Check these shoes out, they are so cute but so expensive!

http://www.coach.com/content/product.aspx?product_no=8507&category_id=159

Other songs I downloaded from iTunes this morning:

Obsession (no es amor) by Frankie J
One Thing by Finger Eleven
So Yesterday by Hilary Duff

Downloaded some new iTunes songs this morning. Listening to "The Diary of Jane" by Breaking Benjamin.

Chicago was fun, although the fun and glamor of travelling for work is definitely gone. I don't know how people do it because it really is very tiring, but it does have its perks. On Tuesday July 18, I went to the hotel gym and worked out for 30 minutes then sat in the jaccuzzi for 1/2 an hour.

Now listening to "The Kill" by 30 seconds to Mars

In morning, I went to the front desk to get a cab to take me to the conference at the Swissotel in downtown Chicago, and instead I get a car and a driver. Talking about living the high life. My driver was nice and gave me his mobile number in case I wanted to have dinner later that night. I thought that it was pretty funny that my driver guy was hitting on me.

I wasn't sure how people were going to dressed for this conference and was going to go very business casual, but at the last minute I decided to pack a couple of normal work outfits for me which is a silk skirt, shirt and sweater. Sure enough, I get to the conference and most of the guys are in suits and so are the women. I felt appropriately dressed and was glad.

There was a cocktail party after the first day and I indulged myself and had a couple of glasses of wine, and then the three women I ended up talking to invited me out for dinner and we took a cab to Navy Pier to have dinner and to see the fireworks show.

Navy Pier is right in downtown Chicago and was only built in the last five years. It's kind of like SF's Pier 39 but much more fun because they are more things to do. They had this huge ferris wheel which we all went on. For $5 you get on and go around once. The ferris wheel never stops so you have get and get off fairly quickly. It offers some amazing views of downtown Chicago which was very cool at night.

Now listening to "Beautiful Soul" by Jesse McCartney

From Navy Pier, you can take boat cruises. If I ever go back to Chicago again, I'd like to take an architectural boat tour of Chicago. It's weird because it looks like Chicago is on an ocean coast but it's on the shores of Lake Michigan. I never quite noticed that about Chicago before.

We at some restaurant called "Riva's" and then saw fireworks but it started to sprinkle so we cabbed back to the Swissotel. Those sprinkles were a bad sign but I didn't know it yet.

Thursday morning I'm watching the morning Chicago local news and it's storming and causing quite a traffic mess. The conference ended and I'm at O'Hare at 5:30 pm and the place is a zoo and a half. The thunderstorms closed down O'Hare for most of the day. Some girl told me they had only allowed three flights all day. My 8 pm flight back to SF was delayed and if I was thinking right, I should have realized that since the two fights in front of mine were delayed that my flight would be delayed as well, and that I should have tried to go standby on one of the earlier flights.

But I wasn't thinking and the monitor up until 7:30 pm said our flight was on time. What a joke! My flight didnt' take off from Chicago till 11:30 pm and we touched down in San Francisco at a little after 2 am.

Now listening to "Leave the Pieces" by The Wreckers. It's a country song and I only purchased it because I was perusing the iTunes top 100 list and playing every song and I liked this one instantly.

I had already decided to take a cab from the airport to home because my original flight was arriving at 10:30 pm and I didn't want to be stuck in Super Shuttle hell getting home. So at 3 am I was in bed and wondering what time should I get to work in the morning because it wasn't going to be early. I made it into the office by 11 am, and only went in because I had some analysis due that afternoon. Otherwise I think I would have just stayed home.

I was telling someone about my flight back from Chicago and they told me that if I arrived in SF at 2 am, with the time change, it whould have 4 am in Chicago, so I was basically up for almost 24 hours as I had gotten up at 5:30 earlier that morning.

So that was Chi-Town Trip. I was still in recovery all this week and my suitcase is still out waiting to be put away. I'm thinking it must get easier if you travel all the time because then you get into a routine. Travelling by plane somewhere almost feels like commuting if it weren't for the time change I think. I never used to think way and it's only lately that I've equated plane flights with commuting and thinking it's really not bad, except for waiting to get on a plane at the airport of course.

I am blogging from the Windy City - Chicago. I'm staying at a hotel right outside the airport and I can see the Chicago skyline from my hotel window. I was trying to stay in a hotel in downtown Chicago where my conference is being held, but every hotel in the downtwon area was booked.

I am exhausted as I am not a very good traveller. My work Outlook is taking forever to send and receive messages and I am hungry. I don't know why because it's only close to 5 pm in Cali ut it's almost 7 pm here.

I will blog more later ...

I went to lunch with a co-worker I've known for about 10 years. We worked together from 1997-1999, and she just started at the company I worked for a few months ago. We were both remembering how we loved our boss John. We liked him and he liked us, and how rare it's been for both of us since then to have a boss whom we like and likes us.

I hope I get one of these two jobs that are in front of me. The two people I want jobs with like me and I like them. It's not that I don't like my boss now, I just don't like her in the same way I do these two people. There's an empathy missing with my current boss that I have with the other two people. I think it's that I like my boss as a work boss but I'm neutral about her as a person, whereas the two people who are offering me jobs I like both as bosses and as people. It's so hard to explain because it's so intangible.

I know for sure that the new person my boss is reporting to does not get me at all, which so bothers me. I think it's such a post 9/11 feeling for me, but it so doesn't make sense to work for people who don't get you and whom you don't like in and outside of work. Life is way too short for that kind of B.S.

My coworker thinks it is very rare for an employee to really like their boss, and that we were so lucky when we met in 1997 because we both had a boss we respected and liked and who respected and liked us. If only John didn't get sick, I would probably still be working for him. But he did get sick, and I just recently found out he died about three years ago. I knew he had a very decidedly uncertain future, and I guess I was right. It's such a shame because John was so smart and so nice, and the perfect boss in a ton of ways.

I may have posted about this before, but in going thru my writing notes I ran across an idea I had for christian writer's class.

Class Title: Riffing on the Bible: Adventures in Christian Storytelling

Using well-known biblical verses and/or texts of the discples' interaction with Jesus as a jumping off point, participants will explore the art of storytelling by telling stories of their own or a character's faith journey.

I even wrote biblical verses to use:
Matthew 4: 18-22 - Jesus invites his disciples to join him saying they will be a fisher of people
This story could be about when you were called to follow Jesus, when you had an evangelizing moment, when your faith inspired someone to christian action, etc.

Matthew 14: 25-34 - Jesus walking on the sea, "Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid."
This story could be about witnessing miracles or when there was a miracle in your life, or when Jesus came to you and pulled you out of a dark situation.

Matthew 26 - Peter's Denial of Jesus
Maybe these are stories about the ways you deny Jesus in your ife, the way you deny your faith, your humanity, your higher self.

Luke 9: 18-20 - Jesus asks his discples who am I and Peter says you are the "messiah of God."
These could be stories of recognizing who Jesus is in your life, recognition of your level of faith.

John 20-21 - the story of Doubting Thomas (the biblical character I relate to the most next to Father Abraham when he is about to sacrifice his son
These could stories about what else, doubt, I'm sure people could write volumes about their doubts about faith and Jesus

Acts 9 - Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus
These stories could be about conversion, faith and doubt.

So like out of left field, the only woman I get along with in my whole group asks me if I wanted to work for her. She's been assigned the creation of this huge writing project and says there is no way she can do it herself. She's going to ask for headcount and she immediately thought of me. She wanted to ask me first so she mentioned it to her boss, so very late on Friday she asked me.

It would be so cool if I could work for her. She and I get along really hell. She's been meditating for years and years like I have, and we think very similarly about a lot of things at work. I already sit in a cube next to her, so I w0uldn't be disrupted by moving. I think politically taking a job with her will be less freaky than taking a job with the guy I spoke to on June 23.

That guy would be great to work for as he is so smart and we also really get along, but he won't be hiring till September. If y cube mate gets headcount, I would probably be able to start as soon as the job is open.

So please pray for me that my cube mate gets headcount and I can transfer my job. I want to hedge my bets and apply for two jobs I found on Friday, because whether my cubemate gets the position or not, I will definitely leave my job one way or another. I don't like the new person my boss and I are now reporting to.

I don't know. Life since 9/11 is way too short for me to be in a job with someone I don't like and whom I definitely know doesn't like me. I stayed in my last job because the economy was bad after the dotcom crash. It wasn't the best job but at least I was liked.

This job hasn't been a good fit, and I knew it three months after I took the job. But then I was distracted by the red-haired guy and then by M-Square, and then when I met my new friend S I thought it was well worth it because she has become such a close friend. She's a writer as well and wants to collaborate with me on writing projects. I think she's also much more visual than I am and would probably be an ideal person to adapt my novels into screenplays. She even wants to do it, which is so cool.

I know most novelists want to adapt their novels into screenplays, but I'm not one of them. If I wanted to write the story as a screenplay I would do it. I know how to write screenplays. If I'm writing the story as a novel, it's because it's coming to me as a novel and not as a screenplay. And at that point, I want someone else to adapt my story for the screen.

Anyway, my new friend S and I are going to try and write every Thursday for a couple of hours together. We both need the inspiration and discipline of writing with a partner, and we both think we would make good writing partners for each other. I hope so.

I knew I had to stay in my job for a reason, and I think all of those reasons are now gone. I would love to stay in my job ony if I could transfer my job and work for my cubemate. If I can't then I don't think I should even take the job with that guy I spoke to a couple of weeks ago. I don't know. I feel like it's time to move on to another company. I get bad feelings about my company. We lost some market share this year and even though we won a big contract this year, strategically we are really floundering. Our competitors are so aggressive and we are so conservative. Our competitors are coming up with innovative products and bringing them to market quicker than we can.

My division hired a consultant to regorg our division, and when I met him I wasn't very impressed. The leadership in my company seem to be so lacking in vision and direction that everyone is basically running around like chickens with their heads cut off. It's too bad because my company is a good company, they have a great mission and all, but they are just floundering and I think everyone knows it but no one knows what to do about it.

They're also doing this weird thing with finances because invoices are taking forever to get paid. Having been in finance, this behaviour is never a good sign. There is no reason for companies not to pay their invoices on time, unless there is a good reason like they're having problems with cash flow or because they're watching the balance on the books. I just get a bad feeling about the place and I don't think I'm the only one becuase our attrition rate is so high, so high that they are basing VP performances on whatever attrition rate they promised. Can you imagine a VP not getting his bonus because too many left their division? Employees are bailing the ship like rats, and I'm like what are the rats smelling that I can't smell very clearly.

Maybe going back to writing morning pages really does work. I started writing them regularly on June 6, after I got back from the Julia Cameron seminar and about a month later I finished my first novel. I only seem to be able to write them during the week, and not on the weekends. I want to write my morning pages 7 days week, but on weekends I am way too lazy.

My life has been in a fog these last few months. My friend S gave me really good advice on how to restructure my SGVA screenplay, better advice than advice I was getting group from the screenwriting group I paid $600 to be a part of. And I thought for sure I had written it down, but I didn't. I am so upset because the advice she gave me was great and I didn't write it down. I hope she remembers what she said because I'm going to ask her if she remembers what she told me. I hope she does because I know I was amazed at what she said because it made such perfect sense.

My friend S wants to us to write screenplays together. She gave me a book to read so we could collaborate on a TV series she wants to pitch based on the stories in the boo.. Neither of us have written for television and I had no interest in writing for TV, but I would be interested in writing a two-hour movie pilot for a series. That I think I could do. I told her if she was interested in writing for TV she would have move to LA, because you need to be in LA to write for TV. She said she was willing. I think for the kind of tv series we are writing, you would have to write the weekly tv scripts in advance because of the production involved, so maybe she wouldn't have to move to LA. We'll see. These stories will make for a good two-hour pilot to a weekly series, but the real work would be creating new plots on which to base the series.

That Ivory Madison we heard last week told us that she writing a comic for DC comics. I'm like, how do you get a job writing a comic strip for DC comics? I never even thought of going in that direction, but it would still fall under writing. Granted the comic strip doesn't lend itself to long prose, you would still have to know how to plot pretty darn well to make a story work in a comic book.

Maybe going back to writing morning pages really does work. I started writing them regularly on June 6, after I got back from the Julia Cameron seminar and about a month later I finished my first novel. I only seem to be able to write them during the week, and not on the weekends. I want to write my morning pages 7 days week, but on weekends I am way too lazy.

My life has been in a fog these last few months. My friend S gave me really good advice on how to restructure my SGVA screenplay, better advice than advice I was getting group from the screenwriting group I paid $600 to be a part of. And I thought for sure I had written it down, but I didn't. I am so upset because the advice she gave me was great and I didn't write it down. I hope she remembers what she said because I'm going to ask her if she remembers what she told me. I hope she does because I know I was amazed at what she said because it made such perfect sense.

My friend S wants to us to write screenplays together. She gave me a book to read so we could collaborate on a TV series she wants to pitch based on the stories in the boo.. Neither of us have written for television and I had no interest in writing for TV, but I would be interested in writing a two-hour movie pilot for a series. That I think I could do. I told her if she was interested in writing for TV she would have move to LA, because you need to be in LA to write for TV. She said she was willing. I think for the kind of tv series we are writing, you would have to write the weekly tv scripts in advance because of the production involved, so maybe she wouldn't have to move to LA. We'll see. These stories will make for a good two-hour pilot to a weekly series, but the real work would be creating new plots on which to base the series.

That Ivory Madison we heard last week told us that she writing a comic for DC comics. I'm like, how do you get a job writing a comic strip for DC comics? I never even thought of going in that direction, but it would still fall under writing. Granted the comic strip doesn't lend itself to long prose, you would still have to know how to plot pretty darn well to make a story work in a comic book.

Yeah me! I finished my first novel, finally. "Texas is a state of mind", the novel I started in November 2003 with Nanowrimo is complete. So what, that's like 2 years and 8 months to finish a novel of 77,740 words or 138 pages single spaced. Talk about slow production.

I went to a seminar last Monday called "Stop Dreaming and Start Writing" at The Learning Annex given by Ivory Madison, creator of The Red Room, and Ivory said that a typical first novel is 75,000 words. I guess my novel is typical then. Her contention was that a person could write 1,000 words in one hour and that if you had that kind of production, you could finsih a novel in 75 hours. That's kind of like two weeks of work or 8 hours a day for two weeks.

If I had written one hour a week for 75 weeks, my novel should have taken me 18 months to write. Instead it took me 30 days to write 50,000 words and 31 months to write about 28,000 words. And this is just my lousy first draft!

There is seriously something wrong with my motivation to be a writer. Writing the first draft is supposed to be easy part. It's the editing that is going to be the hardest.

So I'm doing the math in my head and if I had written one hour a day, say five days per week and my word count was about 5,000 words, I would be able to finish a 75,000 word novel in about four months.

I've always wondered how people can take the time to get so many degrees. Now I know. The time just goes and you might as well do something useful with it like get another degree or my case, write my novels. And I only need to dedicate maybe 5-7 hours a week to write 5,000 words a week. It doesn't matter if I do it in 5 days with 1,000 words a day, or a I have a marathon writing session on the weekend, as long as I stick to the 5,000 words a week production rate, I should be able to finish my novels quicker.

Well, at least I have a fnished novel under my belt. Now there are the other two novels to finish that I started, "The Crow Priestess" and "Changing Timelines". I haven't forgotten about my first novel attempt "Following in the Dark", but I decided that I was going to write that novel for my own pleasure and never let anyone else read it. The Texas novel is the third novel I started.

""Following in the Dark" was the first, started in 2001. "The Crow Priestess" was started in 2002. "Texas is a State ofMind" was started in 2003, and "Changing Timelines" was started in 2004. I did some writing in 2005 when I started working on my second screenplay, "Silicon Valley Gold Diggers Anonymous." I never finished it, but at least I outlined a fairly decent plot from beginning to end for the story.

This is what happens when you watch reruns of MTV's "The Hills" ... you fall in love with songs from the show. Like this one - "Unbelievable" by Kaci Brown.

I Wish you didnt love me I wish youd make this easy It was love that caught me Now it's fear that keeps me with you I want to be by your side So I can close my eyes To the growing emptiness inside that kills me When I'm with you You try to break me Try to hate me So you can fall out of love You want to make me believe that I'm crazy That I'm nothing with out you

It's unbelievable but I believed you Unforgivable but I forgave you Insane what love can do That keeps me coming back to you You're irreplaceable but I'll replace you Now I'm standing on my own Alone

I feel you in my shadow My heart feels cold and hollow No matter where I run I see Your eyes always follow me You try to hold me Try to own me Keeping something that's not yours You want to make me Believe that I'm crazy Make me think that you're the cure

It's unbelievable but I believed you Unforgivable but I forgave you Insane what love can do That keeps me coming back to you You're irreplaceable but I'll replace you Now I'm standing on my own Alone

You're still haunting me In my sleep You're all I see But I can't go back Cause I know it's wrong For us to go on And I'm growing strong To confront my fears

It's unbelievable but I believed you Unforgivable but I forgave you Insane what love can do That keeps me coming back to you You're irreplaceable but I'll replace you Now I'm standing on my own Alone

I am having a glorious four day weekend. We didn't get today off, but we got Tuesday off, so I'm like that doesn't make sense to come in to work on Monday and then take Tuesday off. So I decided to take Monday off and here I am watching reruns of "The Hills".

I got so much done on Saturday and Sunday. I got the oil changed in my car, which was kind of disturbing because I just had my oil changed in December and the oil change place said I didn't have any oil on my stick. What was that about? I think what happened is that when my dealer ran my air conditioning to dry out my car from the flooding, for a day they burnt thr0ugh all my oil, but I didn't realize it because it didn't register on my car as mileage. Thank god I'm on this plan to change my oil every six months regardless of the mileage on my car. It's just better for my car I think. But then the person at the oil change place said I could come in three months from now to get my car topped off with fluids, so I felt better but I think I'm going to have to check the oil in my car every month because it's so not good for my car to run out of oil like that. It scares me because I wonder how much I damaged my engine by not having oil in the engine like that.

I can't believe my car eats so much oil because it's only five years old, but the oil change person said that VWs burn through a ton of oil. I just googled about VW Golf oil consumption and it's a problem with all VW cars. Most webpages I've read said it's normal for a VW to burn through a quart of oil every 1000 miles. Damn! That's a ton.

I love my little german car to death, but I'm like I am getting a japanese car the next time. I was going to get a BMW, Saab or a volvo but I don't know about these european cars. You get a heck of a luxurious ride but they are so high maintenance. My friend says her BMW has given her nothing but problems.

What else? I did laundry and some handwashing and then I went grocery shopping and went to the vitamin store for some stuff. I think I got more accomplished this weekend than I normally do.