AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 2, 2005 — I awake with a start in the wee hours. I've been having a vivid dream about some friends. I feel full from the meal last night and groggy. I've been dreaming that a friend was fired from a job.

I gratefully go back to sleep. It's a dream. When I wake up for real it's getting close to eight. I call Dad. He has company and isn't going to water aerobics. I'm relieved. It doesn't fit in with how I want my day to shape up. As in I want to sit around drinking coffee for a while. Which I proceed to do.

I have coffee while looking at the end of the DVD I fell asleep watching (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring) and more coffee while reading some of yesterday's paper and while plugging away on the computer doing this and that. (Like yesterday's journal and making sure the new month on the journal is working.) Yes, I good off until nearly noon with coffee, still feeling full from last night.

I field a call from my dad during this time. He has gotten blood work for a CAT scan but he isn't sure when his scan is scheduled. I assure him I have his appointment on the calendar and he wants me to call but they aren't always friendly about giving me his info so I get him to call. (I have a medical power of attorney so if it ever gets to be an issue I can do something, but he just doesn't like making phone calls.) Turns out I'm right when he calls back and has called the radiology clinic.

It's time to get out of the house. I decide to go to the gym and then run some errands. I need to find a cartridge for FFP's laser printer and buy some yogurt. My life is full of unmonumental things and I'm glad of it.

I get to the gym. My stomach is upset. I do thirty minutes on the bike and some ab and lower back things and go out into the cold wind to do my errands. FFP needs a toner cartridge for his (rather ancient) Apple Laserwriter. I take the scenic route (Balcones Drive...some paper whites are blooming...and 2222 to Cap. of Texas aka 360). I try Office Max and Office Depot...no luck. I needed some yogurt and should have gone from there to Whole Foods to get it. But I don't have it in me. It's cold and windy and my stomach hurts. I take Braker all the way to Lamar. I haven't driven that stretch, at least not since it was so nicely finished. I note places on Lamar...the YMCA that used to be a racquetball club I belonged to...played many a game there. The Vietnamese sandwich shop and deli that friends have discovered in this stretch that is now Austin's little Viet Nam. Then I spy the target: Toner World. But...they would have to order the toner. If we are doing that, might as well do it online. All for nothing. Oh, I did buy some ink jet labels at Office Depot for another project, but mostly wasted time. The cold wind blows, my stomach hurts. I go home.

And that was it. I won't say I didn't do anything productive the rest of the day. I probably did something. But I made tea and toast and spent a good deal of time sitting and feeling sorry for myself because I didn't feel absolutely perfect with the stomach thing. I reviewed everything I'd eaten the day before. Couldn't figure out a trigger. I kept a food diary forever and never figured it out, what triggered these occasional short-lived bouts of upset stomach, diarrhea, stomach cramps. I never took anything for it. But I think I proved that sitting around doesn't make it go away any faster. FFP had a bit of an upset a couple of days ago so it's possible it's a bug. Who knows? In any case, I finished my book (Grass' expansive novel taking us through the wall coming down and the wrapping of the Reichstag) and read all the papers and watched Monsoon Wedding and game shows and worked the crossword puzzles.

We had tickets to a basketball game but we didn't go. FFP wanted to get some work done on a column. It was cold and windy out. We just didn't care and skipped it. Yeah, and I watched old episodes of Law and Order to avoid the state of the union. I'll catch that in the papers, thank you.

One thing about these periodic bouts of digestive distress that I get...it doesn't seem to matter what I eat or whether I 'take it easy.' I get over it in a day or so in any case. I have looked back in my records, though, and I have a feeling I know what triggers it.

Through all the day...the cold windy gray weather the occasional stomach cramps and feeling out of sorts...I continued to feel that I had made a breakthrough on handling my life and enjoying it. We shall see.