AUSTIN, Texas, June 11, 2005 — We have no schedules, obligations or promises to do particular things. So we figure we will get things done. FFP will get ahead of his game on his weekly column. I'll review my trip plans, watch movies (in my volunteer screener capacity), catch up on straightening things up and reading and writing and whatever.

That's a good plan but when you don't have anything to do, one might drink coffee and fool around with her journal in her bathrobe. One might go, late as she pleases (around 11) to the gym. And dawdle there.

I rode the bike over fifty minutes and read just a couple of sections of newspapers. I tend to read entire articles from beginning to end while sitting on the bike. In my normal reading of papers, I skim and skip more unless I'm really, really interested. I hoped, in retirement, to become more in tune with world affairs. And business. I think I'm succeeding. I'm still reading news about the companies I used to compete and cooperate with but now I read about more than that. I've started paying more attention to world issues and such. What this new knowledge will lead to for me, I don't know. Like my new fitness level, it seems I just need more. Like the renewed study of literature, it seems I've only begun. Perhaps the goal of life isn't so much to do as to always feel like you've just begun.

I did about fifteen sets of different weight stuff. I never feel like I exercise enough or do enough variety or whatever.

When I go home, FFP isn't there. He hasn't left a note, so it must be a short errand. There is a pan with chicken in carmelized banana on the stove. Still warm. I heat some and make a salad and have a nice lunch. FFP returns. He was shooting some pictures of the new paint job on the building we used to own. The doctor who occupies it has a WEB page and we assist with updating it sometimes. I format the pictures and FFP updates the page.

Time to get serious about the latest stack of movies I took from AFF to review. I finished the last one on DVD before going to the club. I don't have a DVD or VCR player in my office. I go into the media room and start watching. I can't say anything about what I review. But I will say that I'm doing a few documentaries this afternoon and that it makes me thing about the nature of reality. Maybe I'll do an essay on reality. It's funny, I love documentaries. I'm not a fan of reality television with a few exceptions (Queer Eye, Antiques Road Show). I did think up a reality TV show. A chef comes to someone's house and makes dinner from what he finds in the refrigerator and pantry. Using only implements and dishes found there. The only thing the crew brings is beverages. One thing about me is that I like to think up ideas for other people to implement. It sometimes worked for me in my career. Not often.

So I watch all these films and fill out the paperwork. I scribble in my journal, too, because I want to remember the films later. When I'm down to the last one, FFP comes down and goes outside to water some plants by hand. He says he wants some 'cheap Mexican food.' I suggest El Arroyo because I haven't had their barbequed chicken enchiladas in a while. We shower up and go there.

We order nachos with BBQ chicken and BBQ chicken enchiladas. I get a draft Shiner Bock. Shortly a plate of quesadillas shows up. We look at each other and wait for the guy to come back.

"Are these nachos?" FFP says. Of course, he knows they aren't. The guy looks nonplussed and says he's sorry and takes them. We could have said "we didn't order this" or "we didn't order quesadillas" but FFP's pronouncement got them taken back. They looked fine but we were in the mood for the nachos. (All Mexican food is really assembled from the same ingredients but I guess we wanted the crispy corn instead of the flour and the dominance of the jalapeno.) We got the nachos and he said "let me know when you want the enchiladas" which meant that the volcano hot plates were under a heat lamp somewhere. We dove into the nachos which were pretty good and then a different person brought the enchiladas so we arranged the plates with that careful pushing around you do with the hot hot plates.

I'd been meaning to eat more healthfully. But I eat every bite of the greasy Mexican food. Best intentions. That's why I have to ride the bike so many miles.

Back home we watch part of Fantasia which we rented from Netflix. FFP is reading 1776 and he wanders off here and there. I watch some movie I've recorded, some quiz shows. I read all the papers for the day and finish yesterday's and work some crossword puzzles and read some of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. This is a book I read several reviews of and I vacillated about whether to get it but then I mentioned it to Forrest and he kept looking for it to buy for me but forgetting the name and calling me from the bookstore and I'd forget the name. In fact, I had to go to get the book when I was writing the name of it in this paragraph. I wasn't sure about buying it and reading it but FFP did buy it for me and now I really am glad I got it. The first person protagonist is a nine-year-old kid named Oskar. This impossibly precocious stand-in for New Yorkers who lost someone in the 9/11 tragedy really reminds one of the character in The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass. Who, by the way, is also Oskar. He actually refuses to grow and therefore makes a suitable vessel for talking about tragedies that ordinary adults just can't navigate well. (There is a wonderful 1979 movie, by the way, of this novel.)

And the other odd thing about this book is that although I looked at it in the bookstore once I didn't actually see page forty-five when I did and it was only now that I noticed that on that page is a reproduction of what purports to be the test pad from a pen display. And if I didn't consider coincidence a greater power than meaning, I'd think it was funny that this picture was displayed here only a few days ago.

We stayed up too late reading, but it's OK because our Sunday is pretty calm. We just have a dinner date with some old friends. And it is probably already Sunday when I get to sleep.