The Visible Woman...November 15, 2003

I will get organized, do the things I've planned (well some of them sort of anyway), catch up on the stacks of paper. I will read the books I want to read. Things will progress. I feel it. I didn't make much progress on it, but....

Some days you feel you can conquer and it is a nice feeling. I don't know why I felt this way today. I conquered not a thing.

It has just got to be true that everyone looks at stuff with different eyes and, from day to day, our own eyes give a different view.

I don't know if it's that I have a day (tomorrow) with no commitments. Who knows what you can accomplish on a such a day. It certainly had nothing to do with today's performance. There are several things I should have gotten to (a haircut, catching up on the papers, mailing some stuff to my niece, starting on some Christmas 'projects') that I didn't even consider doing for very long. Actually, I think starting on some projects can just be depressing because you realize how long it's going to take to finish. Certainly a haircut or a trip to the mailing shop don't fall into that category. Those are errands that can be completed. Of course, you always need another haircut and there is always something to mail it seems. Like the groceries and the laundry and the washing up of dishes, they recur. For that matter Christmas comes around again.

But on this day, while accomplishing little, while reading and working crosswords or wandering about stores looking at things I won't buy I felt that I could move through one set of errands to another and be better for it. It's funny how your brain can unleash a chemical to fool you like that.

on reflection "Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another." Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard	full of possibility I will get organized, do the things I've planned (well some of them sort of anyway), catch up on the stacks of paper. I will read the books I want to read. Things will progress. I feel it. I didn't make much progress on it, but.... Some days you feel you can conquer and it is a nice feeling. I don't know why I felt this way today. I conquered not a thing. It has just got to be true that everyone looks at stuff with different eyes and, from day to day, our own eyes give a different view. I don't know if it's that I have a day (tomorrow) with no commitments. Who knows what you can accomplish on a such a day. It certainly had nothing to do with today's performance. There are several things I should have gotten to (a haircut, catching up on the papers, mailing some stuff to my niece, starting on some Christmas 'projects') that I didn't even consider doing for very long. Actually, I think starting on some projects can just be depressing because you realize how long it's going to take to finish. Certainly a haircut or a trip to the mailing shop don't fall into that category. Those are errands that can be completed. Of course, you always need another haircut and there is always something to mail it seems. Like the groceries and the laundry and the washing up of dishes, they recur. For that matter Christmas comes around again. But on this day, while accomplishing little, while reading and working crosswords or wandering about stores looking at things I won't buy I felt that I could move through one set of errands to another and be better for it. It's funny how your brain can unleash a chemical to fool you like that.
JUST TYPING Do you see the possible Happy times ahead? See things working? Being pleasing? Or do you dread That another day, lurking Proves more uneasing?
		Food Diary. *breakfast* (late) banana, slice of American cheese, small slice of hard salami *lunch* yeast roll and butter fried oysters and tartar sauce and some red sauce black-eyed peas cabbage in tomato sauce a little liver/onions/bacon *snacks* four of five olives, a couple of small cheese cubes, strawberries, carrots, broccoli, some dip, a couple of small glasses of wine *dinner* sandwich with mustard and a couple of slices of turkey bacon and a slice of American cheese a little hot tofu dip and some tortilla chips a few bites of chicken Today I didn't - have a beer with lunch - eat a cornbread muffin as well as the roll at lunch - take too many snacks at the lecture reception - keep eating after I felt stuffed
		Time flies.... Stayed in bed until eight and spent the next hour at the computer, sipping a cup of coffee (thanks, FFP, for using the drip coffee maker). Then off to the club. The big decision is whether to lift today. I try to do weights three times a week. I could do them today or tomorrow. Or both. In the end I do them. The routine I do today is the shorter of the two, I think. When I get home, Dad is there. I show him the coffee and go get a shower. We have coffee and I bolt some snacks and read the paper. SuRu picks us up at noon. We go to Half Price Books. I'm getting some gifts and, of course, end up with a couple of things for myself and Dad buys some things and SuRU, too. And then we head to South Austin. We eat at Threadgill's, drive around the weird neighborhood, stop in at The Living Room. Then we decide to look in Whit Hanks. No one buys anything there. Home again, afternoon is getting on. It's been a leisurely, low-key shopping expedition. FFP elected to go to Central Market and do some writing. FFP and I go, after a bit, to pick up something at the frame shop and to return a DVD and rent a couple of more things since, miraculously, we don't have anywhere to go tomorrow. We have an early evening party for the opera outreach program. We go early to get a parking place. We visit, have some refreshments, listen to the lecture and leave after. It is about half time in the football game (UT vs. Texas Tech). We watch that while eating what comes to hand for dinner. We watch TV and snooze and I dispose of some of the papers by my chair before transferring my dozing to bed.

		Reading. Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship by Jon Meacham. Read this one on the bike. It's a rehash of lots of material, yes, but it is an interesting prospective taking the relationship and correspondence of these two to the forefront. Read today's papers and old papers, too. I can't say that I'm the better for catching up on this stuff. All these Democratic hopefuls, dead soldiers and miscreant captains of industry.
		I didn't and I don't know what it would have been if I had.
		Exercise Thirty-one minutes on recumbent bike. Weights for shoulders, chest and triceps. Thirty minutes on treadmill.
	. .	113/68 68 Today the world seemed warm and sweet and full of possibilities. The weather didn't contribute...cloudy and drizzly. I feel that I will conquer the mess but I don't know why.
	It's a Tangled Web we weave...these days of our lives.	One year ago "There is a red and silver sweater she always wore at Christmas. It really, really reminds me of mother. That makes me sad and I stop." Two years ago "I keep thinking about woulda, coulda, shoulda. Like did I ask if they had a charged cell phone? Why didn't I give them mine?"