Wednesday

Oct, 24, 2001

online persona

We get up and go to the club this morning. Again. For the second day I read The New York Times front section (also again, but today's edition), beginning with the front page and reading every word to distract me from the pedaling on the bike. Reading the corrections is so amusing. Regret over saying Harrison Ford planned Hans Solo instead of Han Solo.

I try to get myself into the right mode to go to work and do good things. Or, at least, do no harm. That comes. I do OK. I think.

Pineapple Girl. She has an online journal although she doesn't seem to update much lately. (This is because she is unemployed or out of sorts with her ISP or something. Or all of it.) I'm so strident about that. I guess I'm afraid I'll like somebody's journal and will get interested in his life and then he will quit. (Note use of his/he in a non-gender unisex way since I am mostly talking about Pineapple Girl. Anyway, I guess by linking to journals and journal lists, I've gotten FFP interested in other journals and he found this one in Austin. And he wants to get together for dinner. She's young and cute. We aren't surprised. And, of course, he invites her. Works for me. Dinner at the Seasons and a chance to see Rebecca (haven't seen her since I got back from air travel hell).

For the record, I'm still not promoting my journal. Still not. A bunch of journal writers went to Chicago and met each other some time this month. I officially wouldn't do that. Also for the record, most of the journals I read have creators that I wouldn't mind meeting, having dinner with, tipping a glass with. For sure. But I wouldn't prioritize to spend a weekend with them, I don't think. And I don't want to promote getting more readers. I need to think someone is reading (me, later?), but I know a couple of friends do and FFP does, too. (That's gotta be strange. To his credit he doesn't usually correct me or send me notes about typos, grammar and spelling although I bet he's occasionally tempted. Aren't you, sweetie?)

Occasionally my sister says I never tell her what I'm up to and I consider saying, "Geez, my life is an open book." But I don't. I don't think she has figured out my site well enough to navigate here or maybe AOL blocks it. (Wouldn't that be a good thing!)

So, yeah, I'm officially conflicted about having a journal even as I count down the days until I can say that I posted an entry every day for an entire year.

It makes as much sense as anything else.

We stand in the bar and wait for the Girl. I won't use her name because she doesn't use real names on the site. FFP has tried to get John to watch her car. You can always get the valets to park your car. Watching means no ticket, just a little tip for the valet and your car is right there when you are ready for it. They gladly 'watch' really fancy cars. But they will watch our Honda because they are our buddies.

While waiting we meet and greet some people we know and I have some insipid Pinot by the glass. (Should have saved myself for the wine to come.)

The Girl parks in the garage so she doesn't get her car watched. We go to the dining room and go over the food ideas with Travis. The bats fly and we go outside. Instead of flying over the middle of the lake or even close to the south shore, they are banking up and over the hotel. You can smell them. Yuck. We go back inside quickly. They are better at a slightly more discrete distance. I can see them streaming out through the window behind FFP's head.

We share tuna tartare and the appetizer sampler which has a lovely fish cake, a delicious quesadilla and some beautiful rare beef. We are drinking a Cambria Pinot Noir and it's delicious.

We share a blackened shrimp app, too.

I have a duck confit special app for an entreé. It is wrapped up in a perfect little empanada thing but isn't as good as the other apps. We share a couple of the soufflé desserts, but I'm too full already. We are having Caymus Conundrum (2000) with the dessert. It doesn't start out as stellar as Conundrums past. But it warms up and picks up the nuances of the various varietals and starts tasting like a dessert itself. Good idea for drinking with or instead of dessert.

Rebecca is playing when we get to the bar. She tells us to introduce ourselves to Michael who is a playwright who is writing a play with Bud Shrake. Something was in the newspaper about it Rebecca says. I may read that one day. (Did I mention three piles of papers going on two feet high?) He is a Texan. But he lives in London. We all agree that we will go to London to see the opening of the play in June. There are worse reasons to go to London. (Work comes to mind.)

So Michael and The Girl and FFP and I talk and laugh and have a nightcap and listen to Rebecca and talk to her on her break. Michael wisely goes to bed.

We, not so wisely, go to the Cloak Room to meet The Girl's friend (code name Beav) who has refused to come to Seasons to meet us. The Cloak Room is pretty empty. Then again, it is very late and the legislature is probably not in session. The Capitol grounds are closed and there appear to be Capitol Police (or is that Capital Police...do they guard the building or the city?) at each entrance. We have some club soda. And finally go home. We aren't usually out this late. (Thank goodness.)

I fall into bed. Heavy with the hour and the wine and food. Ah, life is good. If, as my dad says, you don't weaken.

In war news: our allies want us to stop bombing for Ramadan. I officially don't think it matters if we bomb or don't bomb. The world is going to hell and always has been. We've been in a never-ending war, this world. Forever. Lucky us to be far from the front until recently. We haven't been near the front, really, in ages. Now we are. Sort of. But not. The former site of the WTC seems like the front. If you got anthrax, it feels like the front. Otherwise we just keep eating, drinking, driving, working, getting up to shining days. Noticing a little change here and there. One entrance only to the National Guard camp nearby is open. The grounds of the Capitol closed and watched. But we aren't dodging bullets or bombs. If the enemy comes, he comes from some unknown spot. So we relax a bit and go on with it.

So should we bomb during Ramadan? Should we bomb during the day when they aren't eating or during the night when they are eating. (And having sex and stuff which they also aren't supposed to do during the day. I wonder if they stone women to death during the day or hold off on that?)

Let's just do covert operations then. And fly the planes over with food, Elvis tapes, sun lamps. Oh, also, one of my buddies says to drop sanitary napkins. You know that nobody is bothering with these. Hey...how about birth control pills? Maybe we should drop food with additives that make you sterile and eventually end it all by stopping procreation.

(If you are thinking about writing me rude comments vis-a-vis the above, forget it. I didn't want you reading this anyway, remember? Go away. Have whatever religion you please. Make it a tenet of that religion to eschew online journals especially this one.)

tuna tartare on cucumber carpaccio

our new friend Pineapple Girl is officially beautiful...I'm showing her picture because, although she is anonymous name-wise on her site, she does show her picture there

I didn't realize we were following Pineapple Girl when I took this picture...I cut out the license plate...I'm not outing her that much.

still doing memories of my long weekend as a tourist here as part of the video portion

Santa Maria Novella...my first hotel in Florence this trip is on the left

detail of the marble front

interesting symbol in the green and white marble

"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace..."

John Lennon, "Imagine"

Meta:
We'll just be keeping Lennon's radical lyrics here indefinitely until I have the wherewithal to look for quotes. What do you want from me?

JUST TYPING
Reading an online journal.
Like peeking in lighted windows.
Living inside the journal.
Oblivious.
Like someone unaware of the effect.