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Austin, TEXAS, January 16, 2006 One likes to feel that she is moving forward. That she is getting healthier, getting her chores under control, getting things organized, becoming smarter and wiser. I think when one retires, one also takes leisure more seriously. And sometimes elevates it to a duty. ("I'm going to see as many Oscar contender movies as I can.") Certainly one hopes one will read more books and get more exercise with all that free time. And when I retired I intended to spend more time with my dad. But the world spins out of control. Time goes faster than your organization attempts. Time bubbles around everything, consuming you. |
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Everything seemed hopeless and tawdry today. Decay seemed to be all around. I couldn't rid myself of old baggage fast enough.
I did water aerobics with my dad today. When he'd gone to the locker room, I went and changed and got a schedule of things I'd scheduled for him in February and put it on his car. The trouble with water aerobics (and tennis with the women of a certain age) is that I enjoy it but the hour (or for tennis the hour and a half or two) doesn't really count as exercise. Not like time spent in the weight room or doing a solid aerobic thing. Today I did forty minutes on the recumbent bike after but that's all. So I'd been at the club a couple of hours and that's all I'd accomplished. My ladies of a certain age are trying to push me into playing two days a week as their compatriots drop out with knee and hip replacements. I'm resisting, trying to be a sub and not do this as much so I'll get to the gym. And of course my diet is so bad that I have to exercise like a banshee so that I don't weight three hundred pounds.
FFP and I foolishly thought we'd catch the movie Syriana at a matinee at the mall. You should have seen the line to buy tickets. We left. We soothed ourselves by going to the bookstore, but I was sleepy (I've been staying up too late) and really if I was going to be thinking about books I should have been just reading one of the ones I'm in the middle of. Sigh.
I went through my tablecloths and napkins and votices and vases and table decorations for the party early next month. Everything seemed not quite right. Having abdicated cooking, I imagine that setting the tables delightfully will be a piece of cake but nothing quite looks right and I don't won't to buy anything.
I wasted time today watching tennis and The Golden Globes. Although I did read some newspapers while half-watching. TV is a big waste of time. Especially award shows. Why don't I just look at the highlights in the morning and see who won? I've also decided that crossword puzzles and other puzzles are a waste of time. If I want to challenge my brain why don't I learn something. Maybe I'll limit myself to the daily New York Times puzzles and quit the first day I can't finish.
At one point today, FFP was looking for our copy of In Cold Blood. I'd verified in our database that we had one copy, a Signet paperback. But I'd rememebered owning a hardback. I guess it's long gone. Anyway, we were searching around (we finally found it) and it just made me realize how little of the organization and such that I was going to do in retirement is actually getting done. There are piles of books everywhere and we seem powerless to get rid of some. I had pulled up the beginning article in the series of four that was printed in The New Yorker from the DVDs. But, of course, I only found time to read a paragraph or two.
I stayed up too late. I tried to read myself to sleep with my book. But I tossed and turned. Disturbed by how many things I needed to do around the house and how everyone and everything is spiraling toward decay and there is nothing I can do to stop it. When I'm in these moods, I know that there is another side to the hill, a place where I consider decay and change fun and challenge and learning and necessary. But it doesn't mean that I feel any better, lying sleepless in the wee hours or dreaming of large houses with many decaying corners.
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A bookshelf that needs cleaning and sorting. |
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