The Visible Woman...February 1, 2004

Sure there's a super bowl (lower case intentional). But what I really like about today is there is nothing I have to do and no workmen in my house.

It's your day...how will you spend it?

The quiet makes me realize how I'm coming to hate living with the noise, dust and interruptions. I'm just on edge all the time from it, paralyzed in doing my own things in a way. And I'm unhappy enough with some of the workmanship that I don't even feel good about 'how nice it will be when it finished.' The contractor is going to have to do some fixes to make me look at that bathroom without getting pissed off. He says he will but I don't know. But I enjoy the day with none of these guys traipsing through, no additional dust filtering in (although you can write your name on almost any surface in spite of my dusting and telling the maid to do it).

But today...no appointments, no workmen.

I don't even know who is playing in the stupid bowl. Or who is doing the half time show. Pats and Pans are playing, turns out. (The local newspaper has bowl junk on the front page, burying a story about international flights getting cancelled and one about more bombs in Iraq.)

We stay in bed until nine o'clock. That's something we haven't felt we could do in a long time. We have an actual breakfast. Sort of anyway.

I put on workout clothes and sweats over them. We have an actual breakfast. Sort of anyway.

I sit in my office and enjoy coffee and surfing the WEB. I do some long e-mails to friends. Then I make a spreadsheet of a few of the hotels I'm considering for Paris this summer. I find a good WEB Paris metro map and some cool Michelin maps online.

FFP goes to work out but I don't go until I feel like it. My dad comes over and I just talk to him. When I go to the gym I take as long as I please doing my workout.

A friend comes over and we have dinner (well, tamales and chili and red wine because the souped-up bowl is on and bad food is required even if you don't really watch it). She and I surf the WEB for computer prices, watch QE for the Straight Guy. Off and on the bowl gets a bit of viewing.

FFP tapes Sex in the City and The L Word and he and I watch the tape in the old living room after my friend leaves. Many piles of boxes and furniture that belongs in the bedroom crowds an already smallish room. We do this because the VCR in the big room is broken. I have a new one but I'm waiting for the dust to settle (literally) to install it.

The overcrowded room feels cozy somehow, watching the tape on an antique Sony TV. I seem to long for the house before all the remodels. Silly, I know.

It turns out that I wouldn't spend my day getting my office in order or controlling the newspaper pile. That I wouldn't do a lot of things on my 'to do' list like doing the family budget.

But I felt good at the end of the day that I'd had a break from something gnawing at me. Remodels are like that. But as I fell asleep I thought of the task of ushering my dad around Seton tomorrow for his procedure and it made me tired.

	LB's day off Sure there's a super bowl (lower case intentional). But what I really like about today is there is nothing I have to do and no workmen in my house. It's your day...how will you spend it? The quiet makes me realize how I'm coming to hate living with the noise, dust and interruptions. I'm just on edge all the time from it, paralyzed in doing my own things in a way. And I'm unhappy enough with some of the workmanship that I don't even feel good about 'how nice it will be when it finished.' The contractor is going to have to do some fixes to make me look at that bathroom without getting pissed off. He says he will but I don't know. But I enjoy the day with none of these guys traipsing through, no additional dust filtering in (although you can write your name on almost any surface in spite of my dusting and telling the maid to do it). But today...no appointments, no workmen. I don't even know who is playing in the stupid bowl. Or who is doing the half time show. Pats and Pans are playing, turns out. (The local newspaper has bowl junk on the front page, burying a story about international flights getting cancelled and one about more bombs in Iraq.) We stay in bed until nine o'clock. That's something we haven't felt we could do in a long time. We have an actual breakfast. Sort of anyway. I put on workout clothes and sweats over them. We have an actual breakfast. Sort of anyway. I sit in my office and enjoy coffee and surfing the WEB. I do some long e-mails to friends. Then I make a spreadsheet of a few of the hotels I'm considering for Paris this summer. I find a good WEB Paris metro map and some cool Michelin maps online. FFP goes to work out but I don't go until I feel like it. My dad comes over and I just talk to him. When I go to the gym I take as long as I please doing my workout. A friend comes over and we have dinner (well, tamales and chili and red wine because the souped-up bowl is on and bad food is required even if you don't really watch it). She and I surf the WEB for computer prices, watch QE for the Straight Guy. Off and on the bowl gets a bit of viewing. FFP tapes Sex in the City and The L Word and he and I watch the tape in the old living room after my friend leaves. Many piles of boxes and furniture that belongs in the bedroom crowds an already smallish room. We do this because the VCR in the big room is broken. I have a new one but I'm waiting for the dust to settle (literally) to install it. The overcrowded room feels cozy somehow, watching the tape on an antique Sony TV. I seem to long for the house before all the remodels. Silly, I know. It turns out that I wouldn't spend my day getting my office in order or controlling the newspaper pile. That I wouldn't do a lot of things on my 'to do' list like doing the family budget. But I felt good at the end of the day that I'd had a break from something gnawing at me. Remodels are like that. But as I fell asleep I thought of the task of ushering my dad around Seton tomorrow for his procedure and it made me tired.
I love Metro maps and imagining myself with a couple of carnets of tickets wandering aimlessly about Paris. I made this little out take to review one hotel's location in my hotel search. I don't think I'm going to pick the hotel near the Grands Boulevards metro station, though.
JUST TYPING You live for days off. But then how do you spend them?
		Food Diary. *breakfast* scrambled eggs and cheese two slices turkey bacon Product 19, spoon of sugar, two percent milk *lunch* nothing *snacks* Clementine tortilla chips, cheese and hot sauce *dinner* several tamales and chili with chips, cheese, hot sauce and green onions too many glasses red wine [Hey...Super Bowl was the excuse.] Today I - didn't really want breakfast...it just kind of happened.
		Time flies.... Slept until nine. Fooled around with my computer until after one. Journal, e-mails, phone calls, breakfast, coffee, surfing. My dad came over and we talked. He said he came over because people asked him to lunch at Souper Salads and he didn't want to go. That's not like him. He told them he "had promised to go to his daughter's" and "he didn't want to lie" so he came over. He wouldn't stay for dinner or the Super Bowl because it would 'go too late.' I went to the gym and did a workout on my own schedule. I came home and a friend came over and we watched part of the Stupid Bowl, ate, surfed the WEB, watched Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Early (9:something) I started to worry about how early I had to get up. But I stayed up watching tapes of Sex in the City and The L Word.

		Reading. Newspapers. The Conquerers by Michael Beschloss. (I actually am not making a lot of progress on this one. Because I don't take it to the gym.) Omaha Beach; A Flawed Victory by Adrian R. Lewis. (This one seems to have about twenty pages of ideas spread over hundreds of pages. But I will finish it. It's a tad repetitive.)
		nothing
		Exercise twenty-five minutes on the rowing ergometer leg, back and bicep exercises twenty-two minutes on the recumbent bike
	. .	mood is improving, I think, but taking my dad for this procedure tomorrow is a downer
	It's a Tangled Web we weave...these days of our lives.	One year ago "I flip on the TV. Horrible. Still we had a party to give. A party to raise money to help people living with a tragedy of their own, HIV and AIDS." Two years ago "At some point we invent a pun for an epitaph for me: "Käse Raw Syrah." This represents, of course, my love of cheese, uncooked food and wine and a certain 'whatever' attitude."