So I broke down and brought my laptop home. I just have way too much work to do, and with all the meetings I attend during the week, I need a couple hours of solid uninterrupted time to get some of my work done.

My bosses are already starting to question my workload, and I'm like, you're the ones who keep dumping stuff on me, stuff I had no idea I was going to do when I first signed up. Nobody told me writing was going to be one of my main duties. Okay so I probably write better than your average employee, but still ... it's not what I signed up for.

My bosses tell me my writing is easy to understand. From reading some of the internal memoes I've had to plough through, I can see why. People try to sound so intelligent and make things so complicated, but when you really start to dig apart what they're actually trying to say, you realize that what they're doing or writing up makes no sense.

But hey it's written up so it takes someone even with a college education, an hour to read. What a waste of an hour, especially when you find out that the project the person was trying to write about was total BS, the methodology was messed up, and the analysis made no sense. Sometimes people in business think window dressing is going to make up for a badly designed and executed analysis or project. I don't think so!

I finished reading "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". It was fun, and now I feel like I have to read the whole series of books. It reminded so much of the brit scifi show "Red Dwarf", which I totally adore.

I'm now reading "The Parable of the Talents" by Octavia E. Butler, the second book after "Parable of the Sower". It's not as frightening as the first book, but it's a bit spooky nonetheless. Butler's premise seems to be that despite all our modern technology, nothing has changed. When you take away the modern technology from people and go back into survival mode, institutions like slavery and the evil things like the Inquisition or collobaration with the nazis that the catholic church did return in full blown cruelty but with modern new twists.

I suppose that's true in a way, that we're never really that far away from the events that we now in modern society say was barbaric and wrong. Slavery and child prostitution still exist in the world, and people still get killed in the name of religion all the time. Only now some of us calll it "an exercise in religious freedom and liberation from an oppressive society."

I bought a new mini stereo system for the living room, since the writing group was coming over. The old mini boom box now sits in my bedroom.

I went to one of those chain stereo places to get it after work not thinking it would have been smart to drive my car there so I could take it home. Instead, I hauled the box home on Muni and suffered the pitying stares of people thinking I was too poor to take a cab or own a car, and had to drag my huge box home on public transportation.

The box wasn't heavy, it was just bulky and hard to carry. By the time I got to my front door, my arms were like jelly. Still it was worth it to do because the new system fits in the space where the old one was, something I was very worried about and the sound is pretty good for a mini system.

My next task it to get a new tv, vcr and dvd player this weekend. I'm so tempted to buy a bigger tv but then it wouldn't fit where I have the old tv now. If I bought a thing to put a bigger tv on, I'd have to arrange some of my furniture to accomodate the size and I'm not in the mood to do that. Plus since I'll be probably hauling the tv home myself, I have to think about how much it's going to weigh and if I have the strength to carry it up to my apartment.

And even after all that's done, I have to figure out what to do with my old tv. I wonder if Goodwill or the Salvation Army will take it? I wanted to put into my bedroom, but it's too big. Besides, having a tv in my bedroom is too tempting. I'd end up watching it more and falling asleep to it.

I got the tv cable guy to put a cable wire in my bedroom, just in case I wanted to go that route, But a smaller TV would fit better in my bedroom. Or better yet, no tv at all.

It's so hot I can't sleep. I should open my windows, but then it gets too noisy and I'll keep waking up during the night because of the noise.

A friend invited me to go sailing on the Bay on Saturday. It was such a gorgeous day with no fog. I was in shorts and polo shirt all day and into the night. Usually when you sail on the Bay it gets a little rough sailing back in the aftenoon to where you started from, which in our case was Sausalito.

The tides change and the water flows in and out of the Bay very quickly, and usually the fog and cold wind are rolling in. Not on Saturday. Afterwards, we drank more wine and danced on the boat entertaining and most likely annoying the neighboring boaters who came out to watch.

Sailing is fun. I can see why people really get into. You have to really know what you're doing, and you have to always be aware of so many things. The friend who invited me is a member of the Corinthian Yaht club in Tiburon, and she's being sailing and racing since she was a kid.

The boat we sailed on belonged to a couple who are on a sailing racing with her and her boyfriend, and, they were trying to practice for their next race. Apparently they came in first place last year at the Corinthian Yaht Club boat races.

There is something so ancient about sailing. It's got such a history. I've always wanted to learn to properly sail, but I've never had the chance. My uncle in San Diego was going to teach me to sail the summer I lived them as their nanny, but other than boating a few times on Glorietta Bay we never got around to it.

I'd have to take lessons, join a crew, lose some weight. My friend was telling me that on sailing race day, you have to weigh in. She said that people stand around in their underwear waiting to get weighed, and other racers come up to you and ask you how much you weigh. She said the weight part is all part of achieving maximum boat speed, and every pound counts. I would love to learn how to sail to sail and not to race.

We also saw a bunch of kayakers. Ocean kayaking is such a blast. I would love to buy a kayak so I could go kayaking on the Bay. We also saw some windsurfers. I used to want to learn to windsurf for so long, and even took a couple of lessons. If I windsurfed or kayaked on the San Francisco Bay, I'd have to buy a wetsuit. The water is way too cold to not wear one.

The only saving grace to the whole Chris means instant love thing is I think the real "Chris" that I'm supposed to marry and spend the rest of my life with is supposed to be a strawberry blondie boy with brown eyes.

But I don't know. The strawberry blondie hair and brown eyes requirement might be part of the curse of Steve, the one that got away. Steve was a strawberry blondie boy with brown eyes.

After years of really not caring what a guy looked like and never having prefernces about hair and eye color, I hate that I'm obsessed with marrying a guy with strawberry blondie/red hair and brown eyes. It's so very odd!

I've got this thought in my head that I think I'm supposed to marry a guy name Chris. It's weird as heck, I know, but I met two guys named Chris in the last two years and instantly had crushes on them.

First, there was Chris, the marina hottie boy from screenwriting class who I was like so hot for as soon as he walked into class. Me and every other woman in screenwriting class thought the same thing. This Chris is tall at 6 ft 4 in, has brown hair, pretty blue eyes, does yoga, used to play college football, and has a masters in psychology. Charming too, the guy is fraternity jock boy charming. Snappy dresser as well.

He was so darn cute, I was afraid to talk to him. But then I decided I didn't need him as a distraction in my life, and tried to ignore him. But we ended up becoming very casual friends for awhile, and I had wild fantasies about the two of us getting hitched, us having a previous incarnation together, him being the one - my krishna, etc. But well that fizzled out when I figured out that he wasn't a JC boy, and that his maturity level was right out of fraternity boy jock hell.

Now there's this guy at the new job and his name is Chris, and I'm working with him on a project and I'm so in crush with him. I hardly know the guy, and already I'm in serious crush mode. This Chris is a blondie with blue eyes, and about 5 ft 8 or 9.

The two Chris's couldn't more opposite. Chris # 1 was cute, and while smart wasn't that swift on the uptake. Chris # 2 is an analytical nerd whose intelligence blows me away; the guy is really, really smart. Chris # 1 is quite a fashionable dresserm while Chris # 2 has the totally WASPy preppy wardrobe.

And I'm like in love with both of them. I think they're both so cute! For some reason Chris # 2 is more attractive to me, but I think that is partly due to the fact that he reminds me of Steve. Part of my attraction to Chris # 2 is because of the curse of Steve, the one that got away.

For whatever reason I also feel more comfortable with Chris # 2, but that could be because I met him at work and we're working together on a project and Chris # 2 seems like a very, very nice person. With Chris # 1 I was practically tongue tied with him, but with Chris # 2 I have to talk to him because he's on my project team. I mean I should be more tongue tied with Chris # 2 because he's as cute to me as Chris # 1, but I'm at work and I can't. I have to work with him and be in meetings with him every week.

And I feel bad that I have a crush on Chris # 2 because I work with him. Work relationships are so messy, and because of sexual harrassment I'm afraid of throwing myself at him. And it's awkward because it's not like he's made any indication to me that he's at all interested. He's nice and all when I have to meet with him one on one for the project we're both working on, but it's not like he's been overyly friendly either. I hate having crushes on a guy who might not even be remotely interested. I mean it's San Francisco. Chris # 2 might not even do women. I can't tell anymore, and my gay-dar is definitely not working well.

I hate the whole just because a guy's name is Chris I have to fall in love with him thing. It's bad, bad for my nerves, bad for my self esteem and ego especially when the Chris person doesn't seem that interested.

It's just so weird that these two guys are so different yet I find them both amazingly attractive, and all they have in common is they're both named Chris. Chris # 2 kinda sorta looks like, reminds me of a preppy Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh. And Chris # 1 kinda sort looks like a brown haired, blue eyed Charlie Sheen.

I mean there's no other explanation for my attraction to both men, other than to say it's because some part of my being is looking for the Chris that I'm supposd to spend the rest of my life with and live happily ever after.

I'm either really getting old and senile or I'm especially horny or both. I can't tell.

I was talking to my ultra left wing film history teacher last night about the movie "The Piano", when the thought plops into my head that he's kind of an attractive guy and it would be kind of fun to have a flingie with him. And I'm like 'Oh my God!'

First of all, the guy's politics drive me insane. But a very close friend insists that most SF Bay Area men's politics drive me insane, so that's not unusual. But I'm like the guy has a paunchy tummy, which in itself isn't too bad, but I mean the guy really has a paunchy tummy. He's like portly!

He's gotta be over 50 at least, maybe even older. That's like really old for me since I've never had sex with anyone that old. He's got like graying hair, which makes me him look even older.

And last but definitely not least, his name is IRA! And again I repeat, 'Oh my God!'. I'm having sexual thoughts about some older dude guy with a paunchy tummy and graying hair, stupid ultra left wing liberal politics which I abhor intensely, and his first name is IRA! What is up with that?

See what I mean when I say I'm either getting senile and old or I'm bizarrely orny or both.

I just remembered that I turned Puffs on to "The Cure". He never liked their music until he started dating me. I like this thought. It still makes me happy after all these years.

Another blog game, this time with music from Camilo @ Mercurial.

1. Go to your CD rack/shelf/room.
2. Select the 13th CD from the end of your collection
3. What's the 5th track?
4. List it on your blog, with a story of why you purchased this CD.
5. Link back to me - if you wish.

Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman
5th track - Baby Can I Hold You

I purchased this cd because I associate Tracy Chapman's hit song "Fast Car" with one on my ex-boyfriends. There's a line in that car that goes:

I remember we were driving driving in your car
The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder And I had a feeling that I belonged
And I had a feeling I could be someone
be someone
be someone.

I can see Puffs and I driving in the rented convertible down to Death Valley to trip on shrooms, and that song playing on the tape he made for the trip. It was the end of our relationship and we were tyring to kind of save it by taking a trip together, hoping against hope that the mini vacation would be full of enough good memories to keep us together just a little bit longer.

Of course that never happened, and we broke up on Sunday morning the day we were driving back home. And walking away from Puffs was so hard, one of the hardest things I've ever done. I liked him so much, despite all the crap he put me, he put us through. And what still makes me sad after all these years is he never quite forgave me for walking away from him. He was happy that I left, even he knew it was the best thing for me, but a part of him felt so betrayed, so hurt that I didn't, couldn't stick around, didn't love him enough to prevent him from killiing himself and dying.

Puffs was such a trip! Mr. Fraternity boy, beautiful, dark haired and blue-eyed and kind of looking like Jack Nicholson, whom he adored. Stinky topsiders, ralph lauren wardrobe, and those huge 100% silky white cotton nordstrom dress shirts of his with the embroidered sailboat on the cuff that I used to wear as a coverup when I was at his place. That awesome incredibly expensive stereo with the sound processor and that glow in the dark sound wave that practically took up his whole living room.

Puffs was so smart, and so much fun to hang with as a drinking buddy, but he liked his bottle and his drugs way too much. But he was such a kick, and so much fun. Like the time he put on one of my silk shorty nightgowns and did a dancing peep show to music. He was so fun!

But the drinking and the drugs and the subsequent depression from it all were way too much for me, for us. And he wouldn't stop, and he never did either until he died a few years ago.

He used to wake up in the middle of night and grab me and hug me and tell "we were twins", which delighted and simultaneously scared the willies out of me because he was such a messed up person. Fun as heck but really, really very messed. Puffs had a heart of gold and would never hurt a fly, but he covered it all up with drinks and drugs and cigarettes.

Maybe I'm having a Puffs haunting right now. I hope he's happy in death, I hope he's at peace. I hope the demons which plagued his dreams every night have been laid to rest and he can finally sleep through the night without waking up because of a bad dream.

I liked the text of Grabmusik by Mozart so much that I wanted to put some of it in my blog.

I. Recitative, The soul - Wo bin ich?
Where am I? Bitter pain? Ah, the source of all love, my repose, my comfort, the goal of my striving, my holy Jesus' heart that stirs no more, has emptied his blood and his life. Here the wounds still drip with blood. What bitter steel has torn assunder the heart of the best-beloved and the sweetest?

II. Aria, The Soul - Felsen spaltet euren Rachen
Boulders, split your thoughts and mourn and wail with wretched clangor; Stars and moon and sun, take flight, while mourning Nature grieves with me. Below, thunder! Flames and lightning rage on in unison against this deed of madness which has wounded Jesus' heart.

VI. Duet, The Soul and the Angel - Jesu, was hab' ich getan?
Jesus, what have I done? I have inflicted your wounds and sent you to the cross. Look on my heart's remorse. You suffered these wounds to gain for us salvation and mercy. This I shall resolve: that I shall love thee: and that I shall never grieve thee; Forgive me, sacred heart.

Epilogue: Ave Vernum Corpus
Jesus, word of God incarnate, of the Virgin Mary born, on the cross thy sacred body. For us, with nails, was torn. Cleanse us by the blood and water streaming from thy pierced side. Feed us with thy body broken, now and in death's agony.

On Good Friday, I went to a concert which presented words and music in remembrance of the "The Passion of the Christ". I knew one of the women who was singing in the concert, and my friend and I thought the concert would be a nice way to spend this often solemn occassion.

The music performed was:
Motet: That Virgin's Child by Thomas Tallis

Sinfonia Sacrae: This Child is set for the fall by Heinrich Schutz

Stabat Mater (duet for two sopranos) by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

Passion Cantata: Grabmusik by Mozart

The Mozart piece was the best, and written in 1767 when he was 11 years old. The man was just an absolute genius! The introduction for the music says that Grabmusik "was probably written for a devotional meditation before the representation of the Holy Sepulchre in a Salzburg church, possibly the cathedral"

The blog seems to loading as quickly as it used to. I was very worried about the old bloggie for awhile there.

I've been on a reading rampage, trying to get caught up to my reading plan for the year. I read two books that I really liked. I finished "The Girl in Hyacinth Blue" by Susan Vreeland. The story reminded me of the movie, "The Red Violin", and there was a similar story line which was kind of weird.

Then I read Octavia E. Butler's book, The Parable of the Sower. The book started to freak me out because it features an apocalyptic vision of a future California ravaged by drought and an unbelievable economic depression.

It's like Bulter looked into the future, and saw one possible future for the golden state and fictionalized it into a novel. Scary, scary stuff!

The book was published in 1995, and now in 2004 you can see the seeds of the world she created in the book beginning to sprout. I just hope it doesn't get that bad.

I went to the library and borrowed the next book in the series, and have already started on it. I hope she keeps writing more for this series.

I feel good that I'm reading again. I got so behind in my monthly reading schedule because of all my stressorama with my job. One good thing about commuting to work every day on the train is that I can read a book for about 20 minutes going to work, and 20 minutes again coming home.

I can't really read "heavy" books on the train because the time is too short for me to concentrate on the story, but fast good reads make for great commuter reading.

I borrowed Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the library to read on the train. It's a small enough paperbook that it fits into my purse, and it's a good commuter read.

My stupid portable cd player/radio/tape player ate on my favorite tapes! God I hate that! Oh well. I have buy another boom box anyway for my living room, since the very old one I have doesn't play some of my cds anymore. I'll put the old boom box in my bedroom and get a new boom box for the living room.

One of these days I'll buy a proper stereo, but I'm like what's the point if I can't blast it loud because I live in an apartment building with overly sensitive neighbors. The neighbors in my old building used to call and tell me my boom box was too loud.

Loud? How load can a small boombox get? Those peple were such freaks, but they were related to the one of the people who owned the building so it wasn't like I could get into a stereo war with them.

I need to do some serious electronic shopping. I need a new TV, a DVD player so I can join Netflix, a new vcr, and now a new boom box. There goes the extra vacation money from my old job.

My crazy blog. It wasn't loading right, and I think one of my counters had upgraded and changed their code. Once I deleted the code, the blog loaded as instantly as it did before Friday.

What a pain! I never used that counter anyway, so I'm not going to put it back.

My blog is still loading slowly. I don't know what to do. I've emailed Blogger about the problem, and still no fix. I was one of those fools who decided to upgrade and pay for the blog as well, and yet I'm the one who seems to have the most problems. Every time there's a problem with Blogger, I'm affected.

What a pain! But Blogger is free now and I guess you get what you pay for. If I hadn't upgraded and paid, I wouldn't mind so much. But now I feel like Blogger is punishing me because I was once a paying customer.

That's a little backwards and ridiculous isn't it?

A blogging game.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog, and pass it on by posting it along with these instructions on your site.

"This reply, duly conveyed, enraged Viswaamitra who exploded into a curse that Vasishtha's sons do die and be re-born for seven generations in a tribe given to eating dog's flesh." from "The Ramayana" as summarised by Sri C. Rajagopalachari.

For my film history class, we watched "The Piano" by Jane Campion. I first saw this movie when it came out in the early 90's, and it was interesting to watch it again years later. Here are some interesting observations I had:

1. When I first saw this movie, I hated the husband. This time around I was very sympathetic to the husband. It takes two to make a marriage fail and both Ada and her husband made mistakes.

2. The sexual game that Ada and Harvey Keitel played was sensous and erotic. Previously, I thought the game was demeaning and nasty, and now I'm like "hmmm, interesting and very sexy."

3. Still thinking after all these years, "is it worth wrecking your marriage so you can have sex with Harvey Keitel?"

4. Ada's daughter was so cruel and I never really got until the second viewing years later, that the little girl probably felt abandoned by Ada. The daughter had her mother all to herself before going to New Zealand, and now she had to share her with Harvey Keitel. The daughter didn't mind the Sam Neil character because he never made demands on Ada's time, but with Harvey Keitel, Ada ignored the daughter.

5. The Harvey Keitel character really loved Holly Hunter's character Ada. Back then I thought it was romantic, and now I think "okay, so he's not the best looking guy in the world, his bum is decent and all but the rest of him including those tatoos on his face are annoying, but you know maybe all that really matters is the fact that he really loved her and was smart enough to get that the piano really mattered to her."

6. I used to love the ending of "The Piano", even though friends argued passionately at the time that the movie should have ended with Ada committing suicide with the piano. My friends said "The Piano" had a Hollywood happy ending. I told them I would've hated the movie if it ended with a suicide, because I love Hollywood happy endings. Now, I can go either way. I still love the happy ending with Ada and Harvey Keitel ending up together, but I now see merit in a suicide ending.

My blog wasn't loading because of some server problem. These things always happen to my bloggie.

**************
From: "Blogger Support"
To: "Brenda ElfGirl (251098,3048307)"
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2004 9:26 AM
Subject: Re: [#46443] Can't see my blog

Hi there-

Thanks for letting us know about the problem with your blog not loading - it's most likely related to some server maintenance we performed late yesterday afternoon, and our sysadmins are working to fix it immediately.
*************

However, it appears to be loading fine now on my end.

So I think there's something wrong with my blog. I can't even see it. I'm hoping if I post something, it will show up again.

So it's like so evil. I'm suffering from the curse of Steve, the one that got away. This is how the curse of Steve works. Every time I see a guy that even very remotely resembles him, the curse of Steve kicks in and I find myself amazingly attracted to the Steve look-alike. Like it doesn't matter what kind of personality the guy has or how smart the guy is, I'm like totally attracted to him because he kind of looks like Steve.

What a curse! And like lately, there are so many guys that look like him. The guy is like so generic to have that many lookalikes walking around and on TV. It's like so embarrassing to think I was even attracted to such a generic looking individual. Think of a non-descript dark blondie/strawberry blondie boy with freckles, around 6 ft with a medium build and hazel brown eyes. How generic is that.

That thing with him ended like so long ago that honestly I think his features are so blurry in my mind, but I swear to god whenver I see a guy that kinda sorta looks like him it's like the attraction buzzer goes off in my brain and I look at the guy and think "cute and he reminds me of Steve".

And I like so bet that Steve, the one that got away, so does not remember me and couldn't pick me out in a mug shot lineup if his life depended on it. Yet here I am, so suffering with the curse of Steve.

Went to a birthday party on Angel Island. Spent the whole day drinking way too much, then I ended up in a bar near Pier 39 with a friend and kept drinking and watching the Giants lose to the Padres. Talked to a guy whose father was in the Battle of the Bulge and who heard Patton speak. Then to another guy from Atlanta who works at Bechtel and is here doing some work.

I forgot how fun it is to talk to random guys in a bar, especially when you've had way too much to drink.

Last night I partially watched the ABC news special with Peter Jennings called "Jesus and Paul -- The Word and the Witness". What a joke that program was for anyone who has seriously studied the origins of the bible. I was offended, and I've only taken a few Sunday morning church sponsored bible classes.

First of all, the main Christian theologians they had on the show were the infamous authors of the "Jesus Seminar", which looked at the origins of the historical Jesus. Marcus Borg, who I wrote about in a earlier post, was his usual icky self. N.T. Wright, who despite all his historical objections about Jesus could only offer up at the end that he couldn't nor can anyone for that matter, expliain how Christianity became such a dominant religion. John Dominic Crossan, who wrote great books, but sounded like a non-believer as well.

Only Luke Timothy Johnson who wrote "The Real Jesus, The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels, sounded like he was a Christian. Everyone else sounded so skeptical and so un-Christian.

I mean, how can you explain faith? How can you explain why you believe the way you do. It's such a personal thing, so individual and so wonderfully human. It's such a post-modernist mistake to try to explain faith in scientific terms.

And then that whole thing about Paul. The bit where Peter Jennings is asking people visiting the Vatican if they knew who Paul was, how dumb was that. Paul was a follower of Christ. He never claimed to be the messiah, Yeshua, he was doing his disciple thing and spreading christianity. I think Paul would have been so insulted if he was aware that people knew anything about him.

Paul's main mission was to spread Christianity to the gentile world. And yes, okay, Paul interpreted jewish beliefs through a greek lens so non-jews could understand Jesus' teachings, but so what. That's part of being a messenger of God; interpreting JC's word so it can easily be understood by the people who need to hear his message.

I'm not sure what Peter Jennings was trying to accomplish by comparing JC and Paul. Paul was a messenger of God, and not the messiah. Even Paul knew that.

Saturday was a good day. I sat in a cafe and started on my new book, The Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland. Then I worked out for an hour, and did half an hour of weights.

Later I went to the mall to check out the sales, and ended up buying a new skirt to wear for easter service and a long rayon skirt that was a steal at $27. It's not a skirt I'd wear to work, but it's a skirt I'd wear to a nice dinner; a dinner skirt.

On Sunday I was bad. I went to Palm Sunday service, and then on whim decided to check out the outlet stores in Petaluma. There's a Coach outlet store there, and I have this horrible habit of buying a new bag every time I start a new job.

I told myself I wasn't going to buy a new purse, and instead pick up a new makeup case for my purse. My current makeup purse is dotted with pen stains and other stains of unknown origins. It's not like I needed another Coach bag because I already own six of them. But old habits die hard, and yes I bought another Coach bag. This new one wasn't as expensive as the last Coach bag I bought, but it wasn't cheap either. And of course, I also bought a new makeup bag.

But the evil god of shopping must have been sitting on my shoulder, because I ended up with several more purchases. Like I really need to buy new clothes when I need to replace my tv so I can buy a DVD player, not to mention I need to replace my cd player because it now won't play some of my cds.

At the Nine West outlet, I ended up trying on a pair of black heels that were so darned comfortable I had to buy them. They're not the best looking shoes I've seen in my life, but for heels they're divinely comfortable.

At the Jones New York outlet store, I bought three skirts for the unbelievable price of $65. The skirts were 1) a knee length plaid skirt in green 2) a linen knee length blend skirt in blue and 3) a knee length denim skirt. Can't beat the price for these pricey clothes.

At the Liz Clairborne outlet, I bought a long blue skirt that I have to lose about 5 pounds to fit into. The print was gorgeous so I had to have it. Then I bought a necklace with matching earrings, and couple more pairs of earrings. Not as good of a deal like at Jones New York, but not too shabby either.

At the Bass outlet, I almost bought a pair of penny loafers. I haven't worn those since college, and they would have looked so cute with the plaid skirt. But they didn't have my size. I ended up buying two t-shirts to wear under sweater for $10 each.

On the way home, I stopped at the Staples store in Novato and bought a new record book for note taking at work. My boss has the same kind of book and I was admiring it. The sucker was not cheap at $34, but it's got 300 pages and it looks so professional. I was taking notes in a steno book, and after 13 days I had filled 75% of it. I take a ton of notes at all those darn meetings that I have to attend.

Wandering around Staples I started to feel twinges of guilt for all the money I had that day, so I bought a box of envelopes to save money and address labels. I was going to buy those nice custom address labels, but decided it was cheaper to print my own. I could print them and put a sticker on them for a decoration.

Then lastly, I went grocery shopping and bought food so I could start bringing my lunch to work 4 days a week to make up for all the money I spent.

Thankfully I cashed in about four weeks of vacation time when I left my old job, so I have some extra money. I was going to use part of that money to buy a new TV, DVD player and stereo, which I'm probably still going to do and then pay some debts off with the remainder.

I love all my purchases because it's so fun to have new work clothes that actually fit. My old work clothes fit, but they're really loose around the hips. That's the reason I keep telling to myself to justify all my clothes shopping.

Like I really need new clothes right now when I'm still trying to lose weight. With my luck, in two months these new clothes will also be too loose on me. That will kind of irritate me a little bit, although the shopaholic part of me can't wait till that day.

Just in case you're confused about my job adventures, here's the scoop.

I applied for this job at this company. They wanted to hire me, but they said I first needed to contract with them for 30 days to see how we would all get along. If at the end of 30 days everything was going well, the company would convert me from contract to permanent full time status.

I started on March 17 and if I was going to convert to FTE status, my official hire date would be April 19.

I was very lucky because the company decided that they liked me, I liked them, and so they offered to convert to full time status two weeks earlier than originally planned and they also gave me more money.

Make sense?

There is good news on the job front. The company I've been contracting with offered me the job two weeks before my planned start date of April 19.

I received an offer letter on Thursday with a little more money than what they originally promised. YEAH!!! I also had to take a take a drug test this morning, but that's standard for most jobs.

I start as a permanent full time employee on Monday. I'm happy because I can relax a little now. Once again I have a permanen t job with benefits and it's a very good thing.

I hope I can now begin to establish an after work routine of writing and working out. I need my extracurricular activities back in my life.

I've been wading through the new company's benefits package tonight. The vision and dental suck! At my last company, the vision and dental benefits were good and the medical benefits were so so. The new company has a bit more benefits than the old one, so I pay a little more.

I have a massage theray benefit, and I'm definitely going to take advantage of it. And they offer flex spending for the costs that the company doesn't offer. The vision plan isn't bad if you visit their eyecare specialists, but I've been going to the same guy since the mid 1990's and I really don't feel like changing. My dentist isn't covered and I have decide if I want to pay more to go see him, or switch to this dentist that my chiropractor in Berkeley is recommending.

I almost feel like changing my PCP as well, because my old PCP was starting to get on my nerves. I really like the PCP I had with the last company, but she's not on this new company's list of doctors.

My boss said I was in some kind of company bonus incentive program, have no idea what this is. I think it probably means that if the company does well, I'll get a bonus equal to the percentage in my offer letter. This is a new thing.