AUSTIN, Texas, May 17, 2005 — Today I realize a couple of things. I've become lazy and self-indulgent. (I know, long-standing readers, you noticed a long time ago. And, honestly, of course, I did, too.) I also realized that part of the reason I'm not getting a lot done is not just laziness. It's the refusal to focus. To realize how little I care about some of the time wasters in my life. Of course, I have the problem of being interested in too many things. Not working has let this monster loose. Who is to say I can't be interested in tennis, working out, taking active steps with my health, my dad's, reading, learning about things long neglected while I studied the esoteric edges of one narrow technical field?

Who says I can't write or learn about movie making? Who says I can't travel? Shouldn't I have time to organize everything in my physical world as well as all the sentences and pixels on my hard drive? Shouldn't I do more housework and do it well? Shouldn't I entertain and do more charity work?

There should be time for everything. There should be no excuses.

This is nonsense, of course. I have to set priorities. And some of these things take big blocks of time.

So if today was the day I realized I was both lazy and unfocused (if not for the first time), then did I get my life in order, set some priorities? Why, no, of course not. But by the end of the day I'd decided, one more time, that things would be different soon.

I woke up fuzzy again. (I think there are allergy-causing agents around but that I, having had an allergy epiphany, don't really react badly but just sneeze in the mornings and feel fuzzy here and there. Fuzzy is better than an allergy attack. It's hard to remember illness and pain but I remember the utter misery of stuffy head and runny nose.) But it was early enough. Early enough that I could have gotten to the club for a little workout before my nine o'clock tennis match with the 'ladies of a certain age.' This didn't happen. I did a little writing, but honestly I think I was just goofing off. I probably read a few other spots on the WEB. Maybe I did some geography quizes or wasted time seeing what searches brought people to my WEB space. (If you, for whatever reason, type 'fat woman eats turkey' into a search engine then you are likely to get The Visible Woman as a fairly high hit on the list. But do I need to know this? I tell myself that my mission is to write this journal and that this is the sort of amusing thing my dozen readers will be interested in. But is it true? Well, it gives me something to write about, but that only works if the writing of this journal has a priority that, if examined, may be more than a little embarrassing.)

So, without getting my journal for Tuesday put to bed, I found myself going to the club, only slightly early for the match. I went to the pro shop and found out where the ladies had the court reserved, stopped by the restroom and went to the court with a book in hand (as well as the racket, a tennis elbow band, a cap, some new balls and my Nisasan commuter coffee cup). I didn't get any of it read, however, because one lady showed up. We started talking about this and that. She showed me a cartoon that she had cut out of The Dallas Morning News. A baby, just born, is being held up by the feet and, if you look closely, is holding a cell phone. She's very amused by this and it is funny. We discuss people and their cells. I tell her I read that I read (see, all my reading makes me a better conversationalist) that people have fake cell conversations to make themselves look important or the fend off face-to-face encounters with people around them. Another lady shows up. They discuss that one lady has brought in a sub. I know this because she asked me to play as well. It is a youngish woman. Probably younger than me. She has a reputation for being twenty minutes late and, the one time she and I both subbed, she certainly was. The older regulars are not happy about it. Since I'm on time, I shouldn't be either. But I tell them a joke about golfing and a late golf companion. They laugh. We warm up with me taking the single side. The fourth comes. Twenty minutes late.

We play. There is a pattern with these companions. One doesn't move well but is brilliant at placing the ball when she reaches it and has great reach as she is quite tall. One has a side-armed serve that people wind up on. We take turns with partners. The biggest challenge is winning with the lady with the weak serve. I can't do it and we lose that one 6-3. Doubles doesn't require much effort although as the day warms up, I sweat a bit. I enjoy playing on the clay and it's a nice day. I just wish I were more into the moment.

A couple of older but very athletic women show up. Bits of their conversation drift over. "It's a double-edged sword for women. It revs you up but it also calms you down." And "I saw Andy. I got his autograph for my niece." They wail away at the ball in a good game of singles. They discuss various tournaments and ladders. Clearly they dedicate a lot of time to tennis. As we are breaking up, they change courts and one of them touts her home delivery of Chinese food showing us a stained piece of paper tri-folded into a menu. Her partner, who I think is the member, vouches for the for the freshness and tastiness of the food. The other ladies that an interest but there is only the one stained brochure. So I guess I won't be ordering take-out Chinese from a good tennis player.

I should do a little more workout when we are finished. But I don't. I get in the car and head home. One of the first things I do is call Dad. No answer. I ask FFP if he's called. No. I call again. I'm sure there is a logical explanation, but I need to go take him his prescription and buy him some groceries. So I just head out there in my tennis clothes. On the way I take off the sweaty hat and run my hand through my sweat-soaked hair.

When I get there, the maid is there. She says my Dad went off with a friend and she gives the name. That doesn't surprise me. I decide to check the sprinkler system since Dad says it has problems. I manually go through the stations and look around. Some heads are caught up in bushes. One section doesn't come on and another seems to come on not as marked but when the cycle goes to the non-working section. I note this so I can call in someone to work on it. The maid leaves and my dad returns with his friend and her guests, a young couple who have come to the States from Iceland to honeymoon. Dad gives the a tour of the house. The young woman says it is a very nice home. "Kept me out of the nursing home," he says. "So far." When they are gone, I ask my dad what groceries he would like. "Just strawberries and grapes. And bananas." I get his garbage out to the street and go to the grocery store. I get some extra strawberries and grapes for myself.

I head home. It's after one and I haven't eaten anything all day. Not good. I eat some cheese and carrots and grapes and bread. FFP starts looking at a sprinkler head that was destroyed by the yard men after it stuck in the up position because something was on it when it popped up. Actually not looking at it. We can't find any sign of it. It must have been pulverized. It will have to be dug up. I tell him we need to get a repairman for Dad's house, too. He says he'd called one for another problem and they'd never called back. He says he is going to go follow up.

We have noticed that it's large item pickup week on the street as it has taken on the appearance of a slightly lower class neighborhood with the appearance of hot water heaters, washing machines, matresses, rusty barbecue grills, ratty furniture and construction junk on the curb. We decide that since the pickup hasn't occurred that we will haul a few things out of the crumbling piles in our shed to the curb. We sort through some old hoses and some electrical stuff pulled off the tree that fell down. We save some of the hoses and I put them under the stairs to FFP's office. I find a garbage can there that the bottom has completely disintegrated on. We also finally move some curbs and vents that were displaced from our remodel last year to a pile of such things behind the shed. All we accomplish with the shed is that you could, if you were so inclined, actually get inside to clean it up. The shed needs rebuilding to be more weather and rat proof but first it needs a cleaning. We haven't done it in several years. For the upcoming event in the backyard, however, it will just hold its secrets.

I should keep at it, cleaning and discarding. But I'm afraid to displace stuff that won't get hauled off or dealt with and I'm tired although I've done almost nothing. Just a little moving and lifting. I take off my muddy yard shoes and go inside and look at the mail. Nothing much there. FFP goes back to the backyard to water and feed some new plants. He gets in the shower and I notice the hose isn't put away. He forgot. I put my tennis shoes on and go back and roll it up. The heat is coming and anything you leave on the grass too long these days might burn it. Yards are time and effort vortexes. The work is never done, like housework.

So at the end of this day, having accomplished little or nothing, I try to finish my journal. I fail. I end up eating salad and leftover Brussels Sprouts and grapes and probably some other stuff. I think about drinking a beer but I don't. We watch some TV and I try to reduce the paper pile but I don't know if I even get through today's issues. I read a little bit of an article about the Catholic Church in The New Yorker. When I should go to sleep, I go to my office and write some e-mail and work on the journal without finishing it. They I go to sleep, late, not as sleepy as I was earlier in front of the TV and with a slightly upset stomach and a gut ache that I think has more to do with my disgust at my lack of accomplishment than digestive problems. I vow to 'do better.' But how many times have I done that before?