I've been thinking about what it means to be "open-mindeded", and received the following definition via email today.

This week’s featured strength is Open-Mindedness.

People are very open-minded about new things…
as long as they're exactly like the old ones!--Charles Kettering

Definition
·Open-mindedness is the willingness to search actively for evidence against one’s favored beliefs, plans, or goals, and to weigh such evidence fairly when it is available.

·Being open-minded does not imply that one is indecisive, wishy-washy, or incapable of thinking for one’s self. After considering various alternatives, an open-minded person can take a firm stand on a position and act accordingly.

·The opposite of open-mindedness is what is called the myside bias which refers to the pervasive tendency to search for evidence and evaluate evidence in a way that favors your initial beliefs. Most people show myside bias, but some are more biased than others.

Benefits of Open-Mindedness

Research suggests the following benefits of open-mindedness:

.Open-minded, cognitively complex individuals are less swayed by singular events and are more resistant to suggestion and manipulation.

·Open-minded individuals are better able to predict how others will behave and are less prone to projection.

·Open-minded individuals tend to score better on tests of general cognitive ability like the SAT or an IQ test. (Of course we don’t know whether being open-minded makes one smarter or vice versa.)

Open-Mindedness as a “Corrective Virtue”

Social and cognitive psychologists have noted widespread errors in judgment/thinking to which we are all vulnerable. In order to be open-minded, we have to work against these basic tendencies, leading virtue ethicists to call open-mindedness a corrective virtue.

In addition to the myside bias described above, here are three other cognitive tendencies that work against open-minded thinking:

1) Selective Exposure
We maintain our beliefs by selectively exposing ourselves to information that we already know is likely to support those beliefs. Liberals tend to read liberal newspapers, and Conservatives tend to read conservative newspapers.

2) Primacy Effects
The evidence that comes first matters more than evidence presented later. Trial lawyers are very aware of this phenomenon. Once jurors form a belief, that belief becomes resistant to counterevidence.

3) Polarization
We tend to be less critical of evidence that supports our beliefs than evidence that runs counter to our beliefs. In an interesting experiment that demonstrates this phenomenon[1], researchers presented individuals with mixed evidence on the effectiveness of capital punishment on reducing crime. Even though the evidence on both sides of the issue was perfectly balanced, individuals became stronger in their initial position for or against capital punishment. They rated evidence that supported their initial belief as more convincing, and they found flaws more easily in the evidence that countered their initial beliefs.

What Encourages Open-Mindedness?

·Research suggests that people are more likely to be open-minded when they are not under time pressure. (Our gut reactions aren’t always the most accurate.)

·Individuals are more likely to be open-minded when they believe they are making an important decision. (This is when we start making lists of pros and cons, seeking the perspectives of others, etc.)

·Some research suggests that the way in which an idea is presented can affect how open-minded someone is when considering it. For example, a typical method of assessing open-mindedness in the laboratory is to ask a participant to list arguments on both sides of a complicated issue (e.g., the death penalty, abortion, animal testing). What typically happens is that individuals are able to list far more arguments on their favored side. However, if the researcher then encourages the participant to come up with more arguments on the opposing side, most people are able to do so without too much difficulty. It seems that individuals have these counter-arguments stored in memory but they don’t draw on them when first asked.

Exercises to Build Open-Mindedness

1)Select an emotionally charged, debatable topic (e.g., abortion, prayer in school, healthcare reform, the current war in Iraq) and take the opposite side from your own. Write five valid reasons to support this view. (While typing Catherine’s idea, I had a related one of my own: If you are conservative in your political beliefs, listen to Al Frankin’s radio show; if you are liberal, listen to Rush Limbaugh! While you are listening, try to avoid the cognitive error of polarization described above.)

2)Remember a time when you were wronged by someone in the past. Generate three plausible reasons why this person inadvertently or intentionally wronged you.

3)This one is for parents: Think of a topic that you consistently argue about with your teen or grown child. Now, take their position and think of 3 substantial reasons why their point of view is valid. (This could also be done with spouses or any family members for that matter!)

It's so funny to read my neurotics posts about my red-haired guy. I am so "in love" with him, it's wild and so unprecedented. Maybe he is a huge lesson for me in how to love unconditionally, because no matter what he does or doesn't do I'm still into him.

I'm like so feeling the transformative power of love, and it's a feeling I've never ever felt before. I feel and see myself changing daily, and I find it fascinating. I would so become an "LA poodle" girl just for him.

But I think he is trying to change for me as well. He made a comment about his drinking and how he drinks alot, something I've never commented on. He also used to say this one phrase constantly, which I swore to god if I heard him say one more time I would slap him, and for whatever reason he's not saying it anymore. He also made comments about how he does work a ton, which doesn't leave us much time to see each other. Well, that and the fact that he does work in LA and is only here on the weekends.

He also used the "G word - girlfriend" inadvertantly, and I called him on it and he tried to excuse himself out of it saying I was a girl and a friend. And I'm like whatever because he already more than abused the "l word - love" with me.

But I love being in love, and I feel love vibes from my red-haired guy all day and all night long and I hope it's him thinking of me. And I try to send him love vibes all day and all night long with the message that I totally adore him. Ahhhh, romantic love is such a fun little trip.

I didn't get to see him this weekend because he was way too busy, and I started seriously panicking and thinking gloomy, gloomy thoughts. But then I told myself that there's no urgency to see him like we only have a short amount of time to see each other and then the whole thing will burn itself out. I have the feeling my red-haired marina frat boy is going to be around for a really, really long time, and we all have all the time in the world to see each other.

So I just called him and left a message saying I missed him something awful, and I needed my red-haired guy fix, and I hope I get to see him soon.

I've been diagnosed as anemic. Apparenty I'm not getting enough iron, despite the fact that I take an iron supplement every day. I've been diagnosed as being anemic off and on since I was 22 years old, and it's kind of drag. Being a semi-vegeterian doesn't help the cause because the easiest way to get iron is to eat red meat. But I hate being anemic because I thinks my struggles with weight and digestion stem from me being anemic and not getting enough amino acids. It's such a drag.

So I'm now embarking on a modified Atkins diet, and I'm going to try and eat red meat for six months and lots of veggies, but no dairy and no pasta, rice or bread. And lots and lots of olive oil, because supposedly olive oil helps with digestion.

I started on Friday, and it hasn't been too bad. I thought I would be really freaked out, because I only ever eat food like steak about once every five years. I think it helps that I'm buying really expensive steak, the kind that costs $25 a pound, so at least it's not fatty and full of chemicals. Organically raised beef - doesn't this sound like an oxymoron? And I'm only eating a little at a time. Like I bought one filet mignon, and had the butcher slice into four pieces so I can eat one per meal. I'm using my George Foreman grill to grill the steak, and I don't use much oil at except to coat the grill.

I mean, I do eat meat like chicken, fish and pepperoni on pizzas, but not very often, and never red meat unless I'm craving fast food burgers.

I'm eating steamed and then pureed dark green leafy vegetables and beets. I can't digest veggies and fruit without my stomach going crazy, so I'm steaming everything and then pureeing it so my body can absorb the nutrients from the veggies without making me run to the bathroom.

When I worked out today, I did notice that I wasn't tired as I normally get when I run and my energy level is steadier. My stomach for once is also calm, and I'm not running to the bathroom constantly.

I'm rationalizing the whole experience by saying to myself, well, it's only for six months, and six months isn't going to kill me. Then maybe my digestion will improve, I'll lose some weight, and I will be able to go back to the way I normally eat. And hopefully, I won't be anemic anymore.

But I'm also wondering if I'll start smelling like I eat meat. People who eat meat have a different smell than people who are vegetarians. You can totally smell meat on their breath constantly. It's like so gross! I'm sure I'll start smelling like I eat meat now and grossing myself out if and when I catch a smell of my breath. How scary!

You know you would think with the amount of food I consume, and the vitamins I take that I wouldn't have this stupid anemia/digestion problem but I do and I hate it. I mean what's the point of me being neurotic about my health if in the end I'm still anemic and unable to properly digest fruits and veggies. It's so unfair. Some people have the worst diets, don't take care of themselves, and dont' have half the health or weight issues that I do. I'm serious, life is so unfair sometimes!

I kind of feel bad about not wanting to see the guy I think I have such a crush on, but it's the way I feel. I don't know. I'm not ready to invite him over to my apartment yet. This is my private space, my sanctuary and I'm not really ready to invite someone else into my space.

It's a trust issue thing I know, so I guess after a month of knowing this guy I still don't know whether I can trust him or not. I mean, I barely know him and yes it's been a month but I'm like it's going to fast and I need to slow it down.

I know I'm having issues with him because I really wasn't expecting the thing to go this far. I honestly thought the whole thing would burn itself out by now, but it doesn't look like it has. Yes, I like him and I'm doing the girlie thing and totally dreaming about our future together but then there's the other part of me that wishes my life would return to normal because all my issues about being in a relationship are starting to come up.

I'm not bored yet, and he knows that and that's one he's got going in his favour so far. It probably helps he's also got a really strong ego, and doesn't seem to get too put off by me.

And what's really weird for me that's going on at the same time, is I feel the need to get my writing thing going again. To take it more seriously, to finish stuff so I can start sending stuff off to publishers, magazines, etc. That's like four things I have to deal with; my life, my job, my writing life, and a new guy. That's alot. And I'm like thinking, this why people don't have hobbies and only work and have relationships. It can get very overwhelming.

I'm like thinking, okay if I'm going to be dating a guy, I need to get my act together. I need to bring more to the table. I need to start doing the thing I think is my purpose in this life. And even when I'm doing my meditation CD, I get the intuitive message that I have to write more, take my writing more seriously, and that my writing is the key to everything. I'm also getting the feeling, and this is a weird one, that whatever I was suppose to accomplish with my writing has already been done in some other future time, and that I just have to figure out how I did it, how I got there. Isn't that a strange feeling? It trips me out and doesn't make any sense at all to me.

But then again, I may also be PMSing because it's like that time of the month again, so who knows what I'm really feeling or thinking.

And he already called me a "crunchy granola" girl, which I am, and I'm trying to break it gently to him that I am way more crunchy granola than I let on, and that to him I'm like a "total hippie chick". Which is a laugh, because I think most of my friends know I'm really not a hippie chick. I just have major hippie cick tendencies, even though I don't dress the part or wear that awful patchouli smell. I don't think he liked the fact that told him I sleep on a rock hard futon on the floor, even though it's been the best thing for my back and health and I'm like the only person I know who doesn't have some kind of creaky back problem.

I tried to like tell him I'm very high maintenance and neurotic about my health, but I don't think he quite gets the full impact of that. I am truly a mess, a total mess. We haven't even gotten around to a discussion about religion and spirituality yet. I don't even know I want to go there with him, because obviously it must be not that important to him if he hasn't brought up the subject yet.

God, I hate this relationship thing. It's so hard for me because I'm like half hippie chick, half kind of conservative girl. Guys tend to get really freaked out if they think of you as one thing, and you turn out to the exact opposite.

Sometimes I hate that I'm like half a hippie chick, but I can't help it. It's the way I grew up. I kind of like that part of me too. It keeps me healthy, wrinkle free and happy because it manifests itself in the way I eat and take care of myself. The hippie chick part also influences my interests to some extent, but thank god not my politics, my attitudes towards money, and my attitudes towards beauty. Plastic surgery and waxing every hair off your body are good things. I got the hippie dressing, musk wearing, not shaving of body hair stuff out of my system in college. That whole hipie girls look like is like so college girl to me, and I'm so over that.

So the red-haired marina frat boy called me at work this afternoon. I wasn't expecting to hear from him, and he caught me off guard. When he was called I was in very bad mood, and I think I was really mean to him. He was trying to be casual and flirty and I was so not in the mood and just fuming. I called him back later and apologized, and said something about how I wasn't sleeping well (which is totally true) and when I don't sleep I'm cranky.

And I was sitting there watching "Cold Mountain" alone on a Friday night, I'm thinking to myself that I was just happy to be at home alone and relaxing after a very hard and stressful week. And I'm like thinking, how the heck am I going to do this relationship stuff when I enjoy my own solitude so much.

I'm like a computer server, I need my down time. I need time to just hang by myself and watch movies and relax. I know it sounds lonely as all heck, but I enjoy it. Watching movies is part of my work as a screenplay writer. I don't feel guilty when I watch movies, I feel productive. It's like work for me because I'm sitting there enjoying the movie and analyzing it at the same time for what makes the movie work. And when it's movie made from a book like "Cold Mountain" was, it's interesting to see what the screenplay kept and left out from the book.

The red-haired guy, who is an extroverted people person, just can't imagine spending as much time alone as I do. He thinks it's lonely, and I'm thinking he's thinking he's going to rescue me from my loneliness. And I'm like, I don't need rescuing from my loneliness. I enjoy being alone. I need someone who's going to be a companion, someone to sleep with at night, and someone who won't make me feel crowded in or suffocated.

I feel like Mrs. Dalloway. I need a guy who's going to let me have my space, who won't make me feel like I'm trapped. This is an issue I always have in any relationship, and it's the reason why relationships are so hard for me. As much as I want togetherness and know that I do better in a couple situation than as a single, I cherish my individual space and freedom very much.

I'm bad because I'm hoping I don't see him this weekend. I just can't deal with it righ now. This is my first free weekend all month that I have to myself, and I want to enjoy it. On August 7, I was in a seminar all day, and then on Sunday I do errands. Last Saturday afteroon I was with him, and then I went to visit and have dinner with a friend in San Ramon and didn't get back till 11:30 at night. And Sunday is spent at church, running errands, going the gym and grocery shopping.

And my weekdays haven't been much better. On Monday and Tuesday night, I wrote and then worked out and didn't get home till 10 pm. On Wednesday I met with my writing group, and on Thursday night I started my Film History class.

Red-haired guy is always asking me why I don't date and I keep trying trying to tell him I'm busy and don't have time. Today he asked me again, and finally I said dating way more trouble than it's worth. I told him I'm picky, but I don't think he really understands quite what that means.

How do you tell a guy, "Look I have a full life where I barely have time enough to do all things I want to do. If a guy comes along who strikes my fancy and we hit it off, then fine I'll go out. The problem is the guy has to be pretty darn spectacular to make me even want to exert that much effort. And I'm a secret romantic at heart, and I figure if I'm supposed to meet someone I'll meet them. The universe knows my needs, and if there was some guy I was supposed to hang with, I'm a big believer in the universe getting us together."

I sound like a such a typical "San Francisco single girl freak". If I had cats, the picture would be complete. I think it's hilarious that I'm such a dang stereotype sometimes. Whatever.

I finally got around to seeing the movie version of Charles Frazier's novel "Cold Mountain." I meant to see it in the theatre, but I missed it. The violence in the early part of the movie was very horrific, and I was surprised by how well they depicted the hand to hand combat of fighting during the civil war. I'm thinking they probably got help from the people who do all the civil war reenactment stuff.

It was interesting to see how the novel was adapted into movie form. I liked how the ending was still as powerful as it was in the book, although I do remember thinking that I hated the ending of the book even though I knew that the ending was justified.

It's so poignant how people hold onto to the smallest things to get through the darkest of times. At what point Inman says in the movie that memories of Ada were like a bag of diamonds that he could hold onto and get through the darkness.

So much is made about the great civil war, the war of northern aggression. But like any war, the real victims were the people left behind who had to go on and rebuild and in some cases die trying. I think the Ada character at the end says you make peace with your past, and you try to heal or something like that.

I think it was Anton Chkhov who wrote that you go on because you have to, because there is work, there is always work to do.

Fridays at work are bad days for me. Most people in my group work from home, so it’s very quiet. I never feel like doing anything, even though I have work to do. This is when I wish I still had my own office, so I could just goof off all day. When I’m in a cube farm, I can’t exactly do that.

I have been sleeping well these last nights either, so I’m exhausted. I keep waking up between 4 and 5 am. Usually I sleep right through until my alarm goes off at 6 am, but not this week. I woke up at 4:30 am, managed to go back to sleep and then at 6 am, a crow started cawing loudly outside my window and woke me right up. I’m never sure if it’s good or a bad sign, when crows wake me up in the morning. Crows are my favorite birds, but when talk they sure are noisy. I wonder what they were trying to tell me.

I’ve heard crows cawing in the last three weeks, and I thought it meant that something bad would happen that day. Of course, nothing really bad happened on those days but you never know. At least my crows friends are still alive and not dying off from West Nile virus. The newspaper reports said crows are the first birds to die when West Nile moves into your area. I would be bummed if my crows disappeared. For awhile I thought they had because I stopped seeing them, but since I met the red-haired marina frat boy the crows have come back into my life.

What it all means is a mystery that I have no idea how to solve.

Been thinking about my flingie guy and the nature of love and what it all means and I’m down to one question, how do you know if you’re in love. Love is such a strange thing. I think “the Oracle” from the Matrix movie series said to Neo, “it’s like being in love, you either know it or you don’t”. But what the heck does that mean?

If someone had to told me last month that I was going to be having a rollicking good time with a 6 ft red-haired, 200 pound, not so young anymore, marina frat boy, virgo, with bad time management skills, not the greatest communication skills either, drinks a bit too much and hasn’t given up any of his childish frat boy tendencies, I would have said “NO WAY!”

If someone had told me last month that I would be completely into “public displays of affection”, and be kissing in stores, kissing in restaurants, kissing on the street in broad daylight no less, and kissing while trying to argue, I honestly would have laughed and said, “if I wasn’t into PDA in college, and other annoying things that “couples in love supposedly do”, I’m so not going to be into it at this age.”

And if someone had told me that last month that I would enter into a relationship and not know where it was going or care where it was going, I would have freaked. “Me, Ms. Control Freak, who has to have everything carefully planned with an end game to every action. I think not.”

And yet, I’m doing all these things and having a blast and I’m not feeling like I’m in college either. I’m feeling surprisingly mature, but not old or stuck in a rut. I feel like an adult, which is a somewhat scary but at the same time very comforting thought.

Tuesday August 17, red-headed guy count = 7

Back to my stats.

Sunday August 15 - red-headed boy count = 5
Monday August 16 - red-headed boy count = 3

Here's the link to the intern girl who got outed on Wonkette for having sexual escapades with the Washington set, Blog Interrupted.

I wonder if the Capitol Hill intern guys still play rugby on Saturdays near the White House? I went to a game once, and it was fun. When I was interning in DC, I was just a lowly Georgetown/arts magazine intern and not a swinging Capitol Hill intern. I did attend a bunch of parties on the hill however, because the food was free and the booze was flowing. I never hooked up with any reps or senators though. Those guys were just way too old for my taste back then.

That Washington Post article about the intern getting busted on Wonkette for writing about her six romps with politicos in Wash DC has me freaked.

Don't want the same thing happening to me and my red-headed guy. I'll have to edit the blog a bit to make red-headed guy a bit more anonymous. Not that he's anybody famous or anything, but I guess you just can't be too careful

So some guy from the DNC called thanking me for donating to John Kerry's campaign, and I decided I needed to rant and I told him that I thought Bush would win by a landslide. The guy asked me I had read the article from NY Times, but I told him I had no idea what he was talking about.

I told him that Ralph Nader was a spoiler, the Greens were trouble and going to mess up the election, Howard Dean should never been allowed to ever run from democratic nomination and should never have been allowed to be in the public eye and that his supporters were still ambivalent about throwing their support towards Kerry, and if we ever receive another terrorist attack, then the american people aren't going to want to change captains in midstream.

I'm sure the guy was just laughing on the phone about my rant. But he was good, and asked me donate more money $44 to be exact, because Kerry if elected will be the 44th president, and the money will be spent by the DNC to counter the Bush attack ads that are running the battleground states.

Of course, I donated because I thought the 44 idea was cute, but I still think the Shrubmeister will win by a landslide. Those protestors heading to NYC to mess up the GOP convention aren't going to help the cause either. I'm sure the people in middle america will just be disgusted at the left wing protestor freak show that is bound to happen, and they're going to think to themselves, "I'm sure glad Bush is in charge, and not those people" and they're going to vote this opinion at the polls in November.

And I'm sorry, no amount of money by George Soros or money given to moveon.org is going to change the opinions in the country's heartland, at least not the way they're trying to do it.

Red-headed boy count = 2

So I bagged the red-headed marina frat boy today. It was so much fun, and so wickedly, wickedly evil! I gotta give the guy credit ... he is fun to hang with. We met at a hip shopping outlet mall in the East Bay, and I was talking to an acquaintance from work in the Crate & Barrel Outlet when he walked in like two hours late for our lunch. He is so bad at time management. So I had to tell him that he should be lucky he has a very, very long leash, because if I had given him a short leash, he'd have hung himself by now.

We ate lunch at a french cafe. I couldn't figure out what to eat, so he ordered a bunch of appetizers and then he apologized for being a take charge kind of guy. Whatever! I was glad one of us could figure out what to eat. I was really, really nervous about seeing him again, and I really wasn't hungry. And then I went through this thing about how fat I was feeling, and I didn't want him to think I eat like a pig, even though I kind of do.

I'm definitely getting a good ego stroking, because the guy is profusely complimentary and I feel very wanted and needed right now. And sadly I haven't had this feeling for a very, very long time.

Honestly I have no idea where this is all going. I kind of don't care right now either, which is not like me at all. Red-headed guy is just such a trip to hang with, and we get along very, very well and he makes me laugh and I'm very much myself with him I think. I told him that I can't figure out him out, but that it was a good thing because I didn't think I'd ever get bored with him.

But I always get bored with men and relationships... it's like a bad habit of mine. And red-headed guy already said I was really hard on his ego, and I felt so bad when he said that. To make up, I kissed his hand three times. I really should be much nicer to him though, because we do have a good time when we're together. And he likes to drink Negro Modelos, which is my favourite mexican beer. And if he likes Red Stripe as well, my all time favourite beer, then I'll really be in trouble.

But just so you don't think it was all that perfect, he kind of banned me from sending him email which kind of annoys me. He said he gets 90 emails a day, and doesn't want to add any more to his load. He says he's like so tech friendly, but I don't think so. If he was, why ban me from his email? I've been emailing guys since I was 18 years old, and I hate that he said I can't send him email.

In "Bridget Jones Diary", she kept a log of how many alcohol units she drank. I want to keep track of how many red-headed guys I see every day.

Red-headed guy count - 4

So the red-haired marina frat boy finally called back today. I actually had totally written him off today, and was happy that the whole bizarre episode was over. I was even looking forward to going out for drinks with a friend, and checking out the SF nightlife for more beautiful red-head boys since I see them constantly now. But now I guess the game is still on. We might even meet for breakfast tomorrow in Berkeley, although in his words "we should take it one day at a time", because he's got a crazier work schedule than I do.

He is such a Steve clone, only worse. Steve never had that kind of travel schedule. Googled Steve, the one that got away, last night and he's designing sports games for cellphones on the peninsula somewhere. God, I'd love to hook up with him again to see if our timing is any better this time around. I'm sure the guy is married, because he was really looking to do that when I met him.

And now I'm just mooning over Steve look-alikes and clones, that aren't as nice, are worse workaholics, and don't have his communication skills. No, I take that back. Scott was the worse workaholic I dated, because he started and was CEO of his own company and worked seven days a week. But at least Scott too had good communication skills. We emailed alot, chatted on line every day, and talked on the phone at least once a day, and he had a pet name for me within a week.

But the game is on, and although my conscience keeps putting up the red flags and telling me this isn't a good thing, my mind is made up and I'm bagging the boy one way or another, one of these days, when his schedule permits us that is.

Okay, now that we're talking about signs. How's this for an odd sign?

On Wednesday of last week when I was at the height of my lust in the dust crush on the red-headed marina frat boy, I saw 12 guys after work who had red hair. There I was sitting in Starfreaks across from the Embarcardero Hyatt Regency and trying to edit my screenplay when I saw 7 of them, count that 7 red-headed guys on the way into the place and for the 1.5 hours I sat there. Then at the gym and on the way home, I saw another 5 red-heads.

Who knew there were so many strawberry blondie boys in San Francisco? I couldn't believe it, so I started keeping track. I mean, I keep track of my things since I have thing for red-heads, and I'm telling you I never maybe see more than one a day. So 12 in a day is like weird, very, very weird.

But what this 12 red-head sighting is a sign of, I have no idea. Does that mean the guy was thinking of me or does it mean God was telling me there's more of him in my life so don't freak out, worry and fret. Who knows?

It feels really strange to think that my emotions can turn on a dime. I was in serious crush mode with the red-haired marina frat boy last week, and now it feels like it never happened and I’m on to the next thing. This turnabout of emotions makes me feel shallow and vapid, but perhaps it is the nature of lustful crushes rather than a personal failing on my part.

A woman who got into the elevator this afternoon with me at work, was so excited because she said that an elevator had never ever appeared for her just as she was coming out of the door. "When everything in your life works for once, it’s a good sign," she said, "And I just bought a lottery ticket too." I smiled and then I asked her, "What if everything is going wrong?" She laughed and said "Then that’s a bad sign".

So is this a good sign? On the way into work this morning on MUNI, I was sitting there reading the introduction to John Steinbeck’s "The Red Pony" and smiling to myself about this great line which read, "… both sustained a disillusioned view of the present by retreating into an invented past, where they could indulge in their romanticism unchecked by the considerations of verisimilitude." God, I love this line! Don’t you? I think this is how I like to write or would love to write. Who cares about writing in conjunction with reality when you can write and live in your own invented world?

Anyway, I just happen to look up and there was some cute guy staring at me across the car. He smiled at me and then I smiled back. But then as is usual for me, I didn’t think anything about it and went back to what I was doing which was copying the quote into my journal. But as I was copying the quote, I started thinking that I should really like smile more and give him, what red-haired marina frat boy called "my high wattage smile." But I was shy, and didn’t really do anything except glance up at him from time to time.

Then when he got off at Montgomery, I looked up at him and he smiled and I smiled back and then he was gone. Maybe my next fantasy is get chatted up on Muni. It’s never happened to me before, although it’s something I’ve always dreamed about. I just have to figure out how to get a guy to go from smiling to actually talking to me, and maybe my "high wattage like sunshine smile" is the way to go.

Wow, I didn't post all weekend and I didn't realize it until I was reading my own blog. Sometimes the weekend goes by in such a blur.

I took a seminar on Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriting in Palo Alto. I'd studied Aristotle's Poetics before in college, and it was interesting to reread it and apply it to screenplay writing. The guy who wrote the book and who flew in from NYC to teach the class also introduced the theory of Semiotics and applied to story analysis. Semiotics is some french structural theory of storytelling which came about in the 1950's. I'll have to read up on Semiotics because I don't know much about it, and it sounded like a good way to analyze stories.

I give the guy creds because he was a paid story analyst for Miramax in NYC, and is a filmmaker who got hired to be a story analyst after showing his independent film to movie execs. He even gave the class a handout on what how to do "coverage", which is what a story analyst does. A coverage is just a word movie execs use to say "summary of a written screenplay". The movie exec says "give me the coverage" of that screenplay, which is what you thought, short summary of the story, and whether you think it should be moved on in the process or "passed".

For his coverage example, the guy handed out his summary of "Nurse Betty". It was fun to read what he thought of the screenplay, because I really, really thought the movie was very good and interesting. "Nurse Betty" wasn't your typical Hollywood film, but it was still very, very enjoyable to watch.

Then on Sunday, I went to church, worked out, and ran errands. A typical Sunday for me.

Check out this really silly story on SFGate.com, FIELD POLL: Kerry keeps 12-point lead over Bush in California Bay Area provides challenger with strongest support. This is one of the reasons why I sometimes hate living in the crazy bubble world that is San Francisco. Like this is earth shattering news? Like this is really going to matter come November? Who the hell gives a flying dufus?

Anyone who really cares about the future of this country should be outraged by the stupidity of this article. Hello! San Francisco has for the last 20 years voted democrat, and it's not likely to change anytime soon. Talk about a stupid and smug self congratulatory, we're better than the rest of you idiots who don't live here, pat on the back. Can't you see a San Francisco voter looking at themselves in the mirror and thinking, "God you're the smartest voter out there is, and to hell with the rest of the country. I'm so politically smart I can stand myself!"

Honestly, California doesn't matter. It's a blue state! The red states are what matters, the states where the election is up for grabs and will be decided on. Now here's a headline that should be on the front page of SFGate.com, "Kerry has a 12-point lead over Bush in Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio." Now that would be news, and worth discussing, cheering, celebrating, and debating about.

But things aren't all that bad here in SF media land, especialy when the SF Weekly's Matt Smith, tells the real truth about the progressives in San Francisco, Progressive Failure: Why San Francisco supervisors who call themselves progressives should get the boot in November.

I used to think the radical republican right were the really scary people, but Matt Smith confirms my notion that the radical left is just as frightening. Both extremes are self-serving, and dirty as the politicians they all say they're fighting against. The progressive left especially are racking up those bad karma points really fast, because they're the most self righteous of the two right now.

So like everything else in my life, my blissful experience didn't last. I'm kind of depressed that I never heard back from the red-headed marina frat boy about my proposal. I mean, okay the guy was kind of a touchy feely freak, but a rejection is still a rejection and it hurts, and all my abandonment issues keep flooding into my mind.

This always happens to me. A guy comes on to me, and I go "no way", and then a week later I change my mind and by then it's too late and I get rejected and dumped on big time in no uncertain terms. It's so tragic!

In hindsight, it's always worked out and I've been glad that I didn't get to be an evil bunny after all but it's so not fair. All my other friends get to have fun and be picked up in bars and sleep with totally acceptable strangers, but no, not me. I get all, how to say it, too moral and too religious, and turn perfectly good flingies down. I never used to be this way, and I don't like it. Flingies are so good for the ego, and it's not like they last very long and they never seem impact your life in any serious way. And you can always turn a fun and unusual flingie into a good story.

And guys are so in love with you when it's a flingie, and you're not with them long enough to get mad at them or get disgusted or bored by them. And most guys who want flingies aren't guys you really want to hook up with over the long haul anyway. Guys who are flingie material are like that for a reason, because they're really not much use to you for anything else. Oh sure, some of them turn into friends, but that's far and few between. Most flingie men are really only worth an hour or two of your time, or if it's drawn out, maybe 24 hours of your time, tops. After that, it's so not worth it.

Best to have an ending like in the movies, and get out while the going is good, and have the whole flingie thing become a fun story to tell your girlfriends.

God I hate that red-headed freakazoid rejected me. I don't even get to tell a good story to any of my girlfriends about him.

I'm so blissed out today. I ordered a cd of Tibetan Buddhist meditation techniques which I received last night and tried, and I had the most amazing experience. Those Tibetan buddhists really know how to bliss out a stressful life.

Tibetan buddhist meditation is definitely the way to go for me, I think. Hindu meditation is great as well, but in order to be effective you usually need a meditation teacher to guide you. Not so with Tibetan Buddhism. You can be very effective without a meditation to guide you, which is really nice.

But I've got the best of both worlds in one exercise, because in the middle of my Tibetan Buddhist meditation is a hindu meditation. How fun is that! And the Tibetans aren't proprietary about who you pray to, so JC showed up in my meditation which was so, so cool. So it's more like I've got the best of three spirituals disciplines; tibetan, hindu and christian. How cool and hot is that!

And I went to bed very happy, and woke up very, very happy, and sadly that hasn't happened to me in a very long, long time.

I'm so blissed out today. I ordered a cd of Tibetan Buddhist meditation techniques which I received last night and tried, and I had the most amazing experience. Those Tibetan buddhists really know how to bliss out a stressful life.

Tibetan buddhist meditation is definitely the way to go for me, I think. Hindu meditation is great as well, but in order to be effective you usually need a meditation teacher to guide you. Not so with Tibetan Buddhism. You can be very effective without a teacher.

But I've got the best of both worlds in one exercise, because in the middle of my Tibetan Buddhist meditation is a hindu meditation. How fun is that! And the Tibetans aren't proprietary about who you pray to, so JC showed up in my meditation which was so, so cool. So it's more like I've got the best of three spiritual disciplines; tibetan, hindu and christian. How cool and hot is that!

And I went to bed very happy, and woke up very, very happy, and sadly that happened to me in a very long, long time.

So I'm blissed out today. I ordered a cd of tibetan meditation techniques and tried it last night, and it was so amazing. Those tibetan buddhists who have monasteries at the foot of Mount Everest really know what they're doing to bliss you out of your stressfull life.

Tibetan buddhism is definitely the way to go. Hindu meditation is great too, but in order to be effective you need a spiritual master to guide you. Not so with Tibetan buddhist meditation. The stuff is just unbelievable, and you can do it yourself very effectively without a teacher.

The cd I bought is actually a combination of Tibetan buddhist meditation taught by a Black Hat Sect monastery in Lhassa Tibet, and then a hindu meditation was added to the middle. So I've got the best of both worlds actually in one exercise.

I went to bed happy, and I woke up happy, and sadly that hasn't happened to me in a very long time. And the Tibetans aren't proprietary about who you pray too, so JC showed up in my meditation which was so, so cool. So I've got all three worlds going here; tibetan, hindu and christian. How cool and hot is that!

Even when an elfgirl wants to be very bad, she can't. It's so unfair. No email response to my proposition from the red-headed marina frat shoe boy! I'm sure I deserve it for turning him down the first time, when he was offering the same thing.

I hate this! This is the first time in a long time I'm letting myself be bad, because it's like so boring to be good. And I get turned down like big time. So much for a total stranger saying he loves you. That should have been a huge clue huh, that this was going to be a weird little thing.

Wow, I'm being such an english literature freak. Gotta love my "Silas Mariner" reset!

So my evil twin has taken over, and I'm going to be a bad girl and have fun this summer. I don't even want to think about the karma I'm going to reap by embarking on my little adventure, although I think it will be minimal. The object of my adventure and I have some karma to settle, and this seems to be a good way to do it.

It's only a one-time thing, and hopefully it won't blow up in my face. Famous last words I know, but I think it will hold. Frat boys have to be good for something in one's life, even if it's only for a fun little flingie. And I do think it will be fun little flingie, despite all the baggage we're both bringing to the table.

My inner child is like having such a blast. I feel like Eppie in Silas Mariner. I'm such a "naughty naughty elf girl".

A silly and hopeless sordid romance has to be good for something right? I printed out my baseball screenplay today. It's so weird to read my own writing sometimes. I'm like sitting here thinking I can't believe I wrote this; it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

I'm just about over it with Mr. Red-headed marina frat boy. Tried to call him in LA on his cell just to say hello, and his cellphone voicemail box was full. Talk about a bad sign.

You know it's my own personal pet theory that if a potential romance isn't easy, isn't full of wonderful synchronicities, convenient to both people like you wouldn't believe and where the timing is just spot on, then the relationship is trouble and not really meant to be, and is just one big humumgous mistake.

He said we coud be friends, but I wonder if friendship is really worth it at this point. Okay sure the guy is sweet and cute and everything, but what does he bring to my table as a friend? He's not an editor, and I really need an editor friend. I still haven't figured out if he's an intellectual. I know the guy is people smart since he is an exec after all. He's not into the arts, and I don't he's even remotely very spiritual, although we haven't talked about that subject yet.

I mean, even as a potential boyfriend he really didn't seem to add that much either other than he is cute, he is sweet, he's fun to hang with so far, he's very, very well off, would probably do all the "right things" like send flowers on Valentine's Day and celebrate anniversaries, and he is a busy busy guy which for someone like me who has an issue with time could be a good thing. But he's also incredibly dysfunctional, has very serious commitment issues, probably drinks a litle more than he should, has proven to already be flaky, and perhaps is maybe too busy. I mean, the guy is senior management in his company, he's a powerful kind of guy, he's an admitted workaholic who work 12-15 hour days and always on the weekends, and his cellphone loads up with messages on a Saturday. He's got disaster written all over him.

I think I really need to look at my requirement that a guy I date be successful in the world, because success has it price and that price is time. Oh well. This is what I get when I get attracted to "Steve look-alikes". Steve was another serious workaholic, and a travelling one to boot. Arranging a date with Steve was such a struggle because he was always travelling on business, and yes he was in senior management at his company and powerful too.

I just want to date a guy where we make the same kind of income, how hard can that be? It's not like I make that much money either. I only put the successful requirement in there because of that guy I dated who couldn't relate to my work experiences. I can't help it if in my various jobs I have meetings with VPs of every company I've ever worked for. It's been that way for a long time, and in whatever job I have. It's my job karma to sometimes be the only woman in meeting full of men most of whom are senior management. Even in this job, which is bureaucratic as all hell, I have meetings like that every once in a great while.

Michael used to make such a big deal about it, and it really, really annoyed me. Like he held it against me because of what I did for a living. And the guy was only like that because he was always of the opinion that he never got quite as far as he should have done in his career, and so I think he took it out on me because I was doing things that he wished he could do. It's not like I even thought of myself as that successful because I don't think I am, it's just always been a part of what I do for a living. Not like I don't make okay money, but I'm not in senior management or anything. I'm an analyst, it's slavework really.

A friend of mine says it's because I wear pearls. Pearls send a certain message out to the world, although I don't know what the heck that message is. Pearls are just pearls, they're like work jewelry, and always appropriate for every occassion. They're like so practical, why wouldn't I wear them. And no I don't buy the conservative thing one damned bit. You can buy fake pearls at Macy's for $20 that look very authentic, so it's not like they're not affordable.

And whatever happened to my wish for an editor boyfriend? That's what I really need. A boyfriend to edit my work, encourage me in my writing, and do everything to make himself useful so I can further my writing career. He can be a writer too, as long as we don't get competitive. Been there, done that and it's amazingly a ver torturous experience. Competing with the boyfriend is just not a good thing, ever!

I'm exhausted. I flew down to LA this morning, checked out three museums and now I'm back home bone tired. It still trips me out to think that I spent the afternoon in one city which is on the other end of the state and now I'm back home.

LA was nice and warm, and very summery. For a brief second, I thought to myself wouldn't it be nice to live some place where it always warm.

So red-headed marina frat boy called me at work today, and I made him talk to me for a long time even though he said wasn't a phone guy because I was bored at work. He did have one of his funny little exec lines though.

He said he was in his room and he had just taken a 40 minute bubble bath and had thought of me the whole time. And now he was on the phone with me buck naked lying in his big king size bed drinking red wine. He's such a trip isn't he? He's so very, very amusing.

He said he wanted to be friends with me, but that he would keep doing his exec guy thing and try to get me horizontal. And I'm like whatever. "I'm just having a little, a very little buyer's remorse." I said. Then he kept saying he loved me, and I was special and the real thing, the real deal, and on and on. And how this was just the beginning of our book, the first chapter, the opening line, and how the book has yet to be written, and we don't know how it's going to end, and we should take a chance and enjoy life and other silly sentimental drivel like that.

And then I asked him how his week went and he said he was really busy, but very productive. Then I said, "And so you did think about me every day this week?" And he said yes. And then I said, "Okay so you thought about me every day this week, but you didn't call me?". Mean huh?

But red-haired marina frat guy is a cool customer, and he just laughed and said, "After that D minus rating you gave on our date, what did you expect?" He's just so funny.

And then I asked him where my shoes were, and he said that "I know I'm such a flake." Then he said something about how the shoes would cost me, and I said "you got way more than should have gotten on that first date seeing as how you kissed me and all, and copped a good enough feel in the car to determine I didn't have a fake rack." He said he thought I had a plastique rack, but he wasn't sure and he wanted to make sure, but yes he owed me a dozen pair of shoes for those kinds of liberties and I was such a good kisser to boot.

I don't know. This guy just makes me laugh so much; I just never know what's going pop out of his mouth and it's usually something very, very funny. Plus I guess I'm just a silly sentimental stupid little girl because when he said "God,I love you!" with a huge sigh before we hung up, I got a little thrill. And even though I know it's huge fat honking lie and an old tired and overused line, it seems to work for me ... at least for now.

I know when I'm going to have a bad day when I start out the morning hearing the crows cawing outside of my bathroom window, and when the freakazoid at Starfbombs can't get a simple grande mocha no whip cream right and has to ask me three times what I want, and I hear a chorus of groans from the oh so cranky very long line of people in back of me.

So I had lunch with my boss today and she asked me about the guy I met on the plane from LAX to Oakland. In the course of talking to her, I started to feel a "little buyer's remorse" about tossing red-headed frat marina boy out of my life. I hate buyer's remorse, talk about wussyitis extremis! And I'm still pretty darn sure I made the right decision, but whatever.

Anyway, I'm not sure why I did this but I sent an email to the guy and here's what he said.

**************************
-----Original Message-----
From: Red-headed frat marina boy
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 1:39 PM
To: Brenda Elgirl
Subject: Re: Buyer's Remorse

Let's get together on Friday night in LA or get together as soon
as I get back in town in August?
Love ya,
Red-headed frat marina boy

-----Original Message-----
From: Brenda Elgirl
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 13:12:00
To:Red-headed frat marina boy
Subject: Buyer's Remorse

Hi Red-headed frat marina shoe boy,

I'm having a little buyer's remorse about what happened ... besides ...
where are my shoes???

Hope your week is going well.

--Brenda
**************************

I showed this email to my boss and she was like "what does the 'love ya' salutation mean?" I told her I didn't know, and then I asked her what she thought and she said she didn't know eitehir, but that it was a little familiar for someone I only met last week.

I'm sure it's like one of his used car salesman lines ... like don't you think he signs "love ya" to all the random girls he meets?

What's funny is he wants me fly to LA tomorrow to have dinner with him because he's staying there for a conference this weekend. Like I don't think so. Like if this guy was really serious, don't you think he should have at least offered to pay for my way down there? I mean, not that I would have gone, but he could have at least offered to pay my way. I guess he thinks if I really want it, I'd figure out a way to get it. Some women I know would have flown down to LA for a dinner with a guy they barely knew. I've never done anything like that before ever because, and frankly there hasn't been a guy I've met that's worth that kind of effort.

Of course, he could be thinking the same of me. Like oh my god, I can't believe she emailed me, what am I going to do, I thought the whole thing was over on Friday and now, what if she's weird and starts stalking me, and honestly, she really isn't worth that kind of effort or that outlay of cash. But I wanna come off like a nice guy, so I'll put "love ya" at end of my email because women always like that kind of stuff, and hopefully the whole thing will blow over by August and she won't ever communicate with me again.

So I skipped the democratic convention last night to work out. I kind of regret missing Theresa Heinz Kerry's speech, but then when they showed Howard Dean on the TV at the gym I was glad I was working out. Boy that man scares me! I don't know what I would have done if he was anywhere on the ticket or heaven forbid the democratic presidential nominee. I probably just wouldn't have voted for president, which would have been a first for me since I was 18 years old.

I went to gym again tonight but listened to John Edwards' speech on the radio. Man is Edwards a cutie! He is the cutest vice presidential candidate I've ever seen. He kind of looks like my first love which is such a trip. M was born in Virginia and had a bit of a southern twangy thing going in his voice despite spending most of list life in Bethesday Maryland. Edwards and M have the same face, same hairdo and same boyish smile.

I think John Edwards will one day be a great presidential candidate. Now is not his time, but he's definitely be a contender one day. You got to love his populist speech about how there are two Americas. Paul Krugman from the NY Times has been harping on the "two americas" theme for quite some time as well. Krugman said that what people have to figure out is which America you're a part of, because most middle class americans get it wrong.

I'll go home tomorrow to watch John Kerry speak, and watch the wrap up of the democratic convention. I don't know. I would like to think that the race will close, but I just don't know. My favorite stock picker, who has the best stock picking record in the country, also does quite well at predicting presidential races. Stock picker guy thinks that Bush will win by a landslide. Stock picker guy also picked Shrub to win the presidential republican nomination back in 1995-96, before the Shrubmeister was on anybody's radar. But then stock picker guy's mother is good friend with the Bush's and gets a Chrristmas cards from Laura Bush, so he's kind of got an inside track on stuff.

So I heard this great song on the radio today called "I will breath fire" by this band called Strata. If you like Evanescence, you'll like this band. Strata is from the same label, Wind-up Records.

Strata just released their album yesterday, so the music is like oh so current. On the Strata site, look for the music link to listen to samples of their tunes.

Wow, vintage Bill Clinton 'Slick Willie' speech tonight at the democratic convention. The man is so talented at it's just amazing. One of the political talking heads said later that 'Clinton can take arcane points of foreign policy and talk about them conversationally in a way ordinary americans can understand.'

The boy definitely has a gift, and it makes me wish he was still the President only because he could speak so well. Another pundit said he was watching Bill Clinton reading the teleprompted and adlibing as well. Nobody does it better than 'Slick Willie' at energizing a democratic crowd. I'm sure the republicans were just rolling their eyes and throwing things at their television, but nobody, and I mean nobody does it better than Bill Clinton and his political speechmaking.

So the story keeps writing itself in my head this morning, and this part goes before the part below.

******************
I think I got played. Which is such a trip and a back handed compliment. Like the time my old boyfriend John screamed at me in the middle of a fight, “You are such a Barbie doll!” And I was like wow! He compared to me Barbie. What does that mean?

Does that mean my figure represented Barbie’s impossible idea? Or that I was cute like Barbie and that I was doll-like? Or did he mean I was just some plastic pint-sized idiot without a brain my head? See what I mean when I say it’s a back handed compliment.

Being played is like that. After a certain age in a woman’s life, you don’t really expect to get played anymore by a player. I mean, there’s the matter of the few extra pounds, the constantly harried expression from being frazzled at work all the time, there’s the defensive layers that have been built up over the years from too many dead end relationships and broken marriages, and then there’s gravity transforming what figure you had into some unrecognizable lumpy round shape.

So when a guy plays you, it’s a back handed Barbie compliment. Like did he play me because I’m attractive? Did he play me because despite all my physical and mental grumpiness I’m still attractive? Or did I just get displayed because I looked desperate, like no one’s played me in years, and well what do you when you’re bored a on a plane ride from LAX to Oakland with a woman reading an Anne Rice novel?
******************

I think this part should go at the beginning of my story anyway, you know setting it up as like this really weird and strange experience, and then maybe it was a dream kind of thing.

So I decided that line I wrote, "From LAX to Oakland" would be a good title for a story, and I keep getting hearing this story in my head which is kind of based on last week's love adventure. This is the start of it, and note how I'm so current because I have a Ricky Williams the Miami Dolphins football player reference in it.

********
Maybe he was a dream, the kind of dream that happens right before you wake up, the kind of dream you remember for years afterwards with haunting images that flicker in and out of your mind like bulb about to burn out. It’s annoying but you’re too lazy to get up and change it so you wait till it burns itself out. Except this is the kind of bulb that never burns out.

It’s the romanticism of it all. Men are so seductive that way, because they’re total romantics and some of them have this innate ability to suffuse all of their love affaires with the thick veil of fairy tale love.

'I’m going to be your new best friend', he said as I glanced up from my book and peered at the red-haired stranger at the end of the seat row. I smiled thinking now that’s an interesting line, he must be in sales, well, at least he’s kind of cute.

'Save my place will you?' he said with a smile as he dropped a crumpled USA today on the seat and took off for the end of the plane. I went back to reading. Maybe I won’t like him after all.

I mean why would a cute guy like that be available if there wasn’t something wrong with him, if he wasn’t carrying a load of emotional so heavy he’d make Ricky Williams the football player seem normal.
**************

I am hooked on that new USA channel show, "The 4400". Someone is my neighborhood spraypainted into the sidewalk the phrase, "The 4400 are coming." So I know I'm not the only fan of the show out there.

It will be interesting to watch the democratic convention this week. I love David Gergen who is commentating on CNN. Gergen is one of the most insightful political commentators out there. But CNN, why Mo Rocha? That man is such a freak. He makes me not want to watch CNN's coverage. But I do love David Gergen, so I'll just have to channel surf when Rocha comes on. Mo Rocha is no Jon Stewart.

So like what is it lately with me and marina boys? All these years I've lived in San Francisco and I've never ever met a marina boy I wanted to date. And now my last two crushes were Marina boys. Cute screenwriting guy lived in the marina, and I had an awful crush on him.

And now as red-headed boy and I are driving throught the Marina on the way to lunch yesterday, he tells me that he used live in the marina and chase girls and hang out in the "triangle". And I'm like "oh my".

But I so miss my red-headed marina frat boy already. He was such a fun, fun crush. He kept telling me not to count him out just yet, and that he would get his act together. And my intuition tells me that he's still in the game, but I don't know. We'll see.

I'm praying and if it's meant to be, it will happen and if it's not, then I'm definitely going to look for his more available twin. I had so much hanging with my red-headed marina frat boy yesterday, despite the fact that he was kind of really breaking my heart. He was so much fun, and he kept making me laugh, and I could be myself and say the things that I say without him getting all freaked out.

And what's interesting is that he's got this interesting habit of telling me everything that he's thinking. So like I don't have to guess, analyze or try to figure him out because he plays with all his card face up on the table. It's such an interesting habit because I don't have an excuse to be bored by him anymore. It was kind of fun to hear all his thoughts and his feelings so willingly thrown at my feet like that. It was all so fascinating and interesting, like kind of looking inside of his head and seeing what's there. I've never had a guy act that way with me before and I really, really like it. I don't think I would ever get bored with someone like him, although it's probably too early to tell that yet.

But someone who plays with all his cards on the table always has a trump card up his sleeve, and that needs figuring it out. What is red-headed marina frat boy's trump card? If he decides to stay in my life, I'll have to work on knowing what his trump card is. I told him we could be friends, but I warned him that I don't really want to get an email a year from now that says "I can't just have a friendship with you without wanting something more." I've been there, done that and I got really, really hurt by it. And I'd like to avoid that experience happening again.

I am so bummed. I want to to say my heart is broken but I only met him Wednesday night and honestly that's really not long enough to have a broken heart I think.

What I liked most about what happened is I got this guy to really come out of his relationship issue shell and ask me out. That took guts on his part, and I give him credit for that. I also liked that he told me right away and didn't let the relationship drag on and then dump on me all his problems.

And he did give me hope that there is some guy out there for me who totally think I'm the next best thing to sliced bread. I made my joke about how a guy should look at a women he finds attractive like a starving man looks at food, and he said he was doing that with me and he was. I like that I could be honest with him, and mean, and I was really mean when he told his situation, but that we could laugh about it all later.

And I never thought I'd meet a man who was as close to perfect as perfect can get for me, and so it gives me hope that what I want isn't that far fetched and hopefully there's another more available one of him out there for me one day who will chat me on a plane ride one day and make me want to fall in love again.

Well, we had lunch and we talked and I'm bummed because although he seemed dreamy as all heck, he has several, several issues about getting involved. I'm glad he laid them all out on the first date of sorts, because he could have just lied about them all. I had a feeling he had serious relationship issues, so I kind of made him do his confession thing right away.

Wow, I'm bummed, very bummed and I told him so and he apologized for bumming me out but he is the way he is and he's not willing to change right now. But we did have a nice very long lunch and we did part friends, and I didn't shut the door completely shut in his case but I warned him that I play for keeps and if he's not willing to do the same then well, friendship is all he'll have.

I told him, "I'm giving you a very long rope, now don't hang yourself too quickly because in my experience if you give a guy a lot of rope, eventually he'll hang himself. So I don't have to shut the door completely in your face and be mean, because you'll do that yourself one day soon."

God, can I say again I'm bummed, bummed, bummed, but not really surprised. He was really too good to be true I suppose, but it was fun as heck to get caught up in the silly romanticism of it all. He's defintely a romantic, way more romantic than me, and maybe I'll end up his "one that got away." Who knows.

Again, I am bummed, so bummed because he was so, so cute and very, very sweet, and that's not a combo I find very often.

I hate playing games with guys and I've never understood "the rules" about how you're supposed to behave with men you've just met and want to date. Besides, I'm a half hippie chick who loved those four years in college when a guy could just walk up to you at a party and say "let's have sex", and you'd either say yes or no. How simple is that? No flirting, no delay, no stupid games, just plain and simple and so practical because it's get that sex stuff out of the way so you can concentrate on more important things like getting to know each other's mnds

Anyway, at around noon I emailed the red headed shoe guy with an email that went something like this:

***************
Subject:Fools and Snobby Girls (this is a reference to a comment he made about not wanting to make a fool out of himself with snobby girls)

Just so you don't think I'm a "snobby girl", I wanted to thank you for making my trip from LAX to Oakland a fun experience. (I think it's a good idea to always reference when and where you met the guy because chances are the guy has probably alrady forgotten who the hell I am. (Okay this is where I was being a naughty naughty elf girl and trying to flirt in an email at the same time). It isn't every day that I meet a total stranger who fulfills one of my secret fantasies by uttering an innocuous phrase, and then making it onto one of my top ten lists. (I'm sure he totally won't get what I wrote here, but he'll appreciate the "secret fantasy" phrase because it makes most men's mind go straight to the gutter)

Take care, Elf Girl

p.s. There was an accident on the Bay Bridge last night and I was seriously regretting the offer of a ride home as I was arguing about voting and Ralph Nader with my shuttle driver.
****************

Cute huh? Maybe a little to clever for him, who knows? So he emails me back and asks me if I wanted to do a late lunch tomorrow, which he said we would do on the plane, and leaves his cell phone number.

So I called him and I know it's bad, but when I heard his voice on the phone I kind of didn't recognize it; people sound so different on the phone. So we have a lunch date tomorrow and I'm nervous. Red-headed guy said something very odd too. He asked me I had sent me an email back and I said no, because I had left a message on his phone. Like why would I have to send him an email if I left him a voicemail message? I'm sure this is a subtle way of training me or something, like don't just leave me voicemail, send me an email too to remind me. I'm sorry but I'm very cynical and I've had several men try to subtely and sometimes not so subtlely try to train me to behave in ways that they liked. And what's worse, they'v copped to it too and told me that they were trying to train me.

So I did the girlie thing and came home and tried on a dozen outfits before deciding on two possible outfits that I might wear tomorrow. Damn! I hate that I'm 15 pound heavier than I was last year. I have such bad, bad timing, gaining weight like this and meeting a really sweet, sweet cute guy out of the blue. I'm trying to tell myself it doesn't matter because we sat on the plane together and my fat belly was I'm sure hanging out over my pants, and like I'm sure he noticed my very large love handle. One the other hand I've had guys tells me that they never notice a women's weight, but I was dating these guys at the time so I don't think they were telling me the truth.

And I always say the wrong thing with guys but I had to tell him I had concerns about his monster SUV and I had to think about what it meant that he owned and drove one. He asked me what I decided, and I told him that it was okay because he told me grew up on a huge 400 or 800 acre ranch so it was like in his background, his childhood to drive cars like an SUV. I told him that everyone has quirks or habit that are because of their background, their nationality, etc. And that well sometimes you have to accept the fact a guy really is the way he is and it's ingrained and it's probably never going to change, so you either have to accept the quirks or habits early on or get out of the relationship. I told him it's like dating a republican guy. I know he has bad politics, but it's okay because he's a republican and that's the way he is, always will be and I can't change it, and as long as his politics don't freak me out too much then I'm okay with the republican thing.

So I'm nervous and I keep wondering if this guy has a usual two-week shelf life and that I'll get seriously bored with him in two weeks. He'll go rotten like milk past its due date and I'll have to boot him out of my life. And I feel bad that I think such things and I know it's not about the guy, it's about me and my shallow level of boredom with most people but guys especially because they're too easy for me to figure out.

And I'm nervous because with my people karma, if God doesn't think he belongs in my life, he won't be in my life for very long and something will happen to take him away. And I really kind of like him because he's so affectionate, sweet and cute. Not sure if he's smart but at least he hasn't proven himself to be not as smart as me. Talk about another relationship killer. I can't be with a guy that I think isn't smarter than me. I've tried it and it just doesn't work. I have to respect the guy intellectually or I get very disturbed. And there are so few guys that I've met that I know are smarter than me.

So I'm like sad because I feel like I have to treasure every moment with this guy because I don't know how long he's going to be around. And I kind of understand now why some of my boyfriends have looked at me like a starving guy looks at food. If you think there isn't a future with someone then you have to stare at them and memorize every line of their face because that face won't be in your life for very long. At least romantically that's why I think men have looked at me like a starving man looks at food. Well, that and the other sexual reason too but I like the romantic reason better.

I'm such a sucker for lines like this but red-headed guy said that he thought all morning about kissing me, and I'm such a bad flirt and I answered back the thought had crossed my mind as well several times. He was so cute though because then he asked me if I was going to kiss him tomorrow and of course I said sure.

So I flew down to LA today just for a meeting and flew back. I went down to help and to transport the meeting materials. It was fun in its own way and I didn't have to work work. Not sure if the meeting went really well because we ran out of time, but my boss says we'll find out tomorrow if the senior vp doesn't send an email thanking us.

But I think it might have all worth it because I met a really cute guy on the plane back. He had red hair, which is a big plus because I have a thing for redheads because of Steve so I like him because he reminds me of Steve. He was sweet and friendly like Steve too, but he's a business traveller so it's probably second nature to him to chat up girls on planes.

But being a business traveller he didn't want to be known as someone who can chat anyone up and get them to buy things, so his line to me was "I'm a workaholic and women don't want to date me because I'm too shy." And I'm talking to him and looking at him, like yeah right. And I'm thinking to myself you're an exec, you're a frickin' director for god's sake, you're not shy, you're cute, you're smart, and women don't want to date you. So of course that this guy's line he uses with women to get them to feel sorry for him. Every guy has a line or two that he uses that he thinks will get a woman to give him her phone number.

And I told him that the shy exec guy bit was his line, but obviously it must work because I ended up giving him my business card. Red headed guy just laughed. And no his name wasn't Chris, but he had other good signs.

We ended up discussing politics, and I'm excited because even though he's a registered democrat his politics didn't disturb me. Most guy's politics always freak me out. Republicans I can take because well they're republicans and they're all that way, but democrats and other liberal left types always freak me out. Talk about a relationship killer. I'm always meeting cute guys at parties that I can't date because their politics freak me out. Red headed guy is a moderate like me, and he's not a full of rage and anger democrat either. He didn't even blink an eye when I told him I wasn't even going to watch Michael Moore's movie. But he was just meeting me for the first time so maybe he was smart and didn't want to say anything just yet.

I liked him. I had fun talking to him and he was very charming, very frat boyish. I love a charming frat boy guy who can hold a conversation and make me laugh. He even offered to drive me home, and even though every part of me was screaming to say yes, I was a good girl and said no. But then I said if I was 20 years younger I would of course have said yes, like whatever. He liked that. I also told him he was too much of a temptation and I just had to say no. I hoped he liked that.

He was very tempting, because back in the day I would have let him take me home and then had my way with him. And I know he would have been fun too, in fact I know we would have had a blast. But it's not back in the day, so I took the shuttle home.

But there was another good sign. The gate for our plane failed to open so the captain announced that we had to back up and take the plane to another door. I told red headed guy I've never been on a plane and had his happen before, and red headed guy agreed and then said "God must want us not end our relationship yet." And oh my god, I just about died in my seat. Talk about fantasy come true. I've always wanted a guy to say to me the first time we meet, "it must be destiny that I met you or God wants us to be together." No guy has ever said that to me until now.

I mean I hardly know the guy and already he made one of my secret fantasies come true. I am like so in crush! And he was so touchy and affectionate too, but not in a weird way. He tried to give me a massage on the plane, and I let him because I never turn down a free massage. He grabbed some of my hair and said he liked me hair. Then he kept putting his hand on my knee, kept stroking my arm, and he kind of tried to hold my hand. It was so cute, and I wasn't freaked out. Usually I hate when I guy gets too touchy like that. Like get your hands off the merchandise you freak! But it was different with this guy. His touch wasn't creepy but very sweet and affectionate. He reminded me of this guy I dated who was so affectionate. I mean that guy was totally worthless as a boyfriend except for the fact that I loved how affectionate he was with me. Red headed guy's touchiness reminded me of that guy's affectionate nature.

And like I'm such a plane slut because I let the guy kiss me on the cheek when we parted. On the way out of the airport he kept trying to hold my hand, and he kept saying he didn't want to say goodbye to me, which was so sweet and so cute. So when he bent his head next to mine to kiss my cheek, I let him but didn't kiss him back. And I thought I would be kind of grossed out to let a total stranger kiss my cheek but it was sweet.

I just remembered something else. The guy smelled really good. Not sure if he was wearing cologne or something but he smelled clean and good. Talk about a turn on. I hate dirty smelly stinky skanky boys! He looked clean and he smelled clean. I'm not sure about the clothes, they were too nondescript but at least he didn't look like a slob. Talk about another relationship killer. Sloppy dressing is just such a huge, huge turnoff.

But it's not like he's Mr. Perfect because he had to tell me drives one of those monster SUVs, and part of me just shrivelled up at that little factoid but I'm willing to concede that maybe it's a guy guy thing to drive an environmentally unfriendly and politically incorrect car. Because red headed guy is not a femme boy but a guy guy, not oozing with way too much maleness and definitely oozing enough where he's not coming across like some wimpie cali girlie man. I hate this type of guy!

He's not a city dweller either. He lives in the East Bay. But he says he's a city boy and always go rollerblading in Golden Gate Park, and he just lives in East Bay because he likes the sunshine.

So we exchanged business cards, and he said he would take me out to lunch on Friday. And I'm like okay, let's see if he calls or emails me. I'm like so ready to email him and tell him I'm in so crush with you. I mean I tried to kind of tell him that on the plane. I told him our whole conversation reminded of this scene in the movie "Practical Magic". He of course had never seen the movie. There's this one scene in the movie where the Sandra Bullock character tells the cop she loves that he's everything she told herself she wanted when she was a little girl, that she made a spell about this impossible man so she wouldn't ever have to experience the hurt of falling in love, and now here was this guy, the cop, who had all the qualities she put in her spell.

So for like the briefest of moments, I thought I had dreamed up red headed guy, that he was everything I told myself I wanted in a guy, especially when he made the God comment. But only for the briefest of moments, because like who knows. Even my best friend whom I totally loved from Dallas told me he knew my attention span with men was two weeks, two weeks before I looked a guy in the eyes and figured out that he totally bored me to death. Dallas guy felt happy that it took longer for me to get bored with him, even though I did get bored with him eventually but not for the resons I get bored with most guys.

So I am in such a crush and it's fun and exciting for now.

When I set my sights on Silicon Valley in 1997 and left my comfortable 5-year job in San Francisco for the world of start-ups, little did I know how such a move would impact my life. I spent about 6 years working in the suburbs outside of San Francisco, although I had a brief 16-month stint in the middle of those sixe years working in China Basin, which was in 2000 the heart of the dotcom explosion in San Francisco.

Working outside the city changed me politically. I learned to take the middle road, and grew wary of extremism on both ends of the political spectrum. Outside the extreme left-wing politics of San Francisco, another world exists where political extremism has no place. People in suburbs aren't as politicized. They're working and trying to raise their families, and don't really have the time to indulge in the self indulgent political masturbation that city folks go through. And if you do have time for it, the extremism of the left and the right make no sense to a family just barely struggling to pay bills and survive.

There's also a negativity, a uncontrollable rage that exists on both extremes of the political spectrum. You can't raise a family and have that kind of extreme anger and rage, and not have it affect your family. The extreme anger and rage is so intense, I keep hearing Obewon Kanobi telling Luke "anger leads to the dark side of the force."

I don't understand that kind of rage, that kind of anger. It doesn't make sense to me to operate out of that kind emotion, because if you did, you wouldn't be able to make rational decisions. Politics like business is not about emotion. It's about making rational decisions for the good of the community, the corporation. If you're too full of emotion, you're not balanced and you make bad decisions.

Besides when you hate something that much, I think you're basically projecting. That what you actually hate is the shadow side of your personality that you see in the other person. This hatred of the shadow was responsible for holocaust, slavery, and any kind of bad thing that happened to any group.

I don't believe in that kind of hating. To hate like that would mean you have to make the other person less than human, and it's the root of Nazism, this is why Hitler was popular. How you can think of anyone as less than human, as an animal, because once you do that, the next step is slavery of people isn't it? These people are not human after all, so they can enslaved, they can chained, they can beaten and whipped, gassed, killed and burnt till the ground beneath the human ovens rises two inches because of all the human ash.

I will not take the walk towards anger and to the dark side of the force.

My post is incoherent I know. I just hate all this negativity and anger and rage. It's dangerous and it's scary.

Another link for the 9/11 conspiracy crowd, Inside Job - Unmasking the 9/11 Conspiracies by Jim Marrs.

I've heard this man in interviews; he's very, very interesting.

"There is also the fact that NORAD-Northeast was conducting war game exercises that morning, a fact that has been very little talked about and certainly not reported to the general public. What's also not been reported, according to the information that I have, at least one of the scenarios they were considering in their war game exercises concerned hijacked aircraft being crashed into buildings. Now, this could explain the lack of response when the air traffic controllers began to report that four planes were off course..."
- Jim Marrs, Author, Inside Job

For the 9/11 conspiracists, here's what The NY Post had to say about Alex Jones:

NOTHING NEW

MICHAEL Moore's anti-Bush film "Fahrenheit 9/11" isn't even original. Two years ago, "9/11: The Road to Tyranny," a real documentary by Alex Jones, had most of the "facts" Moore uses in his scatter-shot diatribe. Jones, who is less interested in making money than the self-aggrandizing Moore, released his film for free on his Web site www.infowars.com, where it drew legions of new fans, including producer Curt Johnson, who is hiring Jones as a consultant on a political action thriller titled "Wake Up.", NY Post on Alex Jones.

I've heard this guy speak over the years, and he's great! This is his website, Alex Jones. He's been harping on the 9/11 Bush Conspiracy for two years, long before Mr. Moore. Here's a link to his 9/11 conspiracy page, 911: THE ROAD TO TYRANNY. There's a link on the right where you can watch 40 minutes of his 9/11 Bush conspiracy film.

I think I've been depressed for primarily two reasons:

1) This month is the one-year anniversary of my grandma' death. I forgot about it and just remembered it today. It's not the kind of thing I ever wanted to have an anniversary for, but it's there. I smelled grandma smells in my living room today too. Usually if she's visiting me, my kitchen smells like her but today she was in the living room. How spooky is that!

2) I haven't been sleeping well lately. I fell asleep in an odd position a couple of weeks ago, and my upper back has been hurting. I tried switching pillows, but that didn't help. At my monthly acupuncture appointment on Saturday, I told my chinese doctor and he asked me if I snored and I said yes, it's an inherited bad trait. He said snoring meant that I never get enough sleep every night, so he did a treatment for snoring. I had needles in my throat, so scary! Aferwards he told me that my chi was stuck around my heart area, or my heart chakra, he did a massage on it and then gave massage on my upper back.

When I woke up this morning, I felt like a had my first good night of sleep in weeks, and my upper back stopped hurting. But then I decided I needed to sleep more, so I stayed in bed all day and listened to old shows of this radio program I subscribe to via streamlink.

Then I was thinking that the reason my upper back was hurting was because my chi was stuck in my heart chakra, which meant the chi couldn't escape out of my wing chakras on the back. I had my wing chakras (charkas 11 & 12) opened up at a seminar a couple of years ago. Most people have it but you have it have it opened by someone who knows how. Whatever. I'm just the doctor released me chi, although when I massage my heart center, it stil hurts and he said I needed to keep massaging that spot so the chi keeps flowing.

But as much I have physical problems, other people have it worse. While I was writing out my check at the acupuncture clinic, a woman came in and said her husband had so much back pain that he couldn't get out of bed. She asked the acupuncture doctor if he could see her husband. I could tell she had just walked right off the street and into the clinic because my doctor didn't even know her name, and neither did his wife. They were nice though, and gave the woman's husband a 3 pm appointment. Poor guy! He was in so much pain, he couldn't get out of bed. That's bad. My acupuncture guy is very good though and I almost felt like telling the woman that she picked a good clinic, but I didn't want to embarrass my doctor.

I guess I haven't been very chatty lately. I've been very down. Heck I started tearing up during Spiderman 2. I don't usually let myself get depressed, but it's been hard to avoid this week. I hate when I'm not cheerful and sunny and optimistic.

Hopefully this funk of mine will pass soon. I can't even really pin down a specific thing that's wrong, other than it feels like my whole life is just one big mistake. I'm defintely stressed out and when I'm stressed out I eat and eat and don't stop. And I crave chocolate when I'm stressed and nothing else will do.

I was so stressed out I had to buy a pack of ciggieliciouses and smoked them. I only do that when I'm extremely stressed. Thank god I smoked the whole pack, because the whole thing was making me seriously ill. Then I went to work on Thursday completely hung over. I haven't done that in years. How embarrassing! I'm sure my cubemates were just freaking out at it. I was seriously hurling in the bathroom, because lately when I drink too much (which isn't very often) I throw up my food. My tummy gets so jittery that I can't hold any food down.

I am way too old to be having hangovers. I have to keep to the 2-3 drink minimum. I'm still recovering from the whole thing, and my stress level is still high and I still feel wigged out, creeped out and way too jumpy.

I saw Spiderman 2 this evening.  It was a really good movie, much better than I expected.  Alfred Molina was so good in his role, but I keep picturing as the uptight husband in "Enchanted April" and the uptight government official in "Chocolat".
 
I was so relating to Peter Parker's dilemma of wanting to lead a normal life.  I've been feeling like that for a few weeks, wishing I was more like other people.  I think it's the curse of being an enneagram type 4 - the artist, with a 5 wing - the intellectual.
 
I'm creative, but I'm also very left brained and analytical.  It's a strange combo, and not very common from what I can tell.  I always feel that no matter what I do, I live in two worlds.  I'm not thing or another, but both.  It's an odd way to be, and I end up feeling isolated and lonely much of the time. 
 
Plus, it doesn't help that I'm not happy in my job.  The work is good and the people are nice, but I had a nasty experience and I don't know how to get over it.  The head of my group got really mad at me for something, when all I was trying to do prevent her from making an fool out of herself.  She yelled at my boss, who then gave me the third degree the next morning.  I don't mind that the head of the group yelled at my boss, which made my boss yell at me, but she didn't apologize.
 
She's the first manager I've had that hasn't apologized even when she found out she was wrong.  But then most of my bosses have been men, and I think I just don't know how to deal with women in positions of power.  My only experience of women in power was on the school, and it feels like I'm back in highschool and the "Heathers are in charge".
 
Whatever.  I'm never going to be able to stop being who I am, and stop doing what comes naturally.  Peter Parker figured that out in the movie and dealt with it.  I guess I just need to do the same.

Didn't I say this would happen? They haven't even decided if these marriage are legal, and look what's already happening; 'Married' homosexuals already seek divorce.

Here's a line from the article I really like;

"As a political development, this is not a helpful thing," Thom Lynch, executive director of the San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center, said, according to the Mercury News. "But why should we be held to a higher standard than straight couples?"

I can see the lawyers starting to drool with desire.

This is an interesting take on the media by a science fiction writer, Orson Scott Card, who everyone tells me writes really fantastic sci-fi novels;

High Bias,"Mainstream" reporters aren't just liberal--they're fanatical.

I can't wait to see what his sci-fi stories are like. He adores Octavia E. Butler like I do, so he can't be all that bad.

I need to update my reading lists on the side. I'm currently reading "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte. I love this book, and I so feel like Jane. I'll have to write a review when I've completed the book.

After all the stories of Ray Bradbury accusing Michael Moore of stealing the title of his book "Fahrenheit 451", I bought Bradbury's and read it.

Bradbury was a visionary, totally visionary! What he wrote about in that book has already started to happen, and Bradbury knows it. There would be no "Fahrenheit 9/11" without the seeds of F-451 sprouting in the last 20 years.

And what the mainstream media will never tell you is that it's the left wing who is responsible for the events that Bradbury wrote caused the events in F-451 to happen. They're the cause of F-451, which means they're really the cause of F-9/11. Read the book and you'll know what I mean. No wonder Bradbury was upset, well apart from the fact that Moore stole the title of his book.

Beware of "political correctness"! It lead to the circumstances Bradbury wrote about in "Fahrenheit 451".

I was supposed to work out this afternoon, but on the way to the gym I stopped to get a latte and then decided to go and sit at Justin Herman Plaza to sit in the sun and enjoy my coffee. This was a mistake.

That 70's band Kansas was playing, and I think I was in the middel of some kind of Harley Rider biker club convention because there were a ton of people walking around with leather chaps and Harley Riders owners jacket.

So instead of heading to the gym, I stayed and watched Kansas play for an hour. I don't even know most of this music, and the sound was pretty bad for a free concert. But I was rewarded for my hour when Kansas played their radio hits, the ones they always play on the old fart rock and roll radio.

And yes, it was worth missing my workout to hear a live version of "Dust in the Wind" and "Carry on my warward son." I love free concerts at Justin Herman Plaza. I saw the band "Radiohead" for free there when there just starting out that way, and look how far they've come.

By the way, Radiohead was great in concert, with a darn good skinny little red haired singer and a great guitarist. Who knew they'd be so popular? When I saw them they did their big hit at the time "Creep".

It was so funny to see the biker people rocking out to Kansas. I had to call my friend K, my rockstar drummer friend, because he said he toured with Kansas 20 years ago in Europe. K just laughed and said Kansas was so old, they have to play at Conocti Harbor, which is some club in Northern California where all the old rock and roll bands go to play and die. And then K had to launch into one his doggie rockstar tales of groupie shagging. Whatever!

I am dying to check out Conocti Harbor, but none of my friends want go. It's such a bummer! I want to see aging rockstars still going at it. Those guys can still play, who cares if they look like beer bellied old decrepit grandfatherly types.

It was a short work week so it passed very quickly. I received my first Netflix cds on Friday. That was quick wasn't it?

On Thursday I went to "The Good Body" by Eve Ensler, who wrote "The Vagina Monologues". It was an hour and a half one woman show on her "fat stomach". Ensler was very entertaining, and her ability to do different characters and voices was amazing.

She has a bit about fat women in India at the gym. The word hindi word for fat is 'Jaadi'. I love this word. I am a "jaadi chickie!". And yes by the way, if you're too thin and have no hips you'll never be able to wear a sari right. The sari's six yards of fabric needs a butt to sit on to hang right. Ensler does a darn good woman from India accent. She also does a great puerto rican woman accent as well.

I'm not a big fan of Ensler. I saw "The Vagina Monologues" and while very good, I thought there were parts of it that would prevent me from recommending the play to anyone. I felt the same way about "The Good Body". Parts of it are very funny, and Ensler's ability to play different characters is nothing short of brilliant, but you walk away thinking "did I learn anything or was it just a bit of entertainment?"

So I joined Netflix and ended up putting 55 movies in my rental queue. I've got all the Zatoichi the Blind Samurai movies lined up, although there are seven more movies in the series. Then I picked a bunch from my film history class that I wanted to see.

I was looking for this french spy movie called "The Tall Blonde Man with One Black Shoe", but they didn't have it. It's a very, very funny movie. They didn't have any early Bernardo Bertolucci films either. I'm going to have to do some digging to find that one Bertolucci early Bertolucci film that I still remember. I have no idea what the name of it is, and I shall probably have the watch all of Bertolucci's earlier films to figure it out.

I'd also love to see "Ran" by Akira Kurosawa again. It's been years since I've seen that movie. Then I put silly movies in there like "Tank Girl", which I've always wanted to see but never did. And of course, all the of the Keanu Reeves movies that I haven't watched on on my list.

I saw the french movie "Diva' in the french film section. A friend from college said there's a character in that movie that reminds him of me.

I can't believe how many foreign movies I've seen. During college I don't think I ever watched a movie that wasn't subtitled, and when I left college it was weird to watch movies where everyone spoke english.

I never checked to see if Netflix had this movie that I watched on TV as a child, "What's so bad about feeling good?" It's a very thought provoking movie and the story line is something I still remember.

I remember watching "Of Human Bondage" with my grandma as a child. She loved that movie, and I was too young to really undertand the story. It might be interesting to watch that movie as an adult, or at least read the book.