At the holiday outing Friday I slopped mustard on my last pair of Levi's. I'm down to just a couple of clean shirts, and that's my cue. That's my deadline. Out of necessity, I did two loads of laundry today. That's not the way I wanted to spend any part of my Sunday, but I have to face the fact that sometimes there's no choice.

In trying to get ready to be gone for a week, I have a mountain of work to do this week. I have to get ahead on paying company bills. I need to make sure I don't get down to the last day with more to do than I can get done in one day. I'd hate to be out in the middle of the lake some time next week and suddenly remember something that could have been taken care of here and now.

These deadlines, as always, are keeping me aware of what needs to be done, even if they're not quite close enough yet to make me take action. So why, you have to wonder, did I get my bags down from the loft and start checking things out, more than a week before I'm leaving? For some reason I found time today to choose the books I want to take, and check out the travel-size toothpaste and deodorant left over from last year.

Some of this I did to avoid looking directly at the baseball game, which didn't seem to be going the way I was hoping. (Damian Moss, please learn to throw strikes. Thank you.) I sorted out the clothes I might want to take and tried a few things on. (I sense an emergency trip to Target one day this week.)

Beach towels, bathing trunks, tank tops — all the things I don't use between July and July needed to be examined. Some of it even needs to be discarded, but I'm not quite there yet. Alas, I'll never wear anything in "Medium" again, even though I sometimes still think of myself as the skinny boy I was at sixteen. Maybe I am on the inside, but the external reality is noticeably different.

And music! I'll be burning CDs like crazy this week — not to use on the boat, because nobody likes the same music I do. But I need something to play on the long drive up and the long drive back. I'll be all alone in my 2003 Saturn Ion3 with air conditioning and a six-CD changer. As decadent as it sounds, I plan to be comfortable for those three or four hours, and that includes having the right music.

That means taking time now to listen to a few CDs I haven't heard for a long time. I knew there was a song on the Lit CD A Place in the Sun that I liked, but I couldn't remember which one it was. It turns out the one I was thinking of is called "Zip-Lock." Other songs I recorded included "Selling the Drama" by Live and "Goat Girl" by Tanya Donelly. If you don't remember them, join the club. But it was fun rediscovering music that used to be familiar.

Somehow all this activity (and especially the music) made the day go by quickly. I hardly had time to think of my still-sore legs, and the fact that my inner clock is now running backwards. Monday should be interesting, since it starts about three hours after I expect to fall asleep tonight, based on recent experience. I doubt three hours will be enough sleep to make me ecstatic to see another morning. I'll have to settle for "resigned."

The Giants eventually won that game, but it wasn't easy to watch them try to give it away. It's a good thing it was the Padres they were playing. The Padres are above accepting gifts, and in fact they generally do all in their power to give them back. Those kinds of games make me squirm, but I like to have them on even if I'm not watching. It's a little like being at the ballpark but pacing through the corridors; every so often you have to peek out between the pillars to see what's happening.