AUSTIN, Texas, September 12, 2005 —I find when I'm a little depressed that it helps to make myself real busy with something. And not doing things that are too passive either, like reading or watching TV.

Today when we got up FFP's AC wasn't working. We have the house on three zones to heat and cool. This one cools his office. We thought it might have frozen up. Two days another zone did this. He called a serviceman but also cut it off and went to work out.

I should have gone for a workout. But I stayed home puzzling idly over my depression

until time for water aerobics. I took clothes and my bag so I could shower and go directly to a meeting we'd scheduled. I got out of the water a little early and got my shower and got dressed. I got to the coffee shop where the meeting was scheduled early and got a bagel and cream cheese and some black coffee. FFP came from the house and he saw a friend of ours who runs a downtown bar when we came in. He says the smoking ordinance was killing him. Some bars weren't enforcing the rule and the smokers were all going there. The guys we were having the meeting with showed up and we e had a longish meeting. It was about financial stuff, but it wasn't too depressing. Sometimes these things can be depressing. As we were saying goodbye a friend came by. Someone we worked with years and years ago. We talked a bit.

At home I decided to get very busy doing something to get my mind off my depression. Actually, my depression is already gone. I know...maybe I should volunteer for Katrina relief so I would feel like I was doing something about the world's problems. But I am leaving town next week (yikes!) and don't feel I have enough hours to volunteer to do anyone any good. I do plan to try to do a little good in Cape Town. When one visits my friend Mags, it is inescapable because she is a great doer of good herself as are many of her friends whom I'll visit. Last time I got to do a few things to help around a care home for disabled people. I installed a phone answering machine that one of the social workers could use who is blind.

But today I get busy with self-centered activities. Actually they center on FFP more than me. While I'm gone, he will need to have backups and such go on and to handle technical stuff I usually do when I'm here. We have a family calendar in html and I usually update it. I need to fix him up to update it on his setup on his machine. His backups of masses of his files to my computer occur every night automatically and also we back up really important stuff over the Internet to a service automatically. But he needs to be sure these things are working, do some deletion of older backups, know how to use them in an emergency. I usually log on to some financial pages to check things and I need to be sure he knows how to do the ones I've been responsible for. I start down the list doing these things. It's surprisingly time-consuming to do these things, particularly when you get stuck into organizing your records of stuff and such. I also clean out the area in front of my computer and that takes time deciding how to deal with the stuff. I get a couple of things checked off the list of stuff to do. I spend time creating a document showing him how to use my machine in a pinch if something goes wrong with his. The only problem with this effort is that I keep adding things to the end of the list that I think of while I'm working on it.

I eat a late lunch of soup and sandwich. I work the crossword in The New York Times. I love the Monday puzzle which I can finish. It's a foolish love, but what love isn't? We have a meeting downtown at five. We make the meeting and I have only a little of the food (excellent) and a bottle of water but then I foolishly have some champagne and wine. (Yeah, cool meeting.) It is Dining for Life night wherein restaurants give a percentage of the proceeds to AIDS Services Austin. We have chosen the new downtown Starlite for our 'generosity.' (Yeah, I do know that it a pretty selfish way to be generous.) We are wandering down Fourth Street when we hear a familiar voice singing. It's our friend Kevin at Cedar Street. We delay dinner for an hour and go hear him.

Starlite Downtown is stunning. They moved (or added a location?) from 34th Street. The short wine list had a wonderful if expensive Pinot by the glass. My salad and my duck were first rate. I tasted FFP's Halibut and we couldn't decide which entree was better. There were three other tables working where people we knew were 'dining for life.' Service was a little pokey but we went around talking to people and didn't mind too much. Also, they gave us bread and butter and a bread plate and we ate the bread and they took the plates away before the entrees came. A mix up? Or a limit on bread? (I could do well if restaurants would impose such limits but I'm just sayiing.) Anyway, I loved the food and the place has a lovely ambiance and I'll go back.

We walked down to Sullivan's Ringside to see if our buddy Kevin was still there and he was entertaining some friends with stories. They were leaving soon, though, and so we went home. Kevin said he was coming over to watch the Sinatra duets DVD, but I didn't believe him. We walked back to our car a few blocks away and went home. Kevin was in the driveway when we got home. So we watched the DVD. We were falling asleep. Myself I had a bit too much to drink...several glasses of wine over the long evening and a Guinness at Cedar Street. When Kev left, I feel into bed. I wasn't depressed anymore although I can hardly point to great accomplishment.