AUSTIN, Texas, August 6, 2005 — We didn't socialize with anyone yesterday although we were organizing social events for later in August. We have a social event (dinner) with six other people that we organized for tonight with Dad and some of our friends.

I get up a little late, after eight, because the dog is begging to go out. FFP already let her out but I let her out again. I don't go back to bed. I get some coffee, answer some e-mail, sit at the computer doing who knows what.

I call Dad around nine-thirty and remind him of the dinner tonight. One of my friends has offered to drive him, he says. He says he went

to the drug store and now he's doing laundry. I need another cup of coffee and decide that is my signal to go to the club. I make up the bed and go.

My workout is over fifty minutes on the bike. I decided that if I was going to start reading books again I should dispose of the papers faster so I tried to keep myself from reading all the articles or reading them to the end. This is easier with some things than others. The world is a strange place. People are ambused and killed, there are riots in the Sudan and coups in Mauritania and starvation in the Niger. The Koreans cloned a dog and Martha Stewart was busted for going to yoga and riding a utility vehicle around her property.

After the bike I do some exercises for the abs and lower back and af few weight things. Need to do more. But FFP has headed home to make lunch so I go home, too, because I'm hungry. We have some chips and tofu dip and fish tacos. A bit later I finish the tabouli.

I get a shower and watch a feature for the AFF screening. I think maybe a friend will come and we will go see a show of Julie Speed etchings at this place on the east side but I call her and she is busy getting her house tidy for a potential buyer.

I watch some more movies and read a little. And soon it is time to go socialize. One of our friends has spent all day in a painting class, standing up on concrete, and bails out with a backahe. We go to the restaurant when another friend stops by to ride with us. When we get there my dad is there with my friend who drove him and another couple. We settle in to peruse the Chez Zee menu which is long. I settle on sea bass with pasta. I have a salad before and FFP orders some of those fried pickles they are famous for but I get distracted by the bread and olive oil and wine and never eat one. Some people have desserts. I have a cup of black coffee.

We talk a lot about Italy where the other couple recently visited (and her parents hail from) and where one friend is going in September and where my other friend and I went in 1975 together, almost thirty years ago. Different perspectives. Dad sits at the other end, having a steak and nursing a short glass of wine. He seems to be doing well although he does have his cane and he got sort of tired sitting in the hard chairs that long I could tell.

At home, I read a bit and we watch some TV and then I pop in a few more films to review.

Finally, FFP has been asleep in the bed behind me with the movies playing and the lights in the room blazing. I switch everything off, ease the dog awake (she obediently stretches and goes around Forrest to get to 'her side' of the bed) and go to sleep myself.

Today was the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The sixtieth. Sixty years ago when I wasn't alive this happened. Passing note is made in the papers while scores of dead U.S. servicemen and Iraqis dying grab the headlines. The killing never stops, does it? Why do we expect it to? Because most of us, as individuals, can't imagine killing someone. That's why.