AUSTIN, Texas, May 18, 2005 — How many times in my life have I turned over new leaves? Scores? Hundreds? Have I ever really changed? Maybe not in big ways, but maybe in small ones?

Whatever. After my soul-searching yesterday it's time to do things differently, right?

But do I? I get up and, as usual, have a session of writing (OK, just the journal) and coffee. I take interrupts to help FFP make the bed and fold the laundry we finished up last night.

But I tell myself I'm doing the usual things with, um, more drive and attention.

By nine I'm headed to the club with the idea that I will work harder on my body than usual, doing more things right in the gym and spending the time I need while still getting some things done before we go downtown to have lunch with some potential donors for the ballet. Yeah, right. I've almost been on the bicycle fifty minutes, reading one section of several days old newspaper when I notice a travel channel piece on one of the screens that is showing scenes from Austin: the San Jose Motel, the Driskill, Ray Benson's studio. I feel compelled to watch it until the end and this cuts down on the time I spend on the abs and weights and stuff since I'm on that bike for fifty-seven minutes. Aerobic conditioning good. Overall conditioning as well would be better. I do some ab and lower back stuff, a couple of sets of bicep curls, some assisted chin ups and a set of scapula squeezes. I give my self a 'better than nothing' credit. But the leaf hasn't exactly turned. I feel compelled to hurry home. To give myself time for breakfast and then a shower and maybe getting some things done before we have to go to this lunch.

When I get home, FFP is gone. I see I have a message on my cell phone. The lunch is cancelled. I don't usually respond well to changes in plans. Rather than shift gears and accomplish something with the sudden influx of free time, it tends to paralyze me. I vow not to let that happen today. I continue something I started this morning (cleaning up and backing up some stuff on my computer) and then get some breakfast. While I'm eating breakfast (nonfat yogurt, cereal, banana) I am facing the backyard. I see a little hummingbird darting in for a taste of the orange blossoms on the abutilon. I have been seeing the critters for the last few days. Deer were darting around Dad's neighborhood in the middle of the day and I saw the resident roadrunner there yesterday.

What the heck, I think...might as well go out and work on cleaning the lawn furniture. I do that for a while. I take my coffee out there and at one point I just sit for five minutes next to the back fence. People see our yard and imagine us out there reading or drinking coffee, soaking up nature in a little enclave right in the city. But really when we are out here we are usually doing some work or entertaining. Our minds aren't on the nature. But while I sit there, wondering about the bird songs I'm hearing I see a small bird with a black cap and a white chest and wonder who he is and whether that is his next in that tree. Then it's back to cleaning, back to my day.

I am going to try to eat a more healthy diet. I eat a light lunch of a small salad with greens, a little carrot, some shredded cheese, some chopped zuchinni, some green onion and a little Feta dressing with six ounces of V8. And, no, I'm not going to start putting everything I eat into the diary again. As it is lost souls are brought to this dusty corners of the WEB with searches like 'calories in Mentos.' Between those earnest dieters and people misspelling the same words in the same way as my typos, it's embarrassing. I read that the bad guys can find out everything about you online. In my case they can figure out every bite I had to eat. Assuming I tell the truth, of course. It's bad enough that I'm the leading purveyor of tater tot pictures on the WEB (well, maybe not, but it is our number one search term this month), but someone is going to be using those pictures against me somehow to steal my soul.

I get showered and groomed and go get my dad. He says he could drive to the PT place but I worry that he'll be able to get a handicapped parking place and get into the place with his walker. I take him there and he has a thirty minute session while I read a magazine. I am more cheerful about my dad and his situation. I'm not my dad, I'm just his not so capable helper. It's easier to have these boundaries when he is feeling better and commenting on the world more. And ready to drive. And has gotten his own newspaper and mail from the end of the steep yard. When we get home from the PT place, he says he is going to church. He goes inside and gets ready and I see him off, telling him to be careful. "More than ever," he says.

It's rush hour. I've promised to meet my friend SuRu for dinner later. I slip down to the Arboretum and look through Sharper Image to see if there is something I could buy for FFP. I don't find anything. I go to B&N and shop around and end up buying him something and a CD for me. I sit in the cafe and drink a black coffee until SuRu calls. She suggests Sushi Sake and I'm game. We arrive about the same time. (It is so tedious to navigate the Gateway/Arboretum area, but if you know a few tricks it can be done without too much pain.) I share a gyoza order with her and have raw tuna with a spicy sauce over rice. And a glass of Pinot.

At home, FFP has just arrived from an interview. I get a cup of coffee and we watch a little TV while I read the papers and struggle with the Wednesday crossword in the Times. We turn the bed down and I try to sleep but something wakes me up and I wander in to my computer and fool around and end up finishing reading the latest version of a friend's play. It is tomorrow before I sleep.