He'll be at a meeting. I don't tell him I'm headed home at that moment.

Home again, the maid service is here. No one came last week so I'm glad. I might be forced to scrub bathrooms and vacuum! I retreat to my office to work on the journal, to think, to read.

When the maid is gone, I snack and read the paper in the kitchen and work the crossword in The New York Times. I go into the bedroom and queue up a show or two and read papers some more.

When FFP comes home, he says what do I want to do for dinner. I suggest we use a gift certificate from Jeffrey's we bought at a charity auction. We dig it out, FFP changes clothes and calls and off we go. We are in that middle section, where Johnny usually is but with Jessica tonight, another favorite of ours. Most of the rest of the room will be occupied by a big party later.

We order a Sauvignon Blanc. I order the foie gras pizza appetizer and the mushroom crêpe appetizer. FFP orders crispy oysters and the salmon entrée. We read magazines and sip and talk to Jessica and Marco, another waiter who stops by. The big party starts to show up. They talk about bar exams in different states. They drift in slowly. The place is busy for a Tuesday. The waiters say it has something to do with the lege. That on Tuesday nights they go out or something.

Our meal is good. FFP trades an oyster for a quarter of the tiny pizza with arugula and foie gras. He raves about the salmon.

Home again, we tuck into newspapers and TV. Tired of cop shows, I try House, the diagnostic drama. It is about weird sex this night. Sort of. Then I go to sleep, to dream about sorting through garbage.