Picnicing in Stern Grove was so much fun! The second celtic band was from Donegal Ireland and played great music. It was quite a sight to see everyone trying to do the jig or their version of Riverdance. I found a great scone recipe and another friend made lemon curd from her Yorkshire Cook book, so we had a very english first course. Our second course was bagels, with cream cheese, sliced heirloom tomatoes, chopped red onions, capers and smoked salmon. The third course was tortellini in a balsamic vinagrette with chopped red, yellow and green bell peppers. Fourth course was fried chicken with coleslaw and sliced carrot and celery sticks. And for dessert, we had shortbread with milk chocolate chips cut out in shape of 3 leaf clovers and chocolate yorkshire pudding. We also drank champagne mimosas and ate champagne soaked strawberries.

For our next picnic at Opera in the Park, we decided to have quiche bake-off. People around us must have thought we were insane as we debated whether James Beard, Martha Stewart or the Moosewood people could kick Julia Childs' butt in the quiche department. I think I have a quiche recipe from the Findhorn colony that was pretty good and those Sunset quiche recipes are also killer.

Alas, I didn't see any beautiful chubby red haird/strawberry blonde men there. But then I think I was having too much fun with my girls arguing about quiches and dancing irish jigs.

I was trying to organize all of my writing pieces together last night when I realized I lost a journal. Seven months of my life gone from May 98 to November 98. I told myself that it doesn't really matter because it's not like I ever reread my journals anyway but still, seven months of my life erased, disappeared just like that.

I've been keeping journals since junior high. My english teachers in junior high and high school made me keep one every school year. I made the mistake of throwing these journals out and I've regretted that decision ever since. God, it would have been so interesting to read about what I was thinking back then, what I was obsessing about, what scared me, what made me happy and what my life was like. Those journals were a record of each of those years. When I search through my own memories for what happened in those six years, I draw a fuzzy blank. I feel like Keanu Reeves in that movie about using the brain for storage. Somewhere along the line, I must have dumped a chunk of memory. Either that or all those of memories are misfiled and basically irretrievable.

I'm hoping that my seven month journal will turn up in my place one day. That somehow I stored where it wasn't supposed to be stored and I will somewhere in the future be able to read what my life was like from May to November 98.

I wonder if it will be depressing like that Samuel Beckett play, "Krapp's Last Tape". I saw this play in Berkeley last year. A man made recordings of his voice instead of journals. In the play, the man now about 80, totally decrepit, somewhat senile, with all those signs of aging that scare me. Loose wrinkled skin, slow agonizing movements, mouth that never quite close with a little saliva always dripping out and those old people's eyes that are semi clouded over from cataracts waiting to burst forth. Old people seem to also be covered with a layer of film made of grime, memories and sins from the past and the stench of death. The old man listens to a tape of himself at a much younger age when he was probably 40. The old man shows no emotion really, just the weariness of death. But the younger man's voice is alread full of regret as he goes over a lost love, lost opportunities, lost chances. Is that when death and old age start, when you start to regret your life so that by the time you reach a really old age, the regret wraps itself around you, becomes part of your being and becomes incorporated into your dying process to where you have to surround yourself with it by listening to old tapes of yourself. Talk about being in a hell of your own making. But it's Beckett, so maybe it's not that hellish after all because after all, you have the tapes to prove you at least did have a love, did have opportunities, did have chances. Was it John Donne who said in Paradise Lost, "Tis better to have loved once than to have never loved at all". Perhaps that is Beckett's small ray of hope for this man, he at least lived a life and has the tapes to prove it, listen to it, relive it over and over again.

I think I have the character sketch for my novel Following in the Dark.

She’s like my friend from Berkeley who's very delicate, very smart, and very erudite. This friend of mine is so funny. She calls Gaia Books in Berkeley "Pussy Books". Crude phrase yes, but when she says it, it doesn't crude it sounds classy and quaint. The character is also an incurable romantic. She reads all those old dusty novels from earlier times and dreams of men who punish. I have to make her a lapsed catholic who attended catholic school and goes to church for the high holy days, and of course for classical music concerts. This woman prayed for stigmata to appear on her wrists as a child because she wanted to suffer like Christ. She also fantasized about being a nun from the 1700’s so she could flagellate herself for her bad thoughts.

Religion and self punishment are intertwined in a twisted way in her mind. How else could an oddly religious woman allow herself to be in a sado-masochistic relationship and enjoy herself in a secret evil way? The conflict, tension in the story would how she reconciles herself, her religion, her beliefs with her fantasies of being punished. I'm liking the Following in the Dark title more and more because it's reminds me of the ancient catachombs thta exist under some catholic churches in Europe. Who knows what secrets dwell in those catachombs? It's start to sound very Freudian isn't it? I like to think it's more Aristotle with a whip, getting yourself out of your dark cave of guilt and punishment and into the light where you find more guilt and punishment only this time you're aware and not blind. There is a difference, I think.

After watching The Mists of Avalon on TV, I've decided I want to marry a chubby red-headed or strawberry blonde man who looks like the actor who played Uther Pendragon. That man was so cute! Nice and chubby and I love that reddish hair. I think he looks like a stereotypical celtic elf boy and that's why I like him.

The problem is where do I find this type of guy in the SF Bay Area? It's celtic music afternoon this Sunday at the Stern Grove Festival and I'm thinking maybe he'll be there waiting for me to find him. I've only ever heard celtic music in smoky irish bars so it will be great to hear celtic music played outdoors in what I hope will be a sunshine filled day.