It's funny how you think you've found a solution to your problem and then it turns out the solution doesn't work at all.

I bought my baby laptop thinking it would be great to be outside in a park on a sunny day and write. Or, write at a table outside of a cafe. Write outside anywhere. So today, since I had o go to my optometrist at the Embarcadero and pick an eyeglass case up, I decided to try and write while having lunch at those tables right in front of Justin Herman plaza.

I go, I buy some lunch at the japanese place that's right there and I grab myself a table and eat. Then I open up my laptop and low and behold, I can't see a damned thing because the sun is too bright. I tried to adjust my screen and I still couldn't see anything. I play around with the contrast for 10 minutes and finally I can see the screen, sort of. It's still very dark and I can barely see it.

I try to edit a story and but then I just completely gave up. What a joke! I buy the damned thing to write outside then when I finally write outside, I can't see the stupid screen. There's got to be a better way to do this! So much for my dream of writing outside in parks. I guess if I do this again, I will have have to sit in the shade, but the who the hell wants to sit in the shade when it's sunny outside. I am pissed and bummed! There's got to be solution to the glaring sun problem; I just don't know what it is yet.

In frustration I leave to do some research on how real men really talk. Someone in my screenwriting group suggested I go and check out the basketball games in the panhandle, so I can hear how "real jocks" talk and try to write it in my baseball screenplay. I'm like whatever, but I decide to give it a try anyway.

I get the court and sit down and watch these guys play basketball for an hour. I'm not sure what they all thought with me sitting there watching them. It was loud and I couldn't really hear what anyone was saying other than alot of fmbombs words and alot shot shit words said like it had two syllables. The basketball kept coming my way, which was kind of annoying, but other than that, I didn't hear anything really new about the way guys talk.

It's not like I don't know how guys talk, I do. I just didn't have the guys in my screenplay swear alot and some of my reviewers found that very unrealistic. My male reviewers anyway. I think I'll have to rent some videos to see how other screenwriters have handled it.

They didn't swear at all in the movie The Rookie. I mean I'm sure some guys swear but not all. In fact, I thought the guys at the basketball hardly swore at all. Maybe it was because I was there or maybe guys just don't swear that much, especially the young ones, because it was mostly young guys there, I don't know.

It was an interesting scene to watch. The guys reminded me of little kids at a playground and how you have to all get along. Then watching the guys, I also was reminded of physical a game basketball is, especially on defense. Some of the kids had great moves and they all do a good job of coaching each other and calling fouls. Actually, the funniest part was watching them argue over travelling, double dribbling, fouls and who was out and not out of bounds.

I think I might go again tomorrow and maybe sit in a different spot. I couldn't really hear well where I was sitting. If the guys were arguing and talking, it was on the side of where I was sitting.

Guys are funny though. As I was getting up to leave, one of them asked me if I played and I said no. I lied to him because actually I do play, but it's been years since I've played. And besides, I was wearing sandals anyway and couldn't play. I guess dummy guy didn't see that. I would only play basketball with someone I was dating anyway or wanting to date, because it really is such a physical game and I'd be rubbing up against the guy constantly, which would be fun if I really liked the guy I was playing with, but not so fun with a total stranger.

I guess it still must be a Mercury Retrograde because now I'm listening to Harvest by Neil Young. It all started on the way home when I heard Old Man by Neil Young on the radio. All of sudden I remembered that I had an ex-boyfriend named Phil, although I called him Drew, who used to sing me this song on his guitar.

Drew was a fellow student I met while interning in Washington, DC. He lived across the hall from me and my room-mate and so we became friends because of proximity. His room-mate also went to my school, but I didn't know him very well.

Drew had a car so we were always piling into his car to go out drinking in Georgetown or Dupont Circle. I don't even remember how Drew and I got together. I think we were all together at some bar in the old part of DC, in some club that was across from the Corcoran museum or was it the Portrait Gallery. Was it the Up and Down Club? Who knows. They had a tarot card reader upstairs who everybody said was the best in town.

Some old boyfriend of mine had shown up at the bar and he was coming onto me. I think I came on to Drew just to make this guy jealous. It was either at this bar or maybe that night we all watched fireworks and listened to the symphony on the mall for Labor Day. Or was that the time I met Rich, some other guy I think I bopped whiled in DC? It's all so hazy now.

Oh my god, I feel really bad. I cannot remember how I met my old boyfriend Drew. I'm sure it's in an old journal of mine somewhere, but I'm like, does it really matter now? No, I'm sure it was at that club across from the Portrait Museum.

Drew was from New Jersey, Bergen County to be exact. I cannot remember the name of his town, all I remember is that it was in Bergen County. He went to some school I'd never heard of in South Jersey. He had that accent that was like a Bruce Springstein song. Maybe that was the attraction? He was also a fellow acquarian which was a trip for me.

He was a nice guy, definitely not quite my type, but he was very sweet and he had a car, and when you're a 21 year old girl in DC without a car, dating a guy with a car was a good thing.

We went to all the colleges and universities in the area to party. He chauffered me around everywhere, even to go shopping. I'm not quite sure why he went out with me. He told me I wasn't his type either, but he liked the fact that was I very intelligent. His parents loved me, which I found strange. When I first met his mom, she said I was too pretty for her son. I don't think Drew agreed with her. I mean, I think Drew thought I was cute and everything and the sex was fantastic for both of us, but I don't think he was quite enamored of my looks as his parents and especially his mother was.

Not that Drew was Mr. GQ either. He was kind of slob really and he was already losing his hair at 21, but he did have that car and a ready supply or marijuana and other drugs. Did I forget to mention that? Drew dealt drugs on the side. God, was I like a shallow drugged out 21 year old or what? Hey, dating a guy with drugs is much better than dating a guy who doesn't have any. Besides, he wasn't the first drug dealer I dated, but one of many before him and afterwards.

And it's weird because it's not like I did alot of drugs either. But I don't know. I just happened to always meet and then get subsequently asked out by drug dealers. I guess I should feel flattered because drug dealers can probably get any drugged out chick they want, but they chose me and I wasn't even a habitual drug user. Drew was very generous with his drugs too, sending me a monthly supply and even hash once, which was so divine.

God, I still remember that time Drew and I were shrooming back in house in South Jersey on spring break. I was so paranoid. I thought the cops were going to come and bust us. When someone did come by the house, it was to buy some drugs. Then other friends of his came by and we headed for Atlantic City and the next thing I know, I'm in the Playboy Casino at 1 am and staring at Playboy bunny girls. After a tour of the casinos, we decided to go to this bar for drinks and everybody got carded except me. The doorman just let me in. Nobody could figure it out.

One of the guys asked a bartender and he said they don't card any girl with a guy who looks like she's under 18 and he said I looked around 13. I told him I was 21 and legal and he said it didn't matter. It was an Atlantic City rule. Whatever. What a weird rule. I guess there must be a lot of guys bringing very young girls to the casinos, bars and clubs and doormen are trained to look the other way.

I had my first taste of chili cheese fries that night. What a weird night. Drew and I were still so high. We walked on the beach and on the boardwalk and then ended up at a donut shop so we could scarf donuts.

Poor Drew. I think the guy really like me, but I had to break up with him. Drew was working for Common Cause and he was Mr. Environmentalist. He started his school's recycling program. God, he even dragged me to a meeting to meet the founder of Common Cause. What a drag. We were all sitting around a table and we had to say why we were interested in saving the environment and I was so not at that age. I felt so stupid when it was my turn to speak, but I think I must have BSed my way out of it, because Drew said I gave a good answer.

Anyway, Drew kept asking me why I was breaking up with him and I said, and I think I actually believed this at the time, that I saw a future where I was a corporate lawyer and he was an enviromentalist big wig and that we would be on opposite sides of a case. I think about that now and I'm like, god, how pretentious or what? I think I said, I didn't want to be in the position of having to be married to some guy who was running an environmental group that was suing my company for its environmental practices, especially if I was going to the head lawyer to take the environmental group down.

God, what a laugh! I never did go to law school and I certainly never worked for a polluting corporation.

I can't wait till this Mercury Retrograde is over because I hate all these old boyfriend memories.

I think I am getting old. Why? Because I have a hard time hanging out with people I barely know and I don't think I ever had this problem when I was younger. I've been hanging out alot with my screenwriting group. I think I've seen them almost every week since May 16 and it's freaking me out.

It's difference when you're in class because it's a classroom atmosphere and you're doing work and not socializing. Now I'm seeing these people socially and I hardly even know them and it's just too much for me, to be with people I barely know that much. It's a total sign of age. Plus, I am so not one of those california types who easily makes friends and just as easily loses friends. I make friends for keeps, forever and it takes me awhile to get know people.

Usually, I only get to know people I click with right away, so when you start hanging out socially, it's so cool because you both get a long like a house on fire.

Now I'm with these people, some of whom I don't really click with and we've been hanging almost every week and I am being driven insane.

I think sometimes I am just complaining and whining because it is nice to have people to hang with, but I don't even know if I even like these people yet. I take a long time to decide whether I even like a person or not, even longer to decide whether I want to spend alot of time with them.

Time is like this special thing and you just can't spread it around and waste it on people you don't know. It's too exhausting! I feel like I don't have a life and that's such a big lie, because I do have a life, did have a life before I met these new people.

I'll have to think about what to do. Part of me wants to just drop out and not be in the group anymore. I feel like I have no boundaries and I don't like that. I never got into the fluid boundary thing. But this is a good sign because I'm usually so boundaryless, so maybe I've learned to take care of myself finally.

I feel bad because I am turning into such an antisocial freak! But I'm tired and I miss my personal time.

I have a feeling that if I ever become successful as a writer, that this is how my life is going to be. Hanging with people I barely know. There has to be a better way for me to socialize with people I barely know.

I wonder if this kind of stuff goes on back east, where everyone is much more formal about friendship. Do they have this instant friends problem?

So I'm still fuming because this guy that I barely know one-upped me last night and it totally made me mad. Here's what happened. I mentioned that my favorite movie was The Matrix and he starts telling me that the movie is an allegory for the new testatment. And I'm like what? What the hell is this guy talking about? I think I was mad because I hadn't thought of this connection before and it pissed me off that this guy, who I didn't think was all that bright, thought of it before me. Then what's worse, I had to admit to him that I was only arguing with him because I had to admit that he might be right.

GOD!!! I felt like I was back in a corporate board room where I was the only woman in the room and some jerk off in a tie was one-upping me in a meeting and embarrassing me in front my boss. And it's such a guy thing to do, to totally one up each other all the time, whatever the time and place. And I had to get used to it if I was going to climb the corporate ladder where I was most of the time I was the only woman. I hated having to learn to do the one-up thing. But what I hated most of all was being one-upped by some corporate goof off.

I know women are supposed to want to climb the corporate ladder and break the glass ceiling, but what it does, what all that climbing really does, is make you think of every man you meet either at work or socially, as a potential competitor, as a potential jerk who's going to embarrass you and one-up you in front of people you know, as someone who stands in the way of your next promotion, the enemy really, the guy who's standing between you and the corner office. And it really doesn't matter if you meet a man socially either. You get the same feeling.

My best friend says this isn't a way to meet a man and find my soul partner, not if every man is at some point going to piss me off because he one-upped me or make me respect him less because I one-upped him. It's twisted, totally twisted.

I don't know how to get rid of this feeling either, because I was in one-up mode for so long. What's worse, I got good at it too, the one-upping thing, but I hated myself the whole time I was doing it because I felt bad about having to be so competitive with a guy. A male friend of mine says guys don't take the one-upping thing personally, that it's just a thing that guys do with each other and they don't think anything of it.

But god, that guy I barely know just pisses me the hell off. I feel blindsided, only because I think I totally underestimated this guy and I got caught unawares which makes me so mad.

My best friend also said that if I get into a one-up game with this guy I barely knew, then he'll start treating me like a guy and not a girl, and I'll get caught up in the one-upmanship game, which I totally hate.

I don't know though because now all if I feel like is I just want to one-up the shit out of him and wipe that stupid smirking smile off his stupid face. I'm like way too emotional about all of this. I think the best reaction for me right now, is to not have a reaction and to wait for my anger to go away and for god's sake, not try to one-up this guy, not when I'm in this emotional state, because right now I'm too mad and not thinking straight.

What a situation I've gotten myself in. I thought once I stopped climbing the corporate ladder, I'd never have to play one-upmanship game every again. Boy, was I wrong!

I feel like I've been running around like a chicken without a head since I didn't make any concrete writing goals after I finished my screenplay. I finished my screenplay on May 6 and I've been on vacation for a month, which has been fun but definitely directionless and a little depressing. Depressing only because when I'm not writing, I start focusing on the petty things going on in my life. Writing grounds me to what is real and important in my life. Thank god for my bloggie though, because without it I wouldn't be writing at all, well except for my daily journal.

These are my summer 2002 goals.

1. Rewrite # 1 of Playing Catch with Dad Screenplay - rewrite to be complete and ready to be handed out for review in group by August 5.

2. If Rewriting class firms out for an August start date, then finish second rewrite of screenplay by 5th session of class.

3. Finish Rewrite #1 of Crazy Eddie by June 15. Don't forget the Beat Sheet

4. Finish first draft of Shopping Center Carnival by June 30

5. Over vacation in July - finish first draft of scifi comedy short story working title - The Girl from Planet Orr. Story to be based on the function of the conjunctions - and, but and or, not quite conjunction function, but close. More like a love story between the girl from planet Orr and the man from Planet Annd, plus I'm throwing in the people from planet But. Not sure if this will work as a scifi story, but what the hell I've had worse ideas. First draft to be completed July 15.

This is sad. I'm like one of those people who need goals to get anything accomplished in my life. Talent in writing is such a subjective thing. Who knows if I have talent as a writer? What I do know is that I can set goals for myself and then complete them and discipline and work seem to be integral to the writing life. Everything else that comes along in my life, seems to trivial and minor compared to my writing. I was a workaholic in previous jobs so maybe I'm just tranferring all my workaholic energy to my writing. Who knows? Writing is becoming essential to me, like breathing and eating. I have to write at this point in my life, whether I want to do it or not. Kind of drag in a way, to be tied to some thing outself of yourself, like your writing, but fun too because writing is a creative act which enriches your life in every way.

I think I must be more of a romantic than I thought, because I just rented and watched the movie Serendipity and totally loved it. It's so sappy but so damned romantic. I love the concept of the universe giving you signs to show you who you're supposed to spend the rest of the life your with. Not sure if I believe in the concept that there's only one true love for you, because then the theory begs the question, well, what happens if you don't find that one special person. Does this means you're screwed forever and will live a life of patheic loneliness?

John Cusak looked very thin and very young. I think he's older than 35, the age he's supposed to be in the movie, so maybe the film makers made him lose weight. Cusak is usually very appealing and he was, but I couldn't take my eyes off the veins bulging in his neck. He was definitely way too thin. He looked much better in that movie Grosse Point High with Minnie Driver. He looked more muscular and more like a normal guy.

Kate Beckinsale was her usual cute self, although she looked very thin. Maybe she always was really thin and I just never noticed it before. God, who was the freak that played her new age boyfriend. He was so scary with his bushy long hair and asian outfits. Total pig of a guy masquerading as a SNAG - the sensitive new age guy. His character should serve as a warning to all women. Just because they're SNAGs, doesn't mean they won't treat you like shit and be a total chauvanistic pig to boot.

Somehow John Cusak's character doesn't come across as a SNAG. He's more like a overgrown confused college boy, which has its own appeal. But Cusak has never been a SNAG in any of his movies, although his body proportions in his movie was screaming SNAG.

I also rented K-PAX which I actually enjoyed. The funniest bit was when they were driving to the space observatory and Kevin Spacey saw a balloon with an alien on it. How funny is that. Then Spacey watched the alien balloon flying up to the sky. I was laughing out loud.

Spacey is such a technically brilliant actor and god, there's just something very charismatic about him, even if you couldn't see his eyes for most of the movie. It was all in his voice. He's like a voice out of the Jetsons. Cosmic.

Jeff Bridges was his usual confused self. Typical for him. I think his best portrayal was in The Fabulous Baker Boys.

Even the ending of K-PAX was interesting. It really made you think. Did Spacey take over the body of the killer and use it for his own. And if he did, then that explains the theory of alien possession. But if he didn't, then the crazy killer guy has one hell of an imagination. But then how do you explain Spacey's ability to see ultraviolet light and him stumping the astrophysicists. And what happened to the woman in the who couldn't speak?

I loved all the crazies in the movies. There were so appealing and funny. I felt there characters were written with such compassion and humor. I loved when the crazies saw the blue bird of happiness and how excited they were. I love it when I see blue birds, which I also call blue birds of happiness. Does this mean I'm like one of the crazies in the movie? Isn't it scary when you see behaviour that you do done by crazy people in movies? Does this mean if a movie was ever going to be produced about your life, that you'd be portrayed as a crazy person in an asylum or if not, your behaviour would remind people of how crazy people are portratyed? I really liked the crazy people and totally empathized with them. What this empathy means I don't know.

I really liked the soundtrack for the movie. I loved all those Nick Drake songs. Maybe I need to buy that retrospective of Nick Drake, the singer from the VW commercials. I don't really like his kind of music, but they were very appealing in this movie.

I wonder if the universe will lead me and show me the signs to my soul partner for life. I hope so. That would be so cool. I think I need signs because I'm catholic and well catholicism is all about signs, or at least that's they teach you or what I got anyway. I believe so totally in signs and if I don't get signs, I so don't believe what's going on or at least I don't believe they're not really ordained by god. So I totally need my signs, especially when it comes to love.

Dogtown and Z-Boys is one of the best movies I've ever seen of its genre. It ranks up there with my two personal favorites,Endless Summer 1 and Endless Summer 2. I remember seeing my first skateboarding championship in 1975. It was so radical and so hot. I was too young to know who it was, but my little girl memory tells me the dude was cute as heck with his surfer dude long hair.

A fascination with surfing, skateboarding, canoeing, windsurfing and ocean kayaking is one of the few things I've held onto from my island girl days, when I was flitting around in a bikini, body surfing and dying to date a surfer type guy. I love the whole surf/skateboard and the whole water sports sub culture, only because I grew up with it and hell, I even had my own skateboard and was pretty darn good rider for a girl.

Oh yeah, I forgot. I love BMX bike riding too, only because I used to dirt ride down hill with my bike and pop wheelies and try to do all kinds of tricks. I was quite the tomboy. I was thin and I had short hair and no rack whatsoever and guys wouild come up to me and ask me if I was a boy. Then puberty hit and the rack got way too big and then the hips, weigt and everything else came and well, welcome to womanhood. What a drag, at least at first, until boys noticed and then it was Hello Bikinis, long hair and trying to figure out the best way to shave your legs and underarms so they were ultrasmooth and sexy.

I read the review for Dogtown in the Chron and the little man was sleeping, but the NY Times gave it a great review and now I know why. If the movie ever comes out on DVD or video, I'm definitely going to buy it. I wish they'd put out a soundtrack to it too. I should see if they have a website so I can send them an email and let know them how much I loved the movie. I think I could watch that movie over and over again and never get tired of it.

That movie brought back one of my goals, which is to collect all the surfing and skateboarding movies and DVDs out there. You know, start my own beach bunny girl surf and skateboard movie collection. I used to love to skateboard too. I never tried surfing, but sandsurfed, bodysurfed and boogie boarded instead. Also tried windsurfing in Bali once and ocean kayaking in Mexico, right where they filmed the beach scene in that movie Y Tu Mama Tambien. I haven't seen the movie but from the promos, I recognized the beach and rock, only because I kayaked everyday around that rock. I guess I'll have to see the movie just to see if the area is Huatulco, a resort area I vacationed at one December.

What else? I bought some running shoes and didn't play cheap for once and spent $85 on a pair of running shoes. I tried on about 8 pairs before deciding that I should stick to my favorite brand ASICS. I was dying to buy a pair of New Balance shoes, because everyone says they're much more comfortable, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I've always worn ASICS running shoes. I ran three New York City marathons in ASICS running shoes. Why jinx myself now?

I mean, not that I'm in the shape I was when I ran marathons, but it's hard to give up a shoe brand you've always had good luck with. Do guys feel the same way about their equipment?

I've been wondering, since the Ken Caminiti interview, what it would be like to be a guy. If your testorone levels drop, do you become more like a woman? If so, how? The olympic athlete guy who called up said he couldn't make love to his wife for years, why? Because of loss of testerone? I've read that loss of testosterone in men leads to decreased sexual desire. But women don't have alot of testosterone and they still have sexual desires.

I do have some friends who have gone through menopause and they said that the loss of estrogen decreased their sexual desire, so maybe it's the same for women too.

I wrote a screenplay with a male character and I don't think I did my baseball player dude any justice. I just don't know what it's like to be a boy and feel like such a fraud writing about the male experience. I've always tried to believe that everyone, men and women, are the same, but I'm not so sure anymore. I think men and women feel all the same things, but they just process it differently. It's the difference I think that I underestimated.

But I like men, adore men, worship them sometimes even, because they are so different, or at least they appear to be. Their bodies are harder, hairier, they think differently too, although I think it's rare that a man would admit it, SNAGS, Sensitive New Age Guys would deny it to their dying day, which is why I try to never date SNAGs. But I live in Northern California and SNAGs are everywhere, so one can't but help dating one now and again, although each experience has never been very good.

You know what so doesn't make sense about the news right now? Office vacancy is at an all time high in the San Francisco Bay Area, but home prices are at an all time high. Who the hell is buying all these house and driving the prices up? It can't be people who are actually working because there are too many empty offices spaces which means people aren't working and probably can't afford a house.

Personally, I think it's all some huge hype by the residential real estate industry so that home prices don't go the way of commercial real estate. Commercial real estate prices are at 95 levels. Something is very wrong. But if someone is hyping the market, then they need to be careful because too many reports about the high price of real estate will have people fleeing the SF Bay Area region in droves, if they haven't already left. Just like they did in LA a few years ago. And then watch out. My prediction is housing prices will fall below 95 levels and then well, the area is going to be screwed for awhile and this recession that the media is trying to say is leaving us, will be around for much longer, way longer.

Ken Caminiti, that baseball player who Sports Illustrated did an interview with on the use of steroids in major league baseball, is being interviewed on The Jim Rome Show now. Ken said that SI just wanted to interview him about life after baseball and he wasn't expecting the interview to be about steroid use in sports. SI just asked him the questions and he decided to be honest. On reflection he said that if he had to do it over again, he wouldn't have agreed to do the interview.

Did SI do a bad thing and fool him? It's causing such a scandal now in all the papers. That and Canseco saying on The Last Word, Jim's TV show on Fox Sports, that about 80% of pro players are on the juice. Plus Barry Bonds saying it's none of anybody's business isn't helping.

There's been talk about steroids in major league baseball for years. Hockey and baseball are the only professional sports that don't test for drug use. Why? Football and basketball do it. What's the big deal? They do it in the Olympics.

Caminiti said his testosterone level is below 200. For the average man his age, his testosterone level should be at 500-700. He said he has to take artificial testosterone now because his body doesn't produce much of its own. I wonder what this means when a man's testosterone's level falls below its normal levels. Some guy called Rome and said that he took steroids to try to get into the Olympics and because his testosterone levels were so low, he hasn't been able to make love to his wife for years. That guy who called in sounded really broken up.

Even Caminiti sounded so confused and upset in the interview with Rome. I felt sorry for him because it sounded like the steroids really had a bad effect on his life and his health. Where this will all lead is anyone's guess. The baseball players' union will never agree to drug testing and unless fans demand it or it hits the team's bottom line in the form of ticket sales, the owners and the players will just look the other way. Until, there's a Lyle Alzado incident in major league baseball and by that time, who knows how many players from the pros on down through the high school levels will be damaged by their steroid use.

Wow, it's been awhile, so let's catch up.

I saw Monsoon Wedding on Monday at the Embarcadero Cinema with a friend of mine. We thought it wouldn't be crowded but the theatre was packed. God, I loved the movie. It made me think of my hindu indian days with my bindis and saris and punjabi outfit and my hair down to my butt. I forgot how much indian people love marigolds.

The movie was so well written and so universal even though it took place a world away in New Dehli. The family could have been any family preparing for a daughter's wedding. I loved the extended family scene because my family used to be like that when I was little, before everyone scattered and went their separate ways.

Then of course since we saw an indian movie, we had to go eat indian food at Gaylord's, which was right across the way. I don't remember ever eating, even though I'm sure I have. The food was good though, very good.

On Wednesday, my Palm Vx arrived so I've been spending my nights cruising the Net for applications to add to my Palm. After loading half a dozen apps, I decided that Handango was a good app to get so I bought it. It's a simple database application, where you can make up databases yourself for things you want to track. That's why I bought the Palm anyway, so I could track things better and not have two or three Hello Kitty notebooks in my purse.

I'm sure there are alot of other good apps out there that people have builty specifically for the Palm, but you have to pay for it and I'm like, NO WAY, I am not paying. Even Palm Quicken cost $40, like OH MY GOD, how expensive. Most the trial databases I loaded, I totally hated anyway. I paid $30 for Handango, but at least I can build databases my way. I used to build database apps for a living, so it's not like I don't know what I'm doing.

These are the things I want to track on my Palm.

Book to buy or read or both
Expenses - cash, ATM, check and credit card transactions
Things to buy other than books
CDs to Buy
Movies I’ve seen/rented
Plays I’ve seen rented
Grocery List - things I need to buy for the house
Wines to Buy
And NOTES - notes about things I want to remember.

I even found a palm app to write stories with and a story board for movies. I think I might just build my own apps though. I'm thinking I could build a Palm App to mimic a screenplay spine and a conflict matrix. I bet I could even build a palm app to track projects I'm working on, since I haven't seen a project tracking database for Palm that I really like.

The hardest thing now is transferring all the information from my other books to the Palm. This process is going to take about a month or so I think. I tempted to always carry a little Hello Kitty book though, but I know if I do that, I'll start using it instead of the Palm and I want to give the Palm a fair chance to work in my life. I'm even thinking of naming the Palm and calling him Morris the Palm, but I think Morris is too casual of a name. My Palm is more like a butler type dude so he needs a butler type dude name like Mr. Harry, Mr. Henry, Mr. Blakefield, mister somebody. I should just wait till my palm tells me his name. I'm sure he has a name and it's an english name too, because aren't all butlers English?

What else? I'm listening to Jim Rome and his take on the steroid scandal in baseball and the threat of a baseball stoppage. Then there's all this talk about the LA Lakers and the Sacremento Kings. I like the Lakers but they've already won two or three championships under Phil Jackson. It would be nice to see somebody else win for once. I mean the Lakers and becoming like the Yankees, like an automatic to win because of their talent and their payroll. The Sacramento Kings is a small market team in a no name town with probably half or less than half the payroll of the Lakers. At least this series has made NBA basketball interesting. It's not about doing the dunks anymore, but more like college. It's all about defense and making those 25 ft 3 point jumpers from the field. All that dunking was making basketball so boring because alot of the shotmaking was happening under the basket where it's hard for a fan to see because all the players are in the way.

What else? I think after all these years I've finally decided what kind of guy I want in my life. At least for the first time in my life, I've been able to finally formulate what kind of guy I really want. At least for now. And it's a surprise too because it's not the type of guy I ever thought I wanted or needed. I'm still processing it all because I only came up with the definition yesterday and I think it's still subject to change because it's so new and different, different from the kind of guy I've been dating and falling in love with all these years. It's not like this type of guy hasn't been in my life, because he has, I just didn't know this was the kind of guy I wanted. And there is even a guy like this in my life, who's almost perfect, but not quite.

One thing is clear, I want the guy I eventually marry to know deep in his bones, his heart, his soul, his body and his mind, that I'm the one. Anything else is unacceptable, which is why the current guy in my life, although he's damn close to perfect as I've ever seen in a man, isn't the one for me. He doesn't think I'm the one or at least he doesn't act like it, so although I wouldn't mind hooking up with him, I won't do it beacuse it would be a waste of both of our times. Besides, I like him too much to just date him knowing it wouldn't be permanent. To date knowing you're just going to break up is mean to me and although I've done it in the past, it's always been messy for me and the guy and I usually end up with some guy telling me "you ripped my heart out" and me staring blankly at him, because it's not like I meant to, I just knew it wouldn't be permanent. And that's the mean thing I guess, because I knew the relationship had a expiration date like milk. It's such bad karma on my part and I think I've been paying for this nasty behaviour in the last few years.

I'm still reeling from seeing Michel Tremblay's "For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again." The play was uneven but funny as heck and much to my surprise, I cried during the last scene. The play is about Tremblay's homage to his mother, a typical crazy mother type.

There was something about that last scene, where the mother comes in dressed in a nightgown and says to the son something like "You'll take of your father when I'm gone." Olympia Dukakis managed to convey so much in that one line. Right away I knew that the mother was dying and the sentiment of her line made me cry. I didn't cry during the whole scene, the middle portion was a little boring, but I cried at the end when the mother takes off in a basket up into the sky.

And I was in awe. I wish I could write lines like that where I could make someone like myself in the audience, a person that doesn't cry easily, cry like a baby. Especially about such an intense subject like a parent dying. I want to add killer crying lines like that to my baseball screenplay.

I am itching to rewrite it but I promised I would wait a month before doing it. Perhaps it was good advice because now that I've seen this play, I want to take what I've learned from watching this play and translate it back to my screenplay.

I don't think I show enough love between the prodigal son and the father during the screenplay. I show alot of the bitterness between the two but not enough of the love. Watching Tremblay's play taught me that.

God, I miss my love Brian. I wonder how he is doing and where he's working and if he's happy. I wonder if I will ever find anyone who will tell me the truth of things the way he did, if any man will ever tell me the truth of what he really feels the way Brian did, even all the nasty evil stuff that I knew he never wanted me to know. He must have had a Sagitarius rising or moon to go along with his Virgo perfection. Only Brian made me believe that I felt inside intuitively was right. He confirmed all my intuitions and gave truth to what I thought were just my own delusions. But then he was quite exceptional that way. Never afraid to tell me what he really felt, even though in telling there might be pain, for either himself or me or the both of us.

I know that where ever he is and who he's with, he's happy in his own way. He's very practical in that respect, able to tuck away the past in some forgotten corner of his mind, to be looked at only in unguarded quiet times.

I told him we would be happy together one day in another life and he was so sweet when he said, when will that be?

We were so different and there were so many circumstances keeping us apart. And he was such a romantic, too romantic for us to ever be friends afterwards, because being friends with me he said, was impossible. It was togetherness or nothing at all. I think now we both couldn't let go of the dream and so we just abandoned it, because it was easier that way. And we moved on.

But he still haunts my dreams sometimes although I too have tucked him away in some forgotten corner of my mind, only to be looked at in unguarded moments like now.

When I wonder how he is and if he's happier without me and does he miss just a little bit the way I miss him.

And I still wonder every day since our last conversation, whether I find another love who tells me that what I feel is real, because he feels it too, who will tell me the truth of his feelings and not hide away in the name of protection and fear of having his heart ripped out.

So my crush is finally over and I'm happy about it. The cutie hottie guy who I was having a crush on is turning out to be a nice and supportive friend, too much of a friend for me to really have a crush on I guess, so the crush disappeared. But it's great because now I have this like super nice really cute guy as a friend and what girl wouldn't want that.

This guy, this cute guy is so supportive of me. He gave my screenplay a great review and his comments were very insightful. I think he kind of likes me because he introduced me to his friends as this "disciplined screenwriter with a million ideas" which I'm so not, but it was sweet of him anyway. I think this means he admires me, but who knows. Still, it was a nice way to introduce me, I mean he could have said worse things.

He's just such a nice guy and so cute as heck to boot and nice cute guys for friends are hard to find. He'll make a great boyfriend for some lucky girl some day, just not me. But that's okay, because he's a friend. And you want your friends to be happy and you want them to have everything they've ever wanted.

So my search for love and companionship continues.

I wish I could be like other people, the rest of the world. I wish I could go through life and party every night and go to work during the day and not worry about contributing to the world, not worry about making a difference, not worry about lifting the consciousness of the world and trying to make the world just a little bit of a better place.

Instead, I'm like such a messed up freak who feels like I was born to make a difference in this world, who worries whether I'm leading a mediocre life, an ordinary life, who worries that I'm leading a life without purpose and direction and that all I'm doing is taking up space on this planet and pissing it away by drinking and partying, and making meaningless conversation with people, some of whom I wish to marry and breed kids with and start a family and live to a ripe old age, and then one day lie on my death bed and realize I haven't done anything worthwhile with my life.

No, I'm the freak who wants to make a difference, who feels so different from the rest of the world and who cries at night at the unfairness of being born different and not feeling like everybody else. I'm tired of being different. I want to be ordinary and just party and drink myself to death. I want to go to parties and not think it's like the biggest waste of time. I want to have a good time and not feel guilty that I'm not at home writing or doing my art, that I'm not fulfilling the purpose of my life, that I'm living a fucking life of mediocrity and not caring.

But I do care and I do feel guilty and I feel torn, because it is nice to be like everybody else. But somehow I just can't and I feel cursed, so cursed, like why was I drafted, why was I picked, why was I made different and why in hell do I suffer so much when I'm not writing and doing my art.

If this is a test on how to lead a balanced life of art and the rest of my life, then I'm failing this very badly. All I want to do is to curl up in a ball and cry and cry and cry, cry till I can't cry anymore, knowing full welll that all my tears will not make a difference to my life, not make it any easier, except to dispel the incredible sadness that I feel.

I'm so tired of being different. It's such a lonely state to be. I wish I could find someone else who felt as dedicated to their art as I was. Who understood the need I have to be alone and create my art, who understood the need I have to just be by myself so I can wind down and recharge all my creative juices again.

I know I don't know what I want. Part of me wants to live an ordinary and meet some guy and fall in love and marry and have a kid. But the other part, the bigger part does not want any part of that mediocrity and would rather live alone so I can devote my life to my art, to my life purpose, to my destiny. And I feel so torn in two, because god, it would be so nice to come home to someone and just lay in their arms and know that I am sharing my life with a man that I love. But I will not do that and sacrifice my art.

I know there's a middle ground somewhere. I wish I could find it. But I haven't been able to so far. And while part of me fears that I'll end up a lonely white haired old witch living alone, the other part of me fears a worse future where I do not write, where I do not create art. And right now, both futures look bleak, very bleak and so I cry and I rail, and I wish I had my own wailing wall so I can just wail away at God for giving me the writing bug, the creative life bug. And yet the other part of me wants to fall down to my knees and pray in gratitude to God for giving me the urge to write, the urge to be creative, the urge to live an extraordinary life. I just wish God would also have given me an instruction manual on how to reconcile the two great wants of my life.

Not sure what to write today. All these terrorists warnings have spooked me and I feel like I'm in 9/11 mode again. Every day the warnings come. Is this what it's like to live in Israel? Does this mean the suicide bombers now control the world? It's a strange world we live in and I think it's only going to get stranger as the year goes on.

I couldn't write so I watched Heartburn on TV. What a funny movie! And Jack Nicholson, oh my god, he kept reminding me of old boyfriend Paul. Is that why Jack is such a popular actor? Because there's something about him that's just so darn cute! I find it horrifyingly funny that I dated a Jack Nicholson look alike and Paul had all of Jack's movies too. Jack was Paul's favorite actor. And I know I saw this movie before but I forgot that Jack Nicholson played Carl Bernstein of the Woodward/Bernstein Watergate fame. How funny!

I've gotten more reviews on my screenplay and for the first time in my life ever, the critiques aren't freaking me out, like a review of my work usually does. This is such a breakthrough for me. Usually, I attach so much meaning to having my work reviewed. Like oh my god, they're killing me and my baby and it's murder, cruel murder. But now it's like I'm happy to get reviewed because it tells me what I need to do to improve on my story. It's like free editing. To have your work edited costs like $75 and up an hour and I'm getting my editing for free and by five different editors, with different points of views, so if somebody missed something, another person will point it out. And what's interesting is if some of them like the same scenes, it then tells me that the scene works and I don't have to worry about editing it.

I love this review thing, it's so cool. Does this mean I am evolving as a writer, or am I just like too cheap to pay for editing? It's such a change of heart for me.

And I feel so much joy lately. I think it's due to my wingie thingies. The wing chakras open you up to joy and it's working because I experience waves of joy all the time and right now, I have nothing in my life to be particularly happy about. But like who cares, because I've got this joy thing going and I hope these feeling never go away. It's like being high on a drug all the time except I'm not depressed because I'm slowly destroying my health. Okay, maybe I'm slowly destroying my mind, but I don't care because I'm happy, so very, very happy.

It's like that weird movie I saw as a kid once on TV called "What's So Bad About Feelig Good?" I mean, what is so bad about feeling good all the time, it's way better than being on prozac or paxil or other prozac derivatives for the rest of your life. It's natural and it's fun and it's like such a trip, a big old trip that you hope never ever ends.

So the crush still lives on for another day ... maybe because I feel like it's 9/11 all over again and I'm finally feeling the urge to merge. For some reason I feel poetic about the whole thing, so here goes.

Ode to a beautiful man with sparkling blue eyes, who haunts my waking hours and sometimes my nights. You scare me. You distract me from my purpose, from my true ambition in life, the one I've been looking for all my life and now have finally found after all these years. I have been resisting you since February and managed to do a pretty good job of it unitl these last few weeks.

Where did I go wrong?

You make all my other loves, except of course the first one, pale in comparison, but then you are both Fire signs and I have I think, subconsciously avoided your type all these years. But now you've come into my life, at a time just when I am starting to feel comfortable with my wonderful state of single bliss.

I do not know what it is about you that fascinates me to no end, that brings me waves of joy and fun lust whenever I think about you. You're a marina boy type, even though I know you don't live in that neighborhood and I am so not a marina girl.

I feel despondent to think that all the other loves in my life never amounted to what I feel about you. I feel an unwilling victim to your masculinity, your smile, your hunkaliscious bod, your witty sense of humor and your cute smile.

And god, you're such a guy-guy. Not a wimpy northern california type who's afraid to be a real "guy-guy". I never felt what I feel for you, not even for Brian and Steve, my twin loves from a few years ago. Men I thought I couldn't live without, men I thought were this girl's idea of a mouth watering biscuit, ready to be devoured and savoured for each delicious bite.

No, I think I worship you and I've never worshipped any man in my life. And it was like from the get go, when I saw from across the room and my heart started jumping at the sight of such a beauty. But that's all I thought you were, beautiful but a distraction. And so I ran, and so I walked the other way when I saw you coming and you responded in kind. But life, with its odd sense of humor, has kept you in my orbit and I found myself unable to ignore your considerable and most incredible charms, especially when I sat with you in class every week.

And you are still in my life and I am falling desperately and deeply in crush. I tried to intellectualize what I feel about you, putting my crush down to pure animal like lust, because after all, you are beautiful specimen of a man. And what girl wouldn't feel what I feel. I mean, I've even watched the teeming hordes of women fall all over themselves to talk to you and I told myself I never wanted to compete for such a prize.

I've never believed in love at first sight. I used to laugh at friends who told me they looked across the room and saw the person they were destined to spend the rest of the life with, who they ended up marrying and now live with happily ever after. No, I believed in lust at first sight, but never love. And yet, I feel like I'm in love, even though I don't know you very well. God, I don't even know what you smell like, what you dream about, what you fear and most of all, what you love.

I don't kid myself into thinking that you might feel the same way. I look at your gestures of friendship, and although I secretly fantasize at what they might mean, I try not give in to my cursh. I think that you are just a nice guy and I'm just part of group that's trying to evolve into a community of support and friendship in art.

After all, you've never really come out and done anything to make me feel special. But then, I've never made you feel special and I know I never will. At least, not without a strong sign of encouragement from you. And even then, I don't know if I want you to know how much you make me feel. I don't ever want anyone to know how much I lose my sense of control around you, least of all you. I don't know if I could be that vulnerable again with someone. I don't know if I could tear the hardened scabs of hurt that have formed over my heart. I don't know if I want my heart ripped to shreds again. I mean, I know I would survive such a rending, even from you, but I'm afraid that I would hurt for a long time, maybe even forever.

My best friend keeps telling me that I take you and my crush all too seriously, that you could merely be a conduit to me meeting my one true love and that if we were to ever get together, you'd be at least a blast to date.

But I want you to be more than a blast. I want you to be a joy that is a part of my life for the rest of my life. And contrary to what I've always believed, if I can't have you as the love of my life, I don't want you in my life at all. That would be way too painful.

And so I have no choice but to take this crush one day at a time. I thought I was over you last week, I really did. But this morning, you were in my thoughts and it made me so deliriously happy to think of you, that I got slammed head first back into crush mode. The joy you bring to my heart is equal to the joy I'm having thinking about my wingie thingies. And I can't ignore this most heavenly of gifts. That one single person brings such happiness and joy to me is like a miracle. And isn't bringing love and joy what were all divinely meant to bring to each other?

So, it's definitely a Mercury Retrograde because I'm sitting in my office waiting till I can go pick up my car. The car guy said I could have my car betwween 5:30 and 8 pm and I just thought he was saying that to cover his ass. But no, I call him at 5 pm and he says my car will be ready at 8 pm. The car people didn't even work on my car all day. What if they find something seriously wrong with it its 20K well baby care appointment? If they do, they only have three hours to work on it. God, how unorganized. I tried not to get mad though because there was just obviously some huge old miscommunication, but still damn!

I was supposed to see my friend in her stage reading at the Exit Theatre. It was going to be her and female who's who in the SF Bay Area theatre world. Like any chick who's got any kind of game in the world of theatre is in this reading. And here I am typing a post in blogger in my office.

And to add insult to injury, it looks like it's going to rain while I'm out waiting for the bus. God, life is just so unfair sometimes.

I wished I brought my little laptop to work. I could have have gone to the mall and hung out and worked on my Shopping Center Carnival story.

This stupid mercury retrograde. And it's about to get even worse.

There's supposed to be some historic Saturn Pluto opposition on May 26. "Strict Saturn in Gemini opposing transformative Pluto in Sagittarius has been in effect since the end of last July. This is an aspect of extreme structural realignment which occurs about every 35 years. The last time it occurred was in 1965-66, the time before that in 1931. Those were both times of extreme social change. And here we are again." - This is from a website I found.

The word out on the all the conspiracy websites is something is supposed to happen on May 26. Is that why they keep talking about future terrorists attacks on the news? Some people have said that if there is an attack, it will be on Memorial Day and that an attack like that will send the stock market crashing with the Nasdaq going down to 1400 level. The markets don't stay down and will come back up, but I just don't think we can take another attack. Maybe the people in Israel are used to it, but not us. Some people also say that the next attack will happen to Washington DC. Is that why Cheney can never been seen? God, I have friends that live there. This sounds terrible, but hopefully the terrorist attack, if there is any, is nothing more than a suicide bomber and not a 9/11 thing.

But who knows? Are they warning us to prepare us? Or are they really credible threats out there? And I'm like DAMN! We can send a man to the moon but we can't round up terrorsts? We can build a space station but we can't guard our country against crazy extremists who just want to blow themselves and others up.

The world is going crazy and I feel afraid and it's not like I don't know why.

I've spent the whole night trying to figure out how to configure my LG Phenom to connect to my ISP provider. At finally, at almost 1 am, I've done it. YEAH!!! I'm typing this post while connected to my baby laptop.

I spent all of Saturday in this seminar taught by world renowned futurist Sean David Morton. I'll have to write more on that later. It was very intense and he opened two chakras for me. I thought there were only 7, but now they're 12. The two he opened are locarted on the back of my shoulders. When he did it, he said it was really cool. And afterwards, he said I had huge wings. This made me happy somehow, to have huge wingie thingies. Whatever they are. I think I just like the fact that most people have only 10 chakras unless you get some point in your back specifically opened. I have 12 chakras and that is so cool. It's made me happy anyway, and you have to grateful for somethng that makes you happy.

On Sunday, I went to church and then to a seminar on fashion, which was so much fun. The only thing now is I'm dying to totally redo my wardrobe, something I can afford but don't want to do right now. This seminar made me realize how slobbed out I've become, which is sad since I used to be known as quite fashionable. Well conservative, but still fashionable. Now I'm just a computer slob nerd. Very bad.

A crush has turned into a friendship. It's funny how things work out that way. Oh well. I love having cutie male friends.

I'm starting to stress out about the spiritual remote viewing course I'm taking tomorrow with futurist Sean David Morton. I went to a party Thursday night and got really drunk. I'll have to do a mini lemonade cleanse tonight to flush the toxins out of my body. I want to be a good frame of mind and in good health on Saturday.

I think I'm stressing out about the course because I'm like, what if his technique. What if it really is possible to remote view events from the past, present and future? I could remote view specific events in my life and the life of my family. I'm even starting to wonder if I could remote view past, present and future events for other people. What a trip! But then I start thinking that what if remote view a tragic event in my life or someone else's. Is possible to alter the future, now that you know what it is. I do have this belief that certain events in your life are set in stone and you can't really change them. You can delay them maybe, but eventually they will have to take place.

It's really too much to think about. I'm expecting to have my mind completely blown, something that rarely happens to me ever. I hope it's a fun blowout.

I tried to write my short story which I'm calling 'Shopping Center Carnival". It was hard. My character is a 13 year old girl with an alcoholic dad and shell shocked mom. They're poor and I think at 13 years old, it's really traumatic to be poor because that's the age you really get caught up in the money thing, if it doesn't hit you sooner. Scratch that. It does hit you sooner, but it's like you're not quite aware of the significance of your status until you hit adolescence.

Then for some reason, writing it made me sad. This character has the most wretched circumstances. My own childhood wasn't this bad, but that's how the character is coming out. It's all really depressing. I'm also listening to Ultra by Depeche Mode, so maybe I'm adding to my own misery. Maybe I need to play happier music.

I think love is a funny thing. Sometimes you're so into and it 's such a blast and such a trip and other times, it's like "ehh, whatever". I had a friend Karl and he said he could be in a couple as long as he had alot of down time and alone time. I'm wondering if I'm the say way. I went out last night and now I just feel this intense need to cocoon and be alone, to listen to my own thoughts and to block out everybody else's.

Well, at least I did write a littlie bit. I may have to start frequenting cafes again. When I wrote in cafes, I wrote alot because I felt like I needed to write something to justify my existence for benig in a cafe, on a school night when I could be at home, listening to my cds or watching TV.

I wonder if I'm too practical to fall in love. I keep thinking if it's not easy and stress free, I totally don't want anything to do with it. Love should be easy and everything should fall into place, like you're in the zone or something. And right now, there's alot of struggle and stress going on and I hate that. This is not a good sign.

I was reading my horoscope today and it said I'm the type of person, who won't get involved in a relationship unless I'm successful in some way. That sounds so true for me. I know part of me thinks that I'm like totally worthless unless I'm a published and well paid author, and I won't be able to think about falling in love and bieng in a relationship till this happens. Which means of course I'm doomed and fucked, because it might not ever happen.

It's funny to me. People in my writing class think I'm disciplined, but I'm really not, at least not how I'd like be discplined anyway.

Sometimes writing is so hard. How do you trust the voice that's speaking to you and telling you a story? Sometimes character start stories and never finish them. It's hard to tell whether you're getting a whole story or just a snippet or a life.

I feel very sad too, like something has happened to one of my friends or will happen. I don't get that anything will happen to me, but that something will happen, something not that great, for one of my friends. I just can't tell who. Sometimes I hate that I get intuitive flashes. Like how do you know if they're true? How do you know you're not like Russell Crowe in that movie, A Beautiful Mind", and talking to yourself and having one big delusion.

God, I so related to that part of the movie. Sometimes I feel like I'm living on a huge delusion and all of my friends know it but won't tell me. It's a terrible feeling.

Wow, there was an earthquake in SF tonight and I was in a bar having drinks with some people from my screenwriting seminar and I didn't even feel it. What a shock! When I checked my cell phone messages, I got frantic calls from friends wondering if I was okay. Actually, I'm glad I missed it because earthquakes freak me out anyway.

Another surprise. People in my screenwriting class are fun to hang out with. It's so hard to tell in a class whether you're going to like anyone and when you're in a writing class, it's even harder, at least for me anyway. As a writer, I am incredibly insecure about my writing and this insecurity translates into everything. When I'm in a new writing class for the first time, I'm always in fear of everyone in the class until I get to know them. And even then, it's still hard because these people will be reviewing your work, they're your critics and consequently, they can be your worst nightmare.

You never like anyone, you always think people are criticizing you and when someone comments on your work, it's like they've stabbed you right in the heart sometimes. Your art is like your baby and they're stepping on it and saying how confusing and bad it is. These aren't exactly the right conditions to develop friendship or love for that matter.

But when you do eventually go out with your fellow writers, you find out they're just as insecure about their writing as you are, and they're human like you are too and not the bad freaky people you thought they were. Which is a nice surprise I think.

I haven't written for a week and although I feel like I've deserved my one week vacation, I feel bad for not writing. I feel bad for not doing the thing that I think I've found after all these years that I really do love, the one thing in the world that I really want to do well and succeed in, and the only way I have to really express myself.

But with this urge to write, comes a lot of caution. Like do I want to bring people and events into my life that will threaten this new love that I've found? If I fall in love and meet the man of dreams, will he take away from my love of writing, because I'll have to spend time with this man? Will I still be able to devote all my free time to writing or research for my stories or will I have to choose between my writing and my boyfriend? I don't know if I'm strong enough to make that decision. I don't know if I'm strong enough to not let anything and anybody get in the way of my writing.

And will the man of my dreams understand my need to write, the time I need to write, the time I need to research, the time I need to just be myself so I can recharge my creative batteries? I don't know and I'm afraid that somewhere along the line, I'll get lost along with my writing.

And I don't know if I could survive losing myself and my writing again. But I don't know if I can survive living much longer without being in love and being part of a couple. It feels like these two issues will come head to head in my life sooner than later, like maybe before the summer is out. And I know I will have to choose but I'm praying to have the best of both worlds; the love of my life, my lifetime soul partner who supports me in my writing. And at this point in my life, I know I won't put up with anything less.

God, I love being in love. This is the first time I think I've ever enjoyed having a crush on someone, but then my crush guy is so cute and pretty close to perfect. It's like I dreamed him up or something. Too bad, it's going to end in a week or so and I'll probably never ever see him again. It was such a trip to fall for this guy, such a rush. But like all crushes, I don't even know if the guy even likes me or even knows I exist.

But this crush is so fun that I don't want to spoil it by getting to know the guy. God, what if he's not what I've pictured him to be. I'd be so bummed. I just want to enjoy the experience of being in love and in crush and I don't want to deal with reality and dating and all the other crap that goes along with really falling in love.

I don't think this guy is the one, more like a precursor to the real one, but god, if this is any indication of what falling in love with the one will be like, I say bring it on, I"m ready.

I'll miss this crush guy lots, but I can't wait for the real one to show up in my life. And I just have this good feeling that he's going to show up soon, real soon.

I saw The Rookie with Dennis Quaid. It's such a cute movie although I think the movie reviewers were right when they said that Dennis Quaid is too old to be playing the role of Jim Morris. Still, he's a likable every man kind of guy that he makes you believe in the character. And what's so great is The Rookie is based on a true story. I love how real life is so much more bizarre than a writer can every make it. If this movie was fictional, the audience wouldn't buy it. But this movie was about a real man's story, so it's even more fable like, even though it is totally based on reality.

I like how life sometimes is like so far out, so unbelievable, that if you actually filmed it, people would think you were making it up. I wish my life was like this. So unbelievable, that I wouldn't even believe it if I were to watch it as a movie. I wonder what it would be like to live a miraculous life. It hasn't happened to me so far. But perhaps there's always hope, there's always that dream that my life will suddenly all work out and I'll fall in love for real and meet the hottie of my dreams and fantasies and he'll think I'm the best thing since sliced bread and we'll fall in love and get married and have a beautiful little boy named Riley. Only in my wildest fantasies and dreams.

My new dating theory although it's an update of my old one, is you have a pretty good idea when you first hook up with someone whether it's going to work. Then you need to date at least for three months or 90 days to find out how well it's going to work. Some relationships work way better than others. If at the end of the 90 day period, you don't want to spend the rest of your life with that person then it's time to move on because anything else is just honestly a big waste of time for you and for him.

If the guy isn't dying to have me move in with him at the end of 90 days, I leave. Sometimes it takes awhile, but eventually I leave. What's the point? He's kidding himself and you if he doesn't know whether he wants to live with you at end of 90 days. I think most guys know this already, but whether they admit it or not is another issue. Sometimes guys get comfortable and will just hang around because they don't have any places else to go and it's not so bad for them.

Brian was the only guy who was the most honest with about how he felt about me and the both of us together. He had no fear of telling me the truth, even when he knew it would hurt us both. I think it takes a really strong man to be honest and Brian was definitetly strong. I trusted him with my life. I knew that in a life or death situation, Brian would always do the right thing and put my well being first. He would put anyone's well being first before his own, not just mine, but then Brian was a pretty darn spectucular and honorable guy. Who knows if there other guys like him that exist out in the world, or in the SF Bay Area. Brian is a fifth generation Texas native, so maybe this lineage accounts for his strength and honour. He was definitely more a 19th century kind of guy than a modern guy anyway, at least as far as his values.

I wonder if I will ever find a Brian type guy again in my life. I hope so.

How do you when you've found the one, the one person you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with, your soul partner? Do you all of a sudden look up and magically you see this guy and he's like totally beautiful and you hear the violins, you meet and then you fall in love. Or do you meet this nice and cute guy one day, and you become friends and soon he's like your best buddy and then friendship turns to lust and then to love. Or is it a combination of both.

I don't even believe in the concept of "the one". I believe you have many "right ones" and it all depends on how long they're supposed to last in your life. There's always the one for the moment, the week, three months, six months, five years and then I think finally the rest of your life. But how do you know which one the guy. Is he the guy who's supposed to last in your life for six weeks or is he the guy who's supposed to last a lifetime?

I wonder if you even know and that maybe it's a day to day to thing and pretty soon you're 90 years old and you're still with the same guy you've been with since your youth.

Something tells me that I've either met the one or I'm about to meet him and I don't which it is. I was raised catholic so I need like major signs to tell me some guy is the one and if I don't get the signs, I'm so not into it.

The only thing I know is the guy had better be pretty darn spectacular and imminently jumpable for me to leave the comfort and security of my single elf girl life. I love being single. I love the freedom of not having to account for my time to anyone but myself. I know I do better in a couple than as a single, but being single is such a great trip. There's no gig like it. There's so much freedom and time when you're single. When you're in a couple, I think there still is freedom and time, but there's just more organization and planning involved because you're dealing with two schedules instead of one.

But I don't know ... being single is great. At least I know how to be single and I've gotten used to it. But I also know that I'm one of those people that do so just a little better in a couple situation. I just want it to be the right couple situation and at this point in my life, nothing less than a perfect heaven or pretty darn close to it will do.

A friend of mine sent me this because my life has been a little chaotic lately. The greater world too seems to be going haywire as well. When in doubt, check out astrology, it has all our answers ;).

Beware the Mercury Retrograde.

Has Mercury retrograde begun to bite yet? Mercury is the planet of communication, so when it retrogrades--indeed, even BEFORE it retrogrades, you can begin to feel the slowdown. Things break, communication goes awry, and generally the world goes a little haywire. Mercury will be retrograde from May 15 to June 7.

Mercury will turn direct on June 8. Until it does, protect your data. Also, try not to sign any agreements, buy anything expensive or make any big decisions. If you find you have to do something important and cannot change the date, just stay flexible as the conditions surrounding your situation may change. If you're having a baby, it's always a good time (even I was born with Mercury retrograde).

It would be easy to overstate the problems with Mercury retrograde. Believe it or not, there is an upbeat side to Mercury retrograde too. One of the best parts of Mercury retrograde is that it is helpful for reconnecting with people from your past. There are other benefits of Mercury retrograde. You may find a valuable missing object, or clues
to an old mystery. Old projects that you couldn't find the time or money to do, suddenly jump to life and become possible. The bid you made on a house that was rejected now turns around--the buyer wants to consider your bid after all. One of the best bonuses of a Mercury retrograde period is that we all get a chance to find closure on a
whole variety of issues and relationships, and that is no small asset!

There are so many strange things going on in the world right now. I blame those planets that are aligning in the sky. Think abou it. In all the movies, scifi and non-scifi, where the planets aligned themselves, it was always considered a bad omen. Nothing ever good came out of planetary alignments. We're just like the cave people, cowering in our homes instead of our caves, waiting for the next disaster to befall on our world, all because of these planetary alignments. It's nuts!

I'm so bummed. This radio station that I liked Z95.7 FM has changed to some bad 70's classic rock music station. God, how boring. There was a report in the Contra Costa Times that on Tuesday, all the deejays from Z95.7 got let go. Like we need another make me fall asleep classic rock music station in the Bay Area.

I check the radio station ratings on this website called rronline.com and here's the latest top 14 radio stations in the SF/Bay Area, which is the fourth largest market after NYC, LA and Chicago.

1. KGO - news talk radio - I listen to this station during the day - best talk show hosts, liberal view point.
2. KOIT - sappy pop songs, but good if you're in that kind of mood.
3. KCBS - news talk radio, has the most frequent traffic reports.
4. KSFO - news talk radio, conservative view point, home of Art Bell.
5. KYLD - wild 94.9, total hip hop 24/7 - gangsta rap bootie music, some alt rock thrown in
6. KDFC - classical music, okay I listen to this station alot when I write.
7. KMEL - hip hop 24/7 - more gangsta rap bootie music, their hip hop is a little edgier
8. KFRC - total oldies, but nothing past 1980, mostly 50's and 60 music
9. KSOL - hispanic - love the spanish versions of pop songs
10. KFOG - classic rock adult contemporary, makes me totally fall asleep when I listen to it, sad too because I used to listen to this radio station alot but they play way too many 70's and 80's rock anthems and they make me feel like an oldie, even the blues music they play isn't all that great - too much bayou and not enough chitown electric, and what the hell happened to the Grateful Dead Hour, the only great thing they've got is 10 at 10.
11. KKSF - total elevator music, although they call it smooth jazz, more like music as SOMA, only Delta and Epsilons types from Brave New world will listen to this station
12. KBLX - adult urban contemporary, they play Anita Baker way too many times and not enough Al Green
13. K101 - not sure what their identity is because they keep switching, but I think they now play 80's and 90's hits
14. KITS - Live 105 - a personal favorite since forever!

I remember reading an article in the Bay Guardian a few years back about how radio stations took hip hop to the suburbs. I guess it's true. After all the oldie but goodies stations, the most listened to music is hip/hop, although I think it's now considered just popular music.

Still, I will miss Z95.7 because they played all the sickie hits from the likes of people like Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys and Nsync. Where else are you going listen to Top 40 type music, which is so great for driving home from work.

I'm listening to KYLD now, which SFGate calls Urban Top 40. It's not too bad. They're playing a song by that rapper from St. Louis called Nelly and I actually like him and even bought his first CD. I guess I'll get used to losing that other top 40 station. Still, it's such a bummer. Just don't take away Live 105, which I've been listening to since I moved here. Where else am I going to hear power chords and angst filled music?

I saw Spider Man last night and totally loved it. The critics were right though, the special effects weren't that great. You could tell some of it was so computer generated and not really Tobey Maguire jumping from building to building. But the flying with the web sequences were great. Then there were those Matrix-esque moves which were great. Still, The Matrix had better special effects I think because of the interesting camera angles and the nature of computer generated Matrix world.

And it looks I'll get to enjoy Spider Man twice because I double booked myself for the movie. I forgot I promised my friend Kevin that we would go and when he called last night, I didn't have th heart to tell him I had already made plans to go and see Spider Man with my girlfriends in Redwood City on Friday. And now I'm too chicken to tell my girlfriends that I've already seen the movie because they were willing to wait till this Friday to see it with me. What to do.

Now that I've finished my screenplay and can get back to normal life, I think I'm going to overload myself on watching movies. If I want to be a movie screenwriter, I think I need to watch as many movies as I can stand. I want to see Dennis Quaid in The Rookie and there's a good double feature at the Balboa with Lantana and The Royal Tennebaums. But it's only Wednesday and the movie schedules change sometime on Thursday, so who knows what movies I'll be watching this weekend.

I also want to get back to other writing pieces. There's that novel that I start in November, that play I started in 1998, that short story I finished a month ago that needs to be edited and my two new stories about a shopping center carnival and my violin playing drug popping 19 year old boy who paints half his face white and half his face black and plays violin divinely in Washington Square Park.

And unlike wriitng screenplays at my pc at home, I can take my baby laptop and write my stories anywhere. This is definitely a good thing.

I don't know if I ever want to fall in love again. I got news today that my boyfriend from nine years ago died in his sleep over the weekend. He was only 41 years old and so very young. God, I really loved that man. He was so sweet. He had a heart of gold and I knew he would never ever intentionally hurt me. But god, he was so damaged. So messed up in the head. So full of nightmares and demons and ghosts that even huge amounts of alcohol couldn't keep them away. I still remember how he used to wake up in a cold sweat from nightmares every night, nightmares that he refused to talk to me about.

He drank himself to death. He was already doing that nine years ago when I met him. But I was so stupid and young back then. I thought he was so much fun, so the party hardy although older frat boy. Being with him was like being back in college. That is until I woke up three months after we started going out and realized my life and apartment was a mess. We drank between us three big bottles of alcohol every week. We would start on Friday and keep going through to Saturday and Sunday night I would crawl back to my apartment completely hung over and wiped out.

My life revolved around drinking with him and having sex with him, punctuated by episodes of mushroom and acid or any other drugs that he could obtain for us. He was so much fun. He reminded me so much of college.

Until we started getting kicked out of clubs because he was too drunk. Or better yet, they wouldn't let us through the door because he was so lit up. Then came the episodes of him falling down drunk too many times on the sidewalk or me dragging him into his apartment because he'd fallen down drunk in his doorway or that one awful time the bartenders at Gordon Biersch begged me to take him home because he had fallen asleep at the bar.

He and our relationship was unraveling before my very eyes. And I was unraveling too. He tried to stop drinking sometimes, but it was so hard. By the second day, he was so damned mean to me. By day three I'd make him a drink and give it to him begging him to drink so he would stop being mean and stop yelling and cussing at me. I don't think he ever forgave me for making him drink on day 3.

I went to a meeting of Al Anon once and there I was surrounded by women or men who would hide the booze from their loved one and I wanted to get up and yell, but if they don't drink they're such jerks. What's wrong with giving them a drink and having some peace in the house and relationship. I never back to Al Anon.

I begged him once and dragged him to my therapist. He would pretend to resist me, but he would always do whatever I said. He was always good that way. My therapist told me at my next session by myself if I was prepared to go through a dry out period with him. Was I prepared for the fact that if he stopped drinking he might not love me anymore. Was I prepared to stop drinking? Was I prepared for the fact that if he did sober up, he might become a totally different person.

Her questions stung me. I realized in that session that I didn't love him enought to want him sober. I mean I loved him, but I was afraid that if he went straight he'd stop loving me. And I couldn't face that, not after what I would have had to go through to get him to that point.

And so I left him after six months and leaving him was the hardest thing. Despite all the bullshit, despite all the crap he put us through, I never lost sight of what a great guy he was underneath but I knew that if I stayed with him, he would eventually die sooner than later. He told me he never wanted to outlive his parents. He would hold me in his arms in the beginning and tell me we were twins. He told me a month after we broke up that he glad I had left him because he lived his life on the edge and I didn't. He told me I wanted a spouse and kids and he didn't want any of that. He told me sometimes he just wanted to die. He told me that he'd had a death wish for a long time. He told me that he didn't want to ever hurt me and being with him would eventually hurt me.

I guess he was right in a way and wrong. I'm hurting now because he's gone. And death is like this really messed and strange thing because I know I'll never talk to him again. I think he just gave up. I think he just got tired of living on the edge, of the nightly nightmares, of the demons and memories that haunted him, I think his spirit and soul just gave up because they were so tired.

And all I have left are my good memories of us together like when we watched Grand Canyon and he started crying. Like how much he hated that I sang Puff the Magic Dragon to him in bed but he let me do it anyway. How he loved it when I called him HR Puff N Stuff. How much fun we had on our trip to Death Valley and how he dared me take off my shirt and ride topless in the covertible, which I did because I knew he would love it. How much he really listened to me when I analyzed movies for him. How I Ioved the way he smelled and how just getting a whiff of him made me me want to jump him and start taking off my clothes. How often I just wanted to slam him up against a wall, take off his clothes and let my mouth make him feel really, really good and big smile to his beautiful face. God, and just how much fun we had just laughing and having a good time, especially in the beginning when we were so into each other and we would spend hours together just laughing and watching TV.

But maybe you only get to love like that once in your life, quickly, passionately and tragically. At least that's what I hope because I know I don't ever want to feel this kind of hurt in my life ever again.

Since I've been sick, I feel like I lost a whole day. I had no idea that today was Cinco de Mayo, until I got home in the afternoon. I've been craving nachos for days so I bought some on the way home, so now at least I feel like I've celebrated the day a little bit.

I've been lazing around all weekend, briefly leaving the house to go to see my chiro/holistic healer in Berkeley on Saturday and then to church today. I have an appointment in three weeks with my chiro/healer's partner, who specializes in japanese healing techniques. His whole approach to healing sounded interesting and since I've never tried it, I decided to try one appointment.

John, the japanese healer guy, said something interesting though. We were talking about fighting techniques, since I took a class in juijitsu, and he said the key to staying strong is to relax. This rang a bell with me. I'd heard the concept before in a G&D course and they called it being an automatic yes to life. Or, stop resisting everything in your life and just say yes.

I know that most of the time, I'm an automatic NO to life. I'm spontaneous if I'm in a good mood and will do just about anything, but that's rare for me. But John was demonstrating to me if you stay relaxed and not fight, the opponent can't throw you off balance. When you resist, all your energy goes into resisting and you're weaked somehow. But if you relax, then you stay strong. I wonder if you can apply these concepts to life. I'm going to try it anyway, try to not resist whatever is coming up in my life.

Like I know right now, I'm so resisting finishing my screenplay. It was my promise to finish by tomorrow to have the class read and review it. I have only 12 scenes to go and they're very fast scenes too, but I'm so not into finishing it. I've been stalling all weekend, even though I know that it's due tomorrow. I'm even stalling right now by writing in my bloggie instead of writing my screenplay.

It's so weird that I'm resisting finishing my screenplay, because I've been so looking forward to moving on to my other pieces of writing. It's like the one thing I've been longing for, the end of my screenplay writing, I'm resisting now. It's weird, very weird. But I know I'll finish it. I have too much J in me from the myers briggs test. When there's a deadline, I finish things. I rarely flake out and when I have flaked in the past, it's always been a most humiliating experience for me. Like I've created some big crime or something. I've learnt to purposely flake out just to prove I didn't always have to keep my word, but it's never been a good experience.

What am I saying. I know I'll finish it. And when it's over, I'll be happy because it means I can go back to writing my short stories and my novel. Maybe I need to put on an inspirational CD. I bought one of those grammy award winning gospel cds by Yolanda Adams. It's great. It's full of songs about going on with your life no matter what and never giving up and stuff like that. It's very inspirational only because you get 60 minutes of the stuff and after awhile, you do sort of get inspired to do something with your life. It's a cheap trick I know, but sometimes it works. I just put it on.

"If I can see it, then I can do it, if I just believe it, then there's nothing to it, I believe I can fly". I mean, how can you not write after hearing mush like that. Most of the time I think it inspires me to write, because I get so sick of it, I start writing just to block out the songs. Whatever works right?

I was thinking today as I was lying sick in my bed, that if I believed in fairy tales or if I lived a fairy tale life, I probably wouldn't write. But I lead a common and regular life and if I can't have my happy ending in real life, I intend to have them in my stories, never mind that I don't really believe in happy endings and haven't really written a story with a happy ending yet.

Somwhere out there, there's a happy ending for one of my stories.

You know the gushy girly kind, where the really cute hunky guy from class, the one you've had a secret crush on for weeks, magically shows up somewhere you are. You see each other, your eyes meet, you smile, you move closer, and you start talking. Next you know, you're sitting in a coffee shop talking together like you were old friends, maybe even soul mates, a more romantic part of you thinks. Days go by and you and he are talking on the phone daily, exchanging email, chatting via AIM, till that one magical night when you're out together and all of sudden you find yourself back at his place and one thing leads to another. Then wooohooo! It's wild monkey sex, but you knew it would be that way all along because somehow you can always tell and you wouldn't have been interested in you weren't going to get WMS.

Okay, that's about all the happy ending I want right now.

Still it's a nice dream isn't it? The reality is, that really cute guy you've had a secret crush on in class, turns out to be not so bright. It's not that he's not bright, he earns a damned good living after all, but you couldn't discuss the many meanings of La Dolce Vita with him, or the finer points of the GOP presidential victory in Florida, or even The theory of the Force in Star Wars.

That my friend is real life. That my friend is reality. Which is why I think I write. I can create a reality where the really cute guy from class is a mini-Einstein, Bill Clinton, Warren Beatty, Mr D'Arcy, Neo from The Matrix guy all rolled into one 6 ft 2 in major hottie, melt in your mouth biscuit, with beautiful blue eyes.

The bloggie is finally working, although I'm not. I've either had the worst stomach flu I've had in years or a case of food poisioning, not sure which. Monday night came home from class with the worst headache. I rarely have coffee at night, except when I have a class. Maybe it was the coffee and the ride on the 31 Balboa with all its twists and turns that made me nauseous. Finally, I get up at 3 in the morning to take some aspirin which knocks me right out

Next day, I have three loose movements before work, five when I get to work, and then I throw up in my wastebasket at my desk four times. Not a good sign. I had a project due that day by 1:30 pm. I tried to tough it out and even managed to answer email and get half way through the project. By 10:30 am, I'm about to pass out so I leave.

And now I've been in bed since Tuesday. I thought I might go in today but those loose movements this morning really stopped me. I wish I knew what was wrong. I stepped on the scale and I lost four pounds in three days. On Tuesday, I would eat and then throw everything up. On Wednesday, I ate and then had to run to the bathroom 10 minutes later. I wonder what today will bring.

It's no fun being sick, especially since I've decided that my bed sucks and it's not the right kind of bed to lie about in for days on end. I think I need a new bed.

Testing my bloggie - unable to post, then the bloggie disappeared. Testing, testing, testing.

I'm a scene away from plot point two in my script. God, I've been dreading writing this all weekend. Talk about fear of the unknown. This is the scene where my character has the big blow out with his dad and has to get through years of anger and make peace with him before I kill the father character off the next day. God, this is the conversation I wish I had in 1992 with my dad and I don't know how to write because I never had it.

I'm afraid it will turn into one big emotional crapshoot with me as the victim. This is the part of art that scares me, when you have to lay your soul bare and out there for others to see. It's what stopped me from acting. I just couldn't get to the point where I could reveal myself on stage like that. I got past this point in my collage artwork but it took alot out of me to do that. I don't know if I can do this in my writing. I know I've done it before, but each time I've had to face this point, I freak.

I keep telling myself it's not too bad and that once you're through it, your through it. And that it's not even me speaking, it's some baseball player character guy I made up, so it's not even my story, it's really his story.

I feel like that character in Shakespeare in Love, who keeps saying "it all works out, it always does, not quite sure how, but it always works out."

I added two extra scenes and I was upset because I over my scene limit, but then I remembered and I had made four scenes out of two when they could really be condensed into two. Actually, there could two more scenes that I could combine into two, but I think I'll wait unitl I really need to do it. I was so paniced, but it all worked out. It always does. Never mind that my script is turning into a bad lifetime movie of the week and that my screenwriting classmates will just hate the shit out of it. This is the hardest project I've ever done in my life. It's so close to home, too close.

Well, I guess the only to the other side is through it, I guess. I normally would say to go around it, but in writing, you have to go through it, you can't go around. At least, I haven't found a way to do that yet. Maybe someday.

Meanwhile that Vertical Horizon song keeps playing on my computer to give me inspiration to write this emotional plot point two. It's fiction though, I have to remember it's fiction and I can lie as much as I want. It's fiction.

I went to the new age expo yesterday just to see if I was up on all the latest developments in health, skin care and of course new age woo woo. There was nothing there I didn't already know about except a japanese massage technique called Shindo. I'll have to research shindo and find out what it is. They even had a booth for thai massage, a technique that I've been interested in exploring.

I went with a friend of mine and we even snuck into a John Gray lecture. John Gray of Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus fame. We would have to pay $20 to see him but we snuck in at the last minute and participated in an angel healing with him.

It was so funny to see John Gray and other notable new age bookwriters walking around the fair talking to people. They look so different in person than they do in their TV specials or in their headshots for their books.

John Gray is a trip. He's definitely your typical new age guy woo woo guy with the way he talks and even his body shape. He's very short and thin. He was wearing a dark pink silk shirt and white pants; definitely the new age guy uniform.

There wasn't as much free stuff this year as there was last year and there were alot of groups that were at prvevious fairs in the past, but weren't there this year. There was a whole row upstair for people giving massages and healing and fortune telling. Their presence was new. I don't remember them from last year. They all seemed to have brisk business though, so there must be a need for them.

The new age expo was like a carnival for adults, where if you had lots of money you had a good time. For $15, you get a picture of your auras via some kind of polaroid camera, which you can proudly wear pinned to you for all the world to see. You can get your face painted, your palsm red, you chakras healed, your fortune told over and over again, in case you didn't like what one said, you can always get a second opinion, a third and a fourth, however many you like, because you know somewhere out there, there's the right fortune, the right future for you.

The food booth wasn't that that interesting except they had a raw food place and puerto rican place. They had fried bananas and I love fried b'nans so I had to eat Puerto Rican food. I haven't had good puerto rican food since my vacation to Miami and South Beach. I almost want to go back to South Beach so I can go eat puerto rican and cuban food. They serve you fried bananas at every meal. South Beach is more european than american. The girls sunbathe topless at the beach. The beaches at South Beach are really nice. It's all white sand and you can walk a long way and look at the South Beach skyline with it hotels and art deco feel.

My friend and I were suppose to go to the new age hoe down at 9 pm, but we decided we'd had enough. Besides, we didn't see many guys we'd even want to talk to, let alone dance with there.

But it's nice to know, we both thought on the way home, that we haven't missed anything and we have everything we need at home.