AUSTIN, Texas, July 29, 2005 — You have your own dreams. Most of which turn into disappointments. Even if you succeed in getting exactly what you dreamed about or even wildly more. But you also live inside the dreams of your friends. I've been thinking about that lately. One friend is doing a job she hates but would like to be an artist. Well, she is an artist. It just doesn't pay. I was at her house the other day. She had things all tidied up and arranged to look good for trying to sell her house. I looked at her paintings decorating the place and thought "gosh, those are good." Tough to support yourself being an artist. And even when she was out of work she found it hard to just paint, just do it. Ah, well.

Another friend is a somewhat prolific unpublished author. He's getting up in years. There isn't much money to run out. Such a talent, though. Such dreams.

Another friend, out of work, has a dream of a new career. She wants to get into something she has no experience doing. There is a related idea that is more tractable. Naturally (we are all this way) she likes the one that is a reach.

I'm actually having dinner with two of these friends tonight and made one a (belated) birthday card about age and dreams. (My theory is that the older we are the more real our dreams are, however unattainable. When you are young, they are just dreams. When you are older, you can actually achieve things sometimes that match up.) Her present is the registration of a domain that she could use for her new career. I doubt she'll do it but $5.95/year is cheaper than some birthday cards.

Today was one of those days when I had things I thought I was going to have to do and then they disappeared and so I goofed off. I thought we were going to have a lunch with a financial advisor. FFP had to cancel it. I thought that I was going to need to go over to Dad's house to supervise a handyman, but he did it.

So, like I say, I goofed off. If you call making a friend a birthday card, registering a domain for her, writing email to friends, writing my journal, printing stuff for my dad, helping FFP when he accidentally loosened a wire on the computer network goofing off, talking to relatives on the phone and watching movies for AFF goofing off.

I did get in a workout of fifty minutes on the recumbent bicycle and some weights and ab exercises. Slowly I get back to the routine, such as it was, that was allegedly keeping me fit. Or somewhat fit. I still need to get stronger and lose a little fat. I eat too much and the wrong stuff, too. I dream of getting fit, eating right.

While I was goofing off and yet busy doing all these things, I dreamed of getting organized, simplifying my life, getting things done. When I worked, I'd think about things I was going to do to get things neat and filed and sorted and stored and discarded at home. Especially when I was driving to work I'd have these mental fantasies. When I was home, I'd think about getting my work done, solving problems there. Especially when driving home from work. I actually fixed a lot of bugs driving home from work. However, I never got my home life more organized while driving to work. Although I suppose I did get a few ideas that contributed to doing it, although there isn't much evidence of organization that you would notice. I like to say that, while our house is quite chaotic with piles of stuff in our offices (and sometimes elsewhere in the house) and closets overflowing with things and a few nightmares in the garage and storage, we are constantly cleaning out and arranging and discarding. We can even give the illusion in the public rooms (read: never our offices) of some order if you ignore the bookcases. If we really just never bothered to sift, clean, arrange, give order, we would have reached 'newspapers and chicken bones' long ago. (That's a reference to those occasional cautionary tales in the newspaper where people have died leaving stacks of books and newspapers so extreme as to provide only narrow pathways through the house. They have always started saving, or at least not removing, some garbage, too. Hence the chicken bones.) But I digress.

So what did I do with my day? Mostly I watched AFF entries. Watching these puts me in a melancholy mood. They are mostly trying to be serious films for one thing. People have problems. But it's not really that. Because I rarely believe the people or plot points or at least can distance myself from them. No, it comes from fretting over the movies' flaws. It comes from wanting them to be better than they actually are and enhance our festival. I want to find a jewel no one else has watched yet. But. Flaws. Or sometimes I just feel that I'm not qualified to see what is special in one movie in the piles. That I wouldn't know it if I saw it.

I'm still sitting there watching films, my hair wet from the shower, when one of my friends shows up for dinner. She watches the end of the short I'm reviewing.

The other friend, she of the birthday who is now my age for a few weeks, is early, too.

We have dinner at Cafe Caprice. If you are an Austinite who hasn't been out lately...it's where Basil's used to be. If you are an Austinite who has never been out dining, it's on Ninth near Lamar.

The dinner is, generally, good. I have the crispy vegie ravioli appetizer which is good. It's too big but I eat it all anyway. FFP and one friend have a fresh tomato, basil and goat cheese salad which they say is great. Friend says it needed more goat cheese. We open a Vosnee Romanee Burgundy during the apps. I have a Cuban pork dish for an entree. We open a 1994 Alexander Silver Oak. All the others have steak. FFP and one friend have ribeyes. Which have too much fat and gristle in the bargain but are otherwise delicious. Other friend has a filet. Everyone is happy. I have a glass of sherry and some desserts are shared (I can only muster one bite). Coffee. The sherry was a mistake. Put me a little over the top.

Still it isn't that late when we get home. I watch a couple of movies. No diamonds discovered, though. I decide to go to bed. FFP is in his office working. I get in bed and flip through game shows on the DVR. Jeopardy is having Kid's Week. I hate it when the kids are smarter than I. FFP comes down and sleep comes. I ate too much (and drank too much). My stomach is a little upset during the night.