Tuesday, November 26, 2002

this postcard of an amusement park once sold on ebay and it amuses me

"...we are in the end tempted to divide mankind into a minority (a minimality) of those who know how to make much of little, and a majority of those who know how to make little of much."

Nietzshce

[I'd say, given this journal, that I'm in the minority!]

I am a bit of a slug this morning, but once I'm up I do dash around and clean the dishes, the bed, start the wash and take out the trash. I do so many more domestic chores these days. The impact on the neatness and cleanliness of the house isn't obvious, though. This stuff got done befoe just not by me. And there are still all my piles around that need going through, filing, discarding. The guest room is uninhabitable. Of course, my being around means more dirty dishes and more messes. I'm just cleaning up after myself.

I finish up a couple of computer things, do some e-mail and organize my To Do list. I can't believe it, but there are still things we need from the grocery store. I've gone from someone who never sets foot in the store to someone who is there every day.

So yeah, I'm going to go to the health club and then stop off at the grocery store. Boring. But I keep delaying going because it's raining hard. I have nothing else to do today so I can wait out the rain. And I do.

At the club, it's quiet. I finish my book (Art of Travel by Alain de Botton) on the bike. I do some leg exercises. I notice for the first time really how the glass-enclosed exercise room helps create a real panorama of the lake. I have one of my dizzy spells. These aren't new but they've been weird lately. I have one at the grocery store, too. A little vertigo but it passes. I take my time at the store, checking prices and figuring out where everything is. I leave with mushrooms, zucchini, yellow squash, sweet potatoes, milk, bananas, apples, lemon juice, and some kind of cleaner. How can we need so many things from the store? Because we haven't been going out, that's how.

In front of me in the checkout line, the patron gives back a six pack of Rolling Rock beer and some parchment paper when she doesn't have enough cash. For some reason my groceries are only $17 or something. No beer.

Back home FFP helps me unload the groceries and I dodge around the maid who is, of course, just at that moment trying to vacuum my office. I work on various projects, send e-mails, talk on the phone and watch some movie channel stuff including Fantastic Voyage. Wow, that was a good one, huh?

The day just seems to float away. The book I just finished gets me interested in a couple of writers, one from the eighteenth and another from the nineteenth century. I spend a few minutes checking out books on Amazon and at Powell's (City of Books) but, in the end, just put stuff on my wish list. I don't really expect anyone to buy me the things on it. I just put them there for my own reference.

Yeah...the day slips away. E-mails, phone calls, about nothing much. I clean up a few things but I don't really dig into any of my tasks. There isn't anything on TV in the evening. Well maybe there is but we don't search too hard. I eat something and read the paper and, mostly, don't pay a lot of attention as the TV goes about its business and I read papers and work a crossword.

JUST TYPING
Cold.
Rain for a change.
A nice break.
One doesn't feel so sad.
When the rain comes.
When one is free.
When the sun shines.