AUSTIN, Texas, May 12, 2005 — If there is anything I really, really don't miss from working it is committees and their meetings.

Last night's neighborhood meeting about the street stuff was an extreme example. Hisses, boos, threats to sue. Today I went to two meetings at my club, though. They were slightly more civilized. A little more subtle, less middle class, more passive agressive.

I have trouble waking up, first off. I want to get to the club and workout before I have to have the first meeting there. (At noon.) I'm having this dream where I'm trying to organize a bunch of crap and it's so compelling that, when the dog gets me up to let her out, I go back to bed and try to finish it. But that never works, does it?

I get up and get on my workout clothes and drink coffee and do some writing. I try to write about the weird feelings I've been having lately. I think, really, that I'm at loose ends. Waiting to see how my dad's situation works out. Oddly, FFP's parents have become slightly more needy of late. He's been doing their shopping and worrying over a few things for them. We haven't had any trouble taking care of the three of them. Not compared to what other people I know have had. It's not hard. It just takes a little time and we have it. It's just a little jangling. It's taking me out of myself and my own selfish desires. But then I'm in a new place of confusion.

I call Dad. He says he's going to '"give me the day off." I tell him that I can come by and see him in the afternoon, but he doesn't seem to really need it. I go to club. Workout. Shower.

I am on time to the meeting. I've done an e-mail survey for a subcommittee on Food and Beverage set up by the committee chairman at the last meeting but we have a new chairman. Things get discussed. The stuff I worked on comes up and this guy announces that someone else is the chairman of the subcommittee. I hand her my neatly arranged compilation of the e-mail survey and results. Hmm. Have I been demoted? Fired? I thought I left that crap behind in the work place. I try to get the staff member in attendance to discuss our recommendations (which I e-mailed to him two weeks ago) but that doesn't seem to be on the agenda. After I leave, as the day wears on, I realize just how insulting this all is. Gradually I determine that it's pretty clear someone doesn't want me to have anything to do with this committee's work. Fortunately, I don't particularly care. I'd like to help them improve this area of the club. But that obviously isn't going to happen. I'm a bit embarrassed that I held myself out to have some authority as the leader of a subcommittee. Of course, the prior chairman of the committee had given me that authority. And I didn't know he was being replaced. The other person who agreed to be on the subcommittee said something about it later. He thought it might change our charter. That seemed ridiculous to me. But he was the smart one. He did no work on the stuff. Well, this is exactly like corporate crap. But the good news is that I really don't have to put up with it. I can keep going to the club, pay my dues, enjoy it as best I can.

I go home. I dabble around with the work of this committee until I realize that they are trying to drag me into other work after ignoring what I have done in this one area. Not too likely. Then I spend time making connections between one of my dad's doctors and another because he has a low TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) which may mean he has a thyroid problem (hyperthyroidism). I call Dad. He made two trips down the front walk and up the driveway with his walker with brakes. To get the paper (his neighbor forgot or didn't see it in the bushes) and to get his mail. He says I don't need to come over. I explain that he is going to have to see another specialist. Maybe. I'm making the docs exchange test results.

I fool around getting some things ready to mail to various relatives for various reasons. This entails scanning some old pictures to put on a birthday letter to my niece.

Then I go back to the club. I sit through a meeting about a building project. I get mildly upset with people who have to preface their opinions by saying how long they've belonged to the club, like that makes their opinion more relevant. I especially don't like it when they brag because their parents belonged. Oh, yes, you were born rich. That makes you oh so smart. As I sit there I realize how stupid I was to try to work on a club committee. It's pretty clear if you aren't on the board, you aren't going to be throwing a lot of weight. The person annointed to take over my subcommittee sits at the front table but doesn't say anything. I slyly read my magazine. I feel like I did in a thousand useless work meetings where people pretended to take input. But I'm reasonably happy with their plans. I'll enjoy the workout room, the tennis. I don't really care. And the guys seem pretty fiscally responsible. And I can just skip the meetings in the future. In a corporation, trapped in such a meeting, you knew that like Sisyphus you were doomed to do variations of the meeting again and again. But I can just say no. In corporate life, in these meetings, people promise to do things they never do, probably never intended to do. I used to try to do what I promised. Action items. That's why I worked on the project from that committee. But here there are no consequences to just nodding and then never spending any effort. It feels great, I must say, to realize this.

I stay until the bitter end at the meeting. Other people are slipping out to have diner and such. I go home and FFP and I eat smoked oysters, cheese, some leftovers and drink wine while watching a CSI. He bought the cheese while shopping for non-dairy ice cream for his dad. That was the second shopping trip for his parents today. I think they are enjoying seeing him as much as getting things delivered.

It's amazing how we can eat while they simulate autopsies and bullets tearing through flesh and a tapeworm leaving a dead body on CSI. Someone calls me and says that someone else told them I was heading the food and beverage subcommittee and they want to ask for something new on the menu. Actually something old to be put back on the menu. I tell her someone else is doing it as of today. "You got fired?" she asks.

"Well, maybe. Maybe demoted."

What a gas!

We watch some TV and I read a little. I realized today that I've been postponing things and not scheduling things, waiting to see what happens with my dad. Some of this was necessary. I needed to set aside time to do things for him right now, get him to the hospital for his surgery, etc. Some was just trying to figure out the future. But who knows where anyone will be at any time? If I have to rearrange my schedule or his, hire someone to do something for him, well, I'll just have to do it. Nothing in life is that predictable. I have to get over it and schedule as best I can. And, after all, he walked down the walk and up the driveway. Twice.

I keep watching TV and reading after FFP is snoring. Then I go bang on the computer a while. I stay up too late and I go to sleep knowing somehow that I'm going to dream busy dreams again.