AUSTIN, Texas, May 16, 2005 — So I'm having this dream about a car wreck when I wake up. These cars collide in front of me and one that is already a wreck comes careering back toward me and then makes this precise move to settle just to the left of my car without striking it.

I wake up sneezing and feeling fuzzy, but I know that I need to get moving to get a workout and get Dad to his PT session and get myself downtown for a 1:30 meeting. I get off to the club after a cup and a call to Dad. All the recumbent bikes are in use so I get on a treadmill and crank the incline. I go for fifty minutes and work up a good sweat.

I'm reading all the while however. Finishing up the three part article in The New Yorker about global warming. They haven't printed anything in multiple issues like that in years. Must have felt that the fact that we are all going to burn up or drown (from the oceans rising) was significant. I feel rushed and only do a few sets of skull crushers (not as bad as it sounds with light weight...builds the triceps) and dead lifts and scapula squeezes. I go home and get through my shower and grooming quickly. I dash to Dad's and get him to PT nice and early. I fill out a little paperwork and, while we are waiting, order a prescription refill for him and go through some of the junk in our folders of medical stuff.

I sit with him during the evaluation and the short manipulation. He does two five minute periods on this sled that lets him do sort of knee bends while lying down. We make appointments for two more sessions.

I take him home, go get his prescription, rush home and eat hurriedly (too much cold fried chicken and slaw and a granola bar) and go downtown.

I'm going along while a friend tours the building Ballet Austin has downtown. I meet our friend that the tour is intended for and the executive director comes and we tour the place. While waiting to fund renovation the admin staff is there and there are renters: a dance company has put down a floor and walled off a room and Literacy Austin is preparing to have a book sale benefit and Long Center rents some offices. We talk and talk. Well, the director does. I feel a little fuzzy still. Wonder if it's allergies. It is after three when we are finished.

I can't decide what to do. I drive down to South Congress, park and take a few shop window shops. I've worn out that location, but it still yields a little something. I wander through Uncommon Objects and drive aimlessly back up S. First. FFP is on an excursion to Ft. Hood with some ballet folks and his car is still at the ballet. What the heck...I go home. I read and doze and watch some TV. I give in to napping when the phone rings and it's FFP. We are invited to a reception at City Hall so I tell him I'll just drive down and meet him. I get a cup of coffee and do that.

I am still not feeling that hungry but when we get to City Hall I find room for a taco and a beer. Some band is playing and there are a variety of Austin movers and shakers mixed in with folks in vintage cowboy shirts, looking like Austin muscians. We don't stay long. Instead we head to Cedar Street and sit outside and have a drink (me: a Manhattan) and talk to a friend we bump into and his friend who is down from New York. We listen to the Kevin Ahart Band play a jazzy standard set. Very nice.

We go home. I feel adrift. Naturally I respond to this by eating junk and watching junk TV. Sigh.