AUSTIN, Texas, May 25, 2005 — Sometimes I become uncomfortable with what I'm doing, how I'm spending my time. But we can't make sudden changes, throw on the brakes, change plans with others. And, sometimes, before we can make changes we forget why we wanted to do it.

So the day starts normally, me at the computer, finishing describing the day before without enlightening anyone about anything. Me surfing. Me wasting my time.

I do finally get off to the gym. I've been neglecting the weight lifting part of my routine.

I think the problem is that I often do a long (around fifty minute) cardio on the recumbent bike. Then I try to do some weights, ab work, etc. But I run out of time or energy. So today I do just thirty minutes on the bike. I do a lot of weight work. Maybe not everything I need to do, but a lot. Balance. That's what I need. In my life, in my workout. I'm not getting. it.

I'm dizzy again today, too. Allergies I'm sure. I can pop my ears. I don't have any other symptoms, though, so between dizzies, I'm great. Nothing like being dizzy to make you feel lost in your own life.

When I'm done with the gym, I go home. I talk to Forrest who is off to do an interview for lunch. I eat a bowl of cereal with nonfat yogurt and work the crossword in The New York Times. On Wednesday. Imagine that. I waste too much time on crosswords. I take my supplies and go out and work on the teak. I am cleaning some of a decade of grime off the bench and rubbing in more oil and beeswax. I put another treatment of the oil and some parts of the chairs, too. It's nice being outside for a while even though (in spite of a hasty spray of Off) a mosquito or two bites. Maybe I'll get West Nile but otherwise the bites only hurt for a few minutes and then go away.

I would like to finish the bench but I have an errand to run before I go to get my dad for PT. I go inside, shower up and downtown to Austin Film Festival. I get nine films of different ilks, picked by the young enough to be my grandson programmer. I want to do this volunteer work, but I wonder when I will find the time. Which is so stupid. I have tons of time. I have time to type up what I do every day.

I go to Dad's. I get his garbage and yard waste cans in and get his mail in. We load up and go to the PT place. I try to read while he works with the therapist but I'm so, so sleepy. I work the Statesman crossword and struggle with the jumble. My dyslexia and the jumble don't get along that well.

On the way back I take Dad's van to Costco and fill it up with gas. He is driving himself to church and the drugstore and appointments but I figure he doesn't need to be pumping gas with a walker.

I get him home and go to Borders. I have promised my friend SuRu to meet her for dinner. I am hungry (only had cereal so far but it is still early for her to get off but late to go home and then come back this way. I get a small piece of cheesecake and a Café Americano. I sit at a table, watching two women with notebooks and folders do some work. I feel dizzy. It's the allergies I'm sure. I see woman reading a magzine entitled Mind on the leather couch. When she leaves, I move over there with the remains of my coffee. A stack of magazines is on the table. I read the Scientific American Mind rag and a few others, occasionally feeling sleepy, then dizzy. Closing my eyes once in a while. SuRu calls. Earlier than expected. I suggest Truluck's since it's next door and, while she's on the cell phone, I walk over. It's doesn't seem busy. I ask for a reservation in fifteen minutes but they give me a position on the waiting list 'just in case.' "Right now we don't have a wait," said the hostess as if it surely wouldn't last. SuRu said she'd be along in a few minutes. I still don't feel right. Maybe a sugar high from cheesecake. I sit just off the foyer in the bar where a piano player is loudly playing jazzed up standard tunes. I get a Coke and a seared tuna appetizer which is only five bucks (half off) for happy hour. The tuna comes with a brownish sauce (it's kind of dark in there but it seems odd). It tastes OK, not great, is a little less rare than I'd like but maybe it's the sauce. I eat it all and have a few sips of the Coke and I feel better. SuRu comes. We get a booth in the restaurant part. I'm facing west and sunlight bounces in my eyes here and there. SuRu gets a King Crab leg appetizer which she says she enjoys although I think she'd prefer drawn butter to the Dijon-flavored mayo. We eat some bread. I order a salmon with crab and shrimp in a jalapeno Bernaise. I'm not crazy about it. Everything is overwhelmed by the sauce, even the mashers. The shrimp seems soggy, the crab meat a lost ingredient. But the place becomes packed as predicted. It seems expensive to me and not all that good for all that. They do have a bunch of wines by the glass or the two ounce sample but I doubt alcohol will improve my dizziness. I pay because neither of us has the money to pay half. I say we will go out and SuRu can pay. She says maybe she will pick some place cheaper with a laugh. We've enjoyed talking, solving the world's problems. Well, no, just our own. Well, not those either.

I go home. Beat FFP coming home from his board meeting by only a few minutes. I let the dog out and look at what's on TV and start American Idol and a Law and Order recording. I don't really care about either. FFP might. I putter around and finally settle in reading papers. Himself fixing this and that (leftover fish stew, toast). I figure his inexpensive meal was more enjoyable. He says they had a margarita machine at his meeting and after a couple one of his companions, a wonderful friend of ours, couldn't stop talking. She usually drinks gin. Perhaps she should avoid tequila.

Finally, FFP is complaining of soreness from the uncomfortable chairs at his board meeting and decide to read in bed. But sleep wins.

I was doing the things I think I should be (tidying up that furniture in the yard, seeing after my dad, exercising, reading, visiting with friends) but I felt all day like I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was uncomfortable inside my chosen life. But it may have just been the dizziness from allergies. Which seems mostly gone by the time the day is waning. We will see what tomorrow brings.