I'm feeling so poorly these days that I only have the energy for the small decisions in life like whether I need to buy these shoes, Dansko Jade. Now that I've lost a bunch of weight, I can once again fit into all my skirts. Unfortunately, I now need comfortable shoes to wear with my skirts. Ever since I had the heel pain, plantar fasciitis, in both feet no less I can only wear very comfortable well built shoes. Acupuncture cured my plantar fasciitis and I don't have the heel pains anymore, but I'm afraid of it coming back. I won't go back to wearing normal heels, and I refuse to wear comfortable but ugly flat old lady shoes.

European shoes are so comfortable, and stylish as well, even though they're painfully expensive at over $100 per pair. I now own Danskos, swedish Born, german Theresia, and ECCO shoes. I'd wear american shoes if they were built better. I love Dansko shoes. There are so comfortable and so stylish, plus you can get them in heel heights of two inches which make the shoes look so mod and trendy.

Does this mean you're shallow as heck when your most pressing decision in life is trying to decide whether to buy a pair of $100+ european shoes?

But check the shoe out. Isn't it cute? Don't you think it would so cute with long skirts as well as thigh high skirts with black opaque tights? I could wear them and walk around and be so comfortable.

I decided not to go to my church retreate this weekend. I was really looking forward to attending this year, but the topic for the retreat was something like "Globalization in World: A Christian Perspective", or something like that. There's been two anti-globalization seminars at church, and I didn't know if I could sit through a weekend of anti-globalization rhetoric.

I feel so bad about not wanting to go on the retreat, but I hate the topic. It's kind of typical of my church though, because after all the church is in San Francisco and I wonder how many other churches have a "Peace and Justice Committee". I am very pro-globalization. I love that the world is coming together, being connected, becoming one. I think whether you agree with globalization or not, it's already happening.

Part of the church retreat weekend was discussion of how the different religions respond to the globalization and the influence of western modern, and modern is American culture. Islamic countries fear the influence of the West, and one could argue that terrorism is a response to the invasion of American culture.

Plus, I am cautious supporter of the President's war on Iraq. My life is stressed out enough right now, and why would I want to add to the stress by a spending the weekend having to talk about the war. I think my church is 50% for the war and 50% against, so it's not like I wouldn't find people who won't support my position, but the anti-war people are so vocal and emotional about the war.

And we stopped praying for the troops in the middle east, despite the fact that several members now have children or relatives stationed there. It's so bad karma! I mean didn't Christ say "love your neighbor as you love yourself and do unto others as you have them do unto you". That's karma, which says for every action there is an reaction or as you sow, so shall you reap. So bad karma is when you treat someone in a way you wouldn't treat yourself, only karma says there will be reaction whereas christianity says "leave it to God's justice." To me it's all the same, because karma just says there will be a reaction to any action and assumes that God will decide the reaction.

I just know if I went to the church retreat, I wouldn't feel comfortable discussing my views for fear of being shunned. It's not that the church people are bad or anything, but the Iraq issue is so emotional for some people. I never understood the republican irrational hatred of Clinton, but there's an irrational hatred of everything Bush among some of my church members.

It's too bad, but maybe all for the better. I made an appointment to see that health practitioner in Berkeley on Saturday, whom I saw last year. He really helped me with some of my health issues, and I'm hoping to ask him what I need to do so I can stop getting colds and allergies.

Then on Sunday morning, I'm going to a preview event for the new Asian Art Museum. I became a member last year, and I'm really looking forward to viewing the location before it opens to the general public. The museum has more space now, and it will be displaying objects that have never been on display before. So exciting! I just love asian art!

Sorry about not blogging. I've been under the weather lately. I don't know if it's my allergies or if I'm fighting this flu that's going around. I sneeze lots and walk around with a stuffy nose, and then blow my nose lots. IT'S AWFUL!

My favourite sports tournament, March Madness, is starting and I'm so not in the mood for it. This is not good!

Did Bush's press conference change the anti-war minds of the SF Bay Area? KGO Radio did a poll on their morning news show, and surprisingly the people who agreed with President Bush were closer to those of the rest of the nation. Is this real or were those Republican Freepers calling way too much and messing up the radio poll results?

Here's an interesting theory on why time seems to go faster as you get older, Time of our lives is going faster, ever faster.

I went to the Lenten church class on confessions, and what a trip! A man who used to be an ex-catholic monk/brother taught the class. I've seen the man before in service on Sundays, and he also attends the Wednesday night prayer service I go to before my kerygma class.

Check this out. This man was a monk brother for 25 years, used to be the principal of a catholic high school, and still gets up at 4 am every morning to pray. He says it's out of habit. The man has apparently left the catholic church, and is exploring joining my presbyterian church. I don't think he's officially joined yet, because he said he was still in the process of leaving the church. He laughed when he told us this, and said it wasn't because of a sexual abuse scandal or anything like that, and that everything was okay with his leaving the catholic church. In my mind I was thinking, "really? they'd let you go that easily?"

I mean, what a trip, to be a brother monk for 25 years and then leaving the catholic church to come my very mainstream protestant church. I am dying to ask him why he left, but I can't. It's too rude and private. But my mind is full of questions!

He's also a very good lecturer. Tonight's session was on the early history of confession in the christian church. The man definitely knows his early church history backwards and forwards. He's supposed to teach next week's class which is on the modern history of confession. I already have plans to meet a friend, and I'm disappointed I'll miss his class. He's only teaching two classes, because he teaches another class on Thursday nights. He got someone to sub for him, because he really wanted to lead the first two classes on confession. No one else in our church is probably qualified to teach the history of confession, except this ex-catholic brother monk person.

I bet in next week's class, more of this ex-monk's history will come out. Man, I am dying to know his story and to ask him questions. I can just tell from the way the man led class tonight, that he is totally and utterly spiritual and has like the biggest heart of a gold. He comes across as such a gentle soul, and really forgiving. I bet he made a great brother monk person in the catholic church.

I am do so dying to know the story of why he left. He did speak very fondly about the reformed tradition, and what a great tradition it is. Did he leave over theology? What sparked him to leave the catholic church? The whole thing boggles my mind, and my imagination is running over time.

What's interesting personally as well, is how did he find my church? What makes my church so special that this ex-catholic brother monk would consider joining us? I mean, it's not like we're the only presbyterian church in town. We're not even the biggest; we're medium sized to small.

So many questions, and I'll never get them all answered. Still, I'm happy this man has perhaps found a home in my church. It makes me happy that he feels at home where I worship.

This is how crazy gas prices are getting here in the San Francisco Bay Area. On February 20, I picked up gas at Costco at $1.76/gallon. Today March 5, about 13 days later, gas at the same station is now $1.96.

The price of gas rose $0.20 in 13 days. It's crazy! I decided that if I start paying $180 for gas every month, which is about $5/gallon, I will take the bus to work. If I add up the price of gas and my hourly rate at work, it will be cheaper to take the bus even though the trip adds 2 hours to my commute time every day.

At the rate the gas prices are going, it might not be long till it reaches $5/gallon.

For Lent, I decided to give up chocolate chip cookies. I've been on a chocolate chip cookie binge since December. I fit them into my calorie count for the day, but I'm just totally addicted to eating two freshly baked chocolate chip cookies every night. It's very strange. I've tried to wean myself off the cookies, but I can't. There's just something about eating freshly baked chocolate chip cookies that is just so heavenly to me.

If I can give up chocolate chip cookies for the six weeks of Lent, maybe the addiction will stop. I rearrange my daily eating so I can fit in the chocolate chip cookies into my calorie total. How serious is that!

I baked what was left of the package of Nestle Toll House premade cookies in my fridge last night, and ate a dozen cookies. Horrible isn't it? I stepped on the scale this morning, and gained a whole pound from my binge.

I wonder if I'll be like a friend of mine who gave up drinking for Lent, and at 12:01 am on Easter morning popped open a bottle of champagne to celebrate. Does this mean on the morning at 12:01 am on Easter morning April 20, I'll have baked a whole package of Nestle Toll House cookies and have a chocolate chip cookie feast? I can't wait!

I'm already missing my cookies. I think I'll be cranky wanky till Easter! Yikes!

There was an owl hooting outside my bathroom window this morning. The owl was so loud! Usually I hear crows cawing and it makes me happy because crows are my favorite birds, but this morning it was a noisy owl.

I looked up "owl" in my animal totem book, and the book said owls are messengers. When I was brushing my teeth, I came up a great idea to open my screenplay. The second draft opening of my screenplay has my baseball player dude guy getting into a tax in front of Pac Bell Park, and we see the taxi taking him from the high rise luxury of downtown San Francisco and the South of Market to the lower to middle class neighbourhood of the Outer Sunset. I wanted to show the difference between my baseball player dude's professional world and his family's world. Plus, I thought it would be so cool to have the opening credits rolling over scenic shots of San Francisco.

Originally, I had a voiceover as my opening scene. I love voiceovers in movies. So what if it's overdone and overplayed, it's a tried and true Hollywood storytelling device. American Beauty had a Kevin Spacey doing a voice over, and The Quiet American has Michael Caine doing a nice voiceover. A voiceover sets the mood and tone for the movie, gives you background information, and tells you right off what the main character is thinking.

My screenwriting teacher suggested that I take it out, saying that voiceovers were so overdone. Well, they're overdone because they work. Reluctantly I agreed, but only because I didn't want to fight with her on my opening scene.

I love how the movie "About Schmidt" opened. We see Jack Nicholson's character sitting in his empty highrise office, with all his stuff boxed up, and just waiting for the clock to get to 5 pm. It's a great metaphor for Nicholson's character thinking that life will begin again for him after retirement. The movie then goes on expose the lie of Nicholson's view.

This is my new idea for the opening for my movie. I’ll have the baseball player dude talk to the cab driver. Like maybe the cab driver recognizes him and says he was a famous local player. And then at the end of the conversation, the cab driver says something like the more things change, the more things stay the same” or something like the “the sunset never changes – it’s stuck in a time warp”.

The conversation with the cab driver will give the audience background on the player, and the last line once I figure it out, will set the tone for the movie. I think I like the cab driver guy saying "them frenchies think the more things change, the more they stay the same. Maybe they've got a point. The Sunset hasn't changed since you left it".

The rest of my movie will then explore whether the cab driver was right. Does your relationship with your parents change after you've left home and made a name for yourself? Or do you get stuck in a time warp once you enter your parents' house, and you replay over and over again the same fights you had with them as a child, only now you're an adult. And, if you take the question out wider can you escape your past, your roots, your socializations, can you forge a new life and identity for yourself once you leave home, or are you bound to end up like your parents no matter how hard you try. I mean, ending up like your parents is fine if they're great parents, but what if you had totally dysfunctional parents? Are you doomed to be as dysfunctional as your parents?

How Nathaniel Hawthorne huh? How biblical! The theme of the sins of the parents being passed down to the children from generation to generation. And will there be a "christ figure" in my screenplay, who will stop the cycle of sin and destruction, and lead the baseball player dude to redemption and a new life?

How Easter and Lenten of me. Well it is Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras, the last call" before the expected reflection and abstinence of the Christian Lenten season.

It's interesting listening to the reasons why potential marriage partners on "Married by America" are being rejected the friends and family of the participants. I've heard some of these reasons before from boyfriends who broke up with me.

Some boyfriends have told me that I was too into my "career" and had too many outside interests like writing, and that they were afraid I would always be second in their life. They were right about this one, and I've had to really look at this one honestly.

Some boyfriends have said that I was too much into personal transformation and always changing, and that they were afraid that one day I would change so much that I would leave them. These guys were obviously too insecure to be with me. I'm very independent and into personal and spiritual growth, and some guys aren't into women with these traits.

A couple of guys said that they thought I might be smarter than they were, and they didn't know if they could be with someone who was smarter than they were. I never had guys say this to me, and although I was extremely flattered it freaked me out at the same time. I've decided that I could never be with someone who I didn't think was smarter than me. It would just be too strange and awful. I like guys who are very intelligent, and quick on the uptake. I dumped a guy once when he told me my conversations were too deep for him. It was hard to do, because frankly the man was playgirl gorgeous but talk about "dumb blonde". I just couldn't handle it, and when he got whiny that was it.

I'm bad. I'm watching "Married by America, but I can't help it. I'm finally doing my taxes, and I have the TV on as background. The show is so funny. They asked a group of the suitor guys about sexual appetite, and one guy just blurted out "that he's hungry, like he's at an all you can eat buffet". And the next guy afterwards said that he was "hungry too, and would do things like tear the wife's clothes off at the door." These guys are so funny! Cute as heck too.

I like the fact that they have roommates, friends, and or family choosing the person these people are supposed to marry. I mean, your friends and family should have your best interests at heart right?

I went to a screenplay reading by a friend from myscreenwriting class on Saturday. My friend worked really hard on his screenplay, and I know rewrote the thing 3 or 4 times and even went to two scene by scene intensive classes. But sadly, the new reworked screenplay from what I could tell wasn't that much different from the first draft I read.

I don't know. I'm freaked. I knew my friend had been really very hard on his screenplay, so I guess I expected to see a really improved verison. Instead it was more of the same. I know the written second draft of my screenplay is radically different from the first version, so I guess I expected the same thing to happen to my friend.

It must be such a bummer to have worked that hard, and still not have it your writing be any better. I think of how much work I've put into my screenplay. I write about 10 outlines before I even start writing, because it's so hard to get the plot just right. If I count the outlines I've written, which take 1-3 hours to write each, I'm on something like draft # 20. That's a heck of a lot of drafts.

I'm starting to freak out again about the strange concept called "talent". Do I have it? Does it matter? Everyone all my life who has read anything I've ever written said I have some talent, bad grammar but some talent. Like what does "some talent" mean? And when do you start admitting to yourself that you just don't have what it takes to make it, and that maybe writing is in the genes.

Like take weight. I'm never going to be model thin ever. I don't have the genes for that. I have the kind of genes where keeping my weight at a healthy level is always going to be a struggle.. I'm always going to have to be disciplined about what I eat and how much I exercise, but I have two sisters who don't watch what they eat and don't exercise and have never been above a size 4. Like what's up with that?

My poor screenwriting friend. I received an email from him this morning thanking everybody for attending the reading. He admitted he was disappointed, because he honestly thought he had a finished product. I can't believe he thought he had a finished product, and I have to wonder about the people in screenwriting group who may have told him he had a good product. Like what is up what the people in the screenwriting group? It makes me wonder if having other people read you work is even worth it.

Stephen King in his book "On Writing", that you should just have a few trusted friends read your work and that writing classes and workshops aren't really that useful. Is he right? I trust my long time writing group, but I don't know if I trust anyone else except my screenwriting and acting teacher to read my work.

Writing is such a mystery. You'd think it would be easy. but it's not. Talent is so subjective and fickle. I'm starting to wonder if it's really all worth it.

I was going through my papers, when I found a bone density report I had done at a health fair. My mom has osteoperosis, and broke her hip falling out of a chair a few years ago. The whole incident freaked me out, so when I saw the booth at the health fair offering bone density screenings I went for it.

For the bone density test, I lay down and went through a machine and had a dexa test. The test scans your body and measure your bones, as well as your body mass and your percentage of body fat. The report recommends what your weight and body fat should be, and then how many calories to eat to lose weight without losing your lean mass, and how many calories to eat to preserve your weight.

What's interesting is that the report recommends that my body weight should be 149.9 pounds or 27% body fat, and this is the weight I've been plateauing on for the last 6 weeks. According to my bone density report, I'm at the perfect weight.

The report also show what my body fat percentage will be at different weight. My goal weight was to weigh 130 pounds, but at that weight my body fat percentage will be 17%. All the health guidlines I've read say that a female should not go below 18% body fat, because there might be serious health consequences.

So now I'm like thinking, my weight plateauing because 149 pounds is comfortable for my body, and if I want to weigh less I'm going to have to fight my body. But I really want to lose more weight, because my tummy is still fat and I still have fat on my hips and thighs. Am if fighting nature at this point and is it worth it?

To have a 20% body fat percentage, I would need to weigh 136.8 pounds. I would need to lose 12 more pounds to have a boy fat percentage of 20%. The minimum body fat percentage I should have is 18%, which means I'd have to weigh 134 pounds. So my new weight goal is 134 pounds, which means I now need to lose 15 pounds. I don't know if trying to get to an 18% body fat percentage is going to work for me, but I'm curious to know what I would look like at that weight.

The bone density report recommended that I eat 1313 calories per day to lose weight. Anything less than amount will cause me to go into starvation, or so says the report. The figure is based on my lean body mass of 109.5 pounds multiplied by 12.0 So my new calorie average total until I lose the weight is 1313. I've never had a weekly calorie average that low before, and I'm not even sure if I can do it.

Rock star guy was very complimentary on my weight loss and new look, but then spoiled it for me by saying my jeans were too loose, and couldn't I buy tighter jeans. Men! I know rock star guy meant well, and probably just likes the look of a girl in a skin tight pair of jeans. I told him the jeans fit my hips, but were just loose on the thighs. Rock star smiled and said "thin thighs were a good thing." And I'm like "whatever".

It's probably not a good thing, when your city's police chief and other top commanders in the force are indicted in a lawsuit by a grand jury and will shortly be arrested, SFPD Chief Sanders, Asst. Chief Fagan Indicted Plot To Obstruct Justice Charged.

I'm sure newspapers around the country and the world will have a field day with this one. I can hear the steak fajita jokes in the city of the fruits and nuts starting.

SF Bay Area Politics is strange. There was a survey which said that 41% of the SF Bay Area agree with President Bush and the push for war with Iraq. In San Francisco the number drops to 25%. Nationally, about 63% of the american people agree with President Bush.

From SFGATE.com
<"While a 52 percent majority of Californians supports the plan to take military action against Saddam Hussein, that percentage rises in the Central Valley and north-state regions to 63 percent and falls to 53 percent in Southern California and just 41 percent in the Bay Area.

Binder said researchers, for the first time, also broke down support within three subdivisions of the Bay Area region and found further disparities: In "core'' counties such as San Francisco, Alameda and Marin, backing for a possible war effort stands at 25 percent, while toward the south in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties the numbers add up to 39 percent and outlying counties such as Contra Costa, Napa, Solano and Sonoma registered the highest level of all with 54 percent. >

But when it comes to the disrespecting the flag, now that's another issue.

KGO AM radio ran a poll yesterday morning on whether its listeners agreed or disagreed with Toni Smith, the Manhattanville female basketball player who turns her back on the american flag during the playing of the national anthem. About 60-70% of the KGO listeners, or two to one callers, voted that they disagreed with Toni Smith's behaviour.

Mr. Rogers died. That's sad. He showed up at my church one Sunday, and he looked the same in person as he did on TV. I was a little too hyperactive as a child to be into him, but I know alot of people who totally adored him.

The thing I don't get about the current housing bubble is how can the home prices be so high, when the economy is sputtering and so many people are out work. It just doesn't make sense to me. The whole thing reminds me of the tech stock bubble, before it all crashed.

I used to wonder why the tech stocks were priced so highly when hardly any of the companies were making a prophet. I mean, economically the tech stock bubble just didn't make any sense to me, so I never bought into the mania of investing in tech stocks for the long term. The tech stock boom was great if you could buy a stock for cheap, then turn around and sell it right away when the price went up. I think some investors did this, and made quite a lot of money. Most people, including money fund managers however, started buying the over valued tech stocks and held on to it for too long. When the market started to crash in April 2000, their portfolios tumbled and way too many people saw their 401(k)s turn into a 101(k)s.

The housing bubble reminds me so much of the tech stock bubble, especially here in the SF Bay Area, although the reports say it's happening all over the country. It just doesn't make sense that the price of housing is going up as more and more people are losing their jobs, and the economy is so shaky that there will undoubtedly be many more layoffs in the next two years. Who is buying these houses? Something is definitely off either in the numbers of jobless people, like maybe there really aren't that many, or in the housing information, like maybe home prices aren't really going up. I don't know.

It's scary to me though, because it so much reminds me of the year before the tech crash in 2000. There was so much media hype about the tech stocks, and how everyone had to buy, buy, buy. There were some doomsayers reporting about the tech stock bubble, but these folks were regarded as loonies. I bet the loonies still have a 401(k), and not a 101(k).

Then April 2000 came, and the markets lost about $1 trillion in value. I mean, sure it was all on paper that's still a ton of money to lose on paper. I mean, after that didn't you think that you couldn't trust the media anymore because they hyped the stock market so much? I don't know what to believe anymore, except when I hear the media hyping anything I just have to wonder why.

So rock star guy and I are going out tonight to either watch "Daredevil" or "How to lose a guy in 10 days". Rock star guy wants to see my new smaller body. He is such a good friend. He said that "no matter what you weigh, you'll always be cute." Isn't he just the sweetest guy?

Of course after that, I heard an earful about what I need to do to lose those last 20 pounds. Like rock star guy really knows about losing weight, since he's as skinny as Mick Jagger and has never had a weight problem in his life and all his girlfriends and his three ex-wives complain that he' s way too thin. But that's okay. Rock star guy friend is sweet and was just trying to help.

I'm going to wear my new tight sweater with the horizontal stripes, which makes me look I've had a rack job so I can look like I match my rock star friend. If only I could do the heavy makeup and big hair thing as well, but that's way too much work for me.

Wearing the size 8 jeans is strange. A friend thinks they’ve made the sizes all bigger lately to make people feel comfortable. The butt part fits right, but everything else is loose. These jeans are low rise, which is nice because I don’t curve in at the waist. I keep thinking I need tighter jeans, and am tempted to go to Macy’s and try on the Ralph Lauren size 6 pair just to see how they would fit.

I hesitate though, because I honestly don’t think my hips are going to get any smaller. When I was 18 years old, my hips were a size 36. No way am I going to get any smaller.

It’s just a weird feeling to have loose jeans in a size 8. What a trip! What a frickin’ trip, especially since I’ve been stuck on a plateau since January and haven’t lost any weight. I am lifting weights, and a friends says that my body is now getting tighter. And I’m like great, but what about my weight? I was 145-150 pounds for a long time, and I think my body is like “wow, I remember this weight, I like this weight. No way are we getting any smaller.”

So after all the months of dieting and exercising, I’m at the point where I was before I got fat. I’m at the last 20 pounds that I’ve never been able to lose. Mindboggling. It’s like time has stood still somehow, and I’m right back where I started from and I don’t like it.

It freaked me out, and I had a crying jags off and on all weekend. I’m having crying jags, and wearing my new size 8 jeans a size I haven’t worn since college and totally depressed because it feels like I haven’t made any progress in all these years. I hate this.

But not to despair because I have a plan. I’m cutting out 100 calories from my daily count, and I’m going to starting running three times a week. I went to the gym on Saturday and Sunday, and ran for about 30 minutes both days. On Sunday, I upped my speed to 6.0 on the treadmill and ran this speed for 10 minutes. I think this means I ran a 10 minute mile, which is like really fast for me. On Sunday at the lower speeds (5.0), I felt like I could run for hours.

It’s good to feel that strong again. It won’t be real for me until I’m out on out in nature and trail running, and powering up and down hills without being out of breath or breaking a sweat. It’s an incredible feeling to be able to depend on your body like that, knowing that no matter what lies ahead on the road ahead you’ll be able to power through it, conquer it without the road freaking you out and wearing you down. One of these days, soon, this will be a reality again for me.

I'm watching Page to Screen, and tonight's program is on the movie "The Cider House Rules". The movie was more than 12 years in development, and went through 50 plus screenplay drafts. Unbelievable, but unfortunately I think very typical of Hollywood and the movie making process. I don't think John Irving will be writing another screenplay soon, although he did win an Oscar for his screenplay adaptation.

Bad news for the SF Bay Area, especially Silicon Valley,
Picture grim for job rebound VALLEY FORECAST: RECOVERY IN 2011.

For the Tolkien fans, 'Elric Saga' fantasy series optioned. Interestingly enough, the saga will be produced by Chris and Paul Weitz. The Weitz's directed "About a Boy", but this time they will just be producing and not writing or directing.

This is a sad story, Alleged murder-suicide in Concord. The news reporter on the radio said that the daughter was mentally disabled, and the wife had Alzheimers. The neighbours are calling it a mercy killing. The details are sketchy, but it's so sad.

Did the father and husband just give up on life and said screw it? The man shot the daughter and wife, and then himself. What would drive a person to do this? I think the man was probably taking care of the retarded daughter and the wife all by himself. What a burden. And now the daughter is alive, how messed is that? If she lives, who is going to take care of her. Is it a good thing that the daughter is mentally disabled because then maybe she won't have to freak out about her dad trying to kill her?

And I feel bad because the writer in me is saying in my head, "there's a story there, one heck of a story". But what a sad story it would be to write. I guess I would only be interested in writing the story so I could speculate what would drive a person to do this. It would be a fictional account of course, although it would be interesting to see if someone else wants to find out the real story behind the news headline and will write the true story.

What would drive a person to such depths of despair, that he or she would kill the only two people he or she loved?

A few short notes.

Suprisingly, the movie "Gods and Generals" was sold out at AMC 1000 on Van Ness on Sunday. You wouldn't think this kind of movie would be sold out here, but it was despite the reviews. The movie theatre only had two showings because of the film length, and that may explain why it was sold out. If I want to see it, I will definitley have to think about buying movie tickets online.

The news is full of stories about the high price of gas in the SF Bay Area. I'm lucky, because I pick up gas at Costco where the price last week was only $1.86. The gas station is right near my office, so I can go during the day when the lines aren't very long. I saw a gas station in my neighbourhood that was charging $2.99 for full service premium, and they were people at the station. I guess for some people the price of gas doesn't matter.

I see gas guzzling cars on my daily commute, and I wonder what their gas bills are like. My car gets okay mileage since I mostly drive city miles, and average about 22 mpg. Still, that's better than 15 mpg. I have a small car with a small gas tank, but a short commute to work. I drive about 260 miles a week, and end up picking up gas every 10 days. When I put together my 2003 home budget, I expected the gas prices to go up and planned accordingly but maybe I didn't budget enough. The war hasn't even started yet, and already the gas is going up. I wouldn't be surprised if gas goes to $4-5 a gallon if and when the war does start.

Look for the economy to further tank when the gas prices go that high. I'm not looking forward to that.

I rented the movie "About a Boy", and although parts of it were funny overall I thought the movie was kind of boring. One interesting thing I noticed is that hippies are the same in England as they are in the States. Toni Collette was great. She has a great voice, so it was funny to hear her sing that old Roberta Flack out of key, great acting. She reminded me of Julianne Moore in "Boogie Nights, who had to pretend to act very badly in the porno flicks.

Maybe I'm over the "isn't Hugh Grant just a doll" trip, because he just came across as a sad twerp, and biggest creep in the world. I felt sorry for the little boy, and started thinking we are going to have a generation of kids raised by single mothers, if we don't already. Will society be different because of kids raised by single moms? In college, I didn't know too many other people whose parents were still together. Most kids were from divorced families where there'd been multiple marriages for both parents.

A male friend has a theory that if you were raised by parents who never divorced, you will eventually marry someone who had the same family background. He has never seriously dated a woman who came from a divorced family, and actually neither have I. All my serious relationships including my marriage were with men whose parents never divorced.

My parents had one heck of a rotten marriage, but they were old fashioned and catholic so divorce was not an option. My guy friend tells me that this is the reason we both have problems finding relationships. They aren't too many people left who come from families where the parents aren't divorced. That's his theory anyway. Sometimes I wonder if he's right.

I think I will have to definitely read some Nick Hornby books. Maybe the book was better, or maybe it's just me because a lot of critics loved this movie. I thought it was good, but not very deep and somewhat trite. But then again, I didn't think "The Wonder Boys" was that great of a movie either.

Now "About Schmidt" - this is a damned good movie! Review to come later.

I have a strange religious life. I was raised catholic in a church, that was from what I've surmised from other catholic friends, more protestant than catholic. The Marist priests who ministered at my church were college educated and intelligent, and preached mind boggling, serious half an hour to an hour sermons every Sunday. They sermonized about how to still have faith and believe in God and still live your life. They preached sermons that were complicated, and for people who were well educated. In the Sunday catechism that I attended, we read the bible and played "Bible Hunt", things that my other catholic friends never did in their Sunday schools. My catholic priests stressed that bible reading was important to religious life, and talked every Sunday about we should read the bible every day.

When I stared attending catholic services in my adult life in California, I was shocked at how different the service was from what I remembered as a child and a teenager. The priests either didn't preach, or when they did preach it was awful. They didn't talk about why it was important to have faith and believe in God. They didn't talk about the difficulty of having faith in today's world. Instead, the catholic priests at the churches I attended in San Francisco preached simple sermons like we were all 7 years old and living in third world countries, who didn't have to wrestle with our faiths. It was so disappointing.

When I started to attended protestant churches, I felt more at home. The ministers reminded me of my childhood catholic priests. They emphasized the bible and its importance to christian life. And most importantly, they had long sermons about why have faith and belive in God in today's world, just like my childhood catholic priests.

But now, my protestant church is becoming more catholic. For the Lenten season, they announced that there will be a Thursday class on personal confession. How catholic, personal confession. I'm going to attend the class just to see what they have to say about "personal confession", which I consider a "catholic concept". Then, they're going to suggest that the congregation find a "confessor" during Lenten week, who I assume will be someone you will confess all your sins too. And the minister mentioned a confessor is a "priest, a minister, a therapist, or a friend". I think he was actually suggesting you could go to a priest and confess your sins. What a trip. I'll have to get clarification if he was really suggesting going to a priest.

Many in the congregation are like me, cradle catholics. In fact, my church is made of all people from various denominations. There's definitely a southern baptist group, and I know there's methodists, episcopalians, and I think a few jewish people as well. Is that where theh priest reference came in?

It's weird how I attended a catholic church, which was kind of like a protestant church, and now I'm attending a protestant church, that's now adopting catholic type rituals. They even play catholic monk music and gregorian chants during the Wednesday prayer service. Talk about me feeling right at home.

Busy weekend coming up.

There's an orchid show in town, and I'm so looking forward to going. My mom raised orchids when I was growing up, and our house was surrounded by pots and pots of orchids. My mom is too old to care for her garden and she ended up selling most of her plants, but I still have good memories of spending ours looking at these strange looking flowers.

Orchid collecting can become an obsesssion, and take over your life. Orchids need a lot of care, and you can get into collecting all the different varieties. There's the time you spend trying to diagnose them when they're sick, and the best potting soil for them. Then there's the expense. It's an expensive hobby, with the cost of the plants, the pots, the special potting soil, the fertilizer, etc.

My mom was really into it, and spent hours potting and repotting her orchids, fertilizing and watering them, and then going to orchid shows or friend's houses to look at their collections. When I was little, I used to think that my mother's orchids meant more to her than I did. She spent way more time with them than with me. I used to wonder if she had names for them, but I was afraid to ask her.

I'm sure orchid care was easier for her than child care. At least orchids didn't talk back, do wrong things, disappoint her, or whatever. Orchids were always beautiful and you didn't have to tell them that they looked too fat or freak out that they were wearing the wrong clothes or needed therapy because their problems were just too much for you to handle, because you're the type who's too reserved, too stiff upper lip, too emotionally frozen to ever discuss unseemly things like feelings and emotions.

No, I'm not bitter about my mother. I've resolved her reluctance for motherhood, and now that I've spent thousands of dollars in therapy and growth and development courses, I can understand why orchids were infinitely more appealing to her than her own children. I can go to an orchid show, and have good memories, because orchids are beautiful flowers, but that doesn't mean I don't remember the effect orchids have had on my life.

Then there's a Tulip Festival at Pier 39 that I'm going to attend. The last time I went to the Pier 39 Tulip festival I was with my friend Amy, who died a coupld of years of a brain tumor. We had so much fun that day, although poor Amy was so sick and walked very slowly and was already starting to lose her balance and mind. That day was of the last good times we had, before the illness started to take over her life and eventually take her life. I love tulips, and during tulip season I buy tulips every week. They were the only flowers I could draw when I was little, and I love that what I drew on paper looks the same in real life.

The war comes close to home, sort of. A member of my church congregation saw his 21 year old son off to Iraq last Sunday. He was sitting at my table at a church luncheon, and the poor man burst into tears when he talked about saying goodbye to his son that afternoon. The son is in the marine reserves, and he will be on duty for one year.

At the Wednesday evening prayer service, that same man was there and during the service he started crying again. It's so strange to see a grown man crying in public. The man talked about how his son was so proud to serve his country and be part of the marines. The son was looking forward to going to Iraq, and showing his patriotism.

My heart goes out to the man. It must be the most awful feeling to see your child go off to a war, and knowing he or she may never come back. I cannot even begin to know what that's like. I guess the only consolation I see is the son willingly volunteered, and wasn't drafted. The son goes in to the war, proud to serve his country and knowing full well that death could await him down the road.

I watched the movie "Gettysburg" last night. I'd been trying to track it down at various video stores, and I finally ran across a copy. I wanted to watch it in preparation for the movie, "Gods and Generals".

"Gettysburg" is a long movie, and could have used some judicious editing. The subject is very good, but the movie is just so slow moving. Martin Sheen plays General Robert E. Lee and Tom Berenger plays General Longstreet. The movie shows the famous ill-fated Pickett's charge, and was quite good at showing the decision making process which led to that particular battle. Actually, it wasn't a battle, it was a slaughter.

One of these days, I'd like to go to Gettysburg for the Civil Wargasm or civil war reenanctment that they put on every year. It's probably the kind of thing where you have to make your hotel reservations very far in advance, since it happens on the July 4th weekend.

Pittsburgh has a museum with the largest collection of Andy Warhol paintings, so I could do a combined Gettyburg and Pittsburgh trip. I've been to Pennsylvania before, but I've only ever thought about it as "that long state you have to drive through to get to New York". I've been to Philadelphia to see the Liberty Bell, and I had a boyfriend whose grandmother lived there somewhere and we went to visit her once, but that's it.

I'm seriously thinking about buying Shelby Foote's series of books on the Civil War. I really like Shelby Foote, and what he's had to say about the Civil War. For my elf girl stories, I need to understand military strategy so I can write out the battle scenes. I studied a little bit of military history and planning when I wrote my senior thesis in college. My senior thesis was "the effects of Post Traumatic Disorder on Vietnam War Veterans".

I read all of these analyses on how the Vietnam War was not a conventional war, and how the US military was unprepared to fight a guerilla war. I read about US military training techniques at the time, and a history of how wars had been fought in the past.

The research was all very interesting, and I loved it. War is a very fascinating subject. There is so much logic that goes into putting together a military campaign, which is so ironic to me because war is just not a logical thing. War is the most irrational and illogical thing in the world, yet logic governs the fighting of it. Even guerilla warfare has a certain logic to it.

I got into Robert Ludlum's whole "Jason Bourne" series, because the main character was this extremely smart and logical man who put his "smarts" to work for him when he became a violent killer and assasin. I like the dichotomy of a person being that intelligent and at the same time being that violent.

My new favorite radio song - "Time like These" by the Foo Fighters. I really like all their songs, especially the last one from the Orange County soundtrack. They are a really good group.

I still haven't filed my taxes, even though I'm getitng a big refund. I just haven't had the time time to review everything, but I'll probably send it this weekend. I decided to purchase Itsdeductable, a software program that you can use to track your deductions. I mostly got it so I can fully deduct my clothing donations. With all this weight loss, I have alot of clothes that I'll need to give away. I went through my closet yesterday,and was able to fill three shopping bags. Most of the clothes I'm donating are clothes that are now too big and I never really liked anyway, or have some kind of problem like it's not stylish.

I'm throwing out 16 tshirts, mostly old ones that I haven't worn in years and are now just way too big. The Itsdeduductible program values things a little bit more than I was doing in the past, but not by much. I don't normally throw clothes away until they're pretty well worn, and I don't really have too many expensive items. I've tried to give away to friends the really expensive clothes, which they seem to appreciate. I go over to this one friend's house, and her closet is full of my clothes. There's something so comforting about that.

Aaaahhhhh. The ending of Joe Millionaire made me cry. How romantic, in that typical Hollywood way. Of course it was going to be a happy ending, this is still Hollywood remember, seller of false dreams and reality, people who show us how life should be not how it really is, even on a "reality show".

I knew he would pick Zorah, although I had my doubts. The other one, the bondage queen, was just too much into the money. Zorah never talked about money ever. Even at the end, I still wasn't sure what Zorah was going to do. I love that twist at the end when they both got to split $1 million dollars. I bet the bondage queen is pissed. Poor Zorah didn't even have heat for a couple of months and used the old trick of turning on the oven to keep the house warm.

I am looking forward to next week's show because now that I've seen the fairy tale ending, I want to see the reality. The next show reminds me of the Broadway musical, "Into the Woods", where they showed what happened after the fairy tale ends. Reality is never quite as good as the fairy tale ending, and I'm sure next week's show will prove that.

Another interesting thing to note about France, French carrier prepares for Gulf deployment.

"Paris opposes military action against Iraq without UN backing, but the deployment of the carrier to the Gulf could be a signal that France fears being sidelined if Iraq is attacked."

France is covering all their bases, aren't they?

This is interesting. Despite France's opposition to a war on Iraq look at what they're doing, France To Vaccinate 150 Health Care, Justice Workers Against Smallpox.

"However, Mattei said France is "almost finished" building up stocks of 70 million doses of vaccine - more than enough to cover the country's population of 61.4 million in case the threat becomes real."

If France is so sure that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction, why are vaccinating and building up stocks of small pox vaccine? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Interesting. Even Pud from F*$@#edcompany.com said on the site, "So an estimated 100,000 pro-Saddam supporters in NYC were among the millions worldwide."

So a part of me feels weird because I'm not going to any of the anti-war protests. I didn't even support the first gulf war. But two people whose political opinions I totally admire, Thomas Friedman from the NY Times and Christopher Hitchens who used to write for The Nation, support the administration's efforts ainst Iraq.

Christopher Hitchens, who said the progress of any nation depends on the education and advancement of women, is a well known left wing socialist political commentator. Thomas Friedman, a columnist for the NY Times, who friends have said is the most balanced and fair political essayist at the NY Times. Both men, coming from different political perspectives, support a US led war against Iraq.

I think I've become more pragmatic as I've gotten older. I mean I've always been practical, but now I'm both practical and pragmatic especially when it comes to politics. The anti-war people haven't offered a more pragmatic solution to dealing with Iraq. All I seem to hear from anti-war people is this war is about oil, even though the US only gets 6% of its oil from Iraq. Or, they say that Bush is continuing the war that his father fought, even though Clinton himself bombed two or three places when Iraq kicked the inspectors out of the country in 1998.

Or, all you hear is anti-Bush rhetoric. I mean, I cannot help but think that if it were Bill Clinton or any other democrat in the White House, the anti-war fervor would not be so great. Deciding international policy based on partisan politics is not the smartest way to decide whether you support something or not.

If only the ant-war people would offer a more pragmatic solution, then maybe I'd protest, although I wouldn't attend the rallies only because they're run by ANSWER, an organization that is anti-american, supports the regimes of Saddam Hussein, communist North Korean, and supports Milosevich, the Palestinan campaign of terror against Israel, and the Chinese government crackdown of student dissidents at Tianeman Square.

Instead, I'd write my congresspeople or my senator. But until I hear a more pragmatic solution to dealing with Saddan Hussein, then I can't protest. We've had the inspectors in and out of Iraq for 11.5 years, and still the man has weapons. Iraq has already said NO to the UN peacekeeping troops in the country, which was part of the UN proposal France and Germany were working on. Iraq has already also said NO to destroying those missiles that violate UN limits for how they travel. Saddam Hussein is not going to ever willingly disarm, and since when has containment ever worked in international policy or in real life. Britian thought it had European aggression contained in the first part of the 20th century, and out of that containment came WW1 and WW2.

The original resolution seems wrong anyway. The onus is on Iraq to disarm and for the UN to inspect. I wish I knew my WW2 history better, because I'm wondering what the japanese terms of surrender were after WW2. From what I remember, Japan was disarmed and it worked. Did the UN not follow the japanse example with Iraq? I'll have to research this.

I mean, come on. What country is going to willingly disarm? It's a messed up situation from the get go, and there is no easy solution to the problem. But right now, the Bush administration seems to have the only pragmatic solutin on the table.

The rest of Saturday I spent trying on jeans. I got so tired of my baggy jeans, that I made myself go shopping. I tried on Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Jones New York jeans. The size 8 for all brands fit, even the slim Tommy Hilfiger jeans. I ended up buying a pair of Ralph Lauren and a pair of Tommy Hilfiger jeans.

I probably could have squeezed myself into a pair of size 6 jeans, but I've been wearing loose fitting jeans for so long that I started liking my jeans to fit loose and not tight. I never thought jeans fit right unless you had to lie down to put them on, but I must be getting old because now I like my jeans well fitting but not so skintight they leave marks in your legs.

God, I remember two years ago trying to buy a pair of Tommy Hilfiger jeans and not even being able to squeeze my body into a size 16, which is largest size they sell. I mean, I could get them on but they were so darned tight. Now I'm the proud owner of a pair of size 8 jeans that are fit, but aren't tight. I mean it's not like my life has radically changed or anything with me buying a smaller pair of jeans, but I am totally tripping on my jeans shopping adventure.

Of course, now I'm like thinking about trying to get into a pair of size 6 jeans since I haven't even gotten to my goal weight yet. But I know that's not good. I should enjoy the pleasure of buying a pair of size 8 jeans, something which I haven't done since college. And now that I did spend some money on my size 8 jeans, I'm kind of hoping to stay a size 8 for awhile just to make the jeans investment worthwhile.

On Saturday morning, I went to the opening of the Gavin Newsome for Mayor Headquarters on Van Ness at California. Everyone was marveling at the turnout, especially on a three-day weekend. 300 people jammed the room to hear Gavin and his wife, Kimberly Guilfoyle, an assistant DA for the city speak.

Three well-dressed and expensive looking Pacific Heights matron types were talking about Newsome's future, since you can only be a mayor of San Francisco for two terms. They were saying maybe state senator, state representative, and the biggest prize of California poltics, the governorship.

Well, he's definitely go the Gray Davis style of fundraising down. Newsome's campaign has already gotten more money than the all the SF mayoral candidates combined. I'm even thinking of donating money. The man definitely has something. I don't know what it is, star quality maybe. He's got that special gift of making everything he says sound so sincere and so from the heart. I don't know him well enough to know whether he really means what he says, but even if he does or doesn't, I think he will always sound like he does.

Newsome did say that contributions from his campaign came from every zipcode in San Francisco. I wonder if this happens to all front runner candidates. The crowd gathered on Saturday was definitely a mix of people from the City.

I think most of the people there are like me, tired of business/politics as usual in San Francisco, the cit that can't seem to ever get anything done. I think what I like about Gavin Newsome is he's a pragmatist, not an idealist. I think he will shake things up at City Hall and try to get something done, and not just spout idealistic pronouncements and hope the city will take care of itself. It's almost worth voting for Gavin Newsome just to get back at all the left wing political freaks who have made it impossible to get anything done or passed in the city. I think Newsome will lead the city back to the center, and perhaps lift the malaise that has descended on San Francisco city politics.

There is nobody else I would really support. I don't want to elect someone who will polarize the city. The City has some serious problems, and we need someone who can get support from the right and left in the city. Yes, despite what you read in the paper, on the internet and hear in the media, there are conservatives in San Francisco. Not very many, but I think there are at least 10 - 20% who will actually admit to being a republican. My neighborhood is about 15% republican, and there were plenty of Bush/Cheney signs in people's windows during the 2000 election.

Personally, I would place the republican figure higher, but it's San Francisco and you just can't say you're a republican because you'd be ostracized, so the safe thing to say is you're an independent. But then if you don't register with a political party, you don't get to vote in the primaries, which I what alot of people I know do. They only vote in the General election, or worse, they just don't vote which is too bad.

I just bought a couple pairs of size 8 pants, and already they're getting a little loose in the butt area. I think I might have to starting buying medium sweaters, because the large sweaters I own are starting to hang on me.

I've washed my jeans in hot water, and they shrank a little. I'm going to keep washing them in hot water till I get them to the right size. This is weird, but even my panties are starting to look too baggy on me. What a trip!

I think the weightlifting is contributing to my smaller size, because my weight hasn't budged. I've lost an inch off my bust area, half an inch off my knee, and half an inch off my arm. I'd love to have nice sculpted arms, but not too sculpted like Madonna or Angela Basset. I definitely don't want my arms to look that muscular. Yucky! I'd to also run on the treadmill for either an hour without stopping, or increase my speed. That would be totally cool. I've always wanted to run a 10 minute mile. I wonder how long would I have to train to run that fast. A 10 minute mile would be a personal record for me. My personal best running record is a 2.5 hour half marathon (13.1 miles) time. That's about an 11.5 minute mile. A 10 minute mile would totally be a great goal to train and work for, wouldn't it?

Okay, yes, I got sucked into watching "Are You Hot?". I coudln't help it. I was so curious about what the celebrities would consider "hot" men and women. Thin is definitely in, but not too thin for women. Some of those girls looked so anorexic. For the men, the look is definitely to be buillt and muscled, but not too mucscled. Also watch those legs guys. No chicken legs on men! Some of the judges said the woman looked too hard, so the fresh look is in. And bone structure. For men and women, if you have great bone structure then you're ahead of the crowd. And youth. No oldies but goodies on this show.

Most importantly though, which is kind of cool, if you exude self confidence, are happy and smiling, feel good about yourself, and have a great attitude, then the physical characteristics aren't as important. This is good to know, isn't it? All that matters in the end is how you feel about yourself and projecting this out to other people.

The news is reporting that there are now 150,000 US troops surrounding Iraq. Wow, that seems like a lot of personnel. I was really grateful that someone in church a couple of weeks ago said a prayer for the troops. No matter what your opinion is about Bush and the upcoming war in Iraq, we should never forget to pray for the men and women who defend our country. They make it possible for the people back home to have the freedoms we do.

Sometimes at church, people forget to pray for the troops, and instead pray that we don't go to war. I mean, it's fine to pray that we don't have a war, but it kind of upsets me when we don't pray for our troops. It's probably not San Francisco politically correct, to pray for the people who defend our country, but I don't care. I just hope that if we do go to war, that the anti-war people don't treat the soldiers badly if and when they come home. I've read that the soldiers were treated very badly by the anti-war protestors, when they returned home from the Vietnam war. I hope history doesn't repeat itself again.

The soldiers are just doing their job, just doing what they feel is right, just exercising their right to defend the country, just as the anti-war peope are exercising their right to protest a war that they they feel is not justified.

I heard an interview with the editor of the Economist a few days ago. He endorsed the war. Thomas Friedman, the NY Times critic whom I totally respect for his knowledge of world affairs, endorsed the war. Ronn Owens said it right some time this week. Who do you trust more? Saddam Hussein or George W. Bush? Not that I voted for Bush or would reeelect him, but I definitely trust him more than Saddam Hussein.

As for the French and the Germans. I say follow the money trail. Iraq is France's and Germany's biggest trading partner. The US only gets 6% of its oil from Iraq. France and Germany are just trying to protect their supply chain and their revenue source. How bad karma of them! I think we will go to war, whether France, Germany, Belgium, Russia, China, the UN Security Counsel, and the anti-war protestors like it or not.

Some congressional representatives have even called for a boycott of French goods, and for the US to pull its troops out of Germany. I think we should do all of these things, but we need to also take it one step further, and cut off any American aid to any country who goes against us on this issue. Ungrateful countries! They bite the hand that feeds them. I hate that! Then if the US stays out of some country's affairs, like on the Israeli/Palestinian issue, these same countries whine and tell us we aren't doing enough for world peace. Make up your mind people! Mon dieu!

Ted Koppel just said something funny (not a direct quote), "it hardly seems like unseemly haste that we're going to war with Iraq, since we've been trying to disarm Iraq for 12 years and have failed miserably in the attempt." I totally agree!

I picked up a bottle of Bollinger champagne to take to the Valentine's Day party I'm attending tomorrow. Bolly's, how ABFAB! I normally buy Veuve Clicquot, a brand I've been drinking since 1991, but I was so curious about Bolly's.

While at Booze R Us (Beverages and More - it's like a toy store for adults), I also checked out the price of Cristal champagne which I keep hearing mentioned in the lyrics of popular songs. Wow, it's really expensive! On sale, Cristal will set you back $150, normally it's $200. I've had Dom Perignon; it's a very smooth bubbly which costs about $90. No Cristal for me this year, or any year unless my finances take a 1000% jump or someone else buys it.

I'm not a big straight champagne drinker. I rather drink champagne mixed drinks like mimosas or poinsettias (cranberry juice and champagne), or champagne cocktails even. The only liquors I really like straight are ice cold russian vodka, single malt scotch whiskeys, sherry, madeira, port, and good Kentucky bourbons.

Life is such a small world. I was listening to the radio news, and they were reporting on the verdict for the woman who ran over her hubbymeister three times with the Benz. A voice comes on, and I'm like "I know that voice." Then the radio announcer says it's Robert Pugsley, a professor at Southwestern University. Mr. Pugsley is a good friend of a very good friend of mine. My friend keeps telling me that Bob gets interviewed on the radio all the time when the media is looking for lawyer opinions, but I'd never heard him before.

Bob did the commentary for the OJ trial on a radio station here, and made a ton of money. He took the both of us out to dinner once, and jokingly said "OJ was paying our meal". It was so cool to finally hear him on the radio. He doesn't sound at all what he looks like, by the way.

I can't help and I know it's evil, but whenever I hear the story of the Texas woman who ran over her cheating husband with the Benz, it makes me smile. I'm like, the guy totally deserved it. The woman came home and found the husband in bed with his mistress. I mean, how tacky can you get. If you can afford a Mercedes Benz, you can afford to take your ho to a hotel.

That's what I don't get. If a guy must cheat, why does he make it so easy to get caught? I mean if a guy feels compelled to cheat, he should at least be discreet about it and not get caught, and certainly not get caught by his wife in their bed. The guy totally deserved being run over, and three times for the following reasons; 1) for cheating and breaking the marriage vows 2) for cheating in the bed he sleeps in with his wife and 3) for being stupid enough to get caught.

I finished God Talk by Brad Gooch, and while I enjoyed most of the chapters I wish he would have come up with a concluding chapter on what he discovered on how modern American worships.

The most interesting chapters for me were the first three chapters, probably because I had read, heard of, or knew of people who were practicing those religions. Chapter 1 was on The Urantia Book, Chapter 2 was on Hinduism in America, and Chapter 3 was on The Trappist Abbeys, Thomas Merton and on Catholicism. Gooch writes that the many monks at Gethsamini became disillusioned with their vocation after Vatican II, which made the Catholic church more modern. "Vatican II stripped down the wall that people were hiding behind ... now you can no longer hide behind the poetry of Catholicsism to sustain your vocation", commented a monk to Gooch.

One interesteing thing about the Trappists abbeys is that they sell products. The Gethsamani Abbey for monks Gethsamani Abbey sells fruitcake, fudge and cheese, and Our Lady of Mississippi Abbey for nuns sell candy. I am seriously thinking of buying their products to support them. They lead such a fascinating life of contemplation, work and ritual. You can vacation at the Abbeys for retreats, which I've always wanted to do. There is something so interesting about the contemplative life.

Here's a Valentine's Day fun thing to think about: Favorite romantic scenes from a movie.

Off the top of my head, no particular order.
1. "Ever After", the part when the prince asks Cinderella to marry him, and puts the beautiful shoe on her dirty stockinged foot.
2. "Persuasion"(1995 version with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds), the reading of the letter from Captain Wentworth, and then he and Anne meeting outside the house in Bath and kissing.
3. "It Could Happen to You", the part where Nicolas Cage and Bridget Fonda are planning to move to upstate New York.
4. "Pride and Prejudice" (A&E version), the part where Mr. Darcy tells Elizabeth he still loves her.
5. "Bridget Jones' Diary", the end where Mark Darcy kisses Bridget.
6. "A Room with a View", the ending where Lucy and George Emerson are kissing.
7. "Top Gun", the end where Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis are kissing.

I own all these movies except for Bridget Jones Diary. I'm not sure whether Sense and Sensibility had any romantic scenes, or if they did, there aren't any scenes that are sticking in my head. Same thing with Emma, although I thought about including the scene with Emma and Mr. Knightley where he tells her he loves her.

SF Bay Area Diners - Dine About Town has been extended! I'm excited. I spent way too much money eating out, but boy was the food really good! I think I dropped about $30 and up per meal, and I ate desserts too and didn't gain any weight. Definitley good stuff.

Monday night is TV night for me.

At 8 pm, I start with "Veritas, The Quest", the new show on ABC. It's about a group of scientists looking for ancient objects of power. I love stuff like this. It's an action adventure show, so they don't have the time to get too much into detail about the ancient power objects but they do enough where I find the show interesting and fascinating. It's like a modern Indiana Jones, only with a father and son and a group of scientists.

Then at 9 pm, there's "Joe Millionaire". Tonight's show was a teaser, and basically nothing new was revealed. Bummer. I'll have to wait till next week's finale. I can't wait.

Then there's "Miracles", at 10 pm again on ABC. Tonight's show was creepy. They didn't reveal till the end that the woman the main character fell in love with was actually a ghost. I was like, oh my god - the guy was kissing a ghost. God, I love that. I had no idea, and I wish now I had taped the show so I could go back to look for clues. I love "The Sixth Sense" touch. The ghost woman could use the phone and call and leave a message, but I don't think anyone ever saw her except for the main character.

I'm still marveling at tonight's "The Miracles" story line. I wish I could write a story like that.

The Art of Pacific Asia exhibit made me think about finishing a short story I started a few years ago, called "The Blue Haired Buddha on Union Street". When I used to hang out on Union Street, there was a giant blue haired buddha in the window of an asian antique store. I used to always stop by the window, and stare at the statue. I just loved the Buddha's blue hair. I don't know why, but the blue hair was so cool.

I like the blue haired buddha so much, I decided he needed to be in a story so I started writing one, but I never finished it. I knew how the story should end, but I could never figure out how to get from the beginning I wrote to the end I envisioned. Years later, a fun and fantastical way to get from the beginning to the end of my story came to me yesterday in the shower. It will make for a weird story, but I think that's okay because then I'll have finished the story finally after all these years, and sometimes that's the only important thing.

I'm reading this really interesting book called "God Talk: Travels in Spiritual America" by Brad Gooch. A friend in my Wednesday night bible class gave it to me to read, and I'm really enjoying it.

What's fascinating to me is I know about all the alternative religions he's talking about. I know people who are into the Urantia Book and the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ. A good friend is a well known TM teacher in Berkeley, and whose boyfriend was meditating in India with Beatles. I know people who are into Gurumayi, Yogananda, Vivikenanda, Ramakrishna, and I know someone who even studied with Fred Lenz.

What's interesting is how many people are searching outside of mainstream christian religion for answers that they're not getting. I did the same, but ended coming back to Christianity because it was my first religion. I did find what these other spiritual seekers were looking for in the religion of my childhood, but I think only be exploring other alternatives and finding out that my childhood religion had all the answers all along. I just didn't know it at the time and needed to leave to find out.

I had the sniffles all day, and I couldn't tell if another cold or flu was coming on or if my allergies were acting up, so after church I came home and slept most of the day. When I sleep, my immune system kicks up and can kill any bug that's invading my system.

I took the bus on Saturday and spent alot of time outdoors, since I was going to three different places and didn't want to deal with the hassle of parking. It was a nice sunny day, although the temperature was in the 60's and it was quite chilly if you weren't in the sunshine. So, either I got too cold and picked up a chill, or being outdoors in the Presidio kicked up my allergies, or I was around too many people who might have been carrying cold germs and didn't know it.

I spent some time on Sunday, installing McAfee Virus Scan 7.0 on my computer. My Norton Anti-Virus software wasn't compatible with windows 2000. I'd also been getting way too many trojans on my computer, so I figured I'd better get a win2000 compatible virus software program right away and since McAfee was on sale at Costco for about $20 with a rebate, I bought it.

Right before I installed McAfee, Norton said I had another trojan virus on computer. I typed the virus name on the web, and I found out I had a variant of a worm virus called YAHA. It's a nasty little trojan virus that somehow attaches itself to your virus software. I tried to delete it, but every time I rebooted my system the YAHA worm virus would reinstall itself. The YAHA virus creates a directory on your system that says \microsoft\tcpsvs32, and had a program in there called die.exe. I ended up hacking into my registry and deleting the Norton virus line in my startup. Once I did that, I was able to delete and directory and the worm. What a pain!

When I installed McAfee and ran the virus scan, the program additionally picked up nine infected files with the virus trojan. So scary. The McAfee virus scan included a Firewall program, so I installed it as well. Hopefully, the new programs will keep trojans away. I got rid of the preview pane in my mail program too.

I don't know how I picked up the trojan either, but most likely it was from an email with an exe file or scr file attached to it.

The Arts of Pacific Asia was a well heeled event, with exhibitors showing museum quality pieces. I saw a beautiful gold Buddha from Kashmir from the 9th/10th century CE for $120,000. The I saw chinese Han dynasty vases from 200 BCE, but there was no price. There was also an exibitor from New York who had some great Mughal Empire paintings, which I think are so beautiful, selling for $3,000 and up.

You could also purchse Meiji era Japanese prints, a favorite of mine, from a UK exhibitor for $1,100 and up. There were chinese snuff bottles galore, as well as those strange tiny chinese shoes going for $400 and up. There were also beautiful clothing and rugs, as well as ceramics, furniture and jewelry.

I think the most inexpensive thing I saw there, was a small but very pretty century japanese woodblock print from the early 1900's for $65. I was tempted to buy it, just to have something from the event, but settled on a book of Mount Fuji paintings and woodblock prints for $20.

It would so great to have money to collect beautiful art objects. There were several things I saw there that I would love to have, including the $120,000 gold Buddha, which was the best looking Buddha there. I mean it had to be right? It cost enough. I saw a beautiful japanese gold screen with cranes, price not shown, which probably meant it was unbelievably expensive. I would love to own it, but it's huge.

If I had money to spare to buy museum quality art, I'd probably have a big house to display all my art objects, because that's the other thing you need to collect art, the space to display it. There's a couple at church who collect museum quality christian/religous artwork, but they also own a 4-floor Queen Anne house in the Haight where they can display their collection proudly. Lucky people!

The American Flag exhibit at the Presidio was great. It was so fun to see all the different flags, and see how the flag evolved as our country evolved. I loved how the first flags had handsewn stars.

The curators made the exhibit so interesting by adding the history of each flag. In the 1800's, there was a big controversy about whether to add states that were "slave" states. Henry Clay's Missouri compromise of 1820 tried to settle this issue by having the government add one free state and a slave state at the same time. This compromise also established the 36° 30´ parallel as a dividing line in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory. Below it, new states would allow slavery; above it, slavery would be banned.

I'm sure this issue was covered in my American history classes, but I'd forgotten how contentious the slavery issue was and how long it had been brewing. Clay's Missouri compromise of 1820 postponed the outbreak of the Civil War.

In 1850, California entered the union as a free state, yeah Cali, which upset the balance of free and slave states since the western territory was not covered by the 1820 compromise. Henry Clay again helped to broker a compromise, whereby any state entering the union would decide on its own to be a free or a slave state. Kansas apparently went through a bloody fight over the slavery issue, but eventually entered the union as a free state.

The exhibit showed some flags from the North that left out the fifteeen slave states, called "exclusionary flags". Between 1860 and 1861, seven slave states withdrew from the Union because of slavery and started the confederacy. These slave states were South Carolina (Jesse Helms' state), Mississippi (home of Trent Lott) , Florida, Alabama (George Wallace's home state), Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. An additional 6 more slave states would join eventually join them.

Since I had the classic left wing liberal education, I started to speculate that those states that had entered the Union as slave states most likely voted for Bush in the 2000 election. I'm bad huh? You can blame that left wing liberal education of mine.

The exhibit also had some George Custer memorabilia, and I saw George Custer's belt buckle and one of his diaries. Custer graduated from West Point, and fought in the Civil War for the Union.

Othe items of interest was the arrangement of the stars and over the years and the stripes. There were some interesting star arrangements over the years. There was also an issue about the number of stripes for awhile too. The exhibit also noted that the practice of carrying the flag into battle started during the civil war, to tell the two sides apart.

I went to the gym today, and I decided to see how I felt running on the treadmill. I haven't run in so long. When was I was heavy, runnig was really painful and then there was the freaky feeling of having body parts like my butt jiggle that never jiggled before. Talk about your body moving without you.

I ran at the 4.5 speed for 15 minutes, then upped it to 5.0 for five minutes, and then upped it again to 5.5 minutes (about an 11 minute mile) for the final five minutes. I couldn't believe it! 25 minutes of solid running, and I wasn't sore and the only thing jiggling was my tummy. YEAH!

God, I would love to run a 10k again or at least train for one. The Far Side 10K is in December, and that would be a good race to shoot for. They always give out cool tshirts too.

I used to love to run, and logged about 15-25 miles a week. I ran two miles every day, and every weekend a long run of 5-10 miles. Running always made me feel strong and healthy, and I'd like to get that feeling back. I'm not sure if I'm ready for outdoor running, but just being able to run without stopping for 25 minutes on the treadmill is good enough for me right now. I wonder if I'll ever get back to the point where I can do do trail running, and have no fear of big hills. That would be a miracle.

The terrorist alert has me a little worried, but what can you do? You've still got to go and act as if nothing terrible is going to happen. What happens if that alert ever goes to red? That's what I'd like to know.

I've got a busy weekend planned as well. I'm checking out the American Flag exhibit at the Presidio, then I plan to check out the Arts of Pacific Asia show. My brother collects antique japanese art objects, and I'd love to get something for him. Plus, there's my Saturday workout at the gym as Saturday is my weighlifting day.

I don't think the SF Bay area is a target, but you never know.

It's all too much to think about, so tonight I'm seeing "Chicago". I could use a little song and dance in my life right now, to lift my worried spirits. I hear "Adaptation" is a must see for screenwriters and writers in general, and I'll probably see that movie sometime this weekend as well.

I hate living in this scary post 9/11 world!

So I watched half an hour of the Michael Jackson documentary. I saw the part where he's dancing. Man, the boy can move. Then they showed the 3,000 acre estate he lives on. After that, I switched channels. Michael Jackson looked so strange to me. His face, his nose, and even his hair. And what is up with his voice.

God, I really used to like him too. I thought he such an innovative music artist, and before the Pepsi fire, not a bad looking guy. I guess I didn't want to watch the documentary because I didn't want to spoil my images of him and respect for him. I mean, the guy comes off as such a freak. And what's worse, the guy is breeding and makes his children walk around in masks. Can you imagine what the psychotherapy bills for the children will be like now and in the future? It's sad, so sad.

I wasn't sure what to write about today, but then I remembered I was going to write about seeing "Gangs of New York".

What a great movie. It was violent as heck, but I really admire the scope and breadth of Scorcese's vision. He directs the kind of story that is so perfect for the big screen. It made me wonder about my screenplay, and how my story is personal and small compared to Gangs.

Daniel Day-Lewis was superb, but then he always is. I don't think that I've ever seen a bad performance from him. I think I would have to agree with some reviewers that Leonard Dicaprio was a bit miscast, but he can't help it if he's Hollywood thin and pretty. Cameron Diaz was also an interesting choice as the only female in the movie. Her irish accent was flawed, and although her acting was adequate, I think that playing next to someone like Day-Lewis made her acting weaknesses stand out. I think Dicaprio suffered from the Day-Lewis eclipse as well.

Day-Lewis is so riveting as an actor, that all attention goes to him when he's in the scene. Liam Neeson has the same power as Day-Lewis, but he was only in the movie for such a short time. Day-Lewis' hair was so darn greasy, that I really got the sense that he was dirty inside and out.

I was surprised by the orgy scenes. It's kind of stuff you see in french movies, and almost never in american movies. I loved the fight scenes movies, which were way better than the fight scenes in Braveheart. I love all that blood and gore stuff when it's realistic. I know that this sounds strange, but seeing realistic violent scenes is the only way for me to visualize a violent fight. I've been lucky in that I've never been seen violence up close, but in some way I think it's unfortunate that I've never really been exposed to the more seamy side of life. My life has been quite sheltered, and to me this explains my love of violent movies. Perhaps if I had a taste of violence in my real life, I might not be so fond of it on the big screen.

The movie really made me want to read the book, and it also start me wondering about what my immigrant grandparents went through when they came to this country. I know they hated it, and vowed for their children and grandchildren to have a better life. I think they succeeded it, but it makes me wonder what hardships they had to go through. They never talk about it, even when you ask them. They just say it was a hard life. I think they want to forget that part of theif life, block it out, perhaps because it was too painful; I wish I knew.

I saw a special on Bravo about the authenticity of Gangs of New York. The show interviewed a historian who said that irish have come a long way in America, and how excited they must have all felt when just 100 years later, an irish catholic by the name of JFK was elected to be president of the country.

Wow. I just read Thomas Friedman of the NY Times latest column entitled "Will My Neighbors Approve?".

Here is what Friedman says about the war on Iraq, "Now, truth be told, I think I get this war, and, on balance, I think it is a risk worth taking — provided we have a country willing to see it through."

Friedman is endorsing the war on Iraq. I would put a link to it here, but you have to register with the NY Times to probably see the column. Friedman also writes that much of the country does not support the war, and I think he may be right about that although I'm surprised. Friedman attributes people's lack of enthusiasm for the war to the bad economy, and he has a point there; economics rule.

Still, I thought for sure that there would be more support for the war in the states that voted for Bush. Perhaps Friedman is wrong. What's interesting about the anti-war movement to me, is that there are no publicized anti-war rallies in NYC. Why is that? Is NYC still hurting from 9/11 and in a serious post 9/11 security hangover? Or has 9/11 turned NYC into war hawks or into shell shocked barely surviving peace doves? No one talks about the lack of anti-war demonstrations in NYC, which I find odd, but perhaps the media understands NYC's mood better than I can.

I heard on the news today that if you were predisposed to a war with Iraq, Colin Powell's 90 minute presentation at the United Nations answered all your questions. However, if you were against a war with Iraq, there was nothing that Colin Powell could have said that would have convinced you to change your postion.

I thought Powell gave very convincing evidence, but I was a cautious supporter of the war before his speech.

Two things that stood out for me in Powell's presentation.

1) who is tipping off the Iraqis on the UN inspectors itinerary? Is it someone on the team, or is it a result of Iraqi intelligence.
2) Iraq has never accounted for all the chemical and biological weaponry found by the UN inspectors in the 90's. This issue is frightening for me. I'm like people, what is the silliness about having Saddam Hussein contained? I don't think so. Not if Iraq may still have the chemical and biological weaponry from that period. This is where I don't get why people don't think he's a danger, or that Hussein is a person who can reasoned with like a normal person. Whatever.

Whether the anti-war protestors like it or not, we are on a road to war. There are over 100,000 troops in the middle east preparing for the event. The cost of sending them and keeping them there is enormous, and they wouldn't be there unless we were going to war.

I don't enjoy war. I am not a war monger or a war hawk, but I also don't think the US should make the Neville Chamberlain mistake and think that Saddam Hussein like Adolf Hitler is not threat to the world.

What scares me too, is there are news reports floating around that say that our intelligence sources are showing the same amount of communication among Al-Queda operatives that they saw in the day preceding 9/11. What are those terrorists planning, and why is it so hard for the US to find them and lock them up?

JS at Just a Pose talks about feeling homesick. When I watched "Lilo and Stitch" a couple of weeks ago, I felt so homesick.

First of all, Lilo and her sister live on the island of Kauai, where I was born and spent the first eighteen years of my life. Secondly, the music and the flower dress Lilo wore called a muumuu were so familiar to me. I wore muumuus all my life growing up, and I was taking hula lessons as soon as I was able to walk. Talk about being homesick! I wanted to head to the local store and make myself some poke, a local raw fish dish that trendy restaurants are calling ahi tuna tartare.

The movie however, also had an SF Bay area connection. The guy singing the opening theme song and the surf song, David Keali'i Ho'omalu, is someone whom I've heard in person here. I think he lives somewhere in the East Bay, and I've seee him and his hula troop at hawaiian festivals in Alameda and out at Fort Mason. I'm sure it's the same guy, because his voice is so unique.

The first time I heard him was at a hawaiian festival in Alameda. When he started walking to the stage, everyone started clapping and was so excited to see him like he was some local rock star. As soon as he chanted and sang, I realized why he was revered. His voice sent shivers down my spine. There is something so powerful and ancient in his voice, like he was channeling the ancient hawaiian spirits or something. His dance troup does hula in the old style, where it's more like religious rituals and not flowery songs. Some of the hula reminded so much of hula for men, where it's more like choreographed fighting techniques.

My only criticism of the movie is Lilo didn't speak with a hawaiian accent, which they call "pidgin english' in Hawaii. I think all of the other hawaiian characters did, but not Lilo. For Kauai, that would not be normal. If the show took place on the island of Oahu, the pidgin accent wouldn't be so noticeable, but on the outer islands the pidgin is very thick and of course, varies from island to island.

When I was growing up, the pidgin accents drove the teachers nuts and we all went through "elocution' lessons. I've pretty much lost my accent, so that most people can't tell I'm even from there, although if you pay attention to that kind of stuff you'd know. I've taken Speech for Stage classes, so my accent has been smoothed over, although I think it will always be there. And when I go home, it only takes a few days for it come back. My mother can't understand me, unless I speak in pidgin, or at least that's what she says. I think she just likes me to talk the way I did when I was a kid, because it's familiar to her. You can't fake the hawaiian pidgin accent either.

My cousin who was born in Michigan, and spent the first four years of her life in Minnesota, picked up a serious pidgin accent because she lives and works in Hawaii, but I can tell she's not native born. She pronounces certain words in a way that a native Hawaii born person would never pronounce.

My accent is all mixed up anyway. I've been told I've picked up some midwestern speech patterns, because I went to college in Iowa. I also spent some time in Southern California and NYC, so my brother keeps saying I sound like a valley girl and my acting teacher got freaked out because I had some NYC speech patterns. Then just to complicate things, I took an acting dialect class on how to speak with a proper English dialect, called RP or received pronuncation or BBC english, and how to speak Cockney, so some of those speech patterns have slipped into my accent as well. I was thinking of trying out for the play "Major Barbara" one year, and I thought taking the class would give me an edge in auditions. I never tried out for the play, but I can still do the accents quite well, although I mix them up constantly and ended up sounding like high pitched american Michael Caine.

Which OS are You?

This is so funny, because I have a wince baby laptop! This quiz comes from Gordon Zaft's blog.

I had to get blood drawn today for some routine tests, and for my own comfort I always warn the lab person how hard it is get blood out of me. I've had lab people tell me that my veins are too small, and how they can't find my them. I've had the tourniquet tied so tight around my arm, it left marks. I've opened my eyes to see to a broken needle or two in my vein. And when they do finally get the blood, I get a bruise that lasts for days. I don't give blood anymore, because it took an hour to just get half a pint and my arm was so sore.

Today was no exception. No matter how much I warn the lab technician, they never listen. They look at me insolently like they're saying "how dare I tell them how to do their job." First I told the lab tech the tourniquet wasn't tight enough, but she didn't listen. She stuck the needle in my left arm, and I could feel her moving it around because of the pain. Finally she gave up and said, "Your veins are too small and they move too. I need to try the other arm and use a smaller needle." I shot her a "I told you so" look, which of course she totally ignored.

I offer up my right arm, and I tell her again that the tourniquet is too loose. The lab tech moved it further up my arm and tightened it. Then she started tapping my arm looking for a vein, but again to no avail. Finally, she tapped my upper arm where the tourniquet was, and magically a vein bulged out. This seemed to excite her, and she quickly grabbed a needle and obtained her sample. The lab technician smiled at me afterwards and says, "Your veins are really small, and they move, but I got them." I smile and left the lab with band-aids on both arms, wondering why I bother even saying anything since it's always the same.

I saw the Winslow Homer watercolour exhibit at the Legion of Fine Arts today. Homer painted exquisite watercolours of his favorite pastime, fly fishing. His use of colour was amazing, and his mixing of greens and oranges reminded so much of how Cezanne mixed these two colours together. Once you see an Cezanne oragne, you never forget it. I can recognize a Cezanne painting just by the colour orange.

Homer also does fantastic water and rushing water scenes, which is amazing since he did it with watercolour, which is such a delicate medium to work with. Homer's blues are beautiful. What I like most about his watercolours was how close he got the colours to match what you actually see in nature. To match what nature can do with colour takes genius, and Homer definitely had the genius touch.

The exhibit showed a few of his Florida paintings, and he minute brushwork to portray the spanish moss hanging from tree, or the delicate palm fronds were incredible.

Although the subject matter of trout and anglers was not very interesting to me, to see Homer's genius with watercolour and his delicate brushwork was a fantastic experience.

I just finished watching "Brush with Fate", a surprisingly not so schmaltzy Hallmark Hall of Fame movie. I missed the opening credits, but I believe the movie was based on the book, " Girl in Hyacinth Blue" by Susan Vreeland. Brush reminded me so much of the movie, "The Red Violin", a hauntingly strange, eerie and beautiful movie.

Glenn Close was great. She has become such a great character actor. Her character reminded me so much of an ex-school teacher at church, that it was as if Close had personally studied the mannerisms and looks of this woman I know. And the surprise ending was fantastic, and ultimately sad. Like I said, not your usual Hallmark sugar coated ending, but something far more disturbing and unsettling. I definitely will have to read the book now; I love good historical fiction.

There was a swarm of earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay area this morning. I felt two of them. You always know it's a quake, because if you're sitting you feel your butt move first.

I felt the first one at 8:22 am, while I was reading the Sunday paper. It was small, but unmistakable. I waited thinking I'd feel another one, but nothing happened. Then at 10:22 am, when I was getting dressed for church, the building shook again and it felt like something had hit the place. It was small sharp jolt, and again I waited for the aftershocks to follow but nothing happened.

The earthquake at 8:22 am had a magnitude of 3.6. The earthquake at 10:22 am had a magnitude of 4.2 There was other quakes all morning, but those are the only two I felt. I hate earthquakes, but they're a fact of life here, and I don't know if I'll ever get used to them.

I woke up late this morning, turned on my computer and was very shocked and saddened to hear about the shuttle disaster. It will be interesting to hear how this happened and why. They were so close to landing too. A very, very sad day for the seven astronauts, their families, friends and loved ones.