I wonder why people are so obsessed about whether Shakespeare wrote his plays. I think it’s a class thing because there are no records of Shakespeare having ever attended school. What about my love of writing? I haven’t been obsessed with writing all my life. Many writers talk about writing stories when they were kids. I wrote stories only for school assignments and for my journal. I was assigned journal writing from grade school through high school and writing stories in my journal was a way to keep the journal filled when I didn’t want to write about my life or when I got behind in my journal writing. I would write a story and then break it up for a week’s worth of journal entries. I don’t think any of my teachers ever cared what I wrote about, they just wanted to make sure I was writing. And making up stories was so much more easier than writing about my actual life. I even got into poetry writing as another way to keep the journal filled.

I wished I had kept those journals. It would have been interesting to read what I thought or what stories I wrote during grade school, junior high and high school. Unfortunately, I destroyed them all when I left for college because I didn’t want to take them with me and I certainly didn’t want my mother or anyone else in my family discovering and reading them. I had such a lack of vision back then.

Looking back, I have to thank my schoolteachers. They got me into writing at a very young age and years later, I’m still writing and I still keep a journal written and online. Life is funny like that sometimes.

I saw my friend Marilyn tonight and her husband Warren. They are such nice people. Marilyn wants me to attend this growth and development course in Florida in December. I would love to do it, but as always money is a big concern. The course itself is $3,000, and I'll also need money for airfare to Florida and for the hotel.

I know it would be such a great course to take and it feels like it's next step in my development but it's hard to think of spending that amount of money right now when the economy is so shaky. I have so many friends who are unemployed and who tell me the job market out here is really bad; there are just no jobs right now.

On the way home from West Virginia, I met a couple with two kids who also lived in San Francisco. They both worked for United Airlines and they told me that they were worried about their jobs and the state of the economy. I told them I thought our economy would recover, but it was going to take longer than what people expected. I think of that conversation I had with them now that United Airlines has said they might have to go into bankruptcy. I feel bad about that nice couple with their two darling children and thinking about them both out of work, especially here in San Francisco, which is the most expensive city in the country to live in.

Personally, I think United Airlines made that announcement so they would get the loan guarantees that they applied for from the government and I think they were right to take that strategy. Sure it's a scare tactic, but if United Airlines has massive layoffs because of bankruptcy then the country as a whole will be in a whole mess of trouble.

I know taking Marilyn's course would be good for me because I know I have alot of beliefs that are stopping me from getting what I want in life. Like take finding the man of my dreams. I have this thing where I don't want to be with someone who's more enlightened and aware than I am. This belief is so stupid. Screenwriting marina hottie boy is a prime example. The boy is beautiful and totally perfect or so I thought. I even thought he was my Krishna for awhile. But when I got to know him better, I was so wrong. The guy is kind of depressed alot and is really scattered and runs from one emergency to the next. Being with someone like him would be such a nightmare for me. He's way too unstable and wild. Plus, he's one of those types who says he'll do something and then never does it. That kind of behaviour would totally drive me insane and it's way to stressful I think, to live with someone who can't keep their promises on the littlest of things. I thought he was so much more developed and enlightened and it was so damned disappointing to find out he was kind of a loser, at least in my eyes.

I mean, probably to every other woman on the planet, this guy is the bomb. And I know he has no trouble getting women. But I can't be with a guy who's not happy with his life or himself. I'm basically a happy and sunny person, who gets things done, most of the time. It would kill me to partner up with some guy who was depressed and morose and couldn't get anything done to save his own life, let alone mine.

I think that if screenwriting marina hottie boy were more enlightened and aware, he wouldn't so damned depressed and flakey about everything. Maybe if I got rid of my belief that I don't want to be with someone who's more enlightened and aware than I am, then I might actually meet a happy and charming guy, who gets things done, who's stable and steady, is way fun to be with, is cuter than heck and does yoga.

I'm listening to an interview with Dennis McNally, who wrote a history of The Grateful Dead. He said Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont is a deadhead and so is Bill Walton.

I like The Dead, but I'm not a deadhead. I like their music and I've been to their concerts, but that's about it. I liked their concerts because it was so entertaining from the village scene outside, to all people on drugs, to the oldsters sitting and just watching it all, the families with all of their kids, and who can forget the veggie black bean burritos and giant chocolate chiop cookies that they used to sell after the concerts. Plus I did really like the music and dancing to it too.

The girls at dead concerts were so pretty and young. Too bad the majority of the men were just scruffy, not very attractive and just looking like they were way too wasted. It was laughable really, all those beautiful young nubile chicks and all those really old looking scruffy men. I gave up finding the man of my dreams at a Dead concert a long time ago and just went to be with friends and enjoy the music. I wonder what all those Deadheads are doing now for their music fix.

A band made of the rest of the Dead plus other people are touring now. They call themselves "The Other Ones". I'm sure it would be fun to go, but when I went to a concert with the rest of the Dead and Bruce Hornsby, it just wasn't the same without Jerry.

This is interesting. The senior vice president of business development and network operations for my company left me a message asking to meet with me when flies out here the week of August 26. I've only ever talked to to this guy on the phone, since he works out of our Pittsburgh office. I wonder what he wants. He said our president, whom my boss says is a tight-fisted freak, wants him to discuss the client projects that I've been working on. Great. What does this mean for my job?

It's all my boss' fault. Since he and his wife had another baby, he decided to only work part-time because his wife makes more than him when she works full-time and she wanted to go back to working full-time. So now I'm reporting directly to the CIO, which is okay since we have a good relationship, but what does it mean for my job. I hate changes at work. Whenever there's a change, it's like the suits take it as green light to make changes in the organization. I hate that.

I've been so comfortable here at this job and the job market is so bad out here now. Honestly I don't think my job will change that much. My projects are in demand by our clients, so they can't get rid of me. But they can make my work life less comfortable, and that's what I'm afraid of.

I guess change at work is inevitable. I've stayed longer at this job than I've stayed at any job since 1997, which I thought was a good thing, but maybe not. Maybe I've gotten too comfortable and I'm now afraid of change. When I was changing job every 18 months, I wasn't afraid of change, I was used to it. I've definitely gotten too comfortable here.