M-Square is in a much better mood these days. Things at work have gotten a little better and I can tell he's doing better. Probably not today though since it's raining like heck where he is, and there are power issues in Orange County. M-Square is like Mr. Responsible so I'm sure he's freaking out about having power shortages at his company. I'm not sure if they even have processes in place to backup their computer systems in case of a power failure, since it's a small business.

I called him today because I had the feeling he wasn't doing so hot, and when I asked him if he was okay, he said no, and then said he would call me later. He did not sound very happy at all.

I keep getting the feeling that he's worried about us, about losing me. I mean it's not like I'm going anywhere or seeing anyone else right now, or even interested in meeting someone else, but hey, if something better came along I think I'd have to check it out. That's a bad attitude huh, but I'm like a practical girl. M-Square is 95% perfect, but I meet someone who is 90% perfect and lived locally then I'd be interested. Besides, why would the universe put another Mr. Perfect who lived locally in my path if it didn't mean something.

M-Square and I have an agreement to tell each other if we have sex with someone else, knowing full well that such an act would probably end the relationship. But if I met Mr. Better than M-Square then well I thihk it's meant to be.

I'm not sure how that would be possible for me to meet anyone else because I know if I ever did that, it would feel like such a betrayal to M-Square and that it would hurt him a ton. But, I'm also a big believer in destiny and fate and things happening for a reason.

Oh well! So much for yesterday's post. I received a call for another interview for Friday with the same company, same building, but different floor and different department. I asked my friend at work about it and she said I should go on the interview because she had heard good things about the department. I thought for sure she was going to say no, but she said she to do it.

As much as I see myself moving to Southern California next year, I need to keep options open. Another friend who has great intuition told me last night she saw me working in LA, but she couldn't see when. I don't want to feel like my life is on hold until M-Square and I decide that I need to move down there. I think if God meant me to move down there and be with him, then things will happen whether I want them to or not to make me move down there.

In the meantime, if a good job offer with more money comes my way I'm defintely going to take it. It never hurts to make more money. Plus a new job would give me more variety to add to my resume. I am so not learning anything new at my current job anymore. Plus from what I'm hearing in the rumor mill, revenue is going to be flat for my company next year and it's going to be about continually cutting back which isn't going to make for a good work enviroment. I also have the feeling that if things don't turn around, they're going to have to serious job cutting and since I'm not that well like by the head of my group I'm sure I'll be the first to get the boot.

A friend says I should stick around so I can go on unemployment, but I prefer to be gainfully employed. I like having money, what can I say? I'm only just starting to have some serious savings and I don't want that trend to stop. Besides, I've got to save money if I am moving to SoCal next year anyway for moving expenses.

So that Thursday interview didn't go well at all and I received a message on Friday that they weren't going to go forward with a second interview. I took Friday off as well so I didn't pick the message up till today. I was very bummed until I spoke to a woman who I remembered worked for this company. I took her out for coffee this afternoon, and she told me horror stories about the group I interviewed with.

I even showed her the names of the people and projects they sent me and she said "I had dodged a bullit because those people were insane." I probably would have taken the job because I so desperately want to get out of my job. I really trust this woman at work. We have become good friends and we have many of the same interests in common. She is also a writer, a really, really good writer! The woman can write circles around me, so I really respect her opinion.

So now I'm rethinking whether I even want to keep applying for jobs at this company. The woman at work who used to work there says she knows a ton of people there and they're all very unhappy and trying to get out. Wow! Our conversation was so eye-opening. She said the company where we're at now is heaven compared to that hell-hole.

I felt so relieved talking to my friend at work this afternoon because I interview very well, and I didn't know why I was struggling with this interview. C, the woman I had coffee with this afternoon, said it was my guardian angels making sure I didn't get the job. Cute huh?

I think I'm going to have rethink my job search. I mean, if I'm moving sometime next year hopefully to Southern California to be with M-Square, does it even make sense to get a new job. I was thinking that if I got a job with a company that had offices in Southern California, I could transfer. But now that I think about it, most companies probably want you to be with them for awhile before they let you move like maybe six months to a year. Do I really want to wait that long to move? Wouldn't it be easier to just move down there and then job hunt?

There are just so many things up in the air right now. I spoke to another friend tonight and she had an intuition while I was talking to her on the phone that she saw me working in Southern California next year. Interesting huh?

Well, the universe has put up road blocks in my job search. I'm like one of those people who never has a problem geting a job, even in a bad economy, so I think I need to rethink what I'm doing. My job isn't that bad. It's not the best, but I do have the freedom to leave at the end of the day and focus on other things. I love my boss and the work is relatively easy. And yes, there are issues and personality conflicts but as I was told this afternoon by my work friend, there are always going to be issues at every job.

And now I'm wondering if all this job stuff is just another way I have of distracting myself from focusing on my writing. It's been months since I wrote. With my job going south and then things happening with M-Square, writing has been the farthest thing from my mind. And when I don't write, I know I start to get really, really unhappy.

My mind is all jumbled right now. I really need to regroup, rethink, and restrategize what is going on with my life. I think at this point in the past, I would have blamed the guy I was dating for my unhappiness and dumped him first just to clear the decks. But no way am I doing that with M-Square although it's tempting only because it's my modus operandi.

I think for now I'm going to stay in my current job, but maybe mix it up a bit like going to work earlier and leaving earlier. Sometimes even a little change in your work routine will do wonders for a job. I'm also going to write every day. I'm going to do Nanowrimo in November so I might as well start practicing writing every day. My intuition tells me if I just start focusing on my writing, everything usually works better for me. It's always worked that way in the past, so let's see if history repeats itself.

I had my interview yesterday and it made me remember why I hate interviews. I can't tell whether I did well or not, and I hate that feeling. That group has a ton of openings, and the interview I had yesterday was just a screening interview. I don't even know if I'll make it past the screening. Oh well.

I just applied for two more jobs at the same company. I like the location a lot. The commute will be an hour but it's near Lake Merritt and my gym is right there.

I don't even know why I'm even looking for a job. Part of me just wants to stay at my current job until I decide that I need to move down to SoCal to be with M-Square and then just look for a job down there. But the other part is just plain fed up with my current job and it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to even go to work.

What's really sad is that the woman at work whom I don't get along with has such a bad reputation in the company now. I was in a meeting a couple of weeks ago and people sniggered when her name was mentioned. That's a bad sign isn't it? Even the relatively new guy laughed about her. You get the feeling that everyone thinks she's a piece of work, and she is. Even the newest person in group whom I walk with twice a week has heard she's a terrible manager. Boy, when you've got a bad rep in a company word spreads fast even among the newbies.

I know there's a better job for me out there somewhere. I just have to find it. I think I got spoiled because the current job I have was so easy to get. But now that I've been in the job I can see why it's had such a high turnover rate. They have to really careful about who they hire because there a nut jobs running the department.

I've been driving myself nuts searching thru iTunes for this song I used to really like. I thought if I looked at iMixes I would instantly spot it, but that was a bad idea. Finally tonight the song lyrics came back to me and the song was "Possum Kingdom" by the Toadies, which I googled and found. When I finally typed the song name into iTunes, it didn't make into anyone's iMixes yet. I must be the only person in the country who liked this song, still remembered it and then spent two days trying to find it. But I'm excited I have it, although as I listen to it now I'm not quite sure why I liked it so much.

New songs bought from i-Tunes:

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall by Bob Dylan
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall by Joan Baez
Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground – Willie Nelson (M-Square is my angel)
California Dreamin' – The Mamas and the Papas
Dedicated to the One I Love – The Mamas and the Papas
Monday, Monday – The Mamas and the Papas

So because I'm a glutton for punishment, I signed up to Nanowrimo for 2005 even though I didn't my 50,000 word novel last year. I don't know if I want to start a new novel, which you're supposed to do or try to finish one of the unfinished ones.

Oh, psychological angst of my unfinished novel pile not to mention my short but still still unfinished short story stack! Boohooo, boohooo, boohooo!

Saturday was busy! Finally after two months, my acupuncturist tells me it looks like I've lost some weight. He was very happy, but told me I need to lose more. At least he noticed which pleased me immensely!

Then I went to my hair guy to get a haircut. My hair was getting too long and it was starting to look straggly and I was thinking I was looking like a little too witchy with my fried ends or stuck in some hippie chick timewarp. My hair guy is so great! He is outrageously expensive, but he is worth every penny. He took about a couple of inches off my hair, and layered my hair so it doesn't look too heavy. Too much hair I think weights my face down. He knows I like to put my hair in a pony tail, so he tries to make sure that when it's all bound up like that my tail looks straight and even and not uneven. I love my new cut. My hair feels lighter and more managable, even though it's still long.

Then I asked the girls at the front desk if the salon did waxing. My brows and lips were practically frightful! They said no but gave me a business card to the place they all go to, which just so happened to be down the street.

What a gerat recommendation! The woman was great and my browns look amazing. She also did my lips and got all the hair off fairly quickly. She also does facials and said if I come in for a facial, she'll do my face waxing for free. She costs twice as much as what I normally pay, but I was very impressed by how fast and efficent she was and how she got my brows to arch a little more. There were women in the salon paying for $200 worth of beauty treatments, which made my jaw drop. What are these girls paying for? Sure, they looked great but $200 worth of treatments? They must have had full-on body waxing like legs, bikini line, back, brows, lips, back, you name it. I hope they didn't pay for underarm waxing because it's so not worth it. The hair grows back in like 4-5 days, and you feel so cheated because it hurts and it's not cheap.

Then for whatever reason, I headed down to the Ghiradelli Square to watch the Blue Angels show. I haven't seen a show in years, and it was to watch them again. Everyone was saying there were going to be a million people watching the show over the weekend, and it sure felt like it. I walked from Union Square to Ghiradelli Square along the Embardero and it was packed. I found a spot at the center stage and sat on the pavement next to this couple that were doing the same.

The show was supposed to start around 3 pm, but an announcement was mnade that some idiot had too many margaritas and fell off a boat in the bay and the coast guard was doing a search and rescue. And I'm like, they should have just let the fool drown. It was pretty funny though hearing the announcer trying to fill in the time and interview like totally boring official types.

When the show finally started, there was 15 minutes of some huge airplanethey call "Fat Albert" and people were getting restless, like "come on show us the real stuff!" When the Blue Angels finally appeared the crowd's mood seemed visisbly lightened. I don't remember ever hearing this before, but they were played some really good tunes during the show.

The most memorable song I remember was that song from "Top Gun" called "The Danger Zone". That was cool because as soon as that song came on, I started flashing on that movie. I'm sure everyone was doing the same thing.

Getting home was a nightmare. I hadn't eaten lunch and was there from 2-4:30 pm, so I stood in a long line at In and Out Burger and bought a burger, fries and a chocolate shake. I was totally starving and my weight watchers diet went out the window. Then I tried to take a bus home, which took forever. I think it took me two hours to get home.

I was tired and didn't want to walk back downtown, so I took a bus which was horrid. The traffic to get out the Fisherman's Wharf area was congested and Van Ness was so slow. ANd I could tell I was tired and not thinking straight because I couldn't figure out which bus to take. The easist thing would have been to catch the 30 stockton right outisde of Ghiradelli Square and then hop on the 28 home. But made my life hell and first waited for a 47 to go downtown. Then after waiting 20 minutes for a bus which was a block away becuase the traffic was so backed up, I decided to take a 47 in the opposite direction to get the Van Ness Station. It didn't hit me until I was 30 minutes on the 47 and seeing a couple of 30 Stockton buses go by that I should take a 30 Stockton because Van Ness was going to be as backed up as the Embarcadero. What a nightmare. Once the 30 Stockton turned off of Van Ness it moved pretty quicky and in was home in half an hour.

I saw this article last week from the Guaurdan UK, "Top 10 Sci-Fi Films. Supposedly all these scientists came up with this list. Okay, like "Blade Runner" is a great movie but does it really rate being number one? I have friends who have told me "Blade Runner" is on their top 10 favorite movie list of all time. They all like that ending line which goes something like "And who lives forever" or something like that.

At least The Matrix made the list, and yes one of the Star Wars, and I think the movie that should have been number one, "2001 Space Odyssey", but which came in at numnber two.

Good news today! One of the places I sent my resume to called for a job interview. That's not bad huh? I applied to four jobs and two called back now for interviews. I interview next Thursday on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

I probably shouldn't be interviewing on one of the highest holy day of the jewish calendar, but it felt like a good day. The woman I spoke to and I were laughing about it. I said I know it's an important holiday because it's on my calendar but I'd forgotten what it was about, and she said she wanted to write on my application, "good sense of humor". Cute huh?

Maybe it's a good thing I didn't fly down to the OC to be with M-Square. This company has lots of offices in Southern California, so if I move down there next year hopefully I'll be able to transfer within the same company and already have a job if and when I move.

My poor M-Square. When I tune into him I keep getting the feeling that he's so afraid of losing me. I couldn't keep the hurt and disappointment out of my voice yesterday when he told me not to fly down. But it's all good. I even started remembering how easy it was to fall in love with him those two months before we met, and how meeting him just cemented my feelings.

I had this whole fantasy that we would like have a porno-type love fest in the car in the parking garage at LACMA when we got to the King Tut exhibit, or we would find some deserted spot in the exhibit and have a quickie. What a laugh! King Tut was like totally packed and we ended up parking outside. But M-Square must have had the same idea or else he picked up on thoughts because at some point while I was getting stuff out of the backseat of the care I was on all fours and he asked me "are you assuming the position?" So funny.

Then at the King Tut Exhibit he sent me desire vibes which freaked me out because meeting him after two months was just so weird. Plus he was doing the typical guy thing and totally finding any excuse to put his hands on my body, something I normally can't stand but with him it was fun and very, very erotic. And then when we walked down to the beach from his place to watch the sunset, he held my hand going down the stairs and I was like "Ahhhhh, just like in the love movies." And then I spoiled the moment by stepping in the dog pooh, and then I started freaking out because I was afraid of ruining my shoes.

And then our final goodbye kisses were so hot! From our goodbye kiss I finally understood that phrase "they kissed like lovers on the edge of a void" ...such good memories!

I hope this job pays more than what I'm making because it will cost me about $150 to commute to work now instead of the $45 I pay now. I really, really like this company that I will be interviewing with. There are doing well and they have about 30-40% of the California health insurance market. I asked a really, really good friend of mine who is a pediatric nurse about this company, and she said the company is doing some great things. My ex-boss from two jobs ago also works for the company but not at their corporate office.

I'm also looking forward to getting my PCP and OBGYN back as well, since they are with this company. I can't see them now because of the way health insurance works in this state, but if I get the job I'll have access.

M-Square and I had a huge fight this week. He's going through a really hard time at work and being very non-communicative. I was supposed to fly down to see him on Septemer 24, but he was going to work that weekend. And then I wanted to fly down next week to see him but he's just way too stressed from work and other things going on his life.

I was so pissed at him. He says I leave him too many voicemails and it's like he's talking to me so he doesn't feel like calling. Then when I finally talk to him he's like so stressed out and says I'll call you back and never does. The boy is just so wiped out every day. He's hired three new employees and training new people is very stressful to him. He said the new people never show up for work on time and it pisses him off.

I stopped calling him at work because I knew he was training new people, so I don't get to talk to him during the day. Lack of communication just totally freaks me out. I think he's also having a hard time with the owner of the company, who brought M-Square in to take the company international. But it's hard I think for an owner who's had his own business for 30 years to all of a sudden bring in another person and expect to give up control, even if the new person is a long time friend of his. His boss wants do two seminars as well and wants M-Square to help him do it. He said something about maybe doing the seminars in New York and Florida.

M-Square has a degree in physics and can explain the science of the products they're selling. He's been a pharma rep before, and taught seminars to doctors on drugs so he's good at leading seminars. But this is a new field for him and it's a totally different thing than getting docs to use and buy drugs.

So my baby boy is all stressed out and says he feels pressured by me and I just about lost it on Tuesday and was so ready to break up with him. I called him on Tuesday after not hearing from him for a whole week and he said something like "didn't I tell you that?" and I just got riled and didn't know why. When I finally figured it on Wednesday, it was pretty silly.

I got mad because I hadn't heard from him for a week and then we he said he'd told me something already it was like "who the hell are you talking to, what woman has my exact same voice that you think you are talking to me?" I was jealous and didn't even know it. Then I had to call him back and grovel and beg for forgiveness.

I know the guy isn't seeing anyone else. I just hate that he doesn't call enough and he hates that I leave too many voicemails. Then he said that I don't give him a chance to call me. I felt bad when he said that because other guys have said this to me before.

I finally figured it out that he was thinking I didn't trust him enough to call me and it was really getting to him. He gets enough of that "no trust" stuff at work and now he has to deal with it with me. But I spoke to him and we made up and then I was happy again. He just needs his space because he's so stressed at work, and I think I was focusing too much on him and not enough on my own life.

I've stopped writing and I've stopped job hunting. I was becoming way to co-dependent and not being the independent person I normally am. That was a hard lesson for me to learn, but at least I got it now and we're still together.

I'm just happy we're still together, but disappointed that I can't see him. With all the work stress he's under, it's taking a toll on his health and he can't sleep and he's not eating right. He says he comes home and tries to read but can't relax and totally does not feel like talkking to anyone. I so know what he's going through. Work stress is really, really difficult. He says he misses me terribly and he's afraid of losing me, and I guess me wanting to break it off just doesn't help things much. He says he's under a lot of pressure at work and having me stress on him is another pressure-stressor in his life.

My poor boy! He always sounds so exhausted and whiny when I talk to him. He doesn't want to be that way with me, but he says he can't help it. I think I just have to calm down and get back to my own life, because not writing and not job hunting is making me unhappy as well. I also stopped working out, which never, never helps.

I was amazed at how easy it was for me to become so co-dependent on him, which is unhealthy for me and for our relationship. I feel bad too because my total instinct is to mother him and make his pain go away, and I know I shouldn't do that. He's an adult and doesn't need me mothering him and care-taking him like that.

But this is hard because I want to see him and I can't. My idea of heaven would be to just lie in bed all day and have sex with him all weekend, but in his state of mind and health he said it probably wouldn't be very satsifying. I'm sure he has performance anxiety running through his head as well.

But at least we're still together and holding on, and that's the most important thing. Work stress can't last forever and hopefully soon he'll be better soon and I can fly down to see him. My therapist said I need to take things one day at a time with him and be in the moment with him until his work pressure eases off. She said work stress is everyone's number one stressor with relationship stress running a close seocnd, so he's got a double whammy with me in the picture.

Haven't posted for awhile ... but I've been busy!

There was a free bluegrass festival in Golden Gate park last weekend and I attended both days. I saw Joan Baez, which was sooo cool! Her voice still sounds great and she sang a Bob Dylan song called "A Hard Rain Gonna Fall, which was just amazing.

Then on the way home I stopped to watch Doc Watson, who sang the first country song ever recorded. I love old country music!

On Sunday, a few friends showed up and we saw The Austin Lounge Lizards, Dolly Parton, and listed to a couple songs by Ricky Skaggs! You haven't lived till you've sung "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Imagine" with Dolly. Dolly looks really great for her age. She wore a rhinestone covered turquoise dress and she kept saying how all her instruments were covered with rhinestones.

The bands didn't play long. It is a free concert after all, so most sets were about 45 minutes. Ricky Skaggs was amazing, and I saw guys dancing to his music. The park was filled with so many non-San Franciscans, with all the southern folk weearing clothing proclaiming which southern state they were from.

Dolly's buses had Tennessee license plates, which means she drove all the way here from there. That's a long way to come to play a free concert in foggy San Francisco.

On Sunday morning I did a 7K Bridge to Bridge Walk, which my company was sponsoring. They paid for all their employees race fees and we wore company t-shirts to the race. I walked with a fellow employee and did the 7K in about an hour an 10 minutes. There was also a 12K run at the same time.

It was a jam packed weekend and my body was so sore from the 7k walk and standing for about four hours and dancing at the free concert. But I had fun and there's nothing like a free concert. I don't think I would have paid to hear Dolly Parton, but now that I've seen her I think I would pay to hear a three hour with her. I would definitely pay money to see Ricky Skaggs again. Emmy Lou Harris also played on Sunday at the end, but by that time I was so beat I just wanted go home and take a hot bath.

Just to prove I'm not a total Dead head. I also downloaded "Last Resort" by Papa Roach, "Almost Blue" by Elvis Costello, "Hash Pipe" by Weezer, :Wild is the Wind" by Nina Simone, "You and Me" by Lighthouse, "Toxicity" by Disturbed, and "Numb" and "Aerials" by System of a Down.

i-Tunes is dangerous. I was bored on Sunday and bought seven, count them now, seven versions of "Scarlett Begonias, by the Grateful Dead. God only knows why I need seven different versions of the same song because although I like the Dead, I am so not a Dead Head but this is one of my favourite Dead songs.

Still, I didn't downloand a whole concert just so I could get an 11 minute version of my other favourite Dead song "Fire on the Mountain". I have such good memories of being at a Dead concert with a couple of friends the year before Jerry Garcia died. We were at at the Fillmore Stree Fair in Pacific Heights first and then drove to Mountain View to the Shoreline Amphitheatre smoking hippie lettuce the whole way.

We had really, really great seats because I got in line at 6 am to buy the tickets. We were fifteen rows up from the stage. I was with two friends, one was a recruiter for Silicon Valley firms and the other person was a shrink. We just sat, smoke tons more hippie lettuce and just danced.

The whole front section was practically empty and then "Fire on the Mountain" came on just was I was seriously stoned and peaking. It's such a great song to dance to when you're that high and flying.

I know I'm going to have break down and buy a whole concert one day just for that song so I can relive my Dead concert memories.

Yes, I am very serious about leaving the SF Bay Area to be with my man. God, I never thought I'd ever say that, but "love" or whatever I'm feeling right now for this guy is slowly changing me. I did decide a couple of years ago that I'd be willing to give up living in the City and County of San Francisco if I met a guy who didn't live in the City, but I didn't think I would ever be willing to move out of this area.

At least it's the Los Angeles area, and it's a city and I'd just be living in the suburbs of Los Angeles. That's not so bad considering I could have met a guy who lived outside of California. That would have been hard if I had to leave California and move to a state without a large metropolitan city.

M-Square is just really, really great. He's cute, he's way smarter than me, he gets me and we get along very, very well. Plus, he's just so spiritual. It's a combo that is hard to give up just because I don't want to leave San Francisco. In a perfect world I suppose, I would have preferred to meet someone who lived here but it didn't turn out that way. I like to think that the universe has a good reason for me to leave the SF Bay Area, and M-Square is my readily available ticket out of here.

And for whatever reason, it kind of does feel like it's time to leave this place. I'm not sure why, but I do get the feeling I need to live somewhere else. But you know, who knows. M-Square and I are just beginning our relationship and who knows what the future will bring, but I'm just happy that I'm not so stuck in my ways that I wouldn't contemplate making changes to be with a guy.

And love is definitely changing me weekly, daily, hourly. There are ideas I had about love that are just being shaken to its core with this guy. Like maybe it's okay sometimes to compromise when you're in love, and if you're really in love, compromise isn't such a bad thing and doesn't even feel compromise. Compromising feels more like being flexible and adjustable, and doing whatever it takes to make the relationship work and for both people to be happy and peaceful.

I mean, I've had thoughts about this guy that I've never had or if I did I don't remember having them. Like I want M-Square to be the person I look at and I want to hear his voice the moment before I die. How weird is that. He's the person I want to have around me as I leave this earth. And the thought of leaving him even in death just freaks me out and make me cry. I seriously do not want to lose this guy ever, and I guess right now I'm willing to do certain things to make sure that we're together for a long, long time.

I joined Weight Watchers at work because I can't control my eating and I've gained about 15-20 pounds since last year. With the new job and the bad breakup with red-haired guy, the pounds just started coming back.

I can only barely fit into my size 8 Tommy Hilfigger jeans, and this really freaks me out. My size 8 Ralph Laurens I can't even wear. At least I didn't gain all the weight I lost, but still. I've thrown out most of my smaller clothes, so I have no choice but lose weight again. It's amazing what five extra pounds can do the fit of your clothes. My clothes could handle a 10-15 pound weight gain, but not a 15-20 pound gain.

Today was the first day I really starting counting my points, and I'm amazed at how hungry I am. My body really got used to surviving on more calories. I've been working out, but I just couldn't get back into the rhythm of counting my calories. Oh well, sometimes you just have to try something different.

The WW group at work is on Mondays from 12 noon to 1 pm. The people are really nice, and there are a couple of people there I know from projects I've worked on. I like the leader of the group. She's a nice woman who has a passionate love affaire with potato chips, who has kept her weight off for 20 years.

Most of the WW group at work are seriously overweight women. I saw one woman who really doesn't look like she has a weight problem, but then again my therapist doesn't think I have a weight problem either. I did feel kind of weird walking into the group with my totally tight size 10 very short silk miniskirt, when most of the women there look like they're size 18 and up. It made me wonder what they thought of me.

The WW group at work reminds me of that fat farm/spa I went to in Utah. Most of the women there were really huge, and they just stared me and the other women there who were smaller. There were other women who were thinner than me and we were all in the same exercise group, so at least I wasn't the thinnest person there.

I just want my clothes to fit and look attractive for M-Square. I can't believe I'm having a quasi-boyfriend relationship at this weight. At least with the red-haired guy I felt attractive and thinner and my clothes pretty much fit. Now I'm with some guy whom I really, really like and I'm a blimpie. How ironic is that?

M-Square is great though and hasn't mentioned the extra weight. I told him I needed to lose some weight, and he said with us the physical stuff doesn't and shouldn't matter. But I think it does. The extra weight just does not make feel attractive. If he wasn't so positive about physical looks not being important, I don't think I could have been intimate with him.

But he's from Southern California where he's exposed to that whole Hollywood thin look, and I just don't want to feel and look like a whale when I'm with him. I know looks don't matter but it's affecting my self-esteem and will be impacting my pocket book if I have to buy bigger clothes, so I've got to take the weight off.

But boy am I not in the mood to eat less nor am I happy about having to watch what I eat agan. The leader of the WW group at work is right. I'm always going to have to be vigilant about my weight, and not use food to medicate my stress levels.

I wish I was at the 49er/Dallas game. I remember being at 49er games when they would announce the scores for Dallas games, and if Dallas lost the whole stadium would erupt in a cheer.

That was an exciting but disappointing Oakland/Philadelphia game. The Raiders almost pulled it out, but they lost the game on penalties and bad kicks by Janikowski. Too bad.

I haven't posted for awhile because it's been such a weird two weeks. But here's the news.

I decided M-Square and I should have a discussion about serial monogamy last week. We live in different cities and you know, I've been burnt in the past when I haven't had this kind of conversation. You can't assume that just because you've had sex with soemone that they're not going to have sex with someone else.

What I thought would be a five minute conversation, took like almost three hours. Talk about baggage on both of our parts. Geesh! M-Square was like so offended that I had to even have a conversation like this with him, and I got kind of pissed that he was offended. So then I had to tell him about the stupid boyfriend who was cheating on me because I didn't have this kind of discussion, and then I had to hear about his ex-wife who constantly accused him of having affaires when he wasn't.

After we spewed our respective stories, I laughed and told him this is what is called "baggage". He laughed too and we both agreed that we wouldn't date other people and if we did we would have to tell the other person. In the end, M-Square was happy that we had the conversation.

Honestly, the disucssion was so hard but I felt like I needed to have it. I'm not planning on seeing anyone else, but I wasn't sure about him. He said he's a one-woman man, a statement I've never heard from any guy before.

I'm not even sure why the no screwing around conversation was so difficult, because when I was visiting him over Labor Day we didn't have a problem discussing the future and whether he would move up here or I would move down there. That was a five-minute conversation with him saying "the Bay Area has great sports but he didn't think he could live up here because it's too cold." I told him that I had already thought about who should move and that I would be the one to move because he has a great job and one I think is his life purpose. I even told him that my main pre-req for a job is the company has to have an office in LA, so if and when I move down there I could stay with the same company.

I wouldn't mind living in Southern California. The weather is warm and M-Square and I would live in the OC, because he grew up in that area. He said we'd either live in Laguna Beach or Newport Beach or somewhere in that area. We wouldn't be in a city, but LA is only an hour drive away.

I think there's been a ton of weird energy since Saturday when the full moon came out. People at work have been really stressed and two people today said to me that all we do at work is put out fires and be in crisis mode. Too bad all this frenetic energy hasn't translated into market share and increased revenue.

I haven't done a political rant in a long time, but I think it's such dandy, dandy karma that right as Eileen Ackerman, the superintendant for the San Francisco school district resigns due to political pressure from the left wing flakies on the school board, the San Francisco school district announces a $1 billion shortfall.

I think those left wing numb-nuts who got Ms. Ackerman to leave have a ton of explaining to do, because they were obviously too busy doing political infighting to watch the school budget. I love when people's personal agendas take over and leave the public high and dry.

FYI. I was asked by a friend to have my blog do an RSS feed, and it's doing that now. Not sure what this all means, but I think it's supposed to help other websites know when my blog has been udpated. I haven't been posting daily but I guess I'm going to have to keep up now.

M-Square knows I have a blog, but he doesn't know the address. He promised me that if he ever ran across it he would tell me. And when that lovely day happens, I probably will have to stop blogging about him and our relaitonship. If I knew he was reading my blog, I wouldn't write anything about him. I would feel like I had to censor myself and I don't want to do that.

Maybe my friend Jon was right when he told me "never tell potential loves that you have a blog." They'll just read it and get freaked out. So far M-Square hasn't talked about my blog in a couple of weeks. I'm hoping he's forgotten I even have one, although that's unlikely because the guy totally remembers everything I've ever told him. He did promise to tell me, but I wouldn't blame if he kept that little secret to himself so he could read what I think about him.

Last Tuesday I had a phone job interview and I was so unfocused. I don't think I did very well. Never schedule a job interview after a wild weekend with a guy you absolutely adore. Oh well! I think I need to send out more resumes.

I called M-Square afterwards because I was kind of freaked out, and he was his usual sweet self. Damn! I kind of really wanted this job. But maybe the other company I originally wanted to work at is where I really need to be. Some guy from work sent out an announcement saying he was leaving to take a job at that place. He only sent it because he'd been at my comnpany for 20 years. M-Square said I'm not even trying that hard to get a job and I'm getting called for interviews, so he thinks it's a good sign that I'm very employable.

My work week after my fun Labor Day holiday was hell. It was supposed to be a short week, but it sure didn't feel like it.

M-Square called me every day after he got home from work, which was so sweet! But I couldn't talk to him because I was too busy debriefing with my friends. Poor guy! I think he was bummed at me for never being around, but he had a busy work week as well plus he was tired from our weekend. I guess I wiped the poor guy out!

I'm having another Bridget Jones moment. M-Square just called to thank me for the weekend and to say he had a great time, then he said "I miss you already!". Aaaahhhh!

I told M-Square my pajama top smelled like him so I'm not going wash it right away because I want to keep smelling it to remember our weekend together.

This is what Bridget Jones from Bridget Jones II would say about my weekend - five glorious shags!

My weekend was amazing! I was expecting somebody who looked like Tommy Lee from Motley Crue, and instead I got a blondie boy Vince Neil type but with blue eyes ... which is like so Southern California surfer boy!

It's hard when you're meeting someone for the first time after chatting away and emailing for two months the way we did. There are so many expectations about what each person should look like, be like, it takes awhile to settle yourself down.

I knew within five minutes, like I always do, that the sex part was going to be really good. My sexdar is almost never wrong. I thought it was going to be really good just from talking to him on the phone, and then seeing him in person just confirmed my feeling. After an hour together while we were walking around King Tut exhibit, I got excited when our hands accidentally brushed, but then M-Square said he was trying to send me signals. I picked the signal up but I don't know, it was confusing to me because I had just met him and I didn't think it would work that fast.

We were so comfortable together, and yet not comfortable together. It's hard to explain. As the day progressed I became more comfortable with him, and by the end of the night I was pretty much lying with my head on his shoulder and caressing him, which was so cool. M-Square is a pretty touch feely king of guy and I really did want to hold his hand as we were going through the King Tut exhibit, but I felt it was just too soon.

King Tut was exhaustive. LACMA did a great job of crowd control by having timed exhibit entrances, but there were three times when the exhibit just got way too crowded. M-Square hates crowds so it was hard for him, but he was good and managed to keep it together until the exhibit ended.

Then he did something really sweet and thoughtful by buying for me scarab green earrings made of limestone with a little amethyst. The sales woman in the exhibit gift shop was so nice. She picked out the really nice ones for me, and M-Square helped me pick one out. I wasn't expecting a present from him this soon, but he said he really wanted to buy me something from the King Tut exhibit so I told him he could buy me earrings. There were a couple of women trying them on, and we were talking and they were going to buy them so I had to have a pair as well.

His place has steps down to a beach in the Laguna Beach area, so we did the Southern California date thing and walked on the beach hand in hand as the sun was setting. But then I spoiled it by somehow stepping in dog doo, which just annoyed me because I felt like Will Smith in the movie "Hitch" and was doing all the wrong things on my first date.

Walking on the beach at sunset was so nostalgic for me, especially when I saw these boys sandsurfing. I sandsurfed as a kid with a wooden round disk, but these young kinds had mini surfboards that were flat and you could throw on the sand as the waves are hitting the shore and surf on the water retreating back to the sea. Those kids were so cute, and they knew we were watching so they put on a good show.

More to come ... but I flew home on the 1 pm flght today very happy and still into M-Square as much as ever if not even more.

It is so hard to watch the news without crying. I didn't anything could be worse than 9/11 but now I wonder. So many lives lost, so many people having to relocate, anarchy abounds, this is what happens when civilizations goes. I've seen it in tv shows and movies but never thought to see in real life played 24/7 on the news.

Someone at work is challenging everyone to donate one day's pay to the people of New Orleans. Gas today for premium was up at $3.19 and regular at $2.99. I feel like people are scared and emotions are high at the consequences for our economy.

And in the midst of this I am so happy with M-Square and so excited to see him tomorrow. I feel ike we are really connecting after two months. It's been building ever so slowly and gradually that we each don't have time to panic yet about what we're doing. He is just the coolest, coolest, smartest guy! He is so quick on the draw and he remembers everything I've told him about myself, which is kind of scary.

He told me he thought my mind would be hardest thing to pin down, and I told him he was right. We are so alike and yet so different ... and we're both in transition which is kind of frightening.

I want it to work with him very, very badly! More than I've ever wanted it to work with any guy in my life. I'm even starting to think love doesn't necessary mean enslavement especially when you really love someone, and that compromise can be a good thing. But above all that kindess for another person's well being is the most important thing and that I have to remember this fact at every moment especially in this relationship with M-Square. We're so connected that I have to stay balanced because he'll feel it when I'm not, and probably more because I sometimes am so in denial about what I'm really feeling.

My prayers go out to the people of New Orleans and my friend at Wall of Sleep, and everyone else who is suffering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

Just watching the news is so depressing and frightening. I've never been to New Orleans and now who knows if I'll be able to visit it now and see a real Mardi Gras. I think that there will be serious consequences for the US economy because of the possible damage to the oil refineries and the loss of a major city like New Orleans.

M-Square is so great! He said he wanted to make sure he talked to me tonight because he sensed that I was having such a hard day. He is the perfect sweetie! And at the end of our conversation, he said that he was glad that he got me stop thinking about work for awhile.

I brought work home. That's how busy I am. I still have a proposal to read before I go to sleep because we're having three vendor presentations tomorrow. And in between the three presentations, I'm having a meeting and possibly one more meeting at lunch time. This is the busiest I've been in a long time. And I'm kind of freaking out about it because I'm interviewing to leave.

Plus dummy me scheduled a dentist appointment tomorrow afternoon so I could get my dental checkups out of the way before I changed jobs.

My boss' boss wants me to fly to DC for a conference next week to take the place of a medical director who may not be going. I was kind of interested in going because it's fun to travel for business, but now I don't want to. I think the medical director is going to end up going anyway and I don't want to go to a conference where I'll be the only non-clinician in the room. That's just way to embarrassing for me to not have the depth of knowledge that a clinician might have. It's something I don't think you can BS your way out of either.

Here's my job hunting update. I've had three phone interviews with this one company, and they've all been very positive. This Friday I will have phone interview # 4 with the same company, and if that goes well then someone will fly in to interview me in person and after that they'll make a decision.

I have a friend who is pyschic and when I told her about this job, she said that she was picking up good feelings about it. I am too. I like the company philosophy, they are publicly traded and very team-oriented. I really want to go back to working for a company that is team-oriented and where's not that much infighting among divisions.

Even if I don't get this job, I've been getting great practice at interviewing and I am grateful for the opportunity. It's been a year and a half since I've had to interview, and I think you just forget how to do it. But I'm getting good at it now. I can work on my rap and see where I need to brush up on what I need to talk about to sell myself.

I'm hoping I get this job. I just want to get out of my current job and my therapist agrees with me. She thinks my current job, with the exception of my boss, is just chock full of toxic people who are negative. She thinks I need to get out as soon as I can.

And with an eye on the future, this company has an office in LA which makes me happy in case things with M-Square work out and I want to move to LA so we can really date and get to know each other. I'd move down to Laguna Beach or some place near there, get my own place, and then do the dating thing with M-Square. Having a job to move to would give me a sense of security and an instant social work group.

I'm adding the requirement that any company I work for has an office in LA, so if I want to move I may be able to just transfer within the same company.

I think this is one of my better and crazy one-liners I've said to a guy. I said this to M-Square on Saturday night; "I'm a firm believer in the halftime two-minute quickie, so afterwards you still have time to watch and listen to the analysis of the first half of the game and get caught up on games around the league."

So if you want to know what M-Square sounds like, watch Tommy Lee Goes to College. I caught the other night, and I swear to god! Tommy Lee sounds like M-Square. They both kind of have the same voice and same kind of phrasing, but then again they both grew up in Southern California so maybe it's a SoCal boy kind of voice.

Here's another cool thing I just realized. M-Square is a Valley Boy!

I'm watching this crazy show on E called "The Girls Next Door". It's about the girls who live at the Playboy mansion with Hugh Hefner. God, those girls are not attractive. They have great bodies and huge racks, but they look all so trashy. And I'm sorry they all come across as so dumb.

I think they all want to marry Hugh Hefner and have his children, and I'm like why. Okay, the guy is filthy rich but he's so old and not attractive. What's weird is that they don't seem jealous of all the other girls, which I think is really, really strange.

It's mesmerizing to watch though because these chicks are such freaks.

I've been watching the news about Hurricane Katrina off and on. It feels like I'm watching a movie to see the interstates filled with people fleeing for safety. But it's not, it's real life.

I hate when people talk about losing New Orleans, but I guess it could happen. And it was weird when one of the newcasters said the people of New Orleans have been expecting this to happen for years, and now it's like happening. YIKES!

Things with M-Square have been getting better. We've had the best talks these past two days. Last night we talked for two hours, and the time just flew by and it was so comfortable. Usually by this time boredom starts to creep into my mind in almost all my relationships. But miraculously it hasn't happened yet, and right now it doesn't look it ever will.

The man is just so frickin' amazing! He's got some serious issues, but then so do I. We decided that whatever happens, we will always be friends so I'm happy about that. He is just so cool!

It's hard not get significant at this point because we've put off meeting each for so long. But I met a woman in a seminar yesterday who told me, she knews a guy from here and a woman in Chicago who met on the phone like we did and had a telephone relationship for months before they finally met. They didn't even exchange pictures, and then they finally met and now they're married. The woman from the seminar said this is what her guy friend told her when he first met the woman from Chicago. The first five minutes were awkward and full of judgements, but then he started to remember everything that brought them together and it was fine, and now they're married.

M-Square gets so significant sometimes, so I have to calm him down. But it's human nature to feel that way, but we're trying to have the attitude of "no expectations". Intuitively I think everything will be fine when we meet, and he has the same intuition as well.

It's been a weird week, too weird to write about I guess.

I thought last week that maybe work was getting better. Everyone at work was nicer, or at least trying to act nicer. What an illusion that was though!

On Tuesday, the senior manager I don't get along with took the group out to lunch and it was so damned awkward for me and other guy who don't get along with her. These are the times when I feel that my dysfunctional family training really came in handy. Just even walking to the restaurant was awful. But I got through it and I had a second interview at the place I interviewed with last week.

It turns out the job was better than I thought, and I'm excied now. I have a third phone interview on Monday and if works out I'll get an in-person interview, and then hopefully I'll be able to hand in my resignation and start a new job. My friend who is very psychic said she is getting good vibes about me getting the job.

I wrote a list of what my ideal job should be like, and this job is 90% of the list. It's not 100%, but 90% is not bad either. I'm so stressed out at my current job, that probably any job is sounding good right now.

The negative energy in my group is just so awful. I felt it as soon as I arrived at my desk. I don't trust my co-workers. They haven't done anything wrong, but intuitively they feel so toxic to me. I've always been able to deal with all kinds of freaks at my jobs, and there's been plenty. But I can't do it any more. It's a little shocking to me, but you know life is just too short to get up in the morning dreading your job. I love two of my bosses, and I like some of the people at my job, but I can't be around people who are so toxic to me.

How shocking! A 49er football player died after the Denver exhibition game and he was only 23 years old. Poor guy!

Wow, gas prices are unbelievable. I just picked up about 11 gallons of gas for $30, and that was cheap. I feel sorry for gas guzzling SUV owners. I think the higher gas prices have also made grocery prices grow up. Even groceries at Trader Joe's have been going up.

I went to the famous Santana Row in San Jose. My friend's fiance was shooting the fashion show there. They seem to have very good restaurants, but the stores were way to expensive. I didn't see anyone buying anything in the store, except for the wine store. They do have a Crate & Barrel and Container store, and Macy's is a block away, but the rest of the stores are just way too expensive.

The mall has been open for two years, so somebody must be buying the stuff. I think the condos are right above the stores. Who would want to live above a mall? It would be noisy all the time until the mall closed.

UGH! I had my first telephone interview today with an HR person for a job that I applied for last week. Her assistant gave me the wrong time, so instead of 4:10 pm like I thought the interview was supposed to be at 2:10 pm. I had to run around and find an empty office on my floor.

I think I did pretty well on the interview because the HR woman is forwarding my resume on, but I'm not about the job. They want an analyst who can do do client presentations, and that's something I don't have a lot of experience in. I told the woman that, but she wanted to forward my resume on anyway.

I hate speaking in front of groups. I'm not used to and I get so nervous. I took acting classes to get over this fear, but I'm not still not comfortable with speaking in front of groups. I even took classes in how to present to groups and spoke in front of large groups trying to enroll people in seminars. That was so energizing, but nerve-wracking as well. I even sat on a panel of subject matter experts once, and afterwards this girl asked me if I was in sales.

The job would entail 20-40 meetings a year with clients and presenting data. Some of it would include travel since she said they have clients in Seattle and Denver.

I know that speaking and giving presentations at this stage in my career is the next logical step, and I've done everything but make presentations. But I have the normal fears about it. I know this is silly because people in my job call me on the phone now and I have to explain reports to them, so I know I explain myself. But making a presentation is different.

I also know that if I could get over my fear of speaking in public, I could probably up my income big time because a analyst who can give presentations is a rarity. And it's not like I have to be the best presenter. I've sat in on people who were terrible at presentations.

It's not like quite like sales either because all I would be doing is presenting information. It's not like I was going to be making a presentation to get them to buy something.

I have mixed feelings about this new job. I know I could use the experience and apply it to other areas of my life, like my writiing, but I'm not a speaker I'm a writer and an analyst. I can create the analytics and presentation, I just don't want to deliver it. Oh well. I'm not going to worry about it till the hiring manager calls me. If it's meant to be and the universe wants me to go in this direction and I get definite signs (signs I said not hints), then I'll deal with it.

So I guess this is typical for a guy who's been a football player but it is kind of weird. M-Sqaure and I were talking about Oliver Stone's movie "Any Given Sunday" and how we both thought that it's such a great movie last night.

I happened to mention the chicks in the bathroom scene and M-Square says nostalgically with a sigh in his voice, "There's nothing like like snorting blow off of a woman's breast. Ahhh. Those were the days."

And I'm like okay. He doesn't do that kind of stuff any more and that won't be happening to me, but you have to wonder if he doesn't miss that jock world. I'm like thinking, what is he going to do with me? I am so not a football player type girl, although I dated a guy who played at San Jose State and almost went pro. Not to mention I dated this other guy who played semi-professional soccer in England and another guy from Austin who was 6 ft 7 in and played professional soccer in Europe. Plus there is that one guy who was 7 ft and played basketball at St Mary's in Moraga and then for the Detroit Pistons. Oh yeah, and there was the weekend with the playgirl centerfold guy who I swear to god looked like the Michaelangelo's David statue only he was a blondie boy and very, very, very dumb.

I'm just a spiritual girl who wants to write for a living.

I was telling a friend of mine last night how much I'd always wished I had a guy who said "I love you" constantly, or "love you" as a sign off after a phone conversation. You spend years wishing for this kind of stuff to happen to you, and when it finally does, it's like "whatever".

Red-haired guy did it first. Tossing the L word around like it was so common. I still remember one of our last conversations where I was so mad at him and he told me "I love you" three times on the phone and I just didn't say anything back.

Well, M-Square said the L word very casually of course on the phone on Wednesday. We were hanging up and he said "love you", and my reaction was like "whatever". I didn't say that of course and just hung up the phone. But inside I'm like thinking don't use the L word unless you really mean it. Don't profane the word that way because it really means something. I never use the L word unless in the moment I think I really mean it.

But it's so ironic because after all these years two guys in a row have fulfilled this little fantasy of mine, and I'm not as happy nor as thrilled and ecstatic as I thought I would be. It's sad and very close to tragic I think.

I was starting to think last night that maybe I should stay at my company. Things have been going really great all week. I think my boss shared the conversation I had with her with my other two bosses because they've been nicer. The one person I don't get along with suggested I go to this conferene in Washington DC in early September if the medical director doesn't go. Last night I was really starting to have some regrets because one of the companies I sent my resume to last week called, and I have a telephone interview scheduled for Monday afternoon. It's not the company I want to work for, but they are in downtown San Francisco and from what I know about them it's a good company.

Then I got into work today thinking the two people I don't get along wouldn't be there and how nice my Friday would be, and boom! One of them was there. Talk about a major bummer. I thought the woman was leaving to go on vacation. But then she left and I felt better. Then the other guy I can't stand showed up later and I thought he was going to be out all afternoon.

And I'm like you know, as much as I'm starting to have regrets, it totally sucks to work with people you don't trust and like and have to sit in the same row with. I've never had this experience before. I've never been in a department of coworkers where I didn't like everyone. There's only ten of us in the whole group, so it's a small group.

To me it was like that old saying, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. It's so true, except in my case it's three bad apples. I was asking for a sign to let me know if I needed to stay at my job, and I think this was my sign. No matter how much better the job gets, these peoeple are going to be around me for awhile. It's so not worth it to spend 8-10 hours a day sitting next to people you don't like or trust. It's such a drain on my energy to have to watch my back constantly and wonder if they're spying on me, or what kind of BS they're cooking up against me.

Too bad too, because the job has gotten so much better now that my boss has told everyone how unhappy I am. Oh well. It looks like the universe wants me to leave the place and I'm just following the signs.

So we're in a mercury retrograde, and during one people from your past are supposed to show up so you can review your past. Yesterday I was thinking to myself that no one from my past has shown up yet, and wasn't I lucky. The last time there was a mercury retrograde my ex-boyfriend from 1995 called and left me a voicemail asking if we could get together.

I went out with this guy off and on for a period of six months, and he still calls me to go out. And I know he had to search for my phone number because when I moved I didn't tell him I was moving. I didn't even tell him I changed email services either.

I think the last time I saw him was maybe three or four years ago when I ran into him on Union Square when I getting a haircut. We went out to dinner that night and it was okay because it so reminded me why I broke up with him. Why this guy keeps calling me is such a mystery.

Anyway, after I had the thought that I wasn't going to have an ex-from-the-past experience I decided that I better not think that because everytime I've reassured myself that something isn't going to happen it always does. Then I got the intuition that the red-haired guy would call me this week.

And sure enough, he left a message on my home voicemail today saying he was going through some old email and found mine, and that he wanted to get together for a cocktail and hoped life was treating me well. I so knew he was going to call even though I haven't heard from him since December when I lied and told him I met a new guy after we broked up. I only lied because I knew it was the only way he was going to stay away from me and it worked.

But then I broke down in June and told him about my December lie in an email because I was trying to clear him out of my space and I always felt guilty that I lied to him that way. So now two months later he decides to call me.

I really want to call him back to find out how he's doing. I mean, the guy said when we first met that we would be friends for a long time, "for life". He said that then and even when we were breaking up, so I guess it's not that out of character that he would call.

But I don't know. As much as I want to talk to him, I don't want to get entangled up with him again even it was just to be friends. I don't think it's good for either of us. And I don't want to ever tell the red-haired guy that I found out on June 23 that I never really loved him and that everything I said to him last year was just one big delusion. That would so hurt him and I'm not into doing that right now. I know the red-haired guy loved me as much as it was possible for someone like him to love anyone, and part of me will always feel grateful for that experience.

I mean, I don't feel anything inside. I was teary-eyed just for a nanosecond, but then the feeling passed. M-Square put my whole love life in perspective for me, and hearing the red-haired guy's voicemail confirmed it.

I am so shocked! Peter Jennings died. How weird is that? He just announced in April that he had lung cancer, and now after three month he's dead. That was so fast! It just reminds me that life is so short and you just never know when it's your time to go.

An M-Square update.

Everything is fine. We had a nice talk on Thursday and everything was okay. He received the birthday card I sent him and took it to work, and apparently showed it to everyone including his boss who is like so famous. I don't remember if any guy I've ever dated has done that before or told me, so I think it was so sweet of him to do that.

Then he told me on Friday that he needed to think happy thoughts and thought of me, which just floored me because I have a thing about being someone's happy thought because Tinkerbell said to Peter that the only way he could fly was he had have a happy thought. And I've always wanted to be some guy's happy thought!

And on Friday night we had a long late night talk, after I sent him the June 24 post from my blog that I wrote about him and he said the piece really moved him and after reading it, he wanted to meet the guy I had written about. Which I thought was really funny because that guy was him.

And we talked about so many personal things, and I love that he gets every literary reference I make and knows about stuff that I know. But then he had brought work home and had work to do, and when he said he had to go he said "You sound so bummed that I'm hanging up", and I was because talking to him makes me so happy.

And it was so weird because I kept thinking we were talking around a very important subject and neither of us was saying what we really wanted to say. And he kept saying "it felt like he was waiting for something, but he didn't know what it was." And I told him he did but that he just didn't want to say.

And we talked about how this is such a stressful time for both of careerwise, and that the relationship thing was so hard. And I ended up telling him how resistant I've sort of been to it all, and he said he could tell I was struggling about it from afar. And I'm a little worried that he's not getting any intuitive hits on what will happen when we finally meet, and I can't trust myself on any intuitive hits I'm getting.

And for the life of me I can't figure out what subject we were talking around and why we couldn't just be honest to each other and I guess to ourselves. I've never had that feeling so strongly with someone, that we were talking and yet there was this strong undercurrent of what wasn't being said. It was so Chekhovian, what's in the unsaid. It almost felt like we were talking on one level, but on another levels our minds were having this completely different conversation. I'll have to ask him about it. He's very good at responding intelligently when I have weird questions like this, and he gets it too which is just so amazing to me.

And so it's been a very, very, lovey and sweet beginning and we're planning my trip to LA, which I'm a little fearful about because it is going to be such a bummer if physically there is nothing between us. But I'm trying not to be so attached because whatever happens, I hope we'll always be friends.

I think I really need to start writing short stories again. I mean, working on the novels are great and everything, but they take so long and there is no sense of accomplishment and I think I need that to sustain my writing enthusiasm.

I'm starting to think that maybe I need to write one short story a week, and it could be long or short like flash fiction of under 1,000 words or under 500 words. You know, just to keep my writing muscles in place and to get the quick hit and sense that I'm finising something in my writing. Some of my short stories eventually end up being novels anyway, and this could be a good way for me to explore story ideas I have.

I just googled myself and thank god I can't be found and that no one is writing about me. I don't know why this is important, but I like being anonymous in cyberspace.

I added my blog to this blog ranker called TTLB Ecosystem, and out of 34,000+ plus blogs I am ranked 16,199. First of all, who knew there were so many darn bloggies out there. And secondly, I'm surpised I am the middle of the pack in this blog ranker. Thanks of course, to you my loyal readers!

My bloggie has sort of become more a personal journal right now I guess as I am not into writing about world events. But really, there's nothing that interesting happening in the world right now that I want to write about.

But there are odd things happening though. I received a rebate from my car insurance company for being a loyal customer. This is a first!

When I went to see my acupuncturist yesterday in my old neighborhood, I saw a ton of parking spaces open. I lived in that neighborhood for over 8 years and on a Saturday, I've never seen so many open parking spaces.

It feels like there is a dark economic undercurrent going on. Like things aren't as rosy as the government would have you believe. It's a just a feeling I have, little things, events, that have been happening. Not sure what it all means though.

All eyes are on the San Diego housing market because people are saying it is tanking. Vegas is advertising which I find off. I guess there aren't enough people gambling and throwing away their money. Starbucks keeps giving free drinks downtown. Business are a little too desperate about wanting business right now, which means business must not be doing very well.

I went to the Asian Art Museum to see the exhibit, Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World on Saturday. The artwork was beautiful but I started becoming upset because I had the feeling that I was reading a political retelling of history because practically every description mentioned China's relationship with Tibet. China took over Tibet on the pretense of the their historical relationship. They are trying to do the same with Taiwan.

In front of the musuem, people were protesting with signs that said "China stole my history." I think they are right. Tibet's culture was very distinct from China, and to emphasize China's closeness with Tibet was just very wrong and such bad karma. I wonder what his holiness the Dalai Lama thinks about this exhibit.

I loved seeing the art, but most of it was taken from monasteries so they are sacred objects. I don't know. The whole exhibit started bumming me out and I couldn't enjoy it as much as I probably should have.

I went to see "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", and it was a great movie. People at the end the movie clapped, and in San Francisco it's so rare when that happens. Johnny Depp was his beautiful self as usual, and despite the fact that it's a character role he brought such depth to the actor. I was reminded of his performance in the movie "Donnie Brasco", which was excellent. Or even "Ed Wood" and of course "Edward Scissorhands".

I missed the Ooompa Loompa songs though. Danny Elfman did a great job of modernizing the songs, but I miss the Ooopma Loompa songs. Tim Burton's sense of art direction is just unbelievable. Every scene is beautiful like a postcard. I noticed this especially in his movie "Sleepy Hollow". And the special effects for movie were really great.

And all of the great characters were there, including the fat german boy and Veruca Salt the spoiled english girl. And the actors playing Charlie's family were excellent. The roles were small omes but the actors brought alot to the shallow characterizations.

If you loved the first one with Gene Wilder, you will love how Tim Burton and Johnny Depp modernized the story.

I’m starting to think it’s too bad I want to leave my company because it’s kind of starting to get a little better. Of course I think this always happens when you finally decide to get your butt in gear and start looking for another job. The universe wants to make sure you are making the right decision. A new person just joined my group this week and I spoke to her this morning and she is really, really cool. We seen to have a lot in common and she was hired to be a writer for the division. And I’m like too bad I’m leaving because I would have liked to get to know her.

But then the assistant for our group told me yesterday that they stopped accruing for our bonus next year because the company is doing really badly financially. It’s not that we’re not making money because we are, we’re just not hitting our plan targets. The mid-year budget reforecast meetings have been brutal, and everyone is cutting from the budget as much as they can. She told me they are also starting to look at open positions to see if those positions need to be hired.

Having done a five-year stint in a company’s budgeting department, let me tell you when a company starts looking at the open positions to see if they are really needed then it’s not a good sign. I also had lunch with a girl from our LA office, where most of our new business comes from, and she told me the sales people in LA were really depressed because they weren’t making their July numbers. And July is our second biggest month for sales.

The company also cut out an $11 million program that I was working on because they decided they couldn’t afford it. This move will have ramifications I think long term, but no one has said anything about it yet.

These are all bad, bad signs. And worse of all, our competitors have announced that they all made great profits in the second quarter. How come all of our competitors are making money and we aren’t?

So I think I’m still getting signs from the universe that I need to move on, but at the same time I guess I’m having some regrets only because there are four people in my group that I really, really like and I will be sorry to not talk to them anymore.

By the way, my boss knows I’m unhappy. She was finally able to drag it out of me, although I think she used underhanded means to do it. Oh well! She didn’t really sound surprised actually, only saying she thought it had gotten better. I told her that what I was going through probably wasn’t fixable, and I said this statement with great sadness in my voice. She said she was going to see if it was workable, but at this point it’s like I crossed a point of no return and can never go back. I’m not saying there aren’t room for miracles to happen, but the company’s financials are starting to really concern me.

It’s such a hot job market right now, and I have a feeling it wont’ be in the next two years when the company really has to start putting drastic measures to save money. If I don’t go now, I have a feeling I will my window of opportunity. I’d rather leave now, then when everyone else will be looking.

And so the job hunt begins. I just applied for two jobs tonight. One in San Francisco, which sounded interesting and one in Oakland. I really want the one in Oakland, although I'm not looking forward to my longer 1-hour, $100 more a month commute. Which is why I applied to sort of interesting job in San Francisco.

The San Francisco job was the first one I did and I think I filled out one of the questions wrongs. Oh well. It took me until the second job posting to figure out what the question really meant.

A long time ago a friend told that whenever she would get depressed about a job, she would start job hunting and she would start to feel better because at least she was in action. She was right. It does feel good to be in action and start applying for jobs. Even if takes awhile or in her case, nothing comes of it, at least you're doing something to get out of your current situation. And that's what really counts!

So the "L Word - love" made an appearance in an email from M-Square, and I'm like not very happy. I hate when a guy uses this word like it's nothing. I never put love at the end of an email. X's an O's don't count, because it's not like the actual word and it's more like flirting and fun. "Love" is a real emotion and one shouldn't be signing one's emails with it unless you really mean it.

Maybe it's because he's a Leo and all my friends tell me that Leos are very emotional. But I don't care, the L-word is sacred!

And he put it at the end of a semi-slammogram of an email too, like the L-word was supposed to negate everything he wrote above it. We kind of had our first little tiff yesterday, where I think I totally embarrassed him at work on the phone and he got kind of upset and basically hung up on me.

My mistake I guess for calling on a bad Monday morning. I was in a bad mood, and thought that talking to him would cheer me up. Guess that was a big mistake because he was having a bad Monday too, and then it just slid merrily down the toilet bowl from there.

And I'm like how did we get to this stage where I feel like we're being cruel to each other like an old married couple? Yeah, we get along like a house on fire and feel like so comfortable talking and telling each other very private things, but we don't know each other that well.

And I guess I don't help things any, because I'm a fly by the seat of my pants type conversationalist who spits out any stupid and inappropriate thought that comes into my head, and yes I suppose I can come across as being unwittingly and unthinkingly very, very cruel.

But I'm not deliberately cruel! I don't say things knowing that it's just going to come across as nasty as hell to the other person, no matter what I feel.

But I don't know, Mercury is retrograding which means communications are messed up and we're both stressed out as hell over work. He's trying to build a 30-year garage type business into a more professional organization and I am very unhappy with my job, and this relationship is probably the last thing either of us needs right now.

But I can't help it! I really, really like this guy! He is so cool, so smart (he graduated from college when he was 19 years old), and so beautifully spiritual. And yes, dare I say, the guy is really, really 90% perfect and I haven't even met him yet.

But the cynical part of me wants to call it quits because he was cruel and knew it and couldn't stop himself anyway, and who needs that kind of behaviour when you're already stressed out. And he found one of my buttons, one of my landmines by accidents and it really, really hurt when he pushed it. But hey I stepped on one of his landmines first which I didn't know would hurt so much since he'd already talked about it, but I guess went deeper than I'd guessed or maybe should have figured.

So I guess we're even as far as hurting each other goes now which means despite the smidgen of doubt that popped into my head, which by the way always pops into my head with every relationship, I'm staying in. And yes, I think he's that worth it!

I rented Shaolin Soccer and it was such a great movie. I washed the chinese version first which was so much better than US theatrical release. They cut so much stuff out of the chinese version, and all the good parts too that gave the movie nuances. I'm glad I didn't see it in the big theatre because I think I would have been very disappointed.

I also saw "Batman Begins" over the weekend, and I was surprised by how good the movie was. Batman is an American classic, but all the actors were British. The guy who became commissioner Gordon was played by Gary Oldman. Christian Bale played Bruce Wayne. Tom Wilkinson played Carmine Falcone. I believe Katie Holmes was the only American actor.

"Batman Begins" was dark like the comic book, and it was the best Batman since Val Kilmer played him.

I am one short chapter away from finishing my Texas novel. I finished Chapter 12 yesterday, and chapter 13 today. Chapter 13 and 14 are just epilogues anyway to finish the novel. I'm excited! This will the first novel that I have finished. It gives me hope for the other three I started.

Novels are like marathons, way too long and very tiring. Speaking of mararthons I decided to workout at the downtown gym, and had the worst time finding parking because the San Francisco marathon was going on. That was dumb of me! But I like to lift weights at the gym on California street, but I guess never on a Sunday. I'm going to back to Saturday as my weightlifting day so I can take the train downtown.

On Saturday there was apparently a bonmb scare at 9th and Judah. It fouled up the N Judah schedule and I caught the last of it on my way home yesterday this afternoon. I wonder where the bomb scare was.

I think red-haired guy would be so astounded by how often I call M-Square. In one of my last conversations with the red-haired guy was all about him whining about how I never called him, which of course I totally denied. I told him I never called him because he never returned my calls.

I like have to talk to M-Square like every day! And when he's not there I always leave a message and tell him what I'm doing. He told me once that hearing my messages was like I was there with him in LA; cute huh?

And I never wished the red-haired guy "Happy 30-day anniversary", but I did it with M-Square and he wished me the same thing and said "it was sweet".

And now I started signing my emails with "xxxxooooo", but he started it first because he signed one of his emails saying "Miss you!" although now he's taking my lead and signing his emails with "xoxoxoxoxo".

And I'm like is there a difference between signing "xxxxoooo" and "xoxoxoxoxo"? Don't they mean the same thing - love and kisses or love and hugs?

One thing that I think I need to put on my list of my better qualities is I have always been able to find allies at every job I’ve been at. I’m having lunch on Thursday with a woman I worked with on a couple of projects last year, and I’m going to ask her if she’ll be a reference for me. She’ll probably say no because it’s a company policy not to give references, but I’ll be okay with that. I really liked working with this woman, and it will be good for me to tell my job sob story to another person.

Of course all this job stress these last two months have just wrecked havoc with my weight. I stepped on the scale on Friday and just about screamed. I've gained 10 pounds in two months. I was so in denial about it too, even though my acupuncturist even mentioned how fat he thought I was getting.

I didn't want to face my weight gain because it would have meant one more thing to worry bout. But I can't deny it any longer. My size 8 jeans are so cutting off the bloody supply to my legs tight. It's so horrifying to be this heavy again!

I wish I was one of those people who get sick and lose weight when they get stressed. The type that just wants to disappear from a battle. Not me. I'm the cave girl blood type 0 type, who bulks ups and screams "bring it on" while swinging her cave girl club.

When I get stressed out, my body and system become so unbalanced. I went to the vitamin store on Saturday and loaded on stress vitamins and other herbal products that are supposed to help your body deal with stress.

I should have figured I was stressed out when all I did last week was think about having a beer after a work. It's been a long time since I've craved alcohol to chill out, and this disturbs me. Sure, I've been craving ciggies all week but decided not to give into my ciggie fit. But booze? That is scary!

I think I'm getting all needy and codependent too. I think I'm driving Laguna Beach guy nuts, because I so have to call him every day. I decided I needed to stop myself from calling him on Friday, and it was so painful to do that. I don't need to be addicted some guy right now. I have my chocolate addiction to deal with, which led me to eat two huge bags of M&M's with almonds last week. Then there's my ciggie fits and not booze cravings to fuss over. I don't need Laguna Beach boy cravings.

He was really cute though last week when he emailed me and said he had "Brenda on the Brain". How corny and sweet is that? He mentioned something about flying up here which of course just freaked me out, and which he noticed right away. I am way to stressed out be entertaining anyone right now.

M-Square is very supportive in his own way, but I just don't want to see him just yet. I have so many other things to do like trying to figure out my perfect job situation. I haven't done that exercise in ages, and I know I need to do it again because I don't want to end up in another job that I'm going to want to leave in a year. I thought this current job was going to be a place that I'd want to stay for a long time, but I was wrong. I can't make that mistake again the next time around. I am tired of job hopping!

Job stress is just so bad for my writing and zaps all my creativity. Boyfriend stress does that too, but not as bad as job stress.

I'm still alive, but I've been really busy and not in the mood to write. I come home, work out, make dinner and then go to bed. Not an exciting life by any means.

Last weekend I updated my resume and sent it to my friend. I called on Friday to see how it was received and she said someone said that my resume was "aligned with what they were looking for." My friend told me that the job has still yet to post, but she was going to ask the head of the company about it again. The guy has been travelling and it could be several weeks before they make a decision.

Ah, the life of a start-up company. My friend told me that they would probably wait to hire someone until they secured another contract. And I'm like, do I really want to go back to start-up life? I told a friend of mine over the weekend that the hardest part of the job hunt is over for me, and that is the updating of the resume. From what my friend said, my resume is good and that makes me happy.

Life at work has in the meantime gone on. My boss and was up on Monday and Tuesday and she asked me if anything was wrong. Apparently people have been asking why I am so quiet at meetings? How do you tell your boss you just can't stand her boss, whom she is best friends with. You don't and say you are fine.

The HR interview on Friday went fine, which means nothing will change. A friend who works in HR law says that discriminiation cases are hard to prove. Her read on the case was that my boss' boss was an equal opportunity nasty person, and didn't just single that one guy out. I'm still planning to job hunt, but not formally until August 1.

This whole week made me realize how I just don't trust most of the people I work with, and who wants to live with that added stress. Work is already a stressful experience without feeling like you have to watch your back and what you say constantly. Life is way too short to work under those circumstances.

One way or another and I am going to be out of my job very soon.

And so the job saga continues ...

Someone from HR called to interview me to find out why so many people have left the department. I asked our department assistant about it and she said the guy who left a couple of weeks ago blasted the department and his boss in his exit interview.

Talk about karma. The person who got criticized was my boss' boss whom I do not get along with and who has been increasingly mean to me these past few weeks. She's the one who's made me like I don't fit it in. My boss even told that this woman, her boss, yelled at her a couple of weeks ago for doing something wrong. This woman is such a nightmare, and I think all her pettiness and nastiness is catching up with her. Three guys who have worked for in the past year have all left.

If HR asks me if I would work for her, I'm going to have to be honest with them and tell them "no way". I told my boss this already. She knows that if she leaves, that I would quit or try to get a position somewhere else in the company. I told her this to her face and she didn't even bat an eyelash. She knows how mean and nasty this woman is, if you don't get along with her. But my boss gets along with her and so do a couple of other people in the group.

If you get along with this nasty woman, you're fine. But if you don't like I do, she can pretty much make your life hell. There have been so many times when the whole department has been invited to meetings that I never got an invite to. I used to think it was only me, but it started to happen to the guy that quit two weeks ago. It's the nasty woman's way of making you feel left out of things.

I think my best response with HR is just to be truthful and say that me and this woman have a personality conflict. That I only know what I've experienced and cannot comment on other people's experiences. She is my boss' boss after all and I don't want this woman to retaliate against my boss because of me.

Not that it matters anyway because I've already made my decision to leave, but I don't want to burn any bridges either. Other than this nasty woman, my experience at this company has been very positive.

Yes, I think my company will be either be the victim of a hostile takeover in the next two years or they will bleed red in the next two years and the BOD will be forced to entertain acquisition offers. But I don't want to be nasty to anyone. That is so bad karma, so not christian. I try to treat others how I want to be treated, which means as much as I secretly want to to be mean, nasty and vindictive, I will not be anything but honest about my experience with my boss' boss. She's the petty vindicitve one, not me, and I'm not going to stoop to her level.

She's so unaware though, I don't think she knows how nasty she is. She hardly has any friends at work, and my boss told me that the people in the nasty woman's former department hated her there as well. When my boss told me that I felt so much better, like I wasn't the only person in the world who can't stand her.

But if my boss' boss like you, she's great. If she doesn't, then well, you might as well be thinking about getting another job like I am.

So my job saga is going into overdrive. I had lunch with a woman I haven't seen in years today. Her company does medical software consulting and I took a webinar with her company back in December. We made plans to call each other for lunch, but we both never got around to it.

Seven months later, the woman shows up in her life because we're doing an rfi for a medical consulting software firm and we decided to send one out to her company. So I called my friend and told her that we never did go out to lunch and get caught up like we said we would.

So at lunch I'm telling her how unhappy I am at my job and she says her company might have an opening and could I send her my resume on Monday. And I'm like, OH MY GOD! I would love to work with this woman. We met in growth and development seminars together years ago and became good friends. She was the person who encouraged me to change fields and go into healthcare because she felt that it might lead me into something. And you know what she was right. Taking that healthcare startup job in Silicon Valley North was one of the best moves in my life, and I learned so many unbelievable things about jobs, life, and myself.

And now this woman told me today that the job isn't even posted yet, but she thinks I'd be perfect for it. I've never gotten a job this way, through someone I know. I've always gotten a job on the strength of my resume and my interviewing skills with people I've never met before who didn't know me from a bum on the street.

I don't even know if I want to go back into a startup, because the company is a startup. I mean, do I have the energy for that now, what with my writing, but if it means the chance to work with my friend, I think I need to follow up on it. Even it doesn't pan out, I could use the interviewing practice and the excuse to get my resume roadtested.

The job would be in downtown San Francisco, a block away from where I work now and I would be doing more analytical work which I really, reallly like and excel at. I would only take it if the job was a good fit and the pay was comparable or better. But I'm thinking any job would be great for me now because I am so not feeling very appreciated at my current job. I'll have to pray about what to do with this opportunity that has suddenly fallen into my lap. I really, really love my boss but if I don't fit in and I don't feel appreciated, even having the best boss in the world is never going to be enough.

I had a brief conversation with the girl who is leaving on Friday. She said the same thing about our department that the last guy who left said. The place is disorganized and your prospects for promotion are iffy at best. She told me that the job market in the San Francisco Bay area is pretty hot right now and you have to look after your own best interests, because no matter how good your boss or your company is, they aren’t looking after your interests just their own.

I told her where I wanted to interview and she interviewed with the company as well and said it was really close to public transportation.

I keep getting the feeling if I don’t jump now, I’ll lose out on this hot job market. My company did not make money this year, and their disorganization is starting to translate into revenue. They are not the best company to do business with, and their customer service is horrible. They’ve always had that reputation, but now in this very competitive healthcare market it is seriously affecting their ability to bring business in the door. Unless the company does a serious culture change, I think they will continue to lose market share and will probably be a buy-out target in the next two years. And who the heck wants to be with a company that isn’t making any money?

This company has already started to put in some mild serious cost cutting measures, and I have a feeling the cost cutting is just going to get worse and worse.

My intuition is telling me to wait till August 1 to send my resume out there. Why I have to wait till August 1, I don’t know, but I’ll wait. But I’m going to start working on my resume and doing some serious intuitive work about my next job.

It’s not like my job hasn’t been great because it was there when I needed a place to go, but it’s like a relationship that you get into because you’re not doing well. Eventually you start feeling better about yourself and the transition relationship starts to not fit. That’s what happening to me now with this job. It was great transition job, but it’s not a place where I would want to stay for the next five years.

I had a Bridget Jones movie # 2 moment this morning with M-Square from Laguna Beach. M-Square is my new nickname for this guy because he took classes at MIT and is Mr. Scientist and his initial are MM. So M-Square is kind of like that famous Einstein equation ‘E = MC2’. Cute huh? I want to just write M2, but M-Square sounds and looks better I think.

Anyway, there was a scene in the second Bridget Jones movie where she and Mark Darcy have just spent the night together and they’re leaving her apartment at the same time. Bridget text messages Mark that she already missed him on her phone right as she was walking out of her apartment, and then Mark comes by and says he missed her too. This scene is so darn cute and romantic.

So M-Square called me this morning between 6:30 and 7 am, and thank god I was up and about and making coffee. M-Square called me to apologize because he was supposed to call me last night and didn’t. He said his boss called him last night about something and they ended up having a long conversation. Then M-Square said to me “You deserve more of my attention.” Wasn’t that just so sweet and it so made me melt inside. He was on his way to work and was waiting for his bus to come.

So on the way to work I called him on my train like an hour later and thanked him for saying that thing about attention and how sweet that was, and I felt so Bridget doing that. I mean, I just talked to the guy an hour ago and now I’m calling him telling him thank you. I really wanted to say just like Bridget Jones, “I miss you already”, but we’re both not ready for that. It was so fun to have a “Bridget Jones movie # 2 moment”.

Is this another sign? A guy I recently have had contact with in meetings just resigned. He is the IT person for our division. He was one of the few people I've met at this company who had any kind of vision which really impressed me. It must have impressed other people as well because he is going on to become the Chief Information Officer at a very well known California healthcare foundation. Talk about a huge promotion with lots of cash! Lucky guy!