I've been right here at my desk when I wasn't having lunch with some friends, people I met soon after moving to Austin in 1975. I wasn't married and they weren't either when we met. Their oldest daughter, a Sr., dined with us. They don't live here anymore so it's good to get together.

I've been at the gym, too, trying to make my goal of 300 aerobic points a week. They are assigned in this fashion. One point for one minute on the recumbent bike or treadmill or rowing machine. Ten points for playing doubles tennis and ten points for the water aerobics hour class. I also try to get twenty or thirty weight-lifting points. How these are awarded in my internal accounting would bore you. I did OK last week. This week is a disaster.

I've been right here at my desk, out of your view, doing searches and such. I discovered a way to surf and benefit charity and I made my first use of Amazon's capability of searching the full text of a book. They had the book I finished, The Power of One, and I knew it made reference to South Africa's black sash society and I wanted to find the reference. Very cool. The WEB is a wonderful place sometimes.

While I was out of your view I've also been reading (in addition to the stacks of newspapers, of course) Breaking The Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel Dennett. I read an excoriating review of it in The New York Times, too. I have high hopes for this book as an aid to explaining things I observe in the world and am mystified by.

We went to a concert in someone's house while I was hiding, too. Piano, violin, viola, cello group called the Texas Piano Quartet. Quite wonderful. Good food and a lot of the usual suspects at the party. The house is on Congress Avenue. There are three houses on Congress between 8th and 9th that have street level entrances to multi-level homes in old storefronts. I've been in all of them, but one is kind of faded in my memory...it was a home tour and I've only been there once. It's a great location if you wanted to, say, go to the Paramount.

Anything else interesting? Well, our sink got stopped up and my head exploded with sinus pressure and a runny nose. The jury is still out on whether decongestants and Airborne and Orange Juice have righted my ship. I hate being sick but I actually 'stayed home sick' today. It was kind of busy around here, though. Dad came by for help with his passport renewal. The handy people came by. Johnny Rooter upstopped the kitchen sink drain. A locksmith changed the knob on the front door. Our bookkeeper met with another client in the living room to avoid doing it in a Starbucks. A delivery man brought stuff from the CPA on the taxes. I spent a fair amount of time hiding in my office or the bedroom, nursing my splitting head with coffee, tea, OJ. I didn't eat too much. Not much appetite.

While you weren't watching, I tried some new tactics for getting control of my stuff and sorted through a drawer in our breakfront that no one had cleaned forever.

I don't know if there is a relationship to cleaning out drawers and such, but I got rather unreasonably depressed while I wasn't reporting in.

I went to two events while I was absent from the WEB that were to honor us (and many others) for doing some charity work. One was in advance to doing these charity events and the other was a sort of milestone party for a capital campaign. They were both nice and we met some nice people at one and enjoyed having dinner at the most amazing dining table in Austin at the other. But it occurs to me that a lot of energy goes into all these 'events' for charity, especially those that just butter up volunteers. But so it should be, I guess, and always will be.

I haven't been ignoring movies either although I haven't been to the theater. (FFP saw a new IMAX show at the Bob Bullock, but that was my sick day.) I caught bits of The Up Side of Anger (not as lame as most Kevin Cosner movies) and In Good Company (not as lame as most romantic comedies). And I did watch The Power of One. (Not as good as the book, but still interesting.)

I have been trying to use my free time not posting every day doing some organization. I've just about finished the family budget for February. I had parts of my desk cleaned off. For a while. Until I got into organizing stuff there. Now it's covered again. So it goes. This falls into the category of "it's still a mess but it's a different mess."

While I was away and free associating in my own private journal I wrote this: "My life is so darn good. But there are things that I just can't do. Like solicit strangers. And wear ball gowns." Actually, I've worn those gowns but hope I never do it again.

While I was sneaking around Austin without reporting in, I went to a lovely performance of the Austin Cabaret Theater. Sandra Reaves-Phillips gave a powerful performance.

During my sabbatical from daily posting I learned some things about myself that I'd rather not know.

I spent an entire day from 7AM to after 7PM going to Ft. Worth and seeing Gaugin and the Impressionists at the Kimball and prowling around the Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth. We were the youngest people on the bus, save the tour organizer and the driver. We had fun, though. Who knew that Gaugin was an Impressionist before the post thing?

I didn't understand this warning on the bus, but felt I should.

I also was under the radar, visiting a very old haunt on East 6th (Old Pecan Street Cafe) and going through the Christo and Jeanne-Claude exhibit from the Wurth collection again (at AMOA).

So. Yeah. I was doing stuff. Only not telling you about it. Whatever.