I finished reading "A Room with a View" and loved it. The movie was great, but the book goes into more detail about what Italy meant Lucy Honeychurch. I loved how Lucy found her soul in Florence and what she wanted in marriage and a life. I love how the title of the book "A Room with a View", could be a room with a view into your soul, into what you really want out of life.

I picked for my next book, "The Age of Innocence", by Edith Wharton. The movie with Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder is one of my favorites. I loved the story, and I loved how the sets were decorated. It was so east coast old world wealth, with all those darn palm trees, old books, and leather chairs.

I had a writing group meeting tonight. I really love the people in my group. We all met through a creative writing class at UC Berkeley Extension in Spring 2000. We formed a writing group after that, and although we've evolved into more of a social group, I love my group anyway. I don't have any close friends who are writing, or who even think about writing, so being in a writing group is such a god send for me. We're all all different stages of writing. Some of us pursue it seriously and submit. Others are afraid of show their work, but have the urge to write anyway, and there are people like me in the middle.

Our group is small, 5 people now, but everyone in it is so fun and so cool. I can't help but think what would have happened to my writing aspiraitions, if I'd found a writing group when I first started out. Writing is a lonely occupation; it' s not the kind of thing you do in groups. As a writer, I appreciate being in a group with other people who want to write, even if that desire never manifests itself beyond a thought. I wish I had been in a writing group, when the desire to write was tiny, tiny seed. I had to nurture that seed, against the advice of all of my friends, all of my coworkers, and mostly against my better self. But nurture it I did, and now I think my writing is starting to bloom. How much eaiser would my writing ;ife had been, if I was surrounded by people who had the fantasies, wishes and hope.

Going to the writing road alone is difficult enough. Having companions along the way, who are in different stages of the journey, makes me feel not so alone, not so freaky in this desire to create art through words. I take great comfort in knowing there are people just like me, struggling to write, struggling to find time to write, frustrated that the life you love gets in the way of that thing you call your art. Once a month, if we're lucky, every three weeks, I get to feel for a few hours that I'm not alone in my desire to write, I'm not alone in thinking that life gets in the way of writing because I have four other people confirming my truth. Okay, sure we sometimes talk and drink more than write and critique each other's work, but I don't care. For a few hours once a month, I get to feel that I'm not the only one out there struggling to write.

Opera in the Park - Hearing Nessun Dorma

I picked up a free ticket to hear Tom Stoppard speak later this month, because I'm an American Conservatory Theatre subscriber and they were offering free tickets to hear him. Stoppard is one of my favorite playwrights, although most people probably know him for his work on the movie Shakespeare in Love.

I also purchased a ticket for Turandot for a Sunday matinee. I really wanted to see this opera, but I was hesitant because I've had so many expenses lately. But the SF Chron gave it a good review, so I decided to buy a very cheap ticket. It's not the cheapest ticket you can buy, but it's the cheapest ticket I've ever bought for an opera performance. I usually like to spend a little more for a ticket, but every dollar seems to matter to me lately. Oh well. At least I'm going.

I ended up going to Opera in the Park, after telling friends I couldn't go. I had cleared my weekend, thinking my writing group would have an emergency, but by Friday nothing was happening. The picnic was cursed from the get go anyway. A friend who susually attend the picnic is in Spain for a month, and I'm on this new eating plan. My weight loss has been easy so far, and I'm committed to keeping the momentum of it going. Drinking mimosas and eating tasty picnic food all day loing is not my idea of fun right now. I know, I need to have my head examined for that thought, but Opera in the Park happens every year. I want this diet to be the last diet I'm ever on. I want my weight issue handled and handled for good. Not that there's probably ever going to be a time in my life where I can eat like a pig for days on end, but at least I won't have to worry about losing this much weight ever again.

After church I walked to the park from my apartment, and sat on a hill next to the tennis courts. The sound from that location was great, and I didn't even need to go to the actual meadow where I would have to deal with people with picnics on blankets. Other people had the same idea, because there were quite a few people on the hill. I watched people playing tennis on the courts, and a group of guys player roller hockey. I think I need to write a scene for a movie, short story or novel, where the characters are playing tennis to live opera music. The scene looked so surreal to me. I sat on my towel, read "A Room with a View", lay down at one point, all in the glorious sunshine of a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Golden Gate park.

I was hoping that they would sing something from Turandot, and they sang my favorite song from that opera "Nessun Dorma", and hearing that song definitely made my day.

The San Francisco Chrnonicle's website no longer has the link to 9/11 stories. If it's there, I can't find it. On the front page of the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle, it said they will publish a 12-page section on Wednesday 9/11/2002 called 9/11 Voices. Perhaps they are no longer taking submissions because they are doing a print version. I'm wondering if they were bombarded with entries.

Now I'm glad my piece got in and will now end up being printed in Wednesday's paper. My meditation teacher was so right. He said when you get a thought that feels like a divine inspiration in your head, you should immediately try to act on it. Divine inspiriation, he used to say, is a gift from god and if you don't act on it, you lose it.

When I first saw the 9/11 stories section on Wednesday, I immediately thought about entering mine. After all, I'd already written up a part of my 9/11 experience on my blog in August. My original blog version was longer than 500 words, so I spent an hour editing it down. Afterwards, I sent it. I think if I had hesitated now, I wouldn't have gotten published on the SF Chron's website, or be published in the Wednesday paper. Somebody up there must be looking out for me, because I'm now going to be part of my paper's, my city's anniversary 9/11 newspaper memorial. This is so cool. I live in a city with a population of about 1 million people, about there's about 9 million people in 9 county SF Bay area Region. My 9/11 experience is going to be part of the area's permanent record of what we did for the anniversary of 9/11. The San Francisco Chroicle also has about 1.3 million readers. It's website SFGate is rated # 6 on the top 10 newspapers sites, says the some org called Media Matrix. And SFGate was 332,000 unique readers everyday. As a writer, when am I ever going to get this kind of distribution.