The Visible Woman...November 4, 2003

Yesterday I was a little down, I admit it Today I just felt 'why feel bad?' Things happen, change and morph. That's the world. And who should complain if they are playing tennis, shopping for high-end goods or drinking wine and eating cheese? Not to mention that the little allergy headache didn't develop and is gone.

Sometimes the morass is just the mess it is and depresses you and sometimes it's a blessing. I mean you can look at the stack of newspapers as an embarrassing artifact or a bunch of good reading. You can look at the hard disk crash as a horrible event or a learning experience.

Yesterday FFP's request that I find a nice present for a client's twentieth anniversary seemed burdensome. I didn't mind an errand but what to buy? Figuring out new schemes for using the computers on the network (after one had a hard drive crash) and all that seemed a big pain. I was afraid that my 'victim' for West Austin News (the person I'd written an article about) would find much to change in the piece.

Today just shaped up. It's hard to hear about all the people dying in Iraq, of course, but it only serves to put things in perspective.

I'm glad, for today anyway, that I have the papers to enjoy. I went to a high end gift shop where I got some beautiful Italian wine tumblers and a carafe for the anniversary honorees and then went to Grape Vine Market and scored their last bottle of a twenty-year-old Fonseca Tawny Port which is supposedly tasting good and had that nice tie-in with the twentieth anniversary. I felt good about this gift. Appreciated or not, a best effort on my part and coming in under the generous budget FFP set for his client (and our friends) for more than the twenty years.

I'm glad I have friends running risky 501-Cs to bring us entertainment and that they come here for board meetings, bring us gifts, talk the talk and bring wine and cheese. A venue crisis is just an adventure in researching venues.

My allergies (slight thought they may have been from yesterday) are gone entirely. I'm resolved to the demise of the one computer's hard drive (and think I've found all the backups and put all its software somewhere else).

And my 'victim' for the writing exercise wrote back with only a correction of punctuation that FFP also had given me.

Yeah, life is good. The lotto ticket didn't come to anything, of course. My little streak of 'luck' ran out...or did it?

art in the convention center "Pity would be no more, If we didi not make somebody poor; And Mercy no more could be, If all were as happy as we.." William Blake, The Human Abstract	why feel bad? Yesterday I was a little down, I admit it Today I just felt 'why feel bad?' Things happen, change and morph. That's the world. And who should complain if they are playing tennis, shopping for high-end goods or drinking wine and eating cheese? Not to mention that the little allergy headache didn't develop and is gone. Sometimes the morass is just the mess it is and depresses you and sometimes it's a blessing. I mean you can look at the stack of newspapers as an embarrassing artifact or a bunch of good reading. You can look at the hard disk crash as a horrible event or a learning experience. Yesterday FFP's request that I find a nice present for a client's twentieth anniversary seemed burdensome. I didn't mind an errand but what to buy? Figuring out new schemes for using the computers on the network (after one had a hard drive crash) and all that seemed a big pain. I was afraid that my 'victim' for West Austin News (the person I'd written an article about) would find much to change in the piece. Today just shaped up. It's hard to hear about all the people dying in Iraq, of course, but it only serves to put things in perspective. I'm glad, for today anyway, that I have the papers to enjoy. I went to a high end gift shop where I got some beautiful Italian wine tumblers and a carafe for the anniversary honorees and then went to Grape Vine Market and scored their last bottle of a twenty-year-old Fonseca Tawny Port which is supposedly tasting good and had that nice tie-in with the twentieth anniversary. I felt good about this gift. Appreciated or not, a best effort on my part and coming in under the generous budget FFP set for his client (and our friends) for more than the twenty years. I'm glad I have friends running risky 501-Cs to bring us entertainment and that they come here for board meetings, bring us gifts, talk the talk and bring wine and cheese. A venue crisis is just an adventure in researching venues. My allergies (slight thought they may have been from yesterday) are gone entirely. I'm resolved to the demise of the one computer's hard drive (and think I've found all the backups and put all its software somewhere else). And my 'victim' for the writing exercise wrote back with only a correction of punctuation that FFP also had given me. Yeah, life is good. The lotto ticket didn't come to anything, of course. My little streak of 'luck' ran out...or did it?
JUST TYPING [To the tune of "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story] I fell lucky Oh so lucky I feel lucky and witty and hey I sure pity The unlucky in the world today I feel happy Oh so happy It's scary how happy I feel [Well, you get the idea.]
		Food Diary. *breakfast* banana, rather late lunch [Mario's Deli] Reuben sandwich and chips, still later...about 2:30 *snacks* crackers, baguette, goat cheese, other cheeses, chicken salad, mucho wine *dinner* none or else the snacks were dinner Today I didn't - eat enough fruits and vegies
		Time flies.... I spent time on backups again and then went to the club for a 9:30 tennis match. (Yeah, how lucky is that?) I went to the gym after that and then home to do various things before going out for errands and a sandwich for a late lunch. By the time I showered up and got a pile of newspapers out of the big room (hey...shut up I recycled some of them and the stack in my office is only two feet high), people arrived for a board meeting of Austin Cabaret Theater. When that finished up we watched the end of Kiss Me Kate and watched some of the Spencer Tunick documentary on the tube. Then I worked on the journal a bit and it was suddenly after 11PM. FFP and I both had to clean up the floor after Chalow's first ever 'I cannot resist knocking over the trashcan and digging around' event. She looked sheepish with coffee grounds on her snout.

		Reading. I forgot the book I was actually reading and when I was in the gym I read Daybook, The Journal of an Artist by Anne Truitt. I always keep books in the car. This is a very interesting journal by a visual artist at work.ris in Mind ed. by Jennifer Lee
		Writing? No...I'm going to spend my life backing up and copying files and installing software and whatever. But it is OK, it really is. I did reread my piece for West Austin News again.
		Exercise over an hour losing at tennis (2-6, 1-6) thrity-three minutes on recumbent bike some abs and stretches
	.	OK...I feel good and dead hard drives and coffee grounds on the floor and piles of newspapers just aren't going to change that. [Ed. note...whoa that made the house sound like one of those scary places they dig through after the demise of the occupants.]
	It's a Tangled Web we weave...these days of our lives.	One year ago "I haven't really worked up much of an appetite because I ate a late lunch. But I decide to stuff myself at the Potato Counter. .." Two years ago " wondered why we had not one, not two but three jars of mustard." An Interesting Link This really rocks...a place to find the book you want and a good price.