Austin, TEXAS, January 16, 2006 — One likes to feel that she is moving forward. That she is getting healthier, getting her chores under control, getting things organized, becoming smarter and wiser. I think when one retires, one also takes leisure more seriously. And sometimes elevates it to a duty. ("I'm going to see as many Oscar contender movies as I can.") Certainly one hopes one will read more books and get more exercise with all that free time. And when I retired I intended to spend more time with my dad.

But the world spins out of control. Time goes faster than your organization attempts. Time bubbles around everything, consuming you.

Everything seemed hopeless and tawdry today. Decay seemed to be all around. I couldn't rid myself of old baggage fast enough.

I did water aerobics with my dad today. When he'd gone to the locker room, I went and changed and got a schedule of things I'd scheduled for him in February and put it on his car. The trouble with water aerobics (and tennis with the women of a certain age) is that I enjoy it but the hour (or for tennis the hour and a half or two) doesn't really count as exercise. Not like time spent in the weight room or doing a solid aerobic thing. Today I did forty minutes on the recumbent bike after but that's all. So I'd been at the club a couple of hours and that's all I'd accomplished. My ladies of a certain age are trying to push me into playing two days a week as their compatriots drop out with knee and hip replacements. I'm resisting, trying to be a sub and not do this as much so I'll get to the gym. And of course my diet is so bad that I have to exercise like a banshee so that I don't weight three hundred pounds.

FFP and I foolishly thought we'd catch the movie Syriana at a matinee at the mall. You should have seen the line to buy tickets. We left. We soothed ourselves by going to the bookstore, but I was sleepy (I've been staying up too late) and really if I was going to be thinking about books I should have been just reading one of the ones I'm in the middle of. Sigh.

I went through my tablecloths and napkins and votices and vases and table decorations for the party early next month. Everything seemed not quite right. Having abdicated cooking, I imagine that setting the tables delightfully will be a piece of cake but nothing quite looks right and I don't won't to buy anything.

I wasted time today watching tennis and The Golden Globes. Although I did read some newspapers while half-watching. TV is a big waste of time. Especially award shows. Why don't I just look at the highlights in the morning and see who won? I've also decided that crossword puzzles and other puzzles are a waste of time. If I want to challenge my brain why don't I learn something. Maybe I'll limit myself to the daily New York Times puzzles and quit the first day I can't finish.

At one point today, FFP was looking for our copy of In Cold Blood. I'd verified in our database that we had one copy, a Signet paperback. But I'd rememebered owning a hardback. I guess it's long gone. Anyway, we were searching around (we finally found it) and it just made me realize how little of the organization and such that I was going to do in retirement is actually getting done. There are piles of books everywhere and we seem powerless to get rid of some. I had pulled up the beginning article in the series of four that was printed in The New Yorker from the DVDs. But, of course, I only found time to read a paragraph or two.

I stayed up too late. I tried to read myself to sleep with my book. But I tossed and turned. Disturbed by how many things I needed to do around the house and how everyone and everything is spiraling toward decay and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

When I'm in these moods, I know that there is another side to the hill, a place where I consider decay and change fun and challenge and learning and necessary. But it doesn't mean that I feel any better, lying sleepless in the wee hours or dreaming of large houses with many decaying corners.